The Ethical Video Game Monetization Rules

NOTE! Following these rules will not make you as rich as EA,
Activision/Blizzard, Bethesda, Capcom, Ubisoft, etc. But it will
net you lots of customer goodwill which will ensure long term
gains rather then short term. Going for long term gains and thus
financial stability will benefit your company more.

Ethical Microtransactions:

• All microtransactions will always be $1 maximum across all

items.
• If a game is not free to play, there will never be any
microtransactions.
• If a game will feature microtransactions, this fact will be
disclosed before launch.
• No items will ever be retired. All items will be available at
all times.
• Event exclusive or limited time items will always be
available in the microtransactions shop after the event or
time is up. It is just during the time, the items will only
be earned via gameplay.
• Some items should only be available via gameplay.
• ABSOLUTELY NO “TIME SAVER” ITEMS WILL EVER BE SOLD!
• Completing in-game challenges will always net some premium
currency. Complete 5 Easy Challenges to gain enough to get
one item. Complete 3 medium challenges to get one item.
Complete one hard challenge to get one item. Complete one
extra hard challenge to get two.
• There will be no limit to how much premium currency can
earned via gameplay.
• All items are upfront, one-time purchases.
• Upon live service shutdown, all items will be preloaded into
the game files and saved locally for offline play in one
final patch. Such items will then only be earned through
gameplay.
• Items on the storefront will display the most popular, ones
that the user telemetry algorithms will recommend, and
categories. A search option will also be available.
• Total amount of money spent on microtransactions will be
available to view on player stats.
• To complete an in game purchase, player will be prompted for
user account password.
• Measures will be put in place to prevent overspending.
• Items that affect gameplay will never be available for
purchase unless implemented using the rules listed in the
Ethical Pay-to-Win Section.
• Microtransaction items will always be post production content
developed only after the base game is fully finished and
released feature complete.
• One unit of premium currency will always be equvalent to 1¢
in real money.
 • Instead of purchasing bundles of currency, when a
microtransaction is initiated, the amount of premium currency
the player holds is counted and the only the amount of
currency needed to meet the price is charged. Meaning if a
player only needs 50 more units to get the desired item, the
total amount charged will be 50¢. This is required for a part
of the Ethical Pay-To-Win Section.

Ethical Loot Box System:

• All loot boxes will always cost $2 maximum.

• All loot boxes will always display their contents before
purchase. If you don’t see what you are looking for, press
refresh to get another set of 6 randomized items. Keep doing
this until you see something you like.
• You can enable or disable the ability to get duplicates.
Which can then be freely traded or used in another gameplay
mechanic that allows you to dispose of duplicates and get
crafting materials and such.
• You can turn off item previews by enabling “Surprise mode”.
• Surprise mode is age gated and there is a limit of 5 boxes
per day. Once this limit is reached, Surprise mode is
disabled for 24 hours.
• Loot box odds will be displayed on screen and hard coded into
the game as unchangable constants. Changing them will require
a total recompiling of the entire game from the source.

My Idea >> Create Your Own Loot Box Mode:

1. Player selects 6 items of their choice from the shop to place

in the loot box.
2. The loot box must contain 6 items.
3. If there are less then 6 items selected, the player will be
prompted if the remaining items should be randomly selected
or to continue selection.
4. Once items are selected, player is prompted to confirm
selection before purchasing.
5. Once confirmed, transaction is conducted and items are
obtained.
6. This is basically a bundle option for when the player wants
to buy multiple items at once.

Ethical Monetized Matchmaking:

• Player is prompted to choose between Random Mode or Dynamic

Mode.
• Random Mode will match the player to an opponent using the
servers random number generator. User telemetry is ignored in
this mode. Skill level of opponent cannot be predicted.
• Dynamic Mode will match the player to an opponent using the
User telemetry data to ensure that the opponent is at the
same skill level as the player.
 • Kill cards can configured to show the items used by the
opponent or just the player stats.
• When opponents items are displayed, player will be asked if
he wishes to view the items in the shop and purchase the
desired ones, or to get them all in a special loot box for a
flat $2 fee.

Ethical Expansion pack pricing:

• Expansion packs will always be at most, half the price of the

base game. So for a $60 game, the expansion will be no more
then $30. The final price will be determined by the amount of
content included in the pack. This means that a small item
expansion will be around $5. A whole new story with new
levels, items, etc. would be $20 to $30.
• A complete edition of the game will always be released one
year from the base games release date. Microtransactions and
loot boxes will be unavailable in this version of the game
since all content including all exclusive content will be
included by default.

Ethical Ad Support:

• An alternative method for obtaining microtransactions items

would be to watch a short ad for each item you want. The ad
rev should cover the cost of the item.
• Watching ads for loot boxes can also be an option.
• Video ads can only play for at most 60 seconds otherwise they
may be skipped after 60 seconds have elapsed. Ads that are a
static image can be skipped after 3 second.

Ethical Pay-to-Win:

• If a player/s who buys items using real money wins in

multiplayer against another player who doesn’t have the same
items, the losing player/s will be given the option to
receive those items for free at the end of the match after
watching a short ad.
• This has the added benefit of maximizing engagement in the
multiplayer since the more people you play against, the more
items you can earn for free and serves as an alternative
method of earning microtransactions items via gameplay.
• How this will be implemented is when an item is obtained via
an in game purchase, it will be tagged with an invisible flag
in its code which will indicate to the game that the item was
purchased via real money rather than earned via gameplay.
• I think that this flag can be implemented as a booleen
variable attatched to its code which is set to TRUE if
purchased with real money or FALSE if no real money is used.
• This is why the amount to be charged is the calculated
difference between what the player already has and what needs
to be purchased must be used instead of buying bundles. So
 the script can simply assign the TRUE/FALSE condition based
on weither the in game purchasing function is called or not.
• In a game where multiplayer is not a deathmatch style system,
this flag will be used to place a restriction on an item
obtained via real money that will limit its use to
singleplayer modes only. It will be disabled when PvP or PvE
is enabled. This will serve to prevent players from paying to
become more powerful then other players.
• The singleplayer only restriction can be removed when the
item is reobtained via gameplay rewards or by spending an
equivalent amount of currency the item costs only using
currency obtained via gameplay. This means the in-game
purchase function must not be called when the item is
reobtained which in turn will remove the flag from it.

Ethical Exclusive Content:

• Pre-Order Exclusive content will always be available to all

players after at most 90 days after launch. Or simply
available in the shop on launch.
• Additional Non-Game content or makeing-of videos/dvd bonus
discs/downloads like the in-game soundtrack can be
distributed via “other” methods (if you know what I mean)
becuase its being given away for free anyway. Art books will
be released as free ebooks later.
• Platform/retail brand exclusive content will always be
available to all players at most 90 days after launch. Or
simply be available in the shop at launch.
• Promotional exclusive content will always be available to all
players 90 days after the promotion ends or simply he
available in the shop when the promotion begins.
• To sum this all up into one simple rule; all exclusive
content will have an exclusivity period of at most 90 days
after which they will become available to all players. No
players will ever be left out of any in game content.

Ethical PC-Platform Exclusivity Deals:

• All PC Versions of a game will be available on Steam, Epic,

and GOG eventually. The exclusivity period will never be
longer then 12 months.
• Any exclusivity deals will be disclosed in advance and the
reasons for taking such a deal will be explained in a
truthful and professional manner.
• If the game is being crowdfunded and the exclusivity deal
directly contradicts previous claims and announcements,
backers will be given the option for a refund.