Microtransaction
While microtransactions are a staple of the mobile app market, they are also seen on PC software such as Valve's Steam digital distribution platform, as well as console gaming.
Apple and Google both provide frameworks for initiating and processing transactions, and both take 30 percent of all revenue generated by microtransactions sold through in-app purchases in their respective app stores.
Both free games allow users to customize the clothing and style of their characters; buy and collect furniture; and purchase special, "flashy" animations to show off to others using some type of virtual currency.
[12] Habbo Hotel uses three different kinds of currency: Credits (or coins), Duckets (which are earned through accomplishing specific achievements during gameplay), and Diamonds.
From April 2006 onwards, Bethesda began releasing small, downloadable packages of content from their website and over the Xbox Live Marketplace, for the equivalent of between one and three US dollars.
A November 2005-release of a "Winter Warrior Pack" for Kameo: Elements of Power was also priced at 200 Marketplace points,[21] and similar content additions had been scheduled for Project Gotham Racing 3 and Perfect Dark Zero.
[22] Indeed, Marketplace content additions formed a significant part of a March 2006 Microsoft announcement regarding the future of Xbox Live.
"Downloadable in-game content is a main focus of Microsoft's strategy heading into the next-gen console war", stated one GameSpot reporter.
[23] Nonetheless, although Xbox Live Arcade games, picture packs, dashboards and profile themes continued to be a Marketplace success for Microsoft, the aforementioned in-game content remained sparse.
[15] Pete Hines asserted, "We were the first ones to do downloadable content like that – some people had done similar things, but no one had really done additions where you add new stuff to your existing game."
[30] In The Sims 4 Electronic Arts removed the ability to buy single items, instead downloadable content is provided exclusively via expansion packs.
In March 2014 EA marked the fifth anniversary of Ultimate Team and shared statistics showing the explosive growth in popularity of the game mode.
According to the September 2019 report by the UK Parliament's House of Commons and the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, they define loot boxes as "... items in video games that may be bought for real-world money, but which provide players with a randomised reward of uncertain value.
"[35] The widespread usage of loot boxes by game developers and publishers have garnered a great amount of criticism from gamers in the past decade.
Game developing corporations, like Electronic Arts (EA) and Activision Blizzard, make billions of dollars through the purchase of their microtransactions.
[41] Electronic Arts Corporate Vice-President Peter Moore speculated in June 2012 that within 5 to 10 years, all games will have transitioned to the microtransaction model.
[41] According to Ex-BioWare developer Manveer Heir in a 2017 interview, microtransactions have become a factor in what types of games are planned for production.
An example of this is the mobile game Dead Trigger switching to a free-to-play model due to a high rate of piracy.
[51][52] The specific games Belgium looked closer at were EA's Star Wars Battlefront II (2017) and FIFA 18, Overwatch, and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive developed by Valve.
In November 2017, Hawaii representatives Chris Lee and Sean Quinlan, during a news conference, explained how loot boxes and microtransactions prey on children and that they are working to introduce bills into their state's house and senate.
[58] In May 2019, Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri introduced a bill named "The Protecting Children from Abusive Games Act" to ban loot boxes and pay-to-win microtransactions in games played by minors, using similar conditions previously outlined in the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act.
[59][60] The bill received some bi-partisan support in the form of two co-sponsors from Democrats Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Ed Markey of Massachusetts.
Within the report, some of the children directly stated to the interviewers that the microtransactions and loot boxes that they encounter and subsequently buy, are just like gambling.
[65] According to the Parent Zone study, in the United Kingdom, 97% of males and 90% of females aged 10–16 years old play video games.
By completing challenges and other missions, they earn in-game items like outfits, emotes (special animations used to taunt opponents, celebrate victories, dance, and show-off), and other cosmetics.
[68] Children might want to fit-in by paying for microtransactions and loot boxes and obtaining very rare items in front of their friends, creating a lot of hype and excitement among them.
[68] The pressure to spend money on in-game content also stems from children seeing their friends have these special, rare items, and them wanting to have it themselves.
[66] Players wearing default skins are considered 'financially poor' and very 'uncool' by their peers and the game's community, so children spend money on microtransactions in order to avoid having that 'tag' or target on them.
[68] One of the children that played FIFA in the study said that they spend anywhere from £10 ($12.91) a day to upwards of £300 ($387.23) in one year, sometimes even buying multiple player packs at one time.
Microtransactions are also used in larger budget games as well, such as Grand Theft Auto V (2013) generating more revenue through them than retail sales by the end of 2017.
