Talk:Video Game Economics
Reviewed by Alejandro Borrego
Ian’s article draft meets the requirement for the word count, at around 1,100. It also includes an introduction, stating the article's premise and touching on its central topics. The article also contains two main topic sections. The first is the history of video game economics, the second is a large section about the ethical issues surrounding the economy of video games. This section contains subsections that discuss the issues of who the video game companies market their games to, microtransactions, and gambling within video games. Additionally, the author also included a fairly comprehensive list of references at the end of his article. However, one is not formatted correctly, which should be fixed. The author makes the issue very clear in his topics, but some of the ethical concerns would be a bit clearer with some examples of companies that exploit the issues. For example, he could include a couple of companies that have persistent levels of microtransactions, and how much these companies make strictly based on those transactions.
The only section that I found that seemed to be a bit opinionated was the topic titled “Audience & Design” under the Ethical Issues section. The sentence reading “It is no secret that gaming companies design their games to be extremely addictive” seems a bit opinionated as others may argue against it. There should be some source here to keep this sentence. Additionally, this section states that “ Don't they have a responsibility to manage their product in a way that is not harmful to society? The answer is not as simple as it seems.” this poses an important question, but it is an opinion that discusses what the author thinks about the morality of game design and marketing. This sentence could be rephrased and cited. Also, this portion says “While it's true that these games have negative side effects, these companies are ultimately selling a product so it is hard to fault them for trying to maximize consumer engagement and retention”. Although this is not an opinion, it should be cited with a source regardless.
