> You do realize that the whole point of these games is socially engineering people into parting with as much money as possible, right?

Isn't this the point of any business?

> If you don't want to make games for addicts perhaps you should stop working for companies that make games for addicts.

I don't believe we make games for addicts. When I show our game to my friends and family they say things like "oh this game is cute", "this creature is funny", etc. The vast majority of our users are people who enjoy casual gaming when they're bored sitting on a plane or on the train.

That vast majority of your users account for what, like 10% of your revenue, or less? The real point of your product is targeting addicts, whales, as you called them, and manipulating them into paying money for nothing. Yes, actually nothing, because you rig the odds and dangle carrot shaped pixels above their heads and use every psychological trick in the book, the state of the art, to get them to keep playing.

That is not the point of business for me, most businesses offer something of value.

See my comment here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3556270

Would you feel the same way if we changed the business model from virtual currency to a fixed-cost one?

> Isn't this the point of any business?

No, you get to decide what the point of the business you work for is. No one else does, you do. There's no rule that says the point of any/every businesses is to get people to part with as much money as possible.

> Isn't this the point of any business?

In a way, but at my last employer, the people being socially engineered were employees of our clients who then had to jump through several hoops to justify their plans - often numerically - and get business spending on our services authorized, not putative millionaires trickling down their personal hard-earned wealth.

This is the problem with large businesses; they can always say the supposed positives to the majority outweigh the real harms they are doing to a minority. Don't you think inducing people to click on stuff over and over with absolutely no skill is unethical? Comparing "social games" to other harmless diversions is like comparing a culture of drinking a few beers at the end of the week with a culture of encouraging people to drink as much as they want.

Quick! Alert the people selling software that it's just pixels! It's pixels all the way down!