Items tagged with microtransactions
The ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) is the agency that rates video games so parents and other shoppers know what sort of content a video game will offer and if its appropriate for the gamer. Today the ESRB announced that it will begin assigning a new Interactive Element to video games where the label will include "In-Game Purchases" and "Users Interact" notices. The "In-Game Purchases" interactive element is meant to inform parents and other consumers that the game offers the ability to purchase additional items without leaving the game. The ESRB says that to provide even greater transparency about the nature of in-game items available to purchase, the organization will also begin...
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At the risk of dating myself, I remember the days of sticking a cartridge into an Atari 2600, and that was it—you played the game as it shipped, with no post-game patches and certainly no in-game transactions. We live in a very different world these days. Microtransactions and so-called loot boxes rule the day, and there is a political effort to remove them from the equation, to a certain extent. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), a self-proclaimed "fierce critic of social media practices that prey on the addiction of users," announced a bill called "The Protecting Children from Abusive Games Act." The bill would effectively ban loot boxes and various pay-to-win mechanisms, or what Hawley describes...
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“Microtransaction” is often considered a dirty word in the gaming community. Several developers have come under fire for unfriendly, and even predatory, practices. However, the controversy surrounding microstransactions will not prevent Electronic Arts from incorporating them into its games. Battlefield V will include microtransactions this upcoming January. According to a recent Amazon store listing, the microtransactions should be live January 18th, 2019. Players can already pre-order the “Battlefield Currency” for their Xbox One game. Prices range from $4.99 USD for 500 currency to $49.99 USD for 6,000 currency. The Battlefield Currency can be used to purchase cosmetic...
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Eureka! If you are tired of grinding to earn that Red Dead Online Cattleman Revolver or Arabian horse, you are in luck. Gamers can now purchase gold in Red Dead Online with real life currency. However, is this latest update truly beneficial to players? Many believe that the microtransactions are simply not worth it. There are two forms of currency in Red Dead Online -- dollars and gold. The regular cash is easier to find and can be used to buy items like weapons, ammo, and camp upgrades. Gold is rarer and intended for luxurious cosmetic items or things that are locked behind a level requirement. Gold can now be purchased with real money. Bundles range from $9.99 USD for 25 bars to $99.99...
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Back at BlizzCon the other day, Bungie and Activision announced that Destiny 2 would be free to download to PC for the first half of November, and specifically until November 18. Anyone who claimed their copy by that deadline would own it forever. Why would Activision be interested in doing this? Microtransactions, of course! Giving a game away for free can prove lucrative, as we continue to see with Fortnite, the crazy-popular battle royale shooter that is generating boatloads of income for Epic Games through in-game purchases. Activision itself is no stranger to microtransactions and the wealth it can generate—the publisher collected some $4 billion from in-game purchases last year. Activision...
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Somewhere out there, a gamer loudly proclaimed, "No game developer will ever come up with a worse save system than limiting them to checkpoints!" Then Kingdom Come: Deliverance came along with its drunken method. Perhaps seeing this as a challenge, Konami declared, "Hold my beer" and proceeded to trump them all with the save system in Metal Gear Survive, by combining additional save slots with microtransactions. Yes folks, Konami took the two biggest points of frustrations among gamers—bad save systems and microtransactions—and mashed them together into a single, horrific method. How so? Well, in Metal Gear Survive gamers can have a maximum of four save files. However, only the first...
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Gamers, for the most part, aren’t big fans of microtransactions in games. However, modern games are festooned with microtransaction for things you can buy in the game to upgrade characters and weapons all to make the game easier to defeat and to make progression faster. Whatever your feelings about microtransactions, they are here to stay because they are huge money makers for game developers. Activision Blizzard made a killing off microtransactions last year to the tune of $4 billion in revenue. That number came from a recently published earnings report that shows money made from "in-game net bookings" (including DLC sales, loot boxes, and in-app purchases for mobile games) reached...
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Disgruntled games who are not happy with the direction Electronic Arts has taken FIFA 18, the latest installment in the publisher's soccer simulation franchise, have banded together to organize a Black Friday boycott of in-game purchases. Fans of the soccer sim have a long list of grievances, among them a displeasure with how EA has been handling microtransactions, a sticky subject as of late. One of the things gamers are ticked off about is the drop-rate for top players in FIFA 18. While the drop-rate is not officially released, it is rare to get a top player. YouTuber Goran Popovic brought this to attention in a video and a Reddit post that outlines the many things he and others want EA to...
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Electronic Arts has drawn immense criticism from the gaming community over so-called loot boxes and how they are implemented in Star Wars Battlefront II, but it is not just gamers who are speaking out. Belgium's Gaming Commission has determined that loot boxes are a form of gambling and is seeking a ban against them in Europe, and Rep. Chris Lee of hawaii is taking a similar in the United States. According to Lee, loot boxes are a form of gambling aimed at children and it is time to "draw the line." In a video showing Lee and others speak out against the current state of microtransactions, Lee calls to attention Battlefront II and the "predatory behavior" EA is engaging in. "It's a trap," he...
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At least one analyst has sided with Electronic Arts over its decision to include microtransactions in Star Wars Battlefront II, and believe that the outrage by gamers is unwarranted. Furthermore, the analyst in question believes that, if anything, EA and other publishers should be charging more for their games. Say what!? "We view the negative reaction to Star Wars Battlefront II (and industry trading sympathy) as an opportunity to add to Electronic Arts, Take-Two, and Activision Blizzard positions. The handling of the SWBF2 launch by EA has been poor; despite this, we view the suspension of MTX [microtransactions] in the near term as a transitory risk," KeyBanc Capital Markets analyst Evan Wingren...
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The Internet community has been heard "loud and clear" in regards to microtransactions in Star Wars Battlefront II, publisher Electronic Arts said in a statement. Of course, EA would either to be deaf or have its head stuck so far up its backside that all outside noise is effectively drowned out, to avoid hearing the uproar in-game purchases and the money (or time) required to unlock premium characters such as Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. Regardless, EA heard the complaints, and has disabled micrtotransactions in Battlefront II as it scrambles to figure out an amicable compromise. "Our goal has always been to create the best possible game for all of you—devoted Star Wars fans and game players...
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Ladies and gentlemen, StarCraft won the Internet on Tuesday, and perhaps for the entire week. Or more precisely, the social media person who is responsible for StarCraft's Twitter account won the Internet, with a series of savage tweets mocking the microtransaction madness surrounding Star Wars Battlefront II and the response by publisher Electronic Arts when the proverbial poo hit the fan. First, a little backstory. EA drew ire from gamers when it decided an obscenely high amount of "credits" to unlock premium characters, such as Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. Initially, the price was set at 60,000 credits. As constructed, it would take the average gamer around 40 hours of gameplay to earn...
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Gaming has grown to become one of the biggest entertainment industries, surpassing both movies and music in revenue. At the same time, the business model behind gaming has changed. Microtransactions are now a normal part of the gaming experience, and if you were hoping that would change, you will be in for a disappointment. There is too much money at stake, as evidenced by Ubisoft raking in more real-world loot from microstransactions than from the actual games. Ubisoft reported strong-than-expected sales for its fiscal first and second quarters. For the six-month period ended September 30, 2017, Ubisoft saw a 65.7 percent jump in sales to €466.2 million (~$540.6 million), with second quarter...
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The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has granted Activision a patent for an online matchmaking scheme that is designed to encourage players to spend money on in-game items. By matching players with purchased items against non-paying players, the assumption is that both players will have incentive to spend money upgrading their characters' abilities and weapons. "A system and method is provided that drives microtransactions in multiplayer video games. The system may include a microtransaction arrange matches to influence game-related purchases. For instance, the system may match a more expert/marquee player with a junior player to encourage the junior player to make game-related...
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When the concept of downloadable content for games first hit us, people en masse were enraged at the fact that companies couldn't just sell us a complete game from the get-go. Fast-forward to today, and DLC is a much more accepted, but that doesn't mean the underlying issues no longer exist. For the most part, many gamers today seem fine with purchasing DLC as long as it feels like it provides real value. If a game is a mere 8 hours long and has $40 worth of DLC to extend that, no one is going to be pleased outside of the game's most intense fans. But when happens when DLC for an otherwise multi-platform game is only available for one particular console as an exclusive? That's something that...
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According to EA's Chief Financial Officer, Blake Jorgensen, all future games from the company will include microtransactions in a bid to further monetize the product. "We're building into all of our games the ability to pay for things along the way, either to get to a higher level to buy a new character, to buy a truck, a gun, whatever it might be," Jorgensen said. "Consumers are enjoying and embracing that way of the business." Jorgensen acknowledged the security challenges inherent to processing microtransactions in a server backend, but claims EA has plan in place to mitigate the potential risk. "If you're doing microtransactions and you're processing credit cards for every one of those microtransactions...
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