Microtransactions in the Gaming Industry

Last week before the release of Star Wars Battlefront II an announcement was made by their parent company Electronic Arts. They had decided to remove microtransactions from the game after a call from the owner of the Star Wars franchise Disney. This was done because of the negative feedback it received by reviewers about how the players could spend their money to buy crystals and enables them to purchase loot boxes to gain competitive advantage over other players in the game.

Furthermore consumers were very disappointed to the extent that Electronic Arts stock price dropped around 2.5% when Star Wars Battlefront II launched. This proves that micro transactions aren’t wanted by the consumers, especially when they can break the game.

Microtransactions are being adapted as business model by different firms in the gaming industry because they generate more revenue. These microtransactions consists of virtual goods or in game items being sold with real money which can end up giving competitive advantage to the buyers and put off non buyers. As a result it is slowly destroying the gaming industry like what happened in Star Wars Battlefront II.

However the debate of microtransactions is a controversial one since they aren’t always unfavorable to the consumer. This is because certain games like Valve’s most famous first person shooter ‘Counter Strike Go’ have mastered the use of microtransactions where it differentiate players from one to another and gives prestige to the player buying their in game goods.

What Valve did is that they adapted a system of different designs known as ‘skins’ to certain weapons that the player uses. These ‘skins’ are earned by a crate drop mechanic that are given after each game but requires a ‘key’ in order to be opened virtually. The key needs to be bought form their market with real money and when the virtual key is purchased the crate can be opened where a roulette of skins will pop up and a skin will be chosen at random. 

Since some skins are infrequent than others more value is added according to the rarity of the skin. The rarity of the skin is shown via a color outside the border of the chosen skin. For example if the outsider border is blue it means that the skin is uncommon, but if the outsider border of the skin is gold it means that it is extremely rare .What happened is that gamers created an economy based on skins in which they are sold at Valve’s marketplace in return for real money at a fee based on the asking price. 

After this analysis I think that in the future microtransactions will be reduced or controlled in a way that doesn’t create a competitive advantage in the game anymore. But if this type of business practise fight its way through criticism and is still continued to be implemented, an action must be taken in order to show bitterness against this model. Some examples might include not buying their video games or publicly criticise their game on any social platform. As a result gaming industry will listen to the consumer especially when they start to lose profit and cater for the gamers needs.