Microtransactions in Mobile Games

I definitely agree that microtransactions are a plague on the industry. I've actually written a few posts about how annoying I feel like the mobile games as a whole have become in recent years.

I think that the industry is less "Pay to Win" and more "Pay to Play", and not in a good sense. It isn't paying to support the developer for a full-featured, complete game. It's paying just to properly play the game at all. Examples I've given in the past include games that limit the amount of time you can play each day unless you buy a certain in-app purchase or games that make it almost impossible to earn the amount of a certain resource to proceed without hours of mindless grinding. I don't think that this is an acceptable model, especially not for paid games. While it's true that developers don't necessarily owe players a fully-functioning, high-quality game without asking for money in return, there are much less intrusive ways to make money off of apps. This method, which the community seems to have accepted and even promoted, based on the success of the multitude of popular apps that subscribe to it, strikes me as greedy, underhanded, and perhaps even immoral. I have never spent a penny supporting these kinds of apps, and I wish that the general community as a whole would discontinue encouraging their spread.

 

Of course it's a way to squeeze money, most of these apps are free and the artists and programmers have to be paid somehow. Microtransactions are fine as long as they are done well, and expecting a free game to not have them is just silly.

 

Exactly this. Microtransactions make the most sense on mobile platforms since most mobile games are free. You'll find such transactions a lot less in mobile apps that require a fee anyways. Developers aren't creating their games for free, and anyone that expects them not to try to profit off their creations is thinking backwards. Microtransactions are annoying, sure, but consumers should think they're entitled to everything for free.

 

While I understand the desire to make money, I think there's a fine line between making money and scamming users out of something that doesn't need to be paid for. I'd much prefer if developers were upfront about the real costs of their games, rather than hiding behind "free-to-play, pay-to-win" like many popular games do. I don't think anybody expects developers not to profit off of their creations. People just expect them to deliver quality creations and earn that profit, rather than severely limiting what players can do without paying. There are plenty of ways for developers to legitimately earn money from players without resorting to microtransactions that are virtually necessary to play the game.

The fact that microtransactions exist at all in paid apps is even worse. In these cases, it isn't the developers needing to make money for the time and resources spent developing the apps, it's the developers wanting to make as much money as possible, usually by shorting gamers of the full experience of the game, even after they've paid for it once.

Furthermore, I might respect the need for developers to earn money more if they created original, quality gameplay. So many apps I've seen recently with microtransactions are blatant ripoffs of other popular apps or web games. For every unique new app on the market, there are hundreds of Flappy Bird (Helicopter) clones, Angry Birds (Crush the Castle) clones, Candy Crush (Bejeweled) clones, 2048 clones, and so on, all seeking to get rich from copying a previously popular concept, tacking on a "FREE" sign, and then pushing microtransactions onto players. The sad thing is that it often works, which only encourages developers to avoid innovation and continue gouging players out of a full game experience.

Just to reiterate, I'm not saying that all microtransactions are bad, nor am I saying that all developers are immoral and should be scorned for trying to make a living. I'm saying that there's more than one way to earn money from apps, and it seems like a lot of developers take the route that is less preferable for consumers, at least by my point of view.

 

Microtransactions are completely fine in my book as long as the items or whatever the user gets for paying can also be attained by non-paying users through playing and/or waiting more. I can't think of any mobile game that does this because I don't play much on my phone. But if you're familiar with the PC MOBA game League of Legends, this is a great example of what I'm talking about. Everything that one can buy can also be obtained through in-game points, except for skins which have no effect on game other than making your character look cooler.

 

I don't mind that developers are doing this to get more money. They deserve to make profits off of a product they put their effort in and so much more so if they gave it away for free initially. There is an art to making the whole structure work well for both developer and consumer though and unfortunately a lot of them tend to go overboard with it and take advantage completely, which then makes the game a lot less fun than it could have been.

 

Never liked it, it devalues the achievements of players who invested a lot of time into leveling up, since people would just label them as "pay-to-win". Also much of the sense of accomplishment is lost as you will never be one of the top players unless you splurge hundreds or even thousands a month.