Predatory microtransactions

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Microtransactions (MTX) act as a format of additional monetization within games. This can range from purchasing in-game currency, to cosmetics, boosts, and more. On a small scale, MTX has minimal harm towards the experience of consumers, however as trends have shown, companies have grown to be over-reliant on MTX to fund their games, often converging with advertising overload to encourage consumers to be constantly purchasing these new pieces of content. It is often cited by consumers that the first potent form of MTX in AAA gaming originates with the Skyrim golden horse armor.

Why it is a problem

Point 1: Bias

In many games, the progressive development is encouraged by executives and leadership to focus on content that introduces the most financial return. Unfortunately, this means that when updates are handled for games, and especially live service games, content developed for the game focuses around keeping the storefront functional over more vital systems that need to be repaired,^{[citation needed]} or new content being introduced is centered around more products on the storefront that can be purchased.^{[citation needed]}

This bias also has a tendency to influence features that used to be industry standard as progression-locked to be instead sold either in piecemeal or bundles on the storefront.^{[citation needed]} For example, compared to previous installments in the franchise, Halo Infinite was the first title in the franchise to solely lock cosmetics behind paywalls, and furthermore lock the ability to recolor armor behind paywalls and battle pass progression.^{[citation needed]}

Point 2: Manipulation

In cases where live service games provide free content, it often manipulates the consumer into paying into the system in some way to receive a better return on investment when playing.^{[citation needed]} Features such as experience boosts often will hamper the default progression in order to encourage the purchase of these boosts. Battle passes often offer only poor-quality/unwanted content within the free tier, to encourage users to be constantly paying into the system.^{[citation needed]} Often, these battle passes will also encourage FOMO, as content featured within these passes will often only be offered inside that limited time event, further encouraging the purchase of experience boosts if consumers wish to not miss out on content within the final days of the pass.^{[citation needed]}

Point 3: Pay to win

In some scenarios, games will further encourage users to get an advantage over players, often leaving META-influencing content to be paywalled as a method to force consumers to either invest more into the product, or risk lacking an important edge within matches. P2W also has ties in manipulating resource progression in games, so players may be at a competitive disadvantage in a game because a newer user purchased their way through progression, or alternatively, punishing players into grinding far more excessively as a method to encourage paying to skip progression.

This has especially been documented within casual mobile games, where players are often left to wait excessively on tasks to finish, or pay to have the task be completed immediately. Frequently, these games have also exhibited methods that give players a "free sample" of what it feels like to skip this wait time.

• 
  An example of a game (Dungeon Keeper) enticing a consumer into spending premium currency to skip waiting on a menial task.
• 
  Content in Plants Vs. Zombies 2 that makes the game easier, but with a direct paywall

Point 4: Gambling

A method some companies have aimed at introducing, was having content be locked behind randomness, so a consumer may get lucky and receive the cosmetic they want or worse, progression/META item that they are in need of, but often would end up with bad luck. Often these are defined as lootboxes, however it is effectively a format of gambling, one of which has been seen as detrimental as reports of underrage gambling addiction continue to skyrocket within these games.

The frequency of these lootboxes has been seen to be relatively higher on games marketed towards minors, such as Minecraft (more specifically community-run servers) or Roblox, only further representing the ethical issues behind lootboxes.

Examples

Some examples of microtransactions include:

Bias:

• Halo Infinite: Introduced paywalling Spartan customization to the franchise, including armor palettes, which especially introduced outrage from the franchise's fandom.
• Call of Duty
• Fortnite
• Fallout 76

Gambling:

• Star Wars Battlefront 2: Notoriously known for its Darth Vader lootbox scandal, where the title's META was focused around the Sith character, which could only be obtained via lootboxes.
• Counter Strike/CS2
• Team Fortress 2: Excessively large economy centered around the lootboxes, often players are given crates, where they must go out of their way to purchase keys for. The title has also required participating in purchasing its MTX for the purposes of participating in communication features.
• Krunker

Pay to Win:

• All Points Bulletin (APB) Reloaded
• Dungeon Keeper
• League of Legends