The creator of one of the most successful indie games of all time has recently spoken out about a couple of immensely popular games and criticized them for the way their developers exploit users.

Jonathan Blow, the developer of the critical darling Braid, recently spoke at the Neuroethics Society meeting at the University of California at San Diego. During his presentation he had some harsh words for Farmville, the Facebook game that has become a global phenomenon. He claimed that Farmville does not even count as a game, and Zynga created something that merely tricks gamers into spending time and energy on the game:

"If you look at a game like Farmville, there's actually no game there. It's just reward structure layered on reward structure layered on reward structure with a hollow center..."

Blow went on to elaborate that he feels as though that Farmville is designed solely to get people to spend money on the game and get more users involved in the game to drive up Zynga's profits while doing so:

"All they're trying to do is get you to either give them money or pull friends into the game in order to potentially, eventually give them money..."

Farmville, like most Facebook games, is free to play. This means that users are able to play the game for free, and developers make money in the game either by selling ad space in the game or by trying to sell users in-game items that give players special bonuses. Blow apparently feels as though this model for games is designed to take advantage of gamers, as the highly respected industry veteran also had issues with the way Popcap Games designed the popular mobile game Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time.

The video game maker claims that it is unjust that Popcap would include a section of the game's tutorial that takes players to the in-game shop despite the fact that players can complete the game without spending any money:

"This is a way that they're trying to profit from you. And they know that rather than just tell you how to do this; when they can make you perform an action that they want you to perform later, you've crossed a barrier, you've broken an initial resistance, and it's easier to get you to do stuff later."
In any case, it looks as though Blow has the best interests in gamers in mind with these comments, and the fans should watch out for his new game The Witness sometime in 2014.