For the past few years, game developers and publishers have attempted to use every trick in the book to squeeze as much money out of gamers as possible. With loot boxes making themselves mainstream in nearly every triple A game over the past year, it appears that the games industry is coming to a crossroads with gamers trying to fight back against greedy publishers.
There's a stigma surrounding loot boxes now which is seeing every game that includes them coming under even more scrutiny and flak than before. While loot boxes themselves may still be lucrative, there's no denying that the negative attention they bring to a game is starting to impact sales, which is bad for publishers. EA's Star Wars Battlefront II is the perfect example of this - a pretty decent game ruined by loot boxes.
While it may have seemed that the fight against loot boxes was in full swing, it may only be the beginning as if leaked documents are to be believed, publishers are looking at a number of different ways that they can manipulate games so that gamers part with more of their cash.
The leaked documents that are circulating appear to be from a Data Broker LLC presentation into how game companies can use AI to monetize their games, likely as a replacement for loot boxes. The documents are said have been released following a dead man's switch was activated. There's not much more information than that but they do make for interesting reading.
In the documents, there are three main points that are presented with the first one being that developers can use artificial intelligence to increase in-game revenue by "combining out of game or 'real life' information and out of game AI generated activities with in game premium activities".
It also tells publishers to utilise persistent bait-and-switching of in-game advertisement incentives with intermittent premium advertisements which are all driven by AI. It concludes by stating that this model has proven to be successful and increase revenue as the AI allows developers to alter someone's gameplay and experience in a way that makes them more likely to make purchases.
As there's so many images of these leaked documents, I have included the main ones below. A link to all the documents can be found here: https://imgur.com/a/rhFuj
It's important to note that there is no proof that these documents are actually genuine and there has been some fierce debates amongst gaming communities around the world regarding their authenticity. Even if these documents do prove to be fake, it wouldn't be surprising to see developers and publishers try to utilise some of these tactics in the coming years to drive up revenue.
What are your thoughts on this 'leak'? Do you think that these documents are genuine or are they fake? Is this the path the gaming industry is headed down in the future?