Abstract
AbstractTechnological shifts within the video game industry have enabled many games to evolve into platforms for repeated expenditure, rather than a one-time purchase product. Monetising a game as a service is challenging, and there is concern that some monetisation strategies may constitute unfair or exploitative practices which are not adequately covered by existing law. We asked 1104 players of video games to describe a time when they had been exposed to transactions which were perceived to be misleading, aggressive or unfair. We found 35 separate techniques over eight domains: game dynamics designed to drive spending, product not meeting expectations, monetisation of basic quality of life, predatory advertising, in-game currency, pay to win, general presence of microtransactions and other. Notably, several of these reported practices seem to not align with existing UK consumer protection regulations. We discuss this potential misalignment, as well as the implications of identifying what players believe to be problematic monetisation techniques.
Highlights
Why Microtransactions Need StudyingAs underpinning technology has emerged to facilitate continuous payment, monetisation approaches have evolved that treat games as potential sources for consistent expenditure, rather than a product in and of themselves
35 monetisation issues were reported by players as being either misleading, unfair, or aggressive. We have grouped these issues into eight overall domains (Fig. 1): 1. Game dynamics designed to drive spending
We worked with a large sample of players of digital games to generate a categorisation of monetisation techniques in games which are perceived as being unfair, aggressive, or misleading, and potentially not in accordance with consumer protection laws
Summary
Why Microtransactions Need StudyingAs underpinning technology has emerged to facilitate continuous payment, monetisation approaches have evolved that treat games as potential sources for consistent expenditure, rather than a product in and of themselves. One of the most popular ways of monetising games is the so-called ‘freemium’ model, in which core game content is available for free, and revenue generation takes place entirely through the sale of additional features or advantages during play. Such sales typically take the form of microtransactions—unrestricted in-game payments which players can make at any point (Schwiddessen & Karius, 2018). Microtransactions are generally divided into decorative, which affect purely in-game appearance, or functional, which affect gameplay (Oh & Ryu, 2007) This diversification of monetisation beyond the sale of games as products has proven lucrative for the video game industry. In one quartile of 2019 alone, the company Electronic Arts alone are reported to have made over $1 billion from microtransactions (Narayan, 2020)
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