• "We Own You" - Confessions of an Anonymous Free to Play Producer
    53 replies, posted
[quote]And if you are a whale, we take Facebook stalking to a whole new level. You spend enough money, we will friend you. Not officially, but with a fake account. Maybe it’s a hot girl who shows too much cleavage? That’s us. We learned as much before friending you, but once you let us in, we have the keys to the kingdom. We will use everything to figure out how to sell to you. I remember we had a whale in one game that loved American Football despite living in Saudi Arabia. We built several custom virtual items in both his favorite team colors and their opponents, just to sell to this one guy. You better believe he bought them. And these are just vanity items. We will flat out adjust a game to make it behave just like it did last time the person bought IAP. Was a level too hard? Well now they are all that same difficulty.[/quote] [url]http://toucharcade.com/2015/09/16/we-own-you-confessions-of-a-free-to-play-producer/[/url]
This is fucking insane. I knew they tried to dig themselves into your life to learn about you, but fuck, never would've guessed half the shit that's in here.
What a click-bait title.
[QUOTE=Robman8908;48710817]This is fucking insane. I knew they tried to dig themselves into your life to learn about you, but fuck, never would've guessed half the shit that's in here.[/QUOTE] You'd be surprised. Many developers have actually established information- and communication nets, where they share whale-related data from diverse apps. This also led to them sending said whales custom-tailored advertisements and promotions through diverse apps.
That was a really good read. That's kind of crazy how the industry transformed for that guy.
They don't know dick. It's supposed to come off as scary, but it's really not that scary. Generally, sharing information is good.
I had feared that free to play era would cause things like this (especially for iOS/android FTP) but not change the industry so drastically on the inside, goddamn
[QUOTE=Bat-shit;48710980]They don't know dick. It's supposed to come off as scary, but it's really not that scary. Generally, sharing information is good.[/QUOTE] Did you read the article at all. In this sense it's not good
They only get information you put out there. Facebook is about as private as stapling flyers on telephone poles
[QUOTE=TheTalon;48711164]They only get information you put out there. Facebook is about as private as stapling flyers on telephone poles[/QUOTE] That depends on how far they go and what sort of connections they have. Potentially your private info that is on websites is getting leaked too in order to support whaling.
What are they referring to with the term whale?
This is no different from a lot of shit, sure its not morally sound but this isnt f2p game exclusive. People baiting people to get money from them, so you tailor to said person. High rollers in Las Vegas regularly get a free really nice room all paid for, just so you spend more money at the Casino itself. These companies dont actually have shit on you if you never gave them shit(and are also smart with your info in general because third party sellers) the people they "own" and know a lot about are the ones who are retarded as fuck and put a lot of money in the games, enough to catch the companies attention. I mean anyone falling for F2P shit on mobile I cant really feel sorry for. [editline]18th September 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=benzinxrm;48711208]What are they referring to with the term whale?[/QUOTE] I think it just means a customer who is a "big catch" and has a lot of meat(money) to take from them. The catch was getting the person addicted and spending money.
[QUOTE=HoodedSniper;48711218]This is no different from a lot of shit, sure its not morally sound but this isnt f2p game exclusive. People baiting people to get money from them, so you tailor to said person. High rollers in Las Vegas regularly get a free really nice room all paid for, just so you spend more money at the Casino itself. These companies dont actually have shit on you if you never gave them shit(and are also smart with your info in general because third party sellers) the people they "own" and know a lot about are the ones who are retarded as fuck and put a lot of money in the games, enough to catch the companies attention. I mean anyone falling for F2P shit on mobile I cant really feel sorry for.[/QUOTE] You're being very obtuse about this. We don't care about casinos here, we care about video games, or at least a good portion of us do. The article is about a huge, secret trend in major video game publishers to stop making games and start making super worms that invade you and everyone around you. I dunno, maybe you're perfect and immune to freemium crap and already knew this was happening, so I guess we shouldn't worry about the gradual poisoning of one of our hobbies and passions.
[QUOTE=TheTalon;48711164]They only get information you put out there. Facebook is about as private as stapling flyers on telephone poles[/QUOTE] There is a metric shitload of information they can get about you even if you don't share stuff and make anonymous accounts everywhere. Your browser cookies, your friendships and other connections, your IP address, your purchases, and all sorts of other factors can all be used to triangulate who you are. If you think you've been off the grid or something any time in the past 10 years, you're wrong.
[QUOTE=TheTalon;48711164]They only get information you put out there. Facebook is about as private as stapling flyers on telephone poles[/QUOTE] I think you skipped a few lines: [quote]Even users who don’t really use Facebook or fill it with “fake” data actually tell us a lot. You might not use Facebook, but your connections give you away. If you play with friends, or you have a significant other who plays, we can see the same IP address, and learn who you are playing with. When we don’t know information, we try to gather it in a game. Have you played a game with different country flags? We use those to not only appeal to your nationalistic pride, but to figure out where you are (or where you identify). Your IP address says you are in America, but you buy virtual items featuring the flag of another country, we can start to figure out if you are on vacation, or immigrated. Perhaps English is not your first language. We use all of this to send you personalized Push Notifications, and show you store specials and items we think you will want.[/quote] There's a huge amount of connectivity between different services that each scrape bits of personal information about you, more than enough to create a compound profile about you. These trackers are in all sorts of systems now, from tracking cookies to game & service APIs to ISPs and even Windows itself now.
[QUOTE=benzinxrm;48711208]What are they referring to with the term whale?[/QUOTE] In free to play parlance, whales are users who spend a lot of money on your game. It's extremely important to keep these people happy because even though they may be ~10% of your user base, they provide ~90% of the revenue. The article talks about the lengths that some companies will go to in order to keep these people happy and spending.
[QUOTE]You want to put a stop to this? Stop playing free games. Buy a game for 4.99 or 9.99. We don’t want to be making games like this, and we don’t want another meeting about retention, cohorts or churn.[/QUOTE] Today's words of wisdom for you people.
[QUOTE=benzinxrm;48711208]What are they referring to with the term whale?[/QUOTE] Not surprisingly, the term originates [URL="http://www.casino.org/blog/5-biggest-gamblers-time/"]from gambling[/URL] and is similar to "high roller". That's what casinos call gamblers that spend carelessly, and a lot. Casinos have of course been [URL="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/1b31c4feed214271994ffceebe10f7ef/high-rollers-dealers-describe-special-treatment-abuse"]giving whales special treatment[/URL] for the same reason, probably long before mobile games were invented.
[QUOTE=A B.A. Survivor;48711261]You're being very obtuse about this. We don't care about casinos here, we care about video games, or at least a good portion of us do. The article is about a huge, secret trend in major video game publishers to stop making games and start making super worms that invade you and everyone around you. I dunno, maybe you're perfect and immune to freemium crap and already knew this was happening, so I guess we shouldn't worry about the gradual poisoning of one of our hobbies and passions.[/QUOTE] Its not that you shouldnt worry, its that right now I hardly see its prevalence in non mobile/app gaming. Its something that was going to happen, and I kinda used my casino example because scummy f2p mobile shit reminds me of a sleazy casino that lets old people use a credit card on a slot machine all day. They are just the type of assholes who would do that stuff regardless, it sucks but what are you gonna do at this point? Mobile and app gaming were pretty much lost anyways since the get go. The way they treat these special customers and target them is very similar to how Casinos target high rollers as well. If you want to completely avoid this stuff you just need to be on the lookout for when you put your real information down and bad business practices, not saying you can and will all the time. A lot of game companies and online games/services in PC/Console gaming dont actually sell your information or even ask for any most of the time besides an email. If you arent playing those types of games then their information is completely useless honestly. Never ever buy in app purchases if you wanna just completely avoid it.
[video=youtube;2luhwy3KAE0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2luhwy3KAE0[/video] [QUOTE]Each time, every new project became less and less about how we can do cool things, and more about how we can track and target users to get the most whales possible[/QUOTE] My god
I really don't understand how people can waste so much money on F2P games. The only game I've ever spent money on that was F2P was League of Legends, and still I haven't spent more than $60 because that is the average price pf a game.
[QUOTE=Killer900;48711050]Did you read the article at all. In this sense it's not good[/QUOTE] Actually I did, the entire thing.. Not entirely sure what to think of it tbh.
Jokes on them I don't play any Facebook games.
Ha I use Ghostery!
IDK, I kinda have a mental barrier regarding any freemium transactions. I'd just feel cheated.
seeing the cocky attitudes devs get like this is why i dont feel bad about using an adblocker on every device i use, and having never purchased an app or used an in-app purchase
[QUOTE=omarfr;48711851]I really don't understand how people can waste so much money on F2P games. The only game I've ever spent money on that was F2P was League of Legends, and still I haven't spent more than $60 because that is the average price pf a game.[/QUOTE] duh dude it's because they're ~having fun~
I've never bought IAPs in a mobile game. I rarely play mobile games anyway, I'm far too busy. That's probably a good thing, reading this.
[QUOTE=FlakAttack;48711346] If you think you've been off the grid or something any time in the past 10 years, you're wrong.[/QUOTE] Off the grid while using internet is an oxymoron.
Same thing applies to donating to servers on games like Garry's Mod. Right now it's practically an art on how to scam players in Garry's Mod. For example, if you want someone to give you $15 what better way then offering them "premium" weapons that they normally would be able to get through playing the game, but they could get it automatically through just paying you $15 every three months. Want to have a SUPAH COOL DONATOR job?! Spend $20 for Diamond VIP! The scam goes on and on until the server owner cashes out our the server crashes on it's own weight. It's just how things work, it was inevitable that this was going to happen. This is also the method the NSA uses to grab your information through certain apps and such.
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