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Confessions of a free-to-play games producer

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mouser:
Interesting article today talking about how free-to-play games morphed from making cool things to being all about collecting data and money.

Time passed, Free to Play became a thing. I went from company to company. 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, boost chart position and retain users to shove as many ads on them as possible.

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http://toucharcade.com/2015/09/16/we-own-you-confessions-of-a-free-to-play-producer/

TaoPhoenix:
I only play Ludum Dare *actually free* games!

So does anyone know how these other games get this kind of info? "We know where you live, we know your income level, we know your relationships, your favorite sports teams, your political preferences. We know when you go to work, and where you work."

"When you work" I can see, usage pulls on a server, "where you work" might be just everyone wants an email and it might be a work email, but sports teams, relationships, and political prefs!?

EDIT: Sorry, sloppy lazy reading of the story. I was thinking about info the company wanted entered directly somehow to "unlock a code" or something.

wraith808:

mwb1100:
So does anyone know how these other games get this kind of info? "We know where you live, we know your income level, we know your relationships, your favorite sports teams, your political preferences. We know when you go to work, and where you work."
-TaoPhoenix (September 18, 2015, 08:44 AM)
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Just a guess, but I imagine that it's because most people don't pay much attention to the permissions granted to games installed on their devices.  So the games are granted all sorts of permissions and simply watch whatever else is happening on the device and report back to the company.

wraith808:
So does anyone know how these other games get this kind of info? "We know where you live, we know your income level, we know your relationships, your favorite sports teams, your political preferences. We know when you go to work, and where you work."
-TaoPhoenix (September 18, 2015, 08:44 AM)
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Just a guess, but I imagine that it's because most people don't pay much attention to the permissions granted to games installed on their devices.  So the games are granted all sorts of permissions and simply watch whatever else is happening on the device and report back to the company.

-mwb1100 (September 18, 2015, 10:02 AM)
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^ This.  I go on facebook sparingly, but I have one friend I play words with friends with, and though I know I shouldn't... I do.  And having fiddler up while you connect to that site?  It's quite eyeopening.  And that's just the tip of the iceberg.  Even the one that I know is a single-man shop (Galaxy Legion) has some things in there that are being done by facebook that are quite dodgy.

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