Design in KHUx

 (Intro, feel free to skip, tldr underneath this section)
In recent years, in-app purchases have become more prevalent in mobile games. I rarely play them, even so only occasionally, but I started KINGDOM HEARTS Unchained χ published by Square Enix North America (SENA) just because I loved the Kingdom Hearts series and the story released here was canon. So the main way this game incentivizes in-app purchases are with "Weekly Deals" that give you jewels (Basically valued currency in the game) and access to special quests that grant you special items. The key point with these quests are that

1.  You complete objectives to receive the items. Rewards are only given for the first time you complete the objective.
2. They are timed. The quests "refresh" afterwards where a new quest replaces the old one. So you cannot access 'old' quests and this incentivizes you to purchase earlier in the week, as soon as possible or you'll miss out on previous day's quest and rewards.

tldr: Game incentivizes the in-app purchase at the start of the week, as early as possible.

The problem
A couple weeks back they introduced this special quest that is only unlocked for people who utilize the in-app purchase.

Original notice.

 So first, for the text, the writing does not specify how many Magic Mirrors will be available and only states that you can earn "valuable Magic Mirror medals" by completing the quest.

Now notice the banner, which is the banner that will appear in game for all players to see. Now since there are always 3 objectives for every quest, people naturally assumed that you would be getting 3 mirrors each day.

How quests are presented

A. Screenshot of a list of quests

The Cid Medal Challenge quest labeled VIP is an example of one of the special quests that only paying members can unlock every single week.

As noted by the lock on the bottom right, you cannot access that quest and clicking on it results only in a pop up telling the user to buy the weekly deal to gain access.

B. Display of information after clicking on quest.

This image is an example of the information the user receive after clicking into any quest they have access to.

The UI here is clear. Users can see an image of the rewards they can possibly receive from completing this quest.



Also note how in picture A, there are three pictures of Cid medals in addition to a simple text explanation (And yes, you do indeed receive three Cids per quest completion).

Now imagine if the Magic Mirror Quest was in that list of quests, hidden behind a lock as well with a design extremely similar to that of the Cid quest. The text in the notice was not helpful and the banner picture does not clearly state the rewards for the quest. So people, with limited information, assumed.

As a result people were upset and felt that they were misled by the banner and lack of clear information.

The quest actually gave 2 Moogles (Basically useless items) in addition to a single magic mirror every day.
This raised questions as to why was the banner designed in that way and why the text was so vague.

This did annoy me.
The information given to the user should have been clearer.
The user interface should have been clearer.

• Having extra line of text like in the Cid Medal Challenge quest stating "Get up to x...everyday" would've sufficed.
• Not putting three mirrors in a design similar to other related quests. (Instead, put pictures of the other items you can receive)
• Possibly allow the user to enter into the information screen (Like picture B) but not click "Begin" if they haven't paid. (Possibly more complicated than the other 3)
• Updating the text in the notice.  This is the least preferable in my opinion as it forces the user into an extra screen to read information; the information would be hidden away compared to the others above.
• In general notices requires users to navigate from menu -> other -> notices to access them.

And the outcry was heard (Probably more in the form of support tickets and refunds through the Apple app store and the Google play store). Two days later, the problem was acknowledged.









And the original notice was amended to state "Complete these quests to earn up to seven valuable Magic Mirror Medals." to state the number of mirrors they intended you to receive. But they didn't even say that the original notice was updated.

Why was this a problem in the first place? Why was the designed interface and banner design intended mainly for their paying users so incoherent? There was no reason for the disparity with other similarly designed banners.

Was it to hope that there would little to no backlash and make the most money since most people would purchase it early before realizing it was a mistake? Obviously I'm not in a position to say but in general I'd just say that mobile games with these in-app purchases just aren't great games to play, but I digress.

The interface should be clear and concise for users so they can make an informed decision. It should be easily accessible and no guessing should be required.