They're not just cosmetic, and they're not harmless...

As if Activision's recently-patented process of weaponizing online multiplayer game match-making weren't bad enough, it turns out that there's an even worse level of emotionally abusive bullshit lurking beneath the scummy surface of the videogaming industry, and unlike Activision's, this one has definitely already been deployed against unwitting and willing consumers. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... Scientific Revenue!

Jim Sterling gets credit for the scoop on this story, and his video piece on the subject is an absolute must-watch for anyone who's ever despaired of finding a decent game in the wasteland of shit that is the mobile gaming market.

In a nutshell, though, what Scientific Revenue does is use "best practice" techniques from other industries (specifically, the "big data" and casino businesses) to build data profiles of consumers, without their knowledge or informed consent, the better to target those with demonstrated propensities for in-game purchases and then extract as much money from each tier of punter with a variable pricing scheme.

Basically, the more addictive your personality, the more likely a "SciRev" (nice one, Jim!) is to target addiction-prone players with microtransactions that are priced higher than the exact same MT offerings as presented to players with less-addictive personalities... the idea being that players who are less likely to buy expensive MTs might pop for cheap ones, while the "whales" that are already well and truly hooked will continue to bankrupt themselves by spending money they can't afford on useless digital tat that they don't actually need, and which they probably wouldn't want if it weren't being presented to them in such an emotionally abusive and psychologically manipulative manner.

SciRev's defense of this slimy bullshit is that they're just applying other industries' "best practices" to mobile games. This is rather interesting since one of the industries involved is obviously the gambling industry (they even use the casino industry's terminology for high-revenue victims customers, i.e. "whales"), a heavily-regulated industry to which the AAA video game business, anxious to avoid having their casino-business bullshit slapped with legislated regulations, has been trying very hard to avoid comparisons.

SciRev's other defenses include comparisons to auctions and surge pricing, comparisons which fail for two obvious reasons:

1. consumers engaged in an auction do so knowingly (something which SciRev's victims cannot say), and place their bids deliberately and openly, which doesn't happen under SciRev's invisible, black-box process;
2. surge pricing is applied all consumers equally depending on demand fluctuations, while SciRev's model varies prices invisibly to unfairly target individual purchasers.

Bullshit excuses aside, the most important things to know about Scientific Revenue are a) that it's already in use, and b) that is clearly shows up the most common defense of AAA microtransactions (that they're "optional," and somehow about player choice) as the lie that it has always been. This kind of abusive microtransaction-based business model is not intended to be optional; it's intended to be unavoidable, it deliberately targets the most vulnerable consumers, and it desperately needs to be regulated. There really ought to be a law. Seriously, this microtransaction bullshit needs a legislative remedy.

Incidentally, for those that are keen to see the Nintendo Switch succeed, I'd say that the existence of operations like Scientific Revenue in the smartphone gaming space go a long way to improving Nintendo's chances. Whether you're on Google Play or the iOS App Store, mobile gaming has become a wasteland of shit; Nintendo's actively-curated experience might be full of ports of games that made their mark on other platform, but those are all excellent games, and Nintendo seems to be alone among AAA videogame companies in having absolutely no appetite for this kind of abusive bullshit. Nintendo sees their customers as customers, and not as "whales" waiting to happen, and that could be a powerful selling point for their (superior) mobile gaming platform.

For those that can't watch Jim Sterling's excellent video, Heavy.com wrote a pretty decent piece (Scientific Revenue: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know) covering it. Seriously, though, if you care at all about videogames, and hate corporate bullshit, then you really should be subscribed to The Jimquisition by now.