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Month: August 2026

Equal Rules, Opposite Reasons

Published by Paolo Gambardella on 04/08/2026

This post was originally written in Italian by Paolo Gambardella. It has been translated by an AI agent and may contain inaccuracies.

Sensor Tower has published its first report on ad-based monetisation in mobile gaming. I read it in detail (summary article on Deconstructor of Fun). The figure that caught my eye: hybrid games that put in-app purchases first (IAP-first) earn roughly four times as much as those that put advertising first (IAA-first). Purely ad-based games can still reach nine-figure numbers, but they’re the exception, not the rule.

The report leaves one question open: in ad-based games, free rewards earned through ads compete directly with paid rewards from the store. Solving this cannibalisation is, according to the author, the opportunity still left on the table.

The playbook of someone who’s been building economies for 40 years

These reflections on the report reminded me of a talk by Teut Weidemann, recorded at Digital Dragons.

Mr Weidemann argues that a well-designed game economy is the real source of stable revenue — not flash offers or battle passes. And in making that case, without ever mentioning “ethics” or “player trust”, he lays out a set of rules that are, in practice, anti-manipulation (which brings me back to my own post from yesterday):

  • Avoid discounts on premium currency, otherwise you destroy the price anchor and players just wait for a sale instead of buying;
  • don’t do per-user dynamic pricing. Weidemann cites the Zynga case, which ended badly when players compared notes and discovered different prices for the same item;
  • always leave at least one resource that even the wealthiest whale can’t buy. Even players who pay for everything still need to work for something, otherwise they finish the game in a week and walk away bored;
  • don’t tie virtual items to a subscription: a portion of free-to-play players are happy to buy a premium account (more comfort, less grind) but consider buying an item “cheating” — so keep the two things separate.

The tension

Weidemann’s rules look a lot like the ones from Self-Determination Theory that I wrote about yesterday: respect player autonomy, don’t break trust, don’t treat players differently from one another without good reason. His stated motivation is: if you break the price anchor you lose revenue, if the whale has nothing left to work towards they leave, if players find out you’re treating them differently they’ll tear you apart in the reviews. It’s risk management, more than ethics. And as far as I’m concerned, that makes it even more compelling than my own thoughts from yesterday — especially when you’re talking business with people who only speak that language.

Which brings me to the question I find most interesting from a game design perspective: does motivation matter, if the outcome for the player is the same? Mr Weidemann proposes optimising for a long-term function, and that happens to coincide with respecting the player. Now I’m left wondering: maybe in the long run, serving players and exploiting them converge on the same rules — and what diverges are only the economies that are thinking short-term.

Serve, Don’t Manipulate

Published by Paolo Gambardella on 03/08/2026

This post was originally written in Italian by Paolo Gambardella. It has been translated by an AI agent and may contain inaccuracies.

Andrew Kelley, the creator of the Zig programming language, opened a talk with an uncomfortable question: who does the software we write actually serve? The talk is called “Don’t Take the Black Pill” and it was made for an audience of developers, not game designers. But it’s exactly the question we should be asking ourselves every time we design a progression system.

A more honest measure than “fun”

Deci and Ryan’s Self-Determination Theory says that a person is doing well — in a game as in life — when three needs are being met: autonomy (my choices matter), competence (I’m improving, and I can see it), and relatedness (I’m not alone). A system can have spotless retention metrics and still deny all three. There’s a name for that too: coercive retention. The progression is there, but the player comes back because a timer is expiring or a notification dragged them back in, not because they actually wanted to.

Coercionware, outside games too

Kelley calls this category “coercionware”: software whose purpose isn’t to serve the people using it, but to manipulate them. The examples he gives don’t come from games — unsolicited push notifications, A/B tests optimising for the click rather than the experience, recommendation algorithms chasing engagement instead of value. What struck me is that he frames all of this as a design choice, not a side effect. Someone, in a meeting, decided this was fine.

The same problem, different name

In games we call it other things: gacha, limited-time events, season passes that pile on the pressure. But it’s the same mechanism: autonomy is taken away to guarantee a return. I wrote about this last week when talking about dopamine and oxytocin — the relatedness in Self-Determination Theory is, at the end of the day, the same conversation as oxytocin. A player who comes back to spend time in a world or with other people doesn’t need to be held in place by a timer.

A useful habit

There’s a simple habit I use when evaluating a new feature: play devil’s advocate with myself. Assume it fails, and ask why. The list of reasons usually includes things like “it confuses the player” or “it doesn’t convert well enough.” It’s worth adding one more: it fails because it manipulates instead of serves. That question doesn’t come up on its own in a roadmap meeting. You have to ask it deliberately, before you ship.

The next time a feature improves the numbers, the right question isn’t whether it works. It’s whether the player chose it — or got caught in it.

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