The British Advertising Standards Committee found Electronic Arts guilty of misleading customers with email advertising that said the Dungeon Keeper mobile game was free.
A dangerous precedent has emerged for the free-to-play industry: the publisher of the “shareware” project was not only accused, but also recognized as a fraudster. The Committee disagreed with EA’s lawyers who argued that:
- Non-payers can reach the “end of the game” without spending significantly more time than payers.
- An ordinary player expects a “shareware” game to have countdown timers, premium currency, and Dungeon Keeper mechanics are standard for the market.
The committee answered all this as follows: yes, technically, it is possible to play Dungeon Keeper for free, but a player who has read the advertising of the game hardly expects that during the game session the game will constantly “put sticks in the wheels” for him, demanding to pay for reducing the time of a number of actions.
The verdict of the committee, in the end, turned out to be as follows: since players cannot get an “acceptable” gaming experience, they do not spend money in the game, the advertising of the project, which did not mention the presence of micropayments, misled users. This advertisement should no longer appear in this form.
Therefore, EA is now obliged to notify about the limitations of “free” gameplay and the role of IAP in advertising on the territory of Foggy Albion.