New Year, New Resolution: Sell to Willing Buyers

As the year begins, it's a good time to reflect on our daily lives and consider making some changes. The start of a new year offers a clean slate, a chance to break away from old habits and start anew. It's the perfect opportunity to make New Year's Resolutions. My proposed resolution for the industry in 2019 was to inform customers about what they're buying. While the bar was set low, the industry has made significant progress in this area. We haven't seen any recent scandals over misleadingly advertised collector's editions or vague season pass content descriptions. Loot boxes have been removed from several popular games, and publishers have been experimenting with more transparent implementations. This is progress, and it's a good start. For this year, my new resolution is to only sell products to people who want to buy them. This may seem simple, but the answer is not as straightforward as you might think. One major reason for this is the industry's attitude toward friction. The term 'friction' is often viewed negatively in the gaming industry. Developers, publishers, and platform holders have worked to reduce the barriers between people and the games they play, including the sometimes steep cost of admission. The move from cartridges to discs and the advent of digital distribution have polished away some of this cost friction. Ad-supported and free-to-play business models have not only eliminated cost friction for players but have also been incredibly lucrative for publishers. However, a little more friction wouldn't be a bad thing. In the past, making a purchasing decision involved more time and consideration. Today, it's easy to make impulse purchases, and there's often little friction between the decision to buy and the actual purchase. Dark patterns like those used by Epic Games are loathsome and underhanded tricks, but they're also effective. The company's deliberate use of these patterns to dupe millions of players into making unintentional purchases is a damning indictment of 'long-standing industry practices.' For 2023, let's re-examine these practices and consider how we can improve them by adjusting the friction. Instead of using friction to thwart refunds or lock people into ecosystems, let's use it to ensure that customers actually want to be our customers. A little friction gives people a moment to think about their actions and make thoughtful decisions. If your business can't survive with a little friction, maybe it's not a good business to begin with.