Clash of Clans

Clash of Clans

"Clash of Clans Loading Screen" Clash of Clans Type Video Game Launch Date 2012 Status Active Product Line Clash of Clans v8.116.2 Platform iOS, Android Website Clash of Clans Official Site

C

lash of Clans is a freemium MMO (massive multiplayer online) strategy game developed for mobile devices by Supercell. The game was released for iOS platforms in 2012, and later on Google Play for Android in 2013. Players build their own villages and engage in warfare against other players and/or clans. In 2015, Clash of Clans was the top grossing app on both the App Store and Google Play, generating an estimated 1.5 million dollars per day. Despite its success, however, the game is not without its own ethical concerns such as violence, bullying, and video game addiction.

A key component of Clash of Clans is attacking another player's village.

Gameplay

Players can construct a village, set up necessary defenses for protection, gather resources in the form of gold and elixir, and create a powerful army. The object of the game is to build defenses that protect the players' village and resources from other players' attacks, as well as to train and upgrade troops for offensive maneuvers. Players must earn resources in order to build and upgrade buildings, which can be used for a variety of purposes such as storage, training new troops, carrying out research in the laboratory, and defending a player's village. Once they reach a certain level, players can join clans, which are groups of players that pool their resources in order to compete and fight against other clans in battles. While the game revolves around playing with and against other people, the game also features a single player campaign mode in which the player battles against a number of computer-generated goblin villages.

Clans

Clans are groups of players who join together to support each other and fight against other clans. Players can join clans once they rebuild the special Clan Castle building. Clans have four different ranks within them: leader, co-leader, elder, and member. Clan leads and co-leaders can begin wars against other clans, change clan settings, and kick lower tier members from the clan, which can potentially lead to bullying and discrimination. During a war against another clan, each clan is given a "preparation day" and a "war day." Each player is limited to two attacks per war, and can earn up to three stars based on the amount of destruction caused to the opposing clan player's village in each attack. At the end of the war, the clan with the higher amount of stars wins, with players receiving bonus war loot and the clan receiving one more war win in their record. Clans are seen as a status symbol and are ranked based on a weighted percentage of clan players' trophies.

Publicity

Image from Revenge ad featuring Liam Neeson.

Supercell has released numerous television and Internet advertisements for the game, including an ad for the Super Bowl XLIX, featuring Liam Neeson parodying his character from Taken. This ad, titled Revenge, has over 100 million views on Youtube, and was the most viewed Super Bowl Ad in 2015. Clash of Clans also has a Youtube channel with over 4 million subscribers and over 650 million total views on their channel.

Related Games

In 2014, Supercell released Boom Beach on iOS and Android worldwide. Boom Beach is also a freemium strategy video game for mobile devices in which players can build and upgrade their base to attack other players's bases or computer-generated bases. The game has received generally positive ratings. Similar to Clash of Clans, the game offers premium purchasable currency in the form of diamonds. It is often noted as a modern version of Clash of Clans.

Ethical Concerns

Violence

While there is no graphic violence, Clash of Clans contains frequent battles with cartoon-style weapons, explosions, and cries of defeated soldiers. The game's core component is attacking and raiding other villages in order to pillage the resources of other players. Thus, there are some ethical concerns with young children playing the game and being exposed to such violence. Commonsense Media, a website that provides information on family-friendly and safe media and games, states that Clash of Clans is appropriate for those 13+. Both the violence rating and the inappropriate language rating of the game are 2/5. There is no explicit language or sexual references in the game.

Bullying & Cyberbullying

In 2014, a group of students at Ogden International School in Chicago created a clan called the "Jew Incinerator Clan" to bully another student because he was Jewish. The student's wrote that the purpose of the clan was to throw Jews into ovens and put all Jews into an army camp until they were disposed of. New York Times released an article in 2015 on how Clash of Clans is taking bullying to the playground because of its cliquish and exclusionary nature. A ten year-old boy named Luca felt the full effects of exclusion and abandonment after he demoted a classmate from a clan that a few students belonged to. Luca’s classmates subsequently created a new clan, and the members refused to let him join when he asked to be included, revealing the negative consequences of allowing players of the video game to form and enforce hierarchical bullying both online and in real life.

The game offers large quantities of gems for relatively low prices.

Freemium

Clash of Clans is a free-to-play game, with microtransactions available to buy gems for faster progression. While it is entirely possible to succeed in the game without paying a single cent, the game deliberately makes it significantly more difficult to progress further, especially in the later stages of the game. Aside from gold and elixir, the game also uses gems as a type of currency, which can be earned through certain achievements or milestones. The main way to acquire gems is through in-app purchases using real world money. Players can usually speed up the construction time of a building or boost other resources for only a small amount of gems, creating low-cost yet addictive in-app purchasing behavior. As they become more and more addicted to the game, many players pour considerable amounts of money into the game in order to get an edge over other players. The accessibility to make these purchases also raises ethical concerns. For example, a pair of 7 year-old twins racked up a $3,000 iTunes bill while playing Clash of Clans without their parents knowing until it was too late. Freemium games such as Clash of Clans prey off addicted players and their low-cost and enticing in-game purchases. This freemium option often exploits the wallets of many players, especially younger players who might not have as much self-control.

Video Game Addiction

Because of its addictive nature, Clash of Clans raises ethical issues concerning time-wasting and distraction. The game hooks you in early with lots of available resources and low-cost rewards, which starkly contrasts with the much slower sense of progress later on in the game. The game also gives players an incentive to play by granting protection from other players' attacks while the player is logged in and playing the game. While there is no concrete evidence, Clash of Clans addiction was also reportedly linked to poor athletic performance by a professional baseball team, the Kansas City Royals. There are even stories of marriages and relationships suffering from Clash of Clans addiction, such as an unfortunate woman's desperate forum post on her husband's marriage-threatening addiction.

External Links

• Supercell's Official Website
• Clash of Clans Wikia

See Also

• Game Addiction
• Ethics in Computer & Video Games

References

(back to index)