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Pay to Play

4 Feb 2011

The team behind Forumwarz built an iPhone game, iCapitalism. It’s a game consisting of nothing but in-app purchases:

Click on the Play tab. Then click Increase Your Level. You will be presented with a list of level upgrades you can purchase with real money.

There is no skill involved at all. The person paying the most, will be at the top of the leaderboard. After nine (!) weeks, it was rejected. The idea is humorous but I understand why it pass the approval process.

There is but a small step from iCapitalism to games like Farmville or Smurf’s Village. They all create incentive to spend real money playing the game. Either because the game does nothing at all or because the game consists of pointless delays and slow downs.

iCapitalism was rejected. Why is Farmville and similar allowed?