Scamville: The Social Gaming Ecosystem Of Hell

Another scam: Video Professor. Users are offered in game currency if they sign up to receive a free learning CD from Video Professor. The user is told they pay nothing except a $10 shipping charge. But the fine print, on a different page from checkout, tells them they are really getting a whole set of CDs and will be billed $189.95 unless they return them. Most users never return them because they donât know about the extra charge.

Like in any industry, there’s easy money in gaming and there’s hard money. And the better way to make a sustainable gaming community is to focus on making a really good game and treating your users with respect (the hard way).

Given that Fred Wilson is an investor in Zynga, I’m a little surprised he hasn’t said anything in their defense.

That said, I haven’t played any of the games TC mentions in this post, so I don’t know how prominent the “scams” are; if only a few people “buy” in game points to begin with…there’s a lot of nuance to this.