Indeed, it is hard to imagine that consumers would express the same level of anger felt by Petville players against Procter & Gamble if it ever decided, for example, to discontinue Pantene. And in the age of instant feedback through social media, such disgruntlement is loudly and quickly disseminated – denting a company’s reputation.
“The world is simulated, but the emotions are quite real,” says Kendall Whitehouse, technology and media editor at Knowledge@Wharton. “While you may need to close the service, do you do irreparable damage to your company by being too cavalier about not responding appropriately to the emotional investment people have in these products?”
To be sure, TV shows kill off characters all the time and book series do retire some beloved characters, such as when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle attempted to kill off Sherlock Holmes by having him plunge to his death over Reichenbach Falls. But Whitehouse argues that people’s attachment to their virtual pets can run even deeper than their love of literary characters. “You didn’t raise Sherlock Holmes from a young boy, but you may have raised your virtual pet from a pup,” he notes. Nevertheless, fan outrage over Holmes’s death forced the author to bring the detective back to life a decade later.
Businesses that do not know the difference may pay for it in the long run. For example, disgruntled Petville players who were given credits to play other Zynga offerings could transfer their ill will to another of the company’s games, says Andrea Matwyshyn, Wharton professor of legal studies and business ethics. Thus, the negative feelings associated with Petville do not end with the game’s demise but can live on virally.
So it may be a good idea for a digital pet game that is ending to have a “day of mourning or pet graveyard site” for players. “That demonstrates sensitivity,” Matwyshyn notes. “It’s a way to minimise goodwill loss.”
Digital dollars disappear
There is another complication: Players often are not just emotionally connected to the digital communities they created; they are monetarily invested as well.
Online games typically let players join for free, but then make money through in-app purchases. At Petville, players could buy outfits for their pets and make other purchases using credits they earned or bought with real money. When Zynga shut down the game, it offered “bonus packages” to Petville players for its other games. Glitch offered refunds to people who made purchases, but added the option of giving the money to charity or letting the company keep it.
Unlike goods purchased at a retail store that has physical dimensions, products bought in the virtual world exist only as bits and bytes and literally disappear when the game is terminated. “One day you have things you have either earned or purchased, and then they’re gone,” Whitehouse says. “It’s like when the government of a foreign country nationalises an industry. All of a sudden, your property isn’t yours anymore.”
In addition, these virtual economies typically use currency with a conversion rate to US dollars yet the funds are only as good as the “full faith and credit” of the company running the servers, he notes.
“You own [in-game objects] only as long as the servers are up and service is running.”
In the end, a company has the last say in how it decides to treat its customers. User agreements for online games generally note that companies have the discretion in such situations to proceed in the manner they see fit, Matwyshyn states. That means Zynga and Glitch had the right to do what each of them thought was best, even if the two had disparate approaches. “Then it becomes a customer relations and goodwill management question,” she adds.
