Microtransactions are a becoming a big part of gaming. What started on mobile apps and mobile games is slowly but steadily coming to mainstream games. The use of microtransactions is a constant subject of discussion among gamers
Microtransactions is where you buy in-game goods, characters, in-game currency or features with real money. In the mobile phone market this business model is often used with so called "freemium games". The games are free but for certain features or in-game goods you will have to pay.
The Different Types
There are different types of microtransactions in gaming. The most well known are divided into 3 categories.
Freemium
So basically you can get the game for free but a lot of items are behind a paywall, meaning you will have to use your creditcard or paypal to unlock them. This business model is often used on mobile gaming apps but is also used for games on Consoles and PC.
Pay-2-Win
This is the most frowned upon form of using microtransactions. A game is called Pay-to-Win when the player who pays for certain goods of features gains an unfair advantage over other players.
Pay-or-Play-to-unlock
I made this title up myself because I don't know if this form of microtransactions really has a name.
Recently a lot of games have been successfully implementing this strategy. It is where goods, features or characters are locked when you get the game. To get to the good stuff you have to either pay or grind to a certain level or obtain enough in-game currency to unlock your virtual treasures.
Of these variations Pay-or-Play-to-Unlock (trademark pending) seems to be the fairest. The casual player can, if he likes the game, pay for the extras and the hardcore players will grind their way to unlocking the stuff they want.
Where is this coming from?
Game developers have been searching for ways to squeeze an extra buck out of gamers from the beginning of time. It probably started with releasing variations of a game that promised some sort of improvement.
Remember Capcom's Street fighter II? Well it eventually turned into Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix
With PC gaming (and later consoles) game developers saw a new opportunity. They could add extra content to expand the original game and the fun part was that they could actually charge you for it.
This might seem like a fair deal. It costs money to develop content so charging the gamer for it seems only fair. However, it becomes questionable when game developers are intentionally leaving parts out of the game only to sell it later as DLC (downloadable content).
Most recently developer Bungie has been accused of intentionally leaving parts out of the base game of Destiny only to sell it afterwards as DLC. Gamers found out that the content of the DLC was already on the disc but hidden from the players.
With the success of microtransactions on the mobile phones it is no surprise that major game developers are introducing microtransactions in their games.
Candy Crush Saga has a daily revenue estimate of $1,528,872. Let me repeat that! That's 1.5 million a day!! source
The Initial Reactions
Of course gamers welcomed the microtransactions with open arms.........
................Just kidding.
The game is afoot!
Well if you piss off your target audience with microtransactions, surely it will soon be a thing of the past! Surely people won't stand for it.
Well actually you would be wrong. because in reality......
Let's get some numbers:
Ubisoft's last year sales earnings totaled $1.61 billion of which almost 50% was earned via microtransactions and in-game spending.
Activision’s revenues from in-game content (which includes microtransactions) were approximately $3.6 billion in 2016.
Rockstar made a cool $500 million in microtransactions with GTA online in 2016.
You see where this is going?
The Stone Cold Truth
Game developers are earning a lot of money with microtransactions and the revenues keep growing each year. So don't expect that this trend to end anytime soon. Some game developers are still refusing to use microtransactions in their games but with the big boys raking it in, soon they will have to follow suit or go out of business.
Microtransactions only become a problem when Pay-2-win rears its ugly head. Paying to gain an advantage over other players is just plain wrong and has no place in gaming.
For me Pay-or-Play-to-unlock is the most acceptable form of microtransactions because it caters to the casual gamer as well as the hardcore gamer.
But that is just my opinion on the matter of microtransactions. Let me know how you feel in the comment section
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sources/links
Revenues free to play microtransactions
Ubisoft microtransaction earnings 2016
Activison microtransaction earnings 2016
Rockstar GTA online microtransaction earnings 2016
