随着Zynga帝国的崛起，免费在线游戏迅速成为这一行业利润丰厚的产业。它允许任何人在不支付一分钱的情况下就可体验游戏，但是当游戏中植入广告及一些需要花费的性能时，比如附加关卡、特殊道具、或者跳到下一回合，这些游戏就成为获利工具。游戏打着“免费”旗号，过后又对玩家收取费用，这是否属于欺诈行为？这种方式合法吗？或者从更本质的角度上看，这种做法合乎道德吗？

freemium_evil（from pocketnext.com）

商业欺诈行为是商法中的一个重要分支。联邦和州法律都在控制这种欺诈行为，许多州受到《Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act》的约束。不少法律条文涉及商标方面，比如最近关于“Joustin’ Beaver”的话题（游戏邦注：美国流行歌手Justin Bieber律师曾指责RC3游戏工作室旗下iOS游戏《Joustin’Beaver》非法讹用Bieber的名称，要求后者移除游戏，否则就将诉诸法律行动）。如果某家公司假装某款产品为自己所生产，这就属于欺诈行为。同样，将一款二手商品当作新品出售，以歪曲的事实诽谤另一家公司的产品，或者对不打算出售的商品做广告等等，这些都属于欺诈行为。欺诈行为在商业与顾客之间有基本的诚信标准。通常，这些规则都包含在国家法律的范围内，而各个国家之间的法律条文又有所不同。以下讨论并未针对某一特定国家的法律。

当对一款产品做广告时，大多数的这些概念都会发挥作用，但是有些额外的欺骗行为会支配商业模式同顾客之间的长期关系。这可能涉及与免费游戏相关的法律。该法律禁止不公平的服从契约，其中两者之间会以不平等的议价能力达成“体验或离开游戏”的协定。由于考虑到这是一种不公平的行为，所以法院会注意合同中的条款是否超越合理预期，是否较弱的一方知道合同中规定了某一条款，或者该合同是否不合理或者带有强制性。

这一概念的结果是产生了直接应用于诸如游戏这类软件的买家和卖家的拆封合同。这一术语来自顾客需要在打开产品后才可知晓相关条款这一事实。在下载和网页领域，只有当你使用程序时，才能看到产品显示的网站、点击和浏览相关条款。目前联邦政府尚未制定针对此类事件的政策。像ProCD v. Zeidenberg此类案件表明这类合同完全合法，而其它诸如Specht v. Netscape案件则认为此合同无效。当然，不同案件的裁决结果各不相同，所以法庭会从合理性与不正当性这两方面分析考虑这一协定。除非某家公司误导玩家相信游戏中的任何道具与进程都无需花费，不然在这些原则的范畴内，任何含有盈利元素的免费游戏似乎都是正当的。

有些国家尤其担心游戏的成瘾性本质，并对其实行相应的监管。Ars Technica指出，日本会限制一些强制行为。其新的规范政策主要针对供应付费获取随机道具的游戏。日本消费者事务局收到不少用户的投诉，声称他们为了收集成套的稀有道具而投入了太多金钱。虽然有些社交游戏公司已经自动限制孩子的消费行为，然而当局认为此种行为仍然违反了日本的博彩法律。

但如我们之前所述，美国的法律背景完全不同。日本可能更加重视限制社交游戏中的博彩机制，但是美国的司法部门却从相反方向对《Wire Act》进行全新解释。如果游戏中存在赌博行为，并且没有在游戏之外发生此类活动，美国政府似乎会给予宽容的态度。

当然，法律和道德原则并非总会重叠。随着免费游戏的不断壮大，不少人已经怀疑这种行为是否正当。当人们全身心投入任何一款游戏，并为其支付大笔费用时，也会有人对此反感。人们可以沉迷于任何事物，当然也包括游戏。免费游戏已饱受外界的批评，因为它们并没有直接显示价格。

相反，其它类型游戏都明码标价（有些公司因制作可行的附加功能，允许玩家在支付更多费用时方可使用，而受到外界的抨击，但这种做法却更加盛行了）。与主机游戏所花的平均费用相比，在免费游戏中，玩家可能在结束时支付一样多的费用，或者更多。一些开发者反对这种做法，因为这是一种欺骗行为，而有些开发者将此方法引入他们的商业模式。对此，外界并未形成统一的观点，而玩家也会以自己的钱包来投票决定游戏行业中的付费标准。

解决这一问题所面临的一大挑战是，它引申出销售的道德标准问题。从食品生产商到电子游戏制作人，他们都需面对一个竞争十分激烈的市场。市场上存在各种各样的选择，而只有通过竞争才可突出自己的产品。吸引用户并且建立一个用户基础的最有效方法是提供免费尝试。这就是杂货店内免费样品背后的逻辑，或者提供可以为新道具大打折扣的优惠券。这也是在发布完整版本游戏前推出试玩样本的原因。你可以让人们试玩你的游戏，判断他们是否喜欢它，并希望他们选择为此付费。

in-app purchase(from codedojo.com)

免费游戏也是如此。免费游戏开发者会提供一个基础版本，将你引入游戏中的启动装置，让你感受到某些乐趣，当你被该游戏吸引，他们就能获利。由于游戏行业已熟练操作强制行为，所以一些人认为它们需得到管制。但这是一种滑坡效应。某些食物可能对人体有害：那么降价促销一种新薯条就属于不道德的行为吗？如果我们按此逻辑推理，结果可能会没完没了。然而，我们对游戏的看法也可能发生转变，并且接近日本的管理方法。随着免费游戏市场份额的扩大，监管审查的力度也会逐渐加强。

作为玩家，你可以对这种现象的结束施加影响。如果你不喜欢免费游戏，那么就不要下载此类游戏。政府可能会对此作出反应，但是市场总是更加灵活，它们会一下子就会嗅出变化。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Free to Play: It’s Addictive. Should We Regulate It?

As the Zynga empire has shown, free-to-play online games have become an incredibly lucrative part of the industry. Free-to-play allows anyone to take part without paying a dime, but the games become profitable by inserting advertising and by offering features that will cost you. This could be extra levels, special items, or skipping ahead to later stages. Is calling a game “free” but then later charging fees a deceptive practice? Is it legal, and more fundamentally, is it ethical?

Deceptive trade practices are an important branch of business law. Federal and state law control what qualifies as deceptive practice, and many states have been influenced by the Uniform Deceptive Trade Practices Act. A lot of the doctrines deal with trademark law, a topic we recently covered with respect to Joustin’ Beaver. Pretending that a good is made by a company when it is not is a deceptive practice. So is selling something as new if it is used, disparaging the goods of another by misrepresenting facts, advertising things you do not intend to sell, and so on. Deceptive practices set basic standards of honesty between businesses and consumers. These rules, generally, are at the state law level, and accordingly do vary from state to state. What follows is a general discussion without any particular state’s viewpoint guiding.

Most of those concepts come into play when advertising a product, but there are additional deceptive practices that govern how businesses can behave in their ongoing relationships with customers.

This would likely be the area of the law relevant to free-to-play games. It prohibits unfair adhesion contracts, which is when a “take it or leave it” agreement exists between parties with unequal bargaining power. For it to be considered unfair, courts look to whether the terms are outside reasonable expectations, whether the less powerful party would know a term was there, or if the contract is unconscionable or oppressive.

An outgrowth of this concept is the shrink wrap-contract, which directly applies to buyers and sellers of software, like games. The terminology comes from the fact that you cannot see the terms without opening the product. In the case of downloads or websites, web-wrap, click-wrap, and browse-wrap terms only appear when you use the program. There is no nationally controlling decision on the subject. Some major cases like ProCD v. Zeidenberg suggest that these types of contracts are perfectly legal, while others such as Specht v. Netscape found them invalid. Of course, any decision is specific to the facts of the case, so a court would consider an agreement by analyzing it for reasonableness and unconscionability, just like adhesion contracts. Unless a company misled players into believing nothing in the game was ever going to cost money, it seems like free-to-play games with monetized aspects are fine under these principles.

Some countries are extremely concerned about the addictive nature of gaming and have regulated it accordingly. Ars Technica noted that Japan is set to restrict certain practices that prey on compulsive behavior. The new regulations would deal with games that offer random items for a price. Japan’s Consumer Affairs Agency has received complaints after some customers burned through enormous amounts of money while attempting to complete rare sets of digital items. Even though some social gaming companies already voluntarily capped the amount children could spend, authorities have argued the practice violates Japan’s lottery laws.

But as we noted previously, the US is a different story. Japan may be tightening the screws on social games with aspects that resemble gambling, but the Justice Department’s new interpretation of the Wire Act points in the opposite direction. As long as the wager is on the game itself and not some outside activity, the American government seems willing to tolerate it. If a game company does not make promises it cannot keep or step outside of reasonable behavior, they are legally safe building costs into a free-to-play game.

Of course, legal and ethical principles do not always overlap. As free-to-play has boomed, many have wondered whether it is right. When people go overboard and dedicate too much money and time to any game, it makes us uncomfortable. People can become addicted to anything, and games are not an exception. Free-to-play is ripe for criticism because the costs are not immediately apparent.

With other games, the sticker price is immediately obvious. (Some companies have also been criticized by making additional features available only after spending more money, but that is only getting more popular.) With free-to-play, a gamer could end up spending as much or more than they would on your average console title. Some developers are opposed to this because they consider it misleading, while others have it built into their business model. There is no widespread agreement on how to handle this, and gamers will set the industry standard by voting with their wallets.

A challenge with resolving this question is that it raises a larger point about the ethics of sales. Producers of anything from food to video games face a very competitive market. There are a myriad of options and it is a battle to get noticed. One of the most effective ways to court customers and establish an audience is to give them a complimentary taste. That is the logic behind the free samples in the grocery store, or the coupons offering deep discounts for new items. It also underpins the tried and true technique of the game demo that is offered shortly before the full release. You let someone give your product a try, decide if they like it, and hopefully they choose to pay for it.

Free-to-play operates the same way. The developer provides a base version that introduces you to the engine, allows you to have some fun, and then they make their money once you are hooked.  Some believe that because games are ripe for compulsive behavior, they must be regulated. But that is a slippery slope. People can have an unhealthy relationship with food: does that make dropping the price on a new kind of chip unethical? If we started down this road, we might never stop. But it is also possible that the way we perceive games will evolve, and we will shift closer to Japan’s approach. As free-to-play’s market share expands, so does the chance for regulatory scrutiny.

As a gamer, you have influence on how this plays out. If you dislike free-to-play, then do not download the games. Governments might choose to respond, but the market will always be more nimble. As long as free-to-play is a cash cow, it is going nowhere.(source:lawofthegame)