Microtransactions: the Future of Games? (LootBoxes and Gambling)

[Scott_Arm]

So long as their implementation is fair, but they have moved from fair money to player exploitation.

Keep skins in, only charge 50 cents a skin, don't use FOMO, the companies will still make plenty of money if not the billions they want, gamers won't be outraged, and it'll be balanced. So long as the business is operated by the producers wanting as much as possible form the consumers, and the consumers wanting everything for free from the producers, then you'll have conflict, which explains why there is hate for skins and cosmetics. There wouldn't be hate for these if they were operated differently, but that's not the world operates.

People will only buy skins for your game if its good. If they're willing to pay $15 for a skin/cosmetic pack, then that's what it's worth. When I look at the industry, all I see is game studios and publishers laying people off and closing. Having a popular game with a constant stream of revenue from cosmetics is not a bad thing for game developers that want to stay employed. Giants like Ubisoft are in financial trouble. There are probably more good free to play games than ever. Any time I play something that's free to play and end up putting some significant time into it, I'll buy something to support the game. It feels like a very fair deal.

The only thing that seems exploitative to me is actual gambling. Weirdly Valve as a company is loved. There's a huge market for rare skins which is driven entirely by buying keys to unlock crates that give you some small RNG change to get one. But if someone wants to buy a Sabrina Carpenter skin for Fortnite, or a TMNT skin for COD, that's really bad for gaming for some reason.

Value of Counter-Strike 2 Skins Hit New $4.3 Billion Height

Now that's profit.

80.lv

 

[Nisaaru]

Paying 80 bucks for a game and then 15 for a skin looks completely insane to me...

 

[Malo]

The problem is a significant amount of profits from microtransactions don't go back to the developer, they go to executives and investors.

 

[pcchen]

The problem is a significant amount of profits from microtransactions don't go back to the developer, they go to executives and investors.

This is not a problem specific to microtransactions. If the executives of a game company are greedy, even if the games don't have microtransactions, profits still don't go back to developers.

I think the proliferation of microtransactions proved one thing: there are enough people willing to pay for those things, and they pay more than even the base game. This makes it possible to have a free-to-play game hugely profitable. "Real gamers" might not like this, but you can't really argue with profits. I used to think this might just be a fad and will soon be out of fashion, but that didn't happen ten years later. It probably won't happen anytime soon.

There is very little we can do, other than only buying games without microtransactions, or don't buy those skins in games with microtransaction. However, from what I've seen I have to say this is already a losing battle.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

People will only buy skins for your game if its good.

Not entirely true. Some games have skins that are decidedly meh but people still pay. And games have stretched the price of cosmetics to the likes of $160 items. Yes, in the free market economy these items have this value because people are willing to spend that. However, people can be duped into accepting things that aren't good for them, and plenty of us will argue that that's precisely what's happened with cosmetic items. $5 horse armour was rejected, but over time people were encouraged to the point that some will drop thousands on cosmetics, in enough cases without the funds to genuinely be able to afford that for it to be a problem. These people aren't convinced to drop thousands they can't afford on toilet rolls or craft beers or socks, so it seems an issue in particular about the psychology of gaming.

When I look at the industry, all I see is game studios and publishers laying people off and closing.

Meanwhile you have a few games being absolutely behemoths, sucking up the consumers dollars in battle passes and cosmetics and resulting in insane profits for a few lucky successes and less shared for the typical game. Now imagine that cosmetics aren't massively available and games have to sell. Fortnite et al will have to content themselves with just a few hundreds of millions of profits freeing up billions for gamers to spend on other games. Is that such a bad vision for the industry and hobby?

 

[Scott_Arm]

Not entirely true. Some games have skins that are decidedly meh but people still pay. And games have stretched the price of cosmetics to the likes of $160 items. Yes, in the free market economy these items have this value because people are willing to spend that. However, people can be duped into accepting things that aren't good for them, and plenty of us will argue that that's precisely what's happened with cosmetic items. $5 horse armour was rejected, but over time people were encouraged to the point that some will drop thousands on cosmetics, in enough cases without the funds to genuinely be able to afford that for it to be a problem. These people aren't convinced to drop thousands they can't afford on toilet rolls or craft beers or socks, so it seems an issue in particular about the psychology of gaming.


Meanwhile you have a few games being absolutely behemoths, sucking up the consumers dollars in battle passes and cosmetics and resulting in insane profits for a few lucky successes and less shared for the typical game. Now imagine that cosmetics aren't massively available and games have to sell. Fortnite et al will have to content themselves with just a few hundreds of millions of profits freeing up billions for gamers to spend on other games. Is that such a bad vision for the industry and hobby?

I just don't believe that people aren't buying other games because they spent all of their money on fortnite skins. When good games come along people buy them.

 

[hughJ]

I don't think the factor is monopolizing money spent, but rather attention and time. And this isn't a new phenomenon. There's a very long list of titles between 1996-2003 that I didn't play because I was busy putting thousands of hours into Quake and HalfLife. Not only did I not buy other games, I didn't even care enough to pirate other games. During that period I probably spent more total hours than I ever have in video games, while simultaneously playing the fewest games, and spending the least amount of money that I ever have.

If Fortnite and Roblox's content were all free in the same way that Quake and HalfLife's ecosystems were I don't think the user habits would be any different. Diehard Fortnite players would still be diehard Fortnite players even if it cost them nothing; the money not spent there wouldn't get redirected elsewhere. The act of not spending money on a Fortnite skin wouldn't trigger a 'buy Assassin's Creed Shadows' part of their brain and make them want to play that rather than Fortnite.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I just don't believe that people aren't buying other games because they spent all of their money on fortnite skins. When good games come along people buy them.

The statistic in that report @iroboto posted certainly indicate as much. A large part of the growth of the industry has come from F2P games monetisation. That's time and money not spent elsewhere.

And as you point out yourself, there are devs struggling to make money despite more monetisation options. If people buy good games, why do they need ongoing monetisation? If people buy good games, why are developers struggling? I don't think those points reconcile. I think buying habits have shifted, ongoing monetisation is important, and this in turn heavily favours forever games which use that monetisation/gameplay loop to monopolise engagement. And game developers seeing that are wanting to include ongoing monetisation and so are designing their games from the very beginning with that in mind.

If Fortnite and Roblox's content were all free in the same way that Quake and HalfLife's ecosystems were I don't think the user habits would be any different. Diehard Fortnite players would still be diehard Fortnite players even if it cost them nothing; the money not spent there wouldn't get redirected elsewhere. The act of not spending money on a Fortnite skin wouldn't trigger a 'buy Assassin's Creed Shadows' part of their brain and make them want to play that rather than Fortnite.

I agree. However, without all the skins and content variations, players would tire of these games and put them down. If they weren't monetised, the developers wouldn't make them, so they'd make a game, release it, give it a couple of updates, then move on to a new game. Because they can add skins and make good money from them, they do, which helps reinvigorate engagement, creating games that consume disproportionately more money and time than other games.

 

[Scott_Arm]

The games industry boomed during covid and afterwards started shrinking as people turned their attention back to real life. Then you have inflation and cost of living increases. There’s mismanagement in game studios and publishers, and rising game budgets. There’s also a demographic problem as gamers are getting older in general, but then they get too old and stop playing.

Forever games are usually just the best games. People play really good games a lot. That’s how it’s always worked. Tons of people had NES and only ever owned a few games. Mario 3 was almost always one of them.

Gamers will buy and play games. Schedule1 is exploding on pc, because it’s new and interesting. Hate to say it but a lot of games just can’t compete against games like Fortnite because they aren’t as good, I feel like the forever games argument is that The Beatles were bad for music because they monopolized too much attention and money.

 

[Nisaaru]

Gamers will buy and play games. Schedule1 is exploding on pc, because it’s new and interesting. Hate to say it but a lot of games just can’t compete against games like Fortnite because they aren’t as good, I feel like the forever games argument is that The Beatles were bad for music because they monopolized too much attention and money.

I always considered the Beatles utterly boring. That being said

Forever Games are a serious problem because they take most of your gaming time and gaming investments away.

I've been experiencing this myself after getting into Destiny that any other game wasn't a priority.I had to *force* myself to play through Halo5. It took me about a year to really get into FC4 and I considered FC3 the best game experience of the 360 generation. My interest to buy new games almost vanished and AAA games I got took me years to start if I even managed that and sometimes even more than a year to start and finish.
The last non Destiny game I bought was FC6 and AC Valhalla. Both titles I played less than 15h.

Instead I got back into Division 2 feb last year I squeeze in besides Destiny. I finished Indiana Jones on game pass and overall enjoyed it.

So my gaming expenses slowed down a lot.

P.S. I still have Red Dead Redemption 2 on my backlog, unplayed. A real shame...

 

[Johnny Awesome]

People need to be more detailed in their categorization of this issue.

I think the forever games being a problem is a matter of perspective. It's certainly not a problem for Epic or Activision. It's not a problem for MS either, since they have the ultimate forever game called GamePass.

Who is it a problem for really?

AAA publishers without a forever game would be my answer.

 

[arandomguy]

There's too much focus on the idea of the mega forever games cutting off the market from the top.

What doesn't seem to be discussed is actually how much more choices there are now in the gaming space and that the competition has increased throughout the

Mega popular forever games have existed for quite some time now at least since the late 90s with the likes of Quake, UT, Starcraft, Half-life etc. (Steam's top 2 juggernauts are franchises with 20 year lifespans at this point). What didn't exist back then is the plethora of accessible non major titles from non major developers, including solo indie 1 person games, like Stardew Valley, being able to outsell and outdraw releases from major studios/publishers.

The above is also my problem with sentiments around "poor" developers and "greedy executives, investors, publishers, etc." It's easier than ever to promote and distribute games. If developers, and individuals, want don't think industry practices are "right" or want to make more profit themselves they can take on the entirety of the risk themselves and not rely on investors, publishers, and everyone above. I mean Star Citizen also exists as an interesting case study for those that think everything is the fault of the so called "suits."

 

[Nisaaru]

The problem is a significant amount of profits from microtransactions don't go back to the developer, they go to executives and investors.

On top of that micro transactions seem to replace content releases for some companies. So instead a new DLC you pay for quality they just release new microtransactions and really weak season passes maintained by a skeleton crew killing the game over long term while stringing people around.

 

[Scott_Arm]

On top of that micro transactions seem to replace content releases for some companies. So instead a new DLC you pay for quality they just release new microtransactions and really weak season passes maintained by a skeleton crew killing the game over long term while stringing people around.

I think logically if companies didn't sell microtransactions you'd get even less content updates. Companies will not invest in content for games that are not generating revenue. That's usually how business works, but it's still just a general statement. Other games, there's really no way to know what would happen if they stopped selling passes or skins. Usually this stuff is sold in multiplayer games. In the past companies would sell multiplayer DLC with new maps etc, but that would split up the userbase so only players with the DLC could play together etc. It didn't work very well. So now they sell skins and season passes to some percentage of the player base and everyone gets the content updates, so the player base is never fractured, which keeps more people playing, which sells more micro ... repeat the cycle.