The Monetisation of Video Games: Fight against the man, man.
By: Dylan Nuttall
Tags: Gambling, Monetisation, Loot Boxes, Gaming, Microtransactions

If you were born any time before the year 2000, chances are that you remember the now unfamiliar sound of dial-up internet. That high-pitched screeching, which could have woken anyone up from a deep coma, ironically provided some of the warmest memories from not only my childhood but millions of others’ also exploring the brand-new World Wide Web. Whether you were gathered around the desktop showing your mates the latest gold-trimmed armour on Runescape, showing off that super cute Neopet you caught (like that one annoying adult showing everyone their kid), or simply just reading through your favourite online website, everybody was using the internet for one reason or another. It was a simpler time, where free actually meant free, and you didn’t have to fill out a fucking background check just to download a recipe. And don’t get me started on the ads…

Over my 23 years on this earth I have quickly learnt that if humans can find a way to exploit each other for profit, someone will be willing to do it. Much like we have observed with the internet. This has happened throughout countless industries to varying degrees; however, one industry that has experienced these exploitive practices throughout recent years is one that hits close to home, the video game industry. Over the past few decades I have watched the gaming industry age and mature into the $135 Billion dollar industry that it is today. Not only is the industry extremely successful, but it has even achieved the biggest launch day in the history of any form of entertainment media. However, the success doesn’t stem from a dire passion for the art, but rather from an inherent need to profit at all costs. There is an issue of astronomical proportions plaguing the gaming industry these days, and chances are it’s not the one you’re thinking about. In fact, half of the issue is that the media is actually reporting on the wrong issue. While the media continues to be relentless in perpetuating the myth that violence in videogames extends to real life, academic studies have demonstrated the contrary — countless times. The issue plaguing the industry is not about violence, but rather something much more perverse; Microtransactions.

Microtransactions generally fall under two categories: Premium currencies, and loot boxes. For the purpose of this article, we’ll be focusing on loot boxes seeing as these are the more sinister of the two. Being extremely similar to Japanese Gacha game machines, loot boxes give players the chance of unlocking a highly sought-after item at a monetary cost. What’s the catch, though? Well, you might only have a 5% chance to actually unlock the item. Imagine buying a brand-new Tesla with black leather seats, only to be told that you can spend an extra $50 to gamble for the chance to have air conditioning included. So, naturally, you spend the $50, only to end up winning a sticker instead. The only difference between that sticker and loot boxes is that loot box winnings are intangible, non-physical items. So, you’re gambling without the chance to profit.

Microtransactions have been prominent within the gaming industry for quite a number of years, having first been used to standardise the ‘free-to-play’ mobile gaming model. Utilising microtransactions in a free-to-play game is the natural way for developers to monetise their product, which the consumer is receiving for free. This is accepted in the gaming industry for any free-to-play games, as developers need to be able to profit off their work. What isn’t accepted, however, is when these systems of monetisation begin appearing in mainstream, fully priced ($80+) video games. Like any industry, the longevity of a product can make-or-break its success, so who could be mad at someone for wanting to support developers by giving them a few extra bucks? Well, when the entire progression of a video game is centred around these mechanics, you can begin to see why most consumers consider this unethical. Especially since these systems are in video games that children play…

The most prominent example of this comes from an M-rated game (which isn’t age-regulated in Australia), Battlefront 2. To put it into perspective, there was a Star Wars pod racer game I used to play on Nintendo 64 almost two decades ago. In that game, progression was tied to winning races in order to unlock new, improved pod racers to take into harder races. In Battlefront 2, all progression was tied to randomised loot boxes which could be purchased with real money. What’s the worst part, though? One dedicated consumer calculated that it would take 4,528 hours of play (or USD $2,100 if you didn’t have the time) to unlock all content in the game. There’s only one word to describe this: predatory.

Luckily, this was met with a collective ‘what the fuck?’, from not only the gaming community but (for the first time) mainstream media outlets also. Subsequently, the game’s sales staggered and people all around the world boycotted it until the publisher, EA, was forced to remove the microtransactions from the game. For the first time ever, gamers won.

We may have won that battle, but the war is far from over. As loot boxes exist within a grey area of the law, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (U.S.) does not recognise them as gambling, thus making them exempt from any form of repercussions. However, with the overwhelming negative attitudes towards loot boxes and the links that have been made towards problem gambling in younger demographics, this needs to be taken more seriously. Publishers are feeding off the idea of time poverty as they recognise that consumers simply don’t want to spend countless hours just to unlock content for a game they have already spent the money on. And there must be a market for it, as these practices continue to seep their way deeper and deeper into the pores of the video game industry. It has escalated to the point that it has become an industry standard to include microtransactions in video games. So much so that any video game to not include these levels of monetisation are praised for it. As I mentioned earlier, if humans can find a way to exploit each other, they will. But in order to exploit, there has to be that group of humans stupid enough to be exploited in the first place.