In-game purchases or microtransactions is a plague haunting the Games Industry. For many years now, Game companies have been putting microtransactions into their games in order to make quick money from their players. Electronic Arts is a prime example of this, putting out content that can be bought with real world money that then would give an advantage to the players buying it. This has acquired a lot of hate over the years as it is essentially a “pay to win” scheme.
Some people feel that in-app purchases have ruined the experience of gaming. Nowadays game studios do not focus on giving the player the best gaming experience. Instead, they design the game so that it makes the players wait for a certain amount of time before they can proceed in the game. Game companies then make in-game purchases available to be bought by their players. Players tend to buy a speed up item so they won’t have to wait in order to play. I am sure you don’t want to wait twenty-three hours and fifty-nine minutes for your Townhall to upgrade! This is true in a game called Clash of Clans. In that game, as the player goes through the game, getting better and better and upgrading buildings, the more the player is forced to wait as a result. The wait time for upgrades increases, training times increase and you would often get prompts from the game which would say “Buy these Gems for only £4.99!”, or ,”Speed up your upgrades for only £0.99!”. On top of that, there are resources in the game that the player can produce and loot from other players. These resources are called ‘Gold’ and ‘Elixir’. At the later stages of the game, the resources become much more scarce and as a result making the game a lot harder to progress.
This is how in-game purchases ruin games, I don’t know if I can even call them ‘games’. They are nothing more than an online scheme for the sole purpose to rinse your wallet.
This problem can affect you as a parent as well as your child. If you don’t want to spend a lot of money on games, you have the option of not playing the game at all. However, most games nowadays have some sort of microtransactions in them. This is mainly because games companies want to monetize their games to get as much money to keep the business running. It is a black hole that the Games Industry has put itself into with a constant need of funding in order to keep running in the industry. The design of games has been made so that it encourages or even forces players to purchase in-game content to aid their game experience. This is wrong. Games should have a full price on purchase and it should consist of all add-ons without the constant need to purchase items will real money. On the other hand, for free-to-play games, this is the only option to monetise the game. I understand that microtransactions are the thing that keep free-to-play games alive, but I do not feel like it should give a direct advantage to another player. It should be something cosmetic or something that aids the single player experience not a multiplayer one.
What you can do to avoid being forced to purchase microtransactions is firstly, do not add your bank card to your account! It just creates this urge to buy something which you do not need. Secondly, if you feel like at any stage of the game, you require to purchase something to carry on then stop playing immediately. There is no point for you to waste your time. If a game forces players to pay to play, do a U-turn and forget about it. In addition to that, if your bank card is linked to your account, your children can easily purchase in-game items with you card and without your consent. There have been many cases in the past were kids would spend all of their money on game currencies/items. What you can do to avoid this is that you can unlink your card from your account or don’t link to start. You can do this buy going to settings, account, billing and then you can click remove card. An alternative would be that you can add a security measure to the account. You can go and set up a password which would have to be typed in before every purchase. This means that your child will not be able to buy anything without your password. Make sure your doing on of the two to ensure that your money doesn’t get lost on virtual cosmetic items.
In conclusion, In-Game purchases are like a disease. Make sure you don’t catch it by making sure your card is secured with a password or completely unlinked from your account. This way you won’t catch a bug that will drain you of your payday. If your playing a game yourself, make sure to understand a difference between an online entertainment scam and a game worth your money and time.
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