Microtransactions Are Getting Out Of Hand | Spot On

And yet you guys gave this trash game a good review, so why even post this article? Are you just pretending to care? It no longer matters AFTER the fact that you think the game is great, when it isn’t. If you really cared, you would have gave the game a bad review, which is what it deserved. Go look at how much this game got review bombed.

I played Diablo 4 in beta and found it boring and repetitive. As a general principle I never buy any microtransactions for any game!!

I was forced to buy microtransactions like battle pass for Fortnite years ago whenever a new one came out. Thank goodness my nephews out grew Fortnite and no longer ask for Battle Pass or anything from the game.

Don't like them? Don't buy them. It is not predatory when people WILLINGLY chooses to buy them. Nobody has ever been forced to buy MT's. Enough of these monthly topics and stories.

nice, you're just 10 years late. wish this would reflect in the scores you give to games as well.

I vote with my wallet. Most games I dont spend anything on micro's and honestly the market has way too many live service games. Diablo 4 I was done with basically as the first season started, did not spend anything on it beside the initial game purchase. With Baldur's Gate 3 and Starfield coming out, its unlikely Ill be returning to Diablo 4 any time soon.

Also, I always say that the solution is to support the type of game you love. Will it remove the other games from existence? No. Because everyone is free to support whatever they want. But the same power is given to you. So don't support games you don't believe in just because they're popular.

Now, is it possible for a good game to contain microtransactions? Yes.

This creates a dilemma. How do you support a fun game, without encouraging a monetization method you don't approve of? Well, if the game is already wildly popular, the answer is simple: you don't. They'll be fine. And if it's a paid game, you already supported the game.

However, if it's a less popular F2P game, you have a few options. Either:

- Spend only a normal amount on it (like 20-60 bucks, based on how much you value the current content in the game). This tells them you're willing to support the game, but not be milked.

- Spread some positive word of mouth about the game. A small player base is the biggest threat to a F2P game's survival. Just be humble about it, or you're not helping your case.

- Look into the developer and publisher's history and see if they've ever shut down one of their unpopular games in the past, and how quickly they gave up on it. That's a massive red flag, so if that's the situation, just enjoy the ride while you can. Don't give money to companies like that.

Ok so basically, walk in to bottega veneta store and get pissed off at them for selling you stuff that you dont feel like buying at the price they are selling.

If you support companys ripping you off then more fool you , so do not send insulting messages because you like profiteering companys

E A Arts were every year voted most unpopular company in U S A because they ripped off gamers with microtransactions, OK companys make money and profit , but if they go too far it affects you exspecially with cost of living crisis.

I don't know what you're talking about. I'll gladly pay $70 for MW2, then $15 to play as Nikki Minaj, and an additional $15 to play as Snoop Dogg. Totally not out of hand at all.

It's because we all want the new shiny game that will justify the purchase of our new shiny hardware. If you buy the latest smartphone, you'll likely want to play the latest mobile game. Same thing applies to console and PC gaming. If you have any friends, you'll want to play the newest multiplayer game with them. And so on.

Microtransactions are constantly evolving and adapting to their environment. For anime games, the most effective monetization method turned out to be gambling, because it preys on horny people. They will swipe and pull until their desires are satisfied.

This can work in any game with attractive skins. Overwatch ran on loot boxes for years. But due to several factors, they switched to the battle pass and cash shop method. I'm not so sure that was the right call, but we'll see in the long run. Valve games still have loot boxes for cosmetics.

Some games have both gambling and battle passes, as well as wait timers you can pay to bypass, or pay to win, pay to circumvent arbitrary inconveniences, pay to level boost to endgame, pay to skip hundreds of hours of filler main story quests, you name it.

But even if you educate yourself or your kids about these things, it doesn't get rid of the first problem: we want to play the new shiny thing, and we want to play with our friends.

Even if we play these games without buying any microtransactions ever, we are still supporting the games by contributing to their popularity. We may not spend, but others will. So most of us are guilty in some way or another. That's just the way it is.

I hate microtransactions, but they aren't getting out of hand. Consumers are getting exactly what they want and the numbers prove that. At the end of the day, numbers don't lie and gamers participate in microtransactions to the tune of tens of billions of dollars annually. If we didn't agree to them, then they wouldn't exist because they wouldn't make money. This means that likely 90% of any commentors in any given comments section are flat out liars when they say they hate microtransactions because statistically many have had to engage with them over the years. You may not like them, but as long as you buy them they'll always be there and we have years of demonstrable proof that despite any limp d(*k protests, consumers are just fine with them. They just complain once in a while, but they'll never do anything about it.

There's nothing "micro" about these transactions. $26 for an outfit is 1/3 the price of the game.

Can't help but feel that micro transactions are geared towards the young gamers who don't give it much of a thought which is a point in case that they need government regulation like they do in the UK. Loot boxes for example are plain theft. The way they work is akin to a casino, yet, the "customer", aka "prey" is some 14-year old who got hold on to daddy's credit card.

I'm a 40-year old lifelong gamer with c.500 completed titles under my belt and I never in my life paid for cosmetics. Excessive DLCs with Season Passes like Ubisoft games, I only purchase 2-3 years later on heavy discounts as someone else mentioned above. My backlog of good titles without this plague is long enough anyway in the meantime...

They’ve been out of hand for ages... they are not “getting out of hand”, they are a disease of the industry. And you gave Diablo a good rating, clearly you have been enjoying some of the micro transaction profits yourselves…

They've always been out of hand this article is a decade late. They're a horrible practice! Developers charging us for cosmetics! People are literally buying virtual clothes 😂.

Hats off to the Devs who have worked out how to sell something with no intrinsic value to idiots who will eat it up!

It's a rip off you already pay for the game why pay more greedy companys more interested in profits than gamers, boycott them .

It's mainly an individual thing. If DLC is worth it to you, you'll pay for it. I've never considered cosmetics worth real money. But something like map packs, that actually add new content or more gameplay to the game, that's worth it to me. (And it seems weird to me that something like a map pack is considered "microtransaction" to some people.)

Where it seems to be getting worse is when we had something like a Season Pass which had you covered for pretty much any DLC to come for your favorite game in the future. But now that's not enough. You have Season Pass Extra, Season Pass Ultimate, Season Pass Essential. It just never stops. Because they're breaking the content down more and more.

I think one of the problems is that there will always be some wealthy gamers who will support things like microtransactions. If money is no object and you want it, the cost won't matter. Then the signal to the publishers is, yup, gamers are cool with it. So not only will it never go away, games will be even less finished when they are released.

I mean, does anyone like Day 1 DLC?

People like them. That's why they're successful and generate income. We need to stop excusing people from their own behaviour

Gamers: Gaas has and always will suck

Games journos: This new gaas stuff is exciting, it's the future of gaming

Why microtransactions are really not so bad

Hmm, maybe microtransactions really aren't all that great

Even though we think it's great that gamers will just be playing the same ol' boring game forever and ever, it's really cool that they can pay for their nostalgia and play as Ripley and Freddie Krueger and Spider-man in a completely unrelated game. It's the future of storytelling

We don't know what went wrong here; it seemed like such a great idea

Gamers: We told you from the beginning that gaas sucked

I said this almost two decades ago when Halo 2 was charging for map packs.

i appreciate this vid, they make a lot of good points, but cant help feeling like were being pandered to. gamespot isnt about to take a real stand against predatory game design. and to be fair, the website is free and they rely on advertising. but sadly gamespot is part of the problem. what were the review scores on all those EA sports games again?

I think so too depending on the type DLC.

I wish Dlc and microtrans were gone. I miss the days of goin into gamestop getting cool " swag" and not worrying about, I paid 60 for this game, that lasted me 40 hours, now for another 30 I get 1 hour and a multi-player map

Cool story bro

the other day I learned the biggest BS in video gaming called "gacha" in which the game ask real money for item but it doesn't give you what you want, it just gives you something random and people pay for that BS LMAO

When games try to sell their battle passes, ultimate editions, premium subscriptions and exclusive cosmetics as pre-order bonuses, it serves as a "Do Not Play" signal for me.

Despite the initial hype folks had around the announcement of Halo Infinite's multiplayer going free to play, I remember feeling like that was a bad sign.

It's a shame to see great series' go that route.