I'm obviously aware of what goes on in the industry and its similarities to gambling are something I think about a lot. But as an analyst, I feel like I have a lot of power in helping to create games that are fun and engaging, plus learning how to drive a product to be successful. I don't think of it as a spam machine or a front for taking money from the poor.
Maybe the business model needs to be changed. If its virtual currency that makes it creepy, then maybe switching to a fixed-cost product is something the industry as a whole needs to move to. We're still in the infancy here in learning how to harness mobile devices to make better products.
What this unpacks to: Let's make some money before people realise what's up.
"Yes, we maximize for users who spend over $10k. These users even have names. They're called "whales" in industry parlance. Why wouldn't you want more of them in your game? This is a business afterall. I feel just as bad as the next person wondering whether some of these "whales" are addicts. I don't want to be creating products for addicts. But what if these users are just rich people who have tons of money to spend off the cuff? There's no way we can know because we never get that data. All I see is what's reported in ItunesConnect."
I think the somewhat layered nature of it is what creeped me out. It kind of reads like an internal dialogue of somebody trying to justify their own actions to themself.
The question that confronts me when I go into work everyday is how can we make this game fun for everyone, and how can we make money in a non-destructive, ethical manner?
I have an answer, provide people with tools that make their lives better. Does the service you're providing actually make people's lives better. And I don't mean does it make their lives more entertaining. There's no objective way to measure this, so it comes down to a VALUE judgement. YOUR value judgement. And it's not about making money, it's about making products, services and tools, for people. For people, like you, me and your mom, and my mom.
Also you said 'These users even have names. They're called "whales"'. No that's not their names, their names are bob, joan, mike, susan blah blah blah even if you don't have those names in the data, they exist. seriously, its easy to forget when you abstract them away, but there are actual humans at the end of each one of those clicks.
