Make it Rain: Love of Money - Space Inch, LLC

This review of Make it Rain: Love of Money was completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 20 June 2014.

About the app

This section contains details about the app provided by an ACCM Reviewer.

ACCM review

This review of Make it Rain: Love of Money contains the following information:

• The level to which the game was reviewed
• App description
• Reviewers comments
• In App purchasing
• Online information
• Gambling
• Advertising and product placement
• Gender stereotypes and sexual references
• Coarse language
• Game playing behaviour which may be of concern to some parents
• Other

The level to which the game was reviewed

This review focuses on levels 1-28.

App description

Make It Rain is a satirical animated swipe-based game that encourages individuals to earn more cash, purchase things to raise their earning rate, and then continue to earn more. The objective of the game is to earn as much money as possible by engaging in shady business dealings. There are limited skills needed to play, and are mostly strategic skills in regards to making choices which paths players will take in order to earn more money. 

Reviewers comments

Upon installation, the game immediately goes to its central screen – a plain green backdrop with a pile of dollar bills, as well as a digital counter along the top of the screen. Players swipe upwards across the screen to send dollars to the counter and the player’s money bank. There are menu options along the bottom of the screen that offer different potential purchases or ways to invest money. These fall into three different categories: ‘Financial Investments: Earn Money Without Swiping’, ‘Business Investments: Get More Money Per Swipe’, and Political Investments: Earn Money With The App Closed’. There is also a menu called ‘Supercharge: Take It To The Next Level’ – however, this is a collection of other options such as connecting via Facebook (in order to double your financial rate), invite two friends (to double your earning rate) download other free apps, or purchase in-game currency. Players also have a small bucket in the bottom left-hand corner of the screen, which they may use after purchasing Political Investments – this enables players to earn money while not actively playing the app, as they can increase the earning rate and size of the bucket (for instance, the game was played up to the point of earning at $59 million/hour, with a bucket capacity of $518 million, for the purposes of this review).

When players purchase any items from within each of the three categories, the items level up and become more expensive to purchase. In this sense, it is possible to level up multiple purchases within each category. These are things such as a ‘Piggy Bank’, ‘Savings Account’, ‘Hedge Fund’, ‘Arctic Drilling’, ‘Buy A Local Politician’ and ‘Government Bailout’. As players level these items up, the price for purchasing them again increases also.

On occasion, a spinning wheel appears and players must spin the wheel in order to progress through the game. The wheel lists the following options: ‘Plea’, ‘Seizure’, ‘Guilty’, ‘Not Guilty’, ‘Mistrial’. However, the game only ever appears to land on ‘Seizure’. After this happens, players have a range of options. They may ‘Watch a Video (Free)’ which advertises another app, ‘Buy x5 Bribe Cards’ using in-app purchasing, or ‘Pay $35.2M AND LOSE $12.5K/second’ and go backwards financially.

The app is incredibly advertisement-heavy, with video ads and screen pop-ups appearing once every few minutes. These must be manually closed (some of the 30 second videos cannot be skipped at all), and take up the full device screen. They are for games such as RPGs, fantasy games, casino/gambling/slot games etc. The ads are quite cleverly placed, and pop-up whilst the player is swiping – this means that players will accidentally touch the screen and open the ads without meaning to, as they are already using their finger to swipe money. The app offers the option to get rid of any ads by spending money within the app. The in-app purchasing options involve purchasing green dollar bills which double your cash balance (for $1.05), double your earning rate ($1.05), give you $43.2k instantly (for $2.12), and get up to 25 Bribe Cards (for $2.12).

The app is apparently satirical in its encouragement of money and society’s obsession with wealth, and each time the app is opened, a quote appears that highlights the nature of this issue (e.g. ‘The love of money is the route of all evil’).  Players can become increasingly rich if they get involved with activities such as insider trading, bribing political officials.

In App purchasing

The in-app purchasing options involve purchasing green dollar bills which double your cash balance (for $1.05), double your earning rate ($1.05), give you $43.2k instantly (for $2.12), and get up to 25 Bribe Cards (for $2.12).

Online information

Players are encouraged to connect to Facebook (in order to double their financial rate), or invite two friends (to double their earning rate after the invited individuals install the app on their devices).

Gambling

No gambling content was found during the review.

Advertising and product placement

The app contains a very significant number of advertisements, with video ads and screen pop-ups appearing once every few minutes. These must be manually closed (some of the 30 second videos cannot be skipped at all), and take up the full device screen. They are for games such as RPGs, fantasy games, casino/gambling/slot games etc. The ads are quite cleverly placed, and pop-up whilst the player is swiping – this means that players will accidentally touch the screen and open the ads without meaning to, as they are already using their finger to swipe money. The app offers the option to get rid of any ads by spending money within the app.

Gender stereotypes and sexual references

Although there are no sexual references within the app itself, there are several within various advertisements contained within the app. Ads such as ‘The Best Dating App’ contain photographs of women wearing little or highly suggestive clothing. There are apparent quotes from these women, including things such as “Hey! I’d love to know you better!’ and ‘What if you and I meet offline?’

Coarse language

N/A.

Game playing behaviour which may be of concern to some parents

The game encourages players to earn more money purely for the sake of making purchases which assist in obtaining more money. 

Other

N/A.

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