Increasingly, the economy for mobile games and apps is shifting toward a free model monetized through in-app purchases. Players can buy more turns, better items, and a better chance at moving up the leaderboards—the looming fear, founded or otherwise, in a free-to-play gaming economy is that it ends up being a pay-to-win system.
Pay-to-win culture was once a problem for the church, too. In Dante’s Inferno, people are consigned to spend eternity head-first in holes with their feet on fire for the sin of simony—buying or selling sacraments or positions within the church. To play Bogost’s MOCA installation game, Simony, one enters the gallery space and ascends a dais, where an iPad awaits like a holy book.
“I was interested in trying to make some connection between religion and technology,” says Bogost, who made headlines last year with Cow Clicker, his playable critique of the design and economy of popular social games on Facebook. We’ve sort of replaced technology for religion,” he says.