Peter Molyneux Comments On UK Trade Body's Freemium Investigation

Peter Molyneux, creator of Curiosity and the upcoming Godus, has spoken to UK newspaper The Guardian about the UK Office of Fair Trading's investigation into the use of in-app purchases in games, particularly those aimed at children.

Referring to the pressure felt by platform holders such as Apple and Google in the wake of some recent, eye-watering download bills, he had this to say:

"If I was a betting man I'd think the platform providers will start trying to answer that question fairly soon. You can't have people racking up bills of hundreds or thousands of pounds without them knowing what they're doing," he said, while concluding: "Some people love spending money, and we shouldn't stop that."

Now if you were feeling just a little uncharitable, you might be tempted to probe Molyneux's thoughts on certain developers who aspire to include a diamond chisel for $77,000 in their social experiments. Here's what he had to say about Curiosity's early ambitions:

"With the Diamond Chisel, our ambition was to charge an impossibly-high amount - so high that no one in the world would buy it. It was more the psychology of knowing that this hugely valuable things was there," he said.

"But when we submitted the app to platform holders like the App Store, they turned around and said 'Oh my goodness, you can't charge that amount!"

The UK trade body recently released a questionnaire for parents as part of the investigation - Eurogamer has more details for any Modojo readers based in the region who'd like to contribute.