Predatory microtransactions

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 Oblivion 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, or new content being introduced is centered around more products on the storefront that can be purchased.

This bias also has a tendency to influence features that used to be industry standard as free with the product, such as progression-locked content to be instead sold either in piecemeal or bundles on the storefront. 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.

• 
  The Fortnite storefront, which after the Battle Pass, is the only other way to obtain content.
• 
  A screenshot of Halo Infinite's storefront roughly from when the game launched.

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. 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. 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.

Manipulative behavior surrounding this can further be shown via services that do offer free content to be explicitly worse than anything that can be obtained financially.

• 
  A Candy Crush shop screen trying to trick the consumer into buying the "better value" product
• 
  Fortnite including "bonus" V-bucks with transactions

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.

Behaviors from operators on some Minecraft servers in particular have shown attempts to exceed the baseline pay to win model, such as placing high-value ranks behind a large subscription. Documented from Minecadia's network, a user has to pay ~$300 for the 2nd highest rank, and then an additional ~$50 per month for the highest rank, or pay ~$850 for the 2nd and top ranks. Reportedly, the rank is required in order to have any advantage over other players in the Factions mode.

• 
  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
• 
  A $100 microtransaction for Marvel Contest of Champions to get an advantage over other players

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.

• 
  The primary way to purchase content in Overwatch is via lootboxes, which have an unknown pool of rewards when the user purchases it
• 
  An example of these loot box rewards from Overwatch, many of which are exclusive to these loot boxes.
• 
  Counter Strike depending on gambling for monetization
• 
  The only way the user can obtain content in Halo 5: Guardians is via 'REQ Packs'

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: The only way to obtain content in-game is to invest in its 'VBucks' economy, either to purchase the limited-time 'Battle Pass', or whatever content is available in the storefront for a limited time.
• Fallout 76: Most content released is broken into piecemeal microtransactions with both in-game and real world currency.

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: Game's economy is extremely centered around cosmetics; can only be obtained via community market or lootboxes.
• 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.
• Halo 5 Guardians: The only way to obtain content in Halo 5 is via 'REQ Packs', which are only obtainable via intense grinding, or buying these packs with cash.
• Krunker: Cosmetics primarily obtained via "spins"

Pay to Win:

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