Micro-transactions: What are they and why do publishers keep using them?

What happens when greed interrupts art

Micro-transactions are exactly what they sound like. They are small exchanges of real-world money. And in the case of video games, small exchanges of real-world money for a variety of in-game items. And while I believe the development of video games is an amazingly creative process done by people who mostly feel the same way I do, publishers often have more lucrative goals in mind. Of course, video games are a business. In order to keep creating games these companies have to make money. But some practices are just plain greedy, micro-transactions fitting squarely into this category. And I think a lot of players feel the same way – so why do publishers keep desperately trying to make micro-transactions happen? Especially when it only breeds resentment among their customer base?

Originally, micro-transactions were utilized in free-to-play mobile games. The concept being it was free to download and begin the game, but after a certain amount of progress the game would start to offer the ability to acquire in-game currency, power-ups, or progression at the meager expense of your real-life earnings. Now while I don’t approve of this model, it makes more sense in this context. The game has to make money somewhere, and what better time to ask for it than when a player has made it to level 20 and is hooked. But this model has quickly begun to root itself into games that already require paying a base price. And while publishers can’t halt your progress in single-player campaigns like in free to play; they introduce this concept through things like multi-player modes with constantly changing characters, weapons, and arenas. Now Obviously I'm not a game publisher, but it seems clear to me that the main motivation for doing this would be…well money (I know it’s a crazy idea).

Now Devil’s advocate, making video games isn’t cheap and the cost certainly isn't going down anytime soon (although with the progression of AI that might not necessarily be true but that’s a different topic for a different day). So, it could be theorized that publishers are trying to make up for the cost of development by offering up optional extras to their players instead of just increasing the base cost. There has been pushback from players on increasing the cost of games in the last several years, so it stands to reason that incentivizing purchases later seems like a good way to help ease that financial burden while keeping the players happy. But the problem with this lies in the word “optional”. The balance of this criteria is basically impossible to find, because why would people pay for something purely cosmetic with no boosts? Then those people would feel jilted. But if you allow people to buy their way to upgrades it disincentives those players who can't, or won't, open their wallets to play. If I have to grind for multiple hours to get the same effect that another player gets in one purchase, then what's the point?

The point of course is FOMO (or Fear Of Missing Out).  This practice is based on the inherently predatory nature of want. A lot of people might come up against a paywall and simply put the controller down, but there are so many others who struggle with addictive triggers that don’t see the process for what it is. It's so easy to fall into the trap of "It's only $1 that's not that much!" but of course that cost adds up over time, and in such a way that you don’t even realize how much you’ve spent until you’ve bought a Birkin bag’s worth of weapon skins. A fairly recent example of this was the controversy surrounding Star Wars Battlefront 2, which was released in 2017. Within the game’s multi-player online mode, there were loot boxes that were available for real-world money. The loot boxes included skins, characters, and weapons that significantly increased not only the advantage of players but the enjoyment of the game as those who purchased them got to experience more aspects of it. The controversy came when it was realized that the loot boxes were randomized, so players who chose to purchase them had no idea what they were actually getting until after they’d purchased it. This quickly drew ire from the gaming community as well as the United States Congress who called it out, and correctly so, as gambling. EA, Battlefront 2’s publisher, did change the system before launching the game but the damage was invariably done as the game did not meet sales expectations. And yet despite this lesson, many big publishers are still trying to utilize micro-transactions in their games. For example, the Resident Evil 4 remake came out this year with a system where for real-world money you can purchase weapons upgrades that would normally take hours to receive by playing the game. And of course, many other publishers seem to have not taken the hint in turn.

This brings us to this; big publishers don't care about the ramifications or consequences of preying on the passion of their players. They don’t care about some potential initial pushback when they can still make a stunning game that will most certainly still draw in hundreds of thousands of players and millions of dollars. They care about making money, or even the potential of making money, and that will always drive their decisions.  I still believe that making games is an art form. But for publishers’ capitalism is the true art form.