Sorry just to link to an article, but this is pretty interesting, a presentation about AI and adaptive monetisation schemes in games… scary stuff!
I’ve not read the slides yet but I have read articles in the past where free to play devs talk about tracking the whales and customising content for them, one example was creating a skin in the same colours as a whales favourite football team.
Yup I had read that and it was scary how they developed specifically for individual whales. This scares me a little more as it seems (obviously subject to the quality of the AI) that it will tailor the entire experience for whales and minnows alike, manipulating the game to generate revenue. In the slides they discuss voice recog (not for commercial release, only in testing) identifying menstrual cycle in women and a correlation in spend. It’s probably some presentation BS… but seriously, in the words of Bill Hicks… ‘kill yourself’…
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Yes, the “also proposes using an AI to consistently “alter” the player’s gameplay, such that the player’s actions don’t have the desired result leading toward beating the game, but towards an “unfair” consequence that motivates more in-game spending” reminds me of the movie War Games: “the only winning move is not to play.”
I just don’t trust the current monetization climate to go down the loot box/lockbox hole, my understanding is that some are already dabbling in tailoring results based on individual behavior. 
I’ve long suspected some mobile multiplayer ‘pvp’ type games of creating fake ai controlled opponents. The experience was just way too smooth. Regular reliable connections between players, and lag free too. I had never considered the next step which was the ai manipulating you, frustrating you just enough, then offering you a carrot in the form of Iap.
I love reading this stuff, it doesn’t matter that it might not be completely true, because I know it is verifiably at least half true… and the next steps they are proposing aren’t exactly giant leaps from where we are today.
just to stress that we are talking about BIG money business:
Activision Blizzard just announced in annual report a 4 billion dollar business volume generated only by IAPs in mobile games (2 billion in Candy Crush) and by lootboxes (in Call of Duty and Overwatch) and DLCs in console and PC games.
i’m afraid this is just the beginning. the big players just start to realize how much money can be made by this.
more than by selling the games?
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Absolutely mind blowing. I’d say it was the ‘beginning of the end’, but we have known it was coming for a while. Does this just mean we are now in ‘the end’ times?
I knew the drops that I was getting in Summoners War were just taunting me to go further.