Unfortunately for our wallets, microtransactions have been becoming increasingly popular recently. Microtransactions have appeared in a number of fully priced games, like Mortal Kombat , Battlefield 4 , Grand Theft Auto Online , and Halo 5 . Some of them do it well, some of them don’t. Most microtransactions simply unlock new content that isn’t necessary to the main game, like skins or items, and that’s fine. But in Battlefield 4 , you can pay x amount to get weapons, gadgets, vehicle options and essentially skip all the time and gameplay you would normally have to put in to gain them. That’s not fair. If a player is actually paying to skip parts of the game, that either means the player is lazy or the game is boring.
By design, microtransactions are usually just money grabs, and when they’re not cosmetic, they give a paying player an unfair advantage over non-paying players. But some games have been fairly clever with microtransactions, usually under the guise of equipment, skins, or powerful items that can be either acquired through extensive gameplay or by shelling out the money. Despite this option, I think the normally required exploration for such items is important to the gaming experience. I love me some aimless wandering to find that one rare weapon. It gives me a chance to explore the game’s design, both graphically and gameplay wise, and sometimes even stumble on lore.
Some games, like Zelda or Metroid , encourage exploration, often forcing the player to re-explore old places to collect enough in-game money to buy a plot-relevant item. With games like these, it would feel like cheating if a player could just buy those items. Imagine you could pay to get all 11 plasmids at the beginning of BioShock , thus unlocking all your abilities without having to find or earn them during gameplay. Not only would it break immersion by undermining how the story is told, but the entire game would be far too easy.
Alternatively, some areas in games are just plain boring and there only to make the open world more open. It can get pretty frustrating and honestly, if you could skip it, you probably would. For example, I am so done with the Hissing Wastes from Dragon Age: Inquisition. I have been exploring that area for days without discovering anything remotely interesting: there are poachers after a specific animal, rifts come and go, and there are Dwarven ruins that are never explained. Not even the Venatori outpost held much interest, and that was supposed to be a plot point! As such, even my completionist-self has returned to the Hinterlands for respite. If it was an option in Inquisition to simply pay for whatever loot and levels certain areas like the Hissing Wastes unlock, I would happily do so… but should I want to? Isn’t that just bad design?
Micro-transactions in AAA games cater to lazy gamers, are cheats for players who want immediate gratification, or point to a boring game that deserves to have its content skipped. At this point, I believe it’s all about design. If you want your game to work with micro-transactions and make sure they don’t look like a cash grab, try keeping the content to non-essentials, like equipment DLCs, skins, or even NPCs. If you’re a casual player that simply doesn’t have the time to go through and unlock everything, I understand that these shortcuts can enable you to catch up to the rest of the players. However, I still think there is a lot to be had in actually exploring the depths of the world, without the options of micro-transactions. Don’t let microtransactions turn you into a lazy gamer!