Looting is the use of unethical tools such as force, theft, fraud, cronyism, and/or appeals to gain access to others’ belongings. First of the potential LooterFootnote 8 models is “Lure-to-pay.” It is the most ethically complex of all monetization types, because all F2P games that include real-money trading are essentially Lure-to-p(l)ay or Lure-to-pay in some way (Heimo et al. 2018). In F2P research, “luring” refers to the ways in which some games are designed to entice people to keep playing and to commit more, and to eventually start paying when they feel they have committed too much to quit (Kimppa et al. 2015). As noted in the case of the closely related Lure-to-p(l)ay, luring means enough content is made available without pay, for the purposes of getting players to pay later.

Therefore, in Looter luring, progress is repeatedly hindered by artificial constraints, tailored frustration points, and unnecessary waiting (the “Pay-to-pass-boring” approach; see also offline progress mechanics from Paavilainen et al. 2013). This is where the “inferior product” issue appears, alongside factors such as the sunk cost fallacy (a type of loss aversion in which already paid costs are seen as lost if one does not receive the expected benefits; Arkes and Blumer 1985; Hamari 2011) and other psychological traps. Rand (1957) firmly opposed making money “by pandering to men’s vices or to men’s stupidity.” Using methods such as taking advantage of the human decision-making flaws, discovered by psychologists and behavioral economists (e.g., Kahneman and Tversky 1974; Thaler and Sunstein 2009), in order to get players addicted and to deceive them regarding content value is clearly unethical.Footnote 9 In Lure-to-pay, designers explicitly and intentionally play (and prey) on human weaknesses, and turn what may look to an outsider like a case of free decision-making into exploitation. A person whose free decision-making is hampered by intentionally designer-fostered addiction or purposefully inflated loss aversion is no longer capable of exercising full volition. We, like Alha et al. (2018), consider such situations to be a type of fraud, especially when luring is utilized in a context where the developers provide insufficient or incorrect information on the potential value of a purchase (Švelch 2017).

A company in charge of a game may, furthermore, alter the rules (e.g., its End-User License Agreements, EULAs) at any time, on a one-sided basis, once players have been lured to commit to playing (Heimo et al. 2018). In our view, this is against Objectivism’s concepts of fair trade. It may be argued that if customers do not read each new EULA version, it is their own fault, but with such documents often being both massive and frequently updated, we believe that such radical changes approach Objectivism’s views on scamming, rather than any concept of fair trade.

The second problematic model is “pay-to-win,” an extreme sub-type of “pay-while-playing.” In it, players are given access to advantages, such as superior ammunition in World of Tanks (Wargaming 2010), through real-money transactions. In Objectivist terms, this limits nonpaying individuals’ use of skill—but only if we consider the game on its own, as a closed system (Sicart 2009). If, however, pay-to-win is seen as a part of the wider world and not just of the game-system, Objectivism would accept people using their wealth in the ways that they desire (Rand 1957). This brings us to ethically interesting territory: to what extent should we expect play to be separate from the surrounding reality? A traditional viewpoint would argue “completely” (Huizinga 1955; Salen and Zimmermann 2004). Gambling ethics studies (e.g., Cheng et al. 2017), in turn, would say that the two are closely tied, through clear and causally observable consequences. The Objectivist approach would be to say that since real-money transactions and in-app purchases are part of the game’s concept, gameplay can and should also be influenced by the financial success of players outside the arena of play, the same as any other activity. (It should not, however, be influenced by e.g., user interfaces that lure children to use RMT without parental knowledge, which are clearly unethical in also Objectivist terms.) As Alha et al. (2018) note, animosity between players who engage in RMT and those who do not is quite common, reflecting the difference between those who emphasize skill and those who emphasize the ability to pay.

A clear-cut case can be found in the false advertising of games, which is simply fraud. Sometimes, however, developers honestly aim to create the best game possible, yet they fail to deliver (Kimppa et al. 2015; O’Donnell 2014). Initial trailers, crowdfunding campaign materials, and even pre-release versions may look great, but the final product can still be subpar. By that time, however, people will have invested their money into the failed project. They receive something, but not that which was supposed to be delivered. On the one hand, this is fair trade and risk-taking, appreciated by Rand (e.g., 1961, 1967). On the other hand, Objectivism condemns foolish risk-taking at the expense of others (Rand 1957). So while in Objectivist terms we can say that to take risks at the market is virtuous, the system should be set so that in the case of failure, debtors can attempt to reclaim their investments. In cases such as crowdfunded games, the backers are not risk-taking venture investors, but people who have made a pre-purchase on a promised delivery quality. They are customers expecting a fair trade.

What makes all these models ethically problematic is the aforementioned “inferior product” issue (Table 1 for a summary with some examples of exceptions). While the three first types in Column B of the table are not unethical by Objectivist standards per se, we argue here that they are too often in especially F2P games based on Rand’s (1957) “pandering to stupidity.” This is why we say “predominantly”—the same systems can be applied both ethically and not, depending on the manner of implementation, context, and the anticipation of social pressure. If it is open and fair trade, there is no ethical problem. If there is exploitation based on hidden information, a problem exists. In our view, the first three in Column B are also likely to contain elements that amount to fraud, due to the psychological traps applied in their design in order to make paying more likely. They can be applied in a virtuous manner, but they rarely are.

Table 1 A rough outline of monetization types by category Full size table

In Objectivist fair trade, everything is fine as long as the market is able to set the price. This creates two challenges. The first one is that within any game that is not sold as “Pay once,” the developers can guide the in-game market as they see fit, with the players having only the options of either agreeing, or leaving the game and all their sunk costs and achievements within it behind (Lehdonvirta and Castronova 2014). This can be a very powerful market force, in situations where a game constitutes a record of past investments, potential new play affordances, and even one’s primary link to one’s social circles. Players have, as a result of this pressure, been observed as being extremely reluctant to change the games which they play (ibid.). A handful of rare but important exceptions exist, like EVE Online, in which some player groups are practically unionized and can exert significant market pressure (Czarnota 2016).

The second challenge is that many F2P games combine together marketing hype, psychological traps, player commodification, and sunk-cost fallacies. It is thus not always at all clear where the line of fair trade lies in cases of intentionally “bad” F2P designs. Some of those are in fact tools made to lure people to play them, others are just flawed attempts at producing something engaging and enticing. The price–quality range of such games is very difficult to assess at the time of the first few purchases (or when dealing with derivative, copycat Second-Hander games). Due to such uncertainties, people are likely to make deals they will later regret (Bell 1982). This is very different from knowing that an Opel will cost less than an Audi and thus it will also feature fewer luxury perks.

Free-to-play games are monetization tools that rely on providing the feel of a great play experience while ensuring the players have enough problems in progressing, in order that those players will spend money and not just time and effort to bypass the problems (Harviainen et al. 2018). Only a very rare few games are able to elicit enough revenue with players just “rewarding” the designers with money because they like the game (instead of e.g., paying for a play advantage or the removal of an obstacle). Likewise, very few games can focus solely on monetizing via cosmetic items that do not affect gameplay (Heimo et al. 2018). Instead, the games have to use abovementioned systems to create situations where the players will feel a desire or even a need to play. Thus, they function on the borderline of Lure-to-p(l)ay, and Lure-to- pay. We will next discuss the implications this has for the customers themselves, using an illustrative example case.