Your store knows you’re a sniper. Should it show you rifles first?

“Your store knows you’re a sniper. Should it show you rifles first?”

That line came from a talk by Richard Goldsmith (Deloitte) at GDC 2025, and stuck with me for some reason.

That question came up again in a recent Deconstructor of Fun episode. Michail Katkoff made a sharp point in response to George Ng and I’m paraphrasing here but the gist was:
Maybe it’s not that anything has fundamentally changed. We’ve always tried to optimize based on player behavior. It’s just that now we’re actually good at it now and that’s why the ethical concerns are suddenly surfacing.

Goldsmith’s point was straightforward: if you know a player always picks sniper rifles, show them bundles they’ll actually use. Better targeting leads to more purchases and a better experience. Everyone wins, right?

But then George said something else.

“We were already optimizing for monetization without thinking too much about ethics. But now with AI and sharper tooling, this question of where optimization crosses into manipulation can’t be ignored anymore.”

He’s right. The tools are evolving faster than the guardrails. And as countries scramble to define data and AI legislation, the game industry is quietly setting its own precedents one update at a time.

That’s what makes this so high-stakes. Monetization design isn’t just about revenue. It shapes how players (and governments) relate to games over time. The wrong kind of data use leads to:

Burnout from excessive grind loops
Players spending money they don’t have
Refund requests and reputation damage
And in some cases, actual regulatory attention

Games that prioritize short-term extraction over long-term value might spike revenue, but they rarely sustain it.

Not all the best games respect their players, but most of the ones that stick around do.

While PMs are optimizing for revenue, game designers are trying to build something players actually want to keep coming back to.

Here’s my thought that might be controversial but shouldn’t be:

For every (few) monetization or LiveOps update, add one that is strictly focused on making players enjoy more. If data/AI is becoming so powerful that we are questioning the ethics of using it, can’t we just use it for “good”?

Stop selling for five seconds and listen to your players (data).

If someone looked at your last 10 updates, how many were focused mostly on monetization?

This applies differently across game platforms and types but hope
it gets you thinking.