Consumer Attitudes Towards In-game Purchases Explained

Craziest for me isn’t the freemium titles, its the titles like Cod and Madden that are full retail games with massive freemium elements. Realistically this devalues these games and I’ll pay MSRP for them at most once per console generation.

Essentially a lot of games market gambling to children these days and it's considered perfectly fine.

Let's compare FIFA games to blackjack, for example.

In FIFA, you pay real money to gamble on the chance of a positive outcome. What you get in return for that money is only usable within the life cycle of that iteration of the game, so after a year or so it'll be worthless. There's no real world application for what you get back so if you spend £100 on FIFA, you are guaranteed to lose £100 every single time, even if you hit the best possible outcome.

It's also marketed at children and young adults, using twitch streamers, YouTubers etc to make videos showing the positive results (and a fair bit of the time these people aren't using their own money, it's paid advertising). The games are sold to everyone but primarily target that demographic and are marketed as such, and largely unregulated.

Compare this to blackjack. House edge is about 2% assuming that you play perfectly (going to assume use of a shuffling machine so card counting is out).

What that means is that if you put £100 down you will on average lose £2 every round, but it's possible over a small sample size to win. When you win, you win money. I.e. it has a real world value outside of the casino or online site that you played at.

It's regulated by the gambling commission, marketed at adults only and there's plenty of awareness about what blackjack is (negative expected value gambling).

I'm not saying blackjack is "good" but it's just not on the same level when it comes to predatory gambling practices, and games like FIFA do a wonderful job of acting like gateway drugs to things like blackjack and roulette. Why more countries haven't gone the way of Belgium and banned them is beyond me.

Gamers have enormous power in their hands in the form of money they pay for micro transactions. If the quality of the game is bad they can literally force the company to get it better by not purchasing cosmetics or other stuff.

Take for example Apex Legends. The game is plagued with audio issues and cheaters. Literally everyone, be it causal/serious gamers or pro-players, complaints about it on twitch/subreddit and yet nothing gets fixed. But imagine if for just the genesis collection event(launching this June 29), everyone swore to not purchase anything unless the issues were fixed. The impact of that kind of money loss would absolutely force EA to fix these issues. It would force them to care about their community of gamers and actually listen to them.

It just pains me so much that majority of people don't realize that the power to fix the game is in their hands. Please spread the word. Let's start this revolution with this event in Apex Legends, and it can continue to other games later. It won't take anything other than not spending your money on useless cosmetics. For. Just. One. Event.

Peace.

It's always funny to see an actual study being questioned by this subreddit. Like someone actually took the time to do research yet there's people who who are like "there's no way that's right, I didn't do any study myself but my personal bubble would say your data is wrong!" Like the study may have faults, but at least it is a study compared to sitting at your desk and seeing what your friends or / has to say on the subject.

The twisted part is if you sent a kid into an actual casino they would be better off than rolling for a gatcha game character. At least with the casino there's a payout that comes with the dopamine and you see your money moving, with the gatcha you can't see what you're spending and you don't actually get anything out of it.

As somebody who worked at a company that specializes in FTP titles with microtransactions, I call a massive BS on this. The best monetized games still had 3% of players that ever made an in-game purchase.

Let me start by saying I'm not judging anyone. My answer is simply my interpretation of the trend you've noticed.

I think it's because with the money you use to buy a video game, you're actually buying an experience. With the money you use to buy in-game currency, you're essentially buying virtual cosmetics.

Because you design a game differently when you're planning to incorporate in-game monetization. Even the "fairest" games without P2W mechanics have substantial portions of their design built around encouraging players to interact with the cash shop.

Hi! My name is Anastazja Kruszczak, a masters student at Poznań University of Economics and Business. Currently I am working on my thesis which includes a questionaire.

The purpose of this study is to see how construction of certain video game elements (for example: in-game shops, item drop rates, gacha systems or pvp equipment) influence the player behaviour when it comes to buying microtransactions.

The questionnaire is completly anonymous and should take around 5-10 minutes of your time. The questions are mostly single/multiple choice with one open question about the game you play the most right now.

Link to the questionnaire:

I'm happy to answer all of your questions and discuss the topic in the comments. You can also contact me in the DMs or send me an email at: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])

More information about the thesis:

My study intends to present the current state of the industry, explain various methods of convincing (more or less ethically) the customers to spend more money used in different industries and show examples of how such methods are used in the video game industry. Some of my hypothesises are as follows:

- The complicated construction of some in-game shops (for example: infamous diablo immortal) can sometimes lead the players to spend more money than they initially intended

- Younger, competetively inclied, or gambling in real life players are more suspectible to in-game mechanics created to make you spend more money

- Video games industry successfully uses FOMO (fear of missing out) to influence its customers

Some discussion points:

- While my hypothesises may seem obvious, are they really or are people exaggerating? For example: there are studies suggesting that real life gambling has no influence on microtransaction spending and vice versa.

- What is your personal opinion on the direction the industry is taking with the microtransactions? Personally I am feel that it is getting more and more predatory but on the other side video game creation is not getting any cheaper and free-to-play games do probably deserve some slack.

It’s great that consumer groups are raising awareness about spending tactics in gaming. As someone who loves tech, I’ve seen how these practices can affect people, especially younger gamers. It’s important to have these conversations so we can encourage fairer practices in the industry.

I seldom find "blame" a useful way of looking at issues like this. Sure, ultimate responsibility lies with the consumer (assuming they're an adult of sound mind) but does knowing that help particularly - either in understanding or in making a slightly better world?

I think it's useful to consider a few questions (non-exhaustive list):

1. How heavily does game play encourage/require spending money to compete. Does spending additional money get you a bigger advantage? How much?
2. Is the game transparent in informing the player how much they've spent? (i.e. can they easily see that without asking).
3. Is the game transparent in informing the player what they'll actually get for their money? Is there some random element to make what they'll get uncertain? If so, are the odds of particular outcomes stated clearly in a form that the average player can understand? Are there illustrations on how much a typical player might need to spend to get a specific outcome (e.g. a legendary skin). Are odds fixed or is there some kind of pity timer or similar mechanic to warp probabilities?
4. Does the game give players the ability to set spend limits in advance which can't be immediately over-ridden?
5. Does promotion/advertising for spending coins accurately represent what the average player will get? Particularly : Are streamers promoting this game opening the same loot crates as everyone else?
6. For players with no money, is there a realistic option to grind for certain items? (And by realistic, I don't mean 5000 hours).

Again, ultimately the person making the decision to buy the thing is responsible for spending their money. If they want to take 50% of their monthly income and buy gold coins in some mobile game who am I to stop them? But that's not the end of the discussion. Maybe an ethical gaming company should say "Actually, we don't think you should spend over $100 per week on our game and so we will limit how many boxes you can buy per week". Even if you don't want to go that far, you can at least be honest with how certain outcomes are described and promoted. Why not prominently display to players the total amount of money they've spent on your game?

If a game theoretically did the right thing in all of the above and a player still chose to spend $2k a week on coins or whatever then I don't think they have too much to be ashamed of. People waste their money on stupid shit all the time and I can't pretend that I send 100% of my disposable income to starving orphans either.

If the consumer decides to make the purchase on a day that ends in Y it's the consumer's fault and/or the consumer's parent's fault in the case of kids making microtransaction purchases with their parent's credit cards. Sure the case can be made that the practices are scummy or the price points aren't at equilibrium, but no one is forcing anyone to buy them and since their value is entirely subjective who is to say that the asking price for generic summer skin #59238 isn't justified in the eyes of some individuals with too much disposable income?

An Among us shaped mcnugget sold for almost 100,000 dollars recently. Literally just a fucking McNugget that "looked sus". Is the guy who sold it for that amount, in a completely open auction on ebay that he started at just 99 cents, the bad guy because someone else was willing to pay FAR MORE than that nugget was worth based on their subjective value of it? I certainly don't think so nor am I one to get in between the voluntary interactions of two consenting parties.

Not long ago, those skins you now buy, used to be in the game. And you had to complete some cool challenges to earn them. Those mounts also used to be in the game. And so were those secret missions.

Games used to be complete experiences. Some still are. But unfortunately we've all collectively decided were OK to pay for stuff that used to be free a long time ago and now it will only get worse.

In my opinion, the blame is on the end of the consumer, or the consumer's supervisor.
Lets get the easy one out of the way.
If you are an adult, you as the consumer are entirely to blame.
You should be able to weight out cost and your personal benefit and act accordingly.
Period.

Kids and Teenagers are a bit trickier.
Nevertheless, I think the parents should be able to discuss the topic with their child and make the according decisions.
This is a great opportunity to teach the child.

Don't get me wrong, I don't say never spend any money.
But you should be aware what you are doing.

I personally spent around 300€ on skins in CS:GO over the last 7 years.
A stranger would call me an moron.
However, I now have played around 2000h and for me personally it was worth it.

I think what we've seen with the GTA 6 pre-orders has pretty much proven that gamers who constantly complain about consumer rights, digital ownership, and anti-consumer practices are some of the biggest hypocrites on the planet.

Let's be honest about what millions of people have actually paid for with their GTA 6 pre-orders: a digital licence. That's it. You don't own the game. You own the right to access the game digitally, and that right can ultimately be revoked. Before anyone says that's just a conspiracy theory, we've already seen examples of this kind of thing happening. Sony literally removed access to purchased movie content for some users due to licensing issues, and those customers weren't exactly given ownership of the content they thought they had bought.

Yet despite years of people screaming online about "you don't own your games" and "digital ownership is a scam", millions of people have happily handed over their money years in advance for a game that, at the end of the day, they don't actually own in the traditional sense.

And before anyone accuses me of defending corporations, I'm not. I haven't bought GTA 6, and I probably won't even play it because it's not really my thing. But let's stop pretending that gamers are some sort of principled consumer movement standing up to evil corporations. They're not.

Take the different editions of GTA 6. You've got content that's effectively locked behind a more expensive version of the game. If you buy the standard edition, there is content that exists and that you simply don't get access to unless you pay extra. Yet millions of people are perfectly happy with that.

What's funny is that these are the same people who lost their minds over things like the microtransactions in Dragon's Dogma 2. Remember that? People were acting like Capcom had committed some unforgivable crime because there were optional microtransactions in the game. The internet spent weeks outrage farming over it. But when Rockstar does something similar with multiple editions, exclusive content, and premium pricing, suddenly everyone finds a way to justify it.

That's the problem with gaming culture today. People's principles only apply when it's convenient. They don't actually have any consistent moral position. They'll spend years complaining about digital ownership, anti-consumer practices, DLC, microtransactions, and corporate greed, but the second a game they personally want comes along, all those principles disappear.

The truth is that gamers themselves are a huge part of the reason why the industry is the way it is. Companies don't do these things because they're evil geniuses. They do them because they work. If nobody pre-ordered GTA 6, if nobody bought the premium editions, if consumers actually voted with their wallets the way they constantly claim they do, then I guarantee companies would change their practices overnight.

But they don't.

Instead, what happens is millions of people throw money at the very practices they claim to hate, and then act surprised when companies keep doing them.

So maybe it's time we stop only criticizing corporations and start criticizing gamers too. Because at this point, a huge portion of the gaming community are all talk. They'll posture online about consumer rights and anti-consumer practices, but when push comes to shove, they'll happily open their wallets for the next big release.

And honestly, that's far more damaging to the industry than anything the corporations themselves are doing.

I’ve noticed people often get criticized for spending money inside games, but buying a completely new game usually isn’t judged the same way.

Why do you think spending money within a game is viewed more negatively than spending money on games themselves?

One of the topics that get my attention in gaming is the debate over monetizations, and within that lies many other sub topics and one is who even is to blame when one spends way too much on a game. Is it the person for wasting their money on a videogame? Or the game itself/the devs for having such systems that allow/utilize predatory practices.

I once got into an argument regarding a certain f2p game that had a ton of issues and one is it's scummy but lucrative monetization system. I was on the anti side where I condemn it but I found myself against those who blame it on the person who even let themselves splurge on it.

My personal take on this is that if the game's monetization system is actually fair and isn't predatory then it can be argued that it's the consumers' fault for not having self control but if it's arguably scummy and predatory AF (like, ahem, Battlefront 2 , boxes) then it is totally on the game/devs.

Such an ugly word. I don't "consume" a game. I play it. It's such a dehumanizing word that instantly relegates a company's customer base to nothing more than statistics on a spreadsheet, and I hope more people, as in us, not the corporations since they don't listen anyways, stop using that word. It gives the same kind of energy as calling a mother a "birth giver."

It completely removes all of the passion and meaning as to why that individual has a bond with a specific thing, and the WORST part about it is now they have all of us saying it, too. It's just stupid boardroom vocabulary and every time I hear somebody use that word, all I can imagine are a bunch of stuffy suits gathered around a long table, thinking of how to "optimize the profitability of their product and maximize consumer engagement."

Ugh. You know what "maximizes consumer engagement?" Treating people like people and not like numbers, but I guess we're far past that by this point.