There have been video games for a while now. They are a common pastime and even a source of income for many people. Video game playing quickly evolved from a pastime to a profession, particularly with the rise of websites for live streaming and video, like YouTube and Twitch. Many users of these platforms picked up their controllers in the hopes of becoming the next millionaire gamer. More people playing games means that game developers must produce better, more modern products. Even if these products aren’t the best, the business is in it for the money, so it doesn’t really matter.
When video games were first introduced, they were a remarkable achievement and each one was distinctive in its own way. Even though they didn’t look that good back in the 1980s and 1990s, they offered something that even many games today don’t. And that something is of high caliber. In the past five years or so, video games have shifted from being a form of entertainment to more of a service. Different from DLC (Downloadable Content), microtransactions were gradually introduced into top Triple A developers’ games. DLC has always been an addition to the game or more content to make it more playable, which in turn keeps players interested and wanting more. The issue is with video games that try to charge for content that ought to be available for free or only after completing the game, not immediately after entering a credit card number. This is a common practice recently and it has raised a lot of issues, and even many countries consider “loot boxes” gambling, which in reality it is. In video games, a “loot box” is a container that contains a random item or a random set of items that can be obtained by spending real money or in-game currency. Now that the value of these items is scale-based, some players will receive rarer or higher-quality items than others based only on chance. The target audience for this is primarily younger gamers who are more naive and are willing to spend whatever money they have on a game to improve their appearance or performance. To simply stay ahead of the curve.
In addition to encouraging gambling among young people, this practice can also be very addictive, making it extremely risky. Many times, people will spend thousands of dollars on a single item or to bolster their character or team. It is obvious that the developers don’t care because it will only result in them making more money; however, they never consider the potential impact on people’s livelihoods or even their families.
The main purpose of these procedures is to allow the game’s creators to continue making money after it has been released. According to statistics, microtransactions generate more revenue overall than the game itself, and those kinds of game series are released annually with little to no changes in the actual video game. Even if microtransactions have no effect on gameplay, they are still a significant problem because it is very difficult to find a finished game at any retailer or online marketplace that doesn’t offer them.
Instead of creating games that are barely finished and loaded with microtransactions, developers should focus on creating quality games if they want to keep players entertained and invested in their video games. Video game quality is slowly declining as a result of the games as a service trend. In the future, people won’t even be able to fully own games; instead, everything will be rented out, but players will still need to purchase a code in order to play the game—which they don’t even own—and then pay the rental fee. See how absurd that sounds!? The player’s decision to change is the only way that anything will alter.