What is it about?
Ethical ramifications of the development and use of microtransactions in mobile video games is an area where little documentation is readily available. This research investigates the effects of creating an ethical framework for such development, and how adoptions of such frameworks could shape the future of microtransaction development.
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Why is it important?
Our findings demonstrated that ethical frameworks can improve developer understanding of ethical practices in the development of microtransactions. Additionally, utilising such frameworks in teaching and training could improve adoption of ethical considerations for the game development industry, and ultimately lead to a paradigm shift in development practices.
Perspectives
As someone who sees a lot of video games in the market utilising microtransactions, I have often wondered how developers and publishers determine which microtransaction systems they use in their games - do they research and design their own, or simply utilise what is well-known in the industry? While the topic of ethics can be a begrudging task for some, I hope that it can spark discussion amongst game developers and publishers, and demonstrate the positive effects that utilising ethics in this way can have on these systems.
William Rigoni
Monash University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Improving Ethical Approaches to Video Game Microtransactions for Mobile Games, December 2023, ACM (Association for Computing Machinery),
DOI: 10.1145/3638380.3638422.
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