David Polfeldt, managing director of The Division developer is worried about the potential problems with the amount of data that is used in gaming can be used to milk the gamers dry out of their hard earned money
In an interview with GamesIndustry International Polfeldt stated that “I think it’s super interesting what we can do now with big data and that type of research we can do. We find patterns that we didn’t know of. That to me is incredibly sexy. Then there’s a another step, where you get that data and the only thing you use it for is to fool people into paying for things that they didn’t intend to. Then it becomes unethical. Then to me it’s no longer a conversation. Then it’s just, I’m just trying to find your trigger mechanisms and fool you.”
He further elaborated that “I do think there’s an ethical problem there, Now you’ve found out everything about David. Good, will you now use that to tell him a story that matters to him–or are you going to use that to make him pay for things that he didn’t want to pay for? To me, that’s completely different.”
Massive Entertainment is currently working on the The Division which is slated to release next year across the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.