Controversy Clocking Episode 4: The Microtransaction Infestation

2015 in gaming has been a pretty solid year; so far we’ve seen the likes of The Witcher 3 and Metal Gear Solid 5 dominate the sales and critics, showing everyone how franchises can progress forward. Now that we’re heading into the holiday season, there are plenty of big names arriving in time for Christmas; Halo 5, Black Ops 3, Star Wars Battlefront, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, Fallout 4, Just Cause 3, Starcraft II: Legacy of the Void and Rise of the Tomb Raider and the list goes on. While excitement levels remain high, there is one thing that some of these games have in common, something which is putting a bit of a dampener on things. You guessed it; microtransactions.

The little payments are quite literally everywhere nowadays; almost every AAA release has to have them and they just keep getting worse every year. Metal Gear Solid 5's so called "base insurance", Halo 5's requisition packs, Rise of the Tomb Raider’s cheat cards, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate; they all have microtransactions. It doesn’t matter what kind of defence the developer throws our way, they are a massive detriment to the industry and always will be. So why do they still exist? Well because people keep paying for them.

While most uses of microtransactions are inherently bad, there are a few cases where they are used well; the first two titles that pop into my head are Team Fortress 2 and Guild Wars 2, games which give more than take away. TF2 gives constant item drops as you play as well as a crafting system where you can make rare items yourself. As for Guild Wars 2, not only is the game free of subscription fees, but the microtransactions are restricted to cosmetic items only. Neither of these games becomes unbalanced either; there’s no unfair advantage given to the player who puts down real money. Meanwhile Square Enix has announced that Rise of the Tomb Raider’s “cheat cards” will offer things like bullet resistance and big head mode to players.

The common gamer doesn’t think much of microtransactions; I would argue that the usual thought that goes through consumers is “Oh it’s only a little bit of money. I’ll just buy a pack or two to save myself some time”. What people don’t realise is that every time someone puts down some money for these little things, even in small amounts, it gives them an excuse to keep putting them in games and making them stingier in the process.

Microtransactions have taken the place of cheat codes; it used to be as simple as putting in a cheat code; now you put in your credit card instead. In other cases they bait you into paying out real money to avoid the grind. I once paid out a tenner for battle packs in Mass Effect 3 multiplayer through the PlayStation Store, but when I tried to open one of the packs, an error occurred and the pack wouldn’t open, meaning I’d just wasted about a fiver. Was I able to get a refund? Of course not. Just like pre-orders, once you part with your money it can’t be returned; that was the moment where I decided no, I wouldn’t hand over any more money in this way. I would pay for the game (and possibly some downloadable content if it was good value for money) and that would be the end of it, nothing extra.

The most recent and most egregious case of microtransactions in gaming has come from PayDay 2. Released in 2012, developer Overkill went on record to say that there would not be microtransactions in the game. Yet just a few days ago, they went right ahead and put them in anyway with the recent Crimefest update. The community has been pretty angry for the past week, claiming that the developer has abandoned their once respectable focus on their customers. Payday 2 and Destiny are two fairly large games which added micro transactions after a period of time; what’s to stop other companies from doing the same thing? Activision came out to say that they could “make hundreds of millions” in Destiny off of emotes and other silly little things; and what about Star Wars Battlefront? DICE has said that the game won’t have any battle packs at launch, but as we all know by now, they’ve been at the mercy of their publisher for several years and may be forced to add the battle packs later.

The aftermath

Ultimately micro transactions are a problem which will be surprisingly resilient in the years to come; no matter how much condemnation they receive, it won’t completely stop everyone from buying them. If this really is the only way for game companies to turn up a profit, then this isn’t the way to go about it. These days a game needs more than just the best graphics, design and gameplay, it needs to have the strongest ethics and business practices. If all companies treated their customers right and eliminated these mini-payments, amongst the other things I have talked about, they would earn the desired sales figures, not force them out of people by nickling and diming them wherever possible. I suppose the only thing anyone can do is just refuse to buy them. Maybe if enough people do this, then the micro transactions will eventually go away.