Video Games: Part 2 - Privacy Issues

In an earlier blog, I’d written about the benefits of (certain) video games. But of course, not everyone buys an Xbox or Sony Playstation. Instead, we download the free ones onto our phones. And that’s where our kids play most of the time, on the phone. Think Angry Birds or Temple Run or Candy Crush.

And therein lies the rub, writes Kaitlyn Tiffany. Because “free” means the makers of the video games make their money via ads and in-app purchases. Now every game developer (or company) cannot build its own ad-delivery system, so who do they turn to? Facebook, Twitter and Google, of course. The ad-giants give libraries that the game developers integrate into their games. In other words, it’s a black box:

“These third parties collect information that allows them to keep intricate histories of your behavior, and use it to make money from you in ways you might not expect or even see.”

Sound confusing? Aha, writes Tiffany:

“The fact that it’s all so confusing is kind of the point, obviously. And as a result, mobile games have escaped the level of scrutiny we’ve applied to social media companies, despite being — as a category — nearly equally popular and far more likely to be used by children.”

But how much of a problem can “gameplay data” really be, you ask. After all:

“Nobody’s getting your Social Security number from Angry Birds. Nobody’s getting your private messages.”

True. But you play differently when you’re “depressed, or dieting”. It knows if you are the type who pays money for extra powers or shortcuts in the game. All such details add up in dishing up more relevant ads and products to you. Again, none of this is cause of concern, but remember the gaming company almost certainly didn’t build the ad-delivery system:

“The average free game has at least one, and sometimes as many as 10 advertising intermediaries built into the game that track every move you make and additional purchase you contemplate.”

And those ad-agencies get to know more and more about you. And they consolidate data from multiple apps, since they can identify the “common” phone from which the data is coming.

If you expect Google, as owner of Android, to do much, think again. After all, “it’s in the advertising business itself”. And Apple? It takes a cut of every in-app purchase, so they’re not incentivized beyond a point either.

So no, one needn’t worry about video games the way many worry about social media. But they’re feeding data to the ad-agencies like Google and Facebook, which makes those companies ever more knowledgeable about you.