Micro-transactions in the video game industry have become quite cumbersome in a number of ways. In the late 2000s the mobile gaming market arose due to the dawn of smart phone technology. New mobile devices allowed for seamless distribution of software applications, through highly accessible methods such as the Apple App store. No consumer is willing to pay full retail price for a mobile game simply because it's ran on a far inferior device not even dedicated to gaming, so in turn the rise of "freemium" mobile applications, a free game with a voluntary payment system, and mobile games arose. These apps were monetized by baring a copious amount of micro payments. Video game developers incorporated said payments because through the design of their apps which were easy, accessible, understandable, and above all very cheap. Consumers seemingly buy into the business practice because it's much easier to buy progression in a mobile game than to actually spend time playing it. The issue with this practice is that large scale game development corporations have implemented this business model into their triple A games, games in which people spent full retail price or more (counting the price of various DLC). These corporations have enormous funds for their products yet feel the need to continue to nickle and dime their own consumers.
Video games such as Mortal Kombat, Call of Duty, Halo, Payday 2, and many more triple A titles have begun to incorporate these microtransactions, At this years Morgan Stanley conference, Electronic Arts's CFO Blake Jorgenson stated that EA is planning on incorporating microtransactions in their future titles stating..
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“The next and much bigger piece is microtransactions within games … we’re building into all of our games the ability to pay for things along the way, either to get to a higher level to buy a new character, to buy a truck, a gun, whatever it might be, and consumers are enjoying and embracing that way of the business.” |
* image retrieved from http://www.polygon.com/2015/9/1/9237005/metal-gear-solid-5-phantom-pain-mother-base-coins-microtransactions
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The best method of combating these triple A microtransactions are for consumers to stop buying into them and make their voices heard. Many developers such as Overkill, the Developers of the title Payday 2, removed such microtransactions from their games user interface because players of their game were outraged of the use of the micro payments and made themselves heard over various social media outlets. If the consumers of these products appropriately portray their views against this business model, over time developers will comply. If microtransactions can be held to a minimum in this industry, it would become far less anti-consumer.
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