We all know about these. Whether it is to get that extra life on candy crush or to but the 100k Rare Gold Players pack on FIFA. Microtransactions have been an integral part of the gaming industry in recent years. It’s natural for gaming publishers to continue to explore new avenues of revenue. Activision recently announced that in 2016 alone they made $3.6Billion from in game purchases.
However, I think that the approach by these studios is somewhat unethical and that they are ruining the gaming experience. In many of these games there are two in-game currencies. One that you earn through playing (which encourages playing the game more) and one that you can pay for (which encourages people to spend more). Where this two currency system goes wrong is firstly, the earn-rate of the free currency you get through playing and secondly the chances of being able to get items “worth your time” through their respective “loot” system. Through this (what I assume is a well thought-through system), it simply takes too long for the average gamer to get something “cool”. Consequently, many gamers resort to buying in-game currency to get their desired items. Now you might think, no one is forcing them to spend their money but when you actually think about it, it’s easy to understand why they do so.
Most of the games with microtransactions are online multiplayer games of a competitive nature. And unfortunately players who happen to have a lot of money lying around to spend on games end up with a competitive advantage that becomes very noticeable in the game. Microtransactions have introduced a pay-to-win/pay-to-get-ahead nature which has taken away “the grind” from a lot of games. Imagine how it feels to come up against someone who may have an overpowered gun in a first person shooter game just because he spent more money, or the story of a game taking you twice as long as someone else just because you didn’t want to pay that extra £7.99 for some sort of booster. Unfortunately this is the reality of gaming now. It works and makes them money, so they won’t stop.
It has even got to the point where companies such as Electronic Arts, have been criticised for releasing Star Wars: Battlefront and then taking away parts of the game just so players could pay to buy this content in the form of DLC (downloadable content) at a later stage. So now you don’t just pay the ridiculous price of around £50–60 (£70 in the case of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare Legacy Edition) but if you want the actual full game you have to pay anything up to £40 (once again, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare) for the DLC. It’s ridiculous how much these games cost. I understand that a lot more money is put into these games but I think these studios have forgotten that not every gamer can afford to pay £110 for their favourite game. Especially not the younger ones.
Lastly, to put the nail in the coffin, some of these loot systems have introduced gambling behaviours in young kids. Think about it; they are kind of like scratch cards. You spend some money, don’t know what you are going to get, with the hope of getting something good. Well it seems a lot of people think the same and rumours have now been going around that some games such as FIFA 17 will possibly have to release the odds of getting specific items/players in order to make it a fair gambling environment. Just look at the pictures in this post. Look at how much money these people are letting you to spend , on top of what you already paid for the game and nothing is stopping you from doing that multiple times.
In this video alone you can see OpTic Pamaj spending 100,000 COD Points ($800) just to get a specific item and at no point did the game stop him from doing so. It’s just wrong. When I used to work at a Betting Company we used to have to carry out responsible gambling interactions when a customer would spend a lot of money on a gaming machine. I think it is getting to a point now where someone is going to have to hold these companies responsible for the gambling behaviour of their players and introduce mechanisms to have these gambling interactions with them.
We have also seen court cases being filed against gaming companies and websites which facilitate these microtransactions and the selling of the items gained through them, as parents have been faced with credit card bills reaching thousands of dollars.
So to wrap it up, I hope people understand where I am coming from with this. Don’t get me wrong, the stuff you can buy — that extra life you might need or whatever — can be justified… in moderation. I just feel that it is that which is the exact problem. What initially started as something that would be done on occasion in moderation, now dominates some games to the point where players feel alienated and left behind if they don’t spend their money.
