Gamasutra Expert Blogs: From Too Many Choices To In-App Extortion II

[In highlights from Gamasutra's Expert Blogs, industry notables write about diverse topics, including a follow-up to Adam Saltsman's screed agains exploitative freemium games, choices in games, and more.] In our weekly Best of Expert Blogs column, we showcase notable pieces of writing from members of the game development community who maintain Expert Blogs on Gamasutra. Member Blogs -- also highlighted weekly -- can be maintained by any registered Gamasutra user, while the invitation-only Expert Blogs are written by development professionals with a wealth of experience to share. We hope that both sections can provide useful and interesting viewpoints on our industry. For more information about the blogs, check out the latest official posting guidelines. Here are the top blogs for the week: This Week's Standout Expert Blogs How Many Choices is 'Too Many'? (Lewis Pulsipher) "Hardcore" video games involve many choices, while casual games have fewer, and "social network" games have very few significant, plausible choices. But Lewis Pulsipher argues that even the simplest game involves more choices than a novel or film. The Problems With Strategy Guide Game Design (Josh Bycer) Secrets have always been a mainstay of games, but there is such a thing as being too hidden which leads to the requirement of a strategy guide. Here Josh Bycer discusses the right and wrong reasons to use a guide. Contrivance and Extortion II: Clarifications, Feedback & Suggestions (Adam Saltsman) Predatory game design seems to be a real problem, and most of the "defenses" for it are poor (so far). Adam Saltsman attempts to lay out some guidelines for ethical game design that integrate the good things that freemium models have to offer. Games on Facebook. What's Changed? (Dustin Clingman) After expressing a good deal of frustration about Facebook's ongoing policy changes a couple years ago, Dustin Clingman revisits the subject with some updated thoughts.