A Frenchman who gave up a career in banking to become a games designer wants to transform “predatory” free-to-play practices in the industry.
Abu Dhabi-based Elio Polizzi, who used to work as a games designer for Ubisoft, the developer behind Assassin’s Creed, said too many of the games which are free to play take advantage of players.
He said they typically rely on a small percentage of people to spend a lot of money on in-app purchases — which often does not buy them anything at all.
He claimed his first game, which has just been launched and is available on App Store and Google Play, takes a different approach.
A lot of them are too predatory. They really push you on spending hundreds of dollars, and often without a reward
Elio Polizzi
Rocky Towers, a little like Jenga for the screen, is entirely free to play and can be accessed without paying anything at all — much like many others out there.
But in contrast to some, players can choose whether they want to watch adverts to earn bonuses.
There are in-app purchases available, but players are limited in how much they spend each week to no more than $32.
“There’s a problem with the free games you play that you get on your phone and the PC,” he said.
“A lot of them are too predatory. They really push you on spending hundreds of dollars, and often without a reward.
“You could spend $500 and maybe you get nothing in the game.”
He said video game designers usually relied on a small percentage of people to spend big in games.
“They plan on having 2 per cent of the players spending money and from them, 0.4 per cent spending all the money,” said Mr Polizzi, who has lived in Abu Dhabi for almost a decade.
“We are trying to reverse that to have more people buying in the game but paying less. In our game you can purchase gems,” he said.
“However, all the purchases you have in Rocky Towers are finite. Once you buy them they are gone. You cannot spend any more money this week. You need to wait.”
The approach is more ethical than encouraging players, who are often children, from making repeated purchases with no benefit.
Mr Polizzi became a games designer almost by accident, after turning down a permanent contract and potentially lucrative role in banking and insurance.
“I thought this was not really for me. A friend said why don’t you come to Ireland?
“I didn’t even want to work in gaming, when I left for Ireland. But when I looked at the job offers the second week that I arrived, I saw an offer in game operations. That’s where I started before I moved to development a bit later. I thought I could do all that.”
He worked for a couple of developers before joining Ubisoft, where he served until late 2020, when he decided to design his own game. He started his company, Meelfoy Games, in March last year in Abu Dhabi, which is home to a growing gaming ecosystem.
“We took references from a few games and we managed to do something that is unique with a tower you need to defend which has different colours of bricks,” said Mr Polizzi, who is from France.
“And it is very simple to play. There are only four buttons at the bottom. But there is a lot of strategy that is happening every time you press these buttons.”
He plans to release his second game, based on a dog’s den, in the autumn.
MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW
Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman
Director: Jesse Armstrong
Rating: 3.5/5
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Lexus LX700h specs
Engine: 3.4-litre twin-turbo V6 plus supplementary electric motor
Power: 464hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 790Nm from 2,000-3,600rpm
Transmission: 10-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 11.7L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh590,000
Moon Music
Artist: Coldplay
Label: Parlophone/Atlantic
Number of tracks: 10
Rating: 3/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Concrete and Gold
Foo Fighters
RCA records
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
The specs
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Transmission: 9-speed auto
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AI traffic lights to ease congestion at seven points to Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Street
The seven points are:
Shakhbout bin Sultan Street
Dhafeer Street
Hadbat Al Ghubainah Street (outbound)
Salama bint Butti Street
Al Dhafra Street
Rabdan Street
Umm Yifina Street exit (inbound)
WHAT IS GRAPHENE?
It was discovered in 2004, when Russian-born Manchester scientists Andrei Geim and Kostya Novoselov were experimenting with sticky tape and graphite, the material used as lead in pencils.
Placing the tape on the graphite and peeling it, they managed to rip off thin flakes of carbon. In the beginning they got flakes consisting of many layers of graphene. But when they repeated the process many times, the flakes got thinner.
By separating the graphite fragments repeatedly, they managed to create flakes that were just one atom thick. Their experiment led to graphene being isolated for the very first time.
In 2010, Geim and Novoselov were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics.
