Our lovely Live-Ops Manager Jade made waves repping ethics and UGC in live service games at this year’s #PGConnects – but why should anyone miss out? We sat down to talk about her roundtable experience and insights, to share ’em with you too!
What were you up to last week, and why?
“I was in Helsinki! I got invited by a friend to do a roundtable about ethics in free-to-play and live service games at Pocket Gamer Connects; which is a primarily mobile game conference, but it did have some console and UGC tracks that I thought would be really useful for Glowmade’s purposes.
Ethics is something I really care about, because – having worked in mobile games for 6 years – I saw a lot of practices that made me uncomfortable. I have a real appreciation for mobile and the nature of live service, and I understand why things happen the way they do, but that only makes me want to talk about it more.
Even though my roundtable was mostly about mobile, people are worried that kinds of predatory service behaviour will leak into consoles and PC gaming. King of Meat is both UGC and live service, so there are both creation and combat worlds to navigate through that live lens. It’s my job to talk about monetisation and getting players to want to play King of Meat – so it’s important for me to understand ethics and ensure the economy and player interactions I create are ethical at all levels.”
What exactly is a roundtable?
“Essentially, people can come and sit with us around the same table. The four [speakers] introduce the topic, share our expertise and what we care about, and then all pass the mic around to anyone in the audience who has something to say. They’d contribute, say if they disagreed – things like that.
It’s a discussion rather than us just telling them what’s what. Much more informal and communal than your average panel or interview.”
Tell us all about it!
“I was hosting alongside three friends from Fusebox Games and Rare. A real mix of mobile and console experience. A lot of what we spoke about was monetisation tactics and ads: how many mobile or live service games will show offers to people, and how often those are shoved in people’s faces without informing them what they’re being sold.
With some in-game economies relying on fake value and predatory inflations, are players informed enough to make those decisions? What are these kinds of games doing to protect people with gambling addictions from over-spending? We went into all kinds of conversation around Dark Patterns in gaming; what are the lines of tricking versus pressuring players into doing what [companies] want?
In mobile and live service, a lot of attention goes toward optimising features to keep players coming back – and a lot of that can come from just lifting them straight from other games that seem to be executing them successfully, which isn’t how it should be! I had someone who advises studios on their features ask me what she can bring back and tell them, to improve their games and make them more ethical. And I had to really emphasise that games actively featuring diversity, representation and campaigns for a good cause are often leading the way in ethical production too.
Look at games that do Pride events, or have diverse POC teams and characters. Take the data from how they perform back to your own company and say, “Hey, add all this. You’ll reach a wider player base; they will see themselves and reflect that back in your numbers.” That’s something I know King of Meat is really good for; in our items, descriptions, NPCs, and just having a really diverse team pulling it all together.
We also touched on how there’s a difference between something that is unethical and something that is just bad design. UI and special offers can be really annoying and in-your-face, but that doesn’t mean it’s unethical. It’s about analysing what you’re pushing, why you’re doing that, and whether the net value of any in-game purchase profits both the player and the studio. If it doesn’t, time to reconsider.”
Did you learn anything from the experience?
“It’s not so much learning as it is re-learning, but that roundtable was a really nice reminder that there are so many passionate developers out there who want to do the right thing. There were some students who were really frustrated that this very business-y event had sooo many talks on AI and monetisation and all that. They just wanted to talk about making games and important things like ethics, and they came up to me saying they wanted me to talk at their university and keep learning about it to make better games – which was so, so sweet.
A lot of it was reaffirming that players aren’t stupid, and they can make their own decisions about purchases, but there are vulnerable people out there; and we need to be aware of designing games and economies that don’t exploit that.
From other talks I went to, in the vein of ethics, there was a big highlight of Games For Good – a charity initiative in the mobile space, exploring ways of using your game to get people to care about the environment, for instance. Raising awareness to make the world a better place through your game, and how that can also benefit your game and business by making people want to play it more.
My biggest takeaway from that is that if you do things that people like, and show that your company is authentic, then they’re going to keep playing and keep loving it.”
