Research Results: Predatory Monetisation in Games

"

Hi everyone,

In 2020, I posted on this sub to recruit participants for a survey I was doing into predatory monetisation tactics in games. I asked players what in-game monetisation techniques they had encountered which they believed had been unfair, aggressive, or misleading.

I got a total of over 1000 responses from different subs, and found 35 in-game predatory monetisation techniques. This became both an academic journal article (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10551-021-04970-6) and recently, an article for the news outlet The Conversation. If you are interested in my findings, you can read it here: https://theconversation.com/very-sneaky-tactics-we-asked-gamers-how-they-feel-about-monetisation-in-digital-gaming-173030.

If you participated, thank you. If you are interested in the topic, I am currently working to identify consequences of predatory game monetisation, as well as looking into what causes and contributes to gaming addiction. If you think you might have been affected in some way by predatory game monetisation schemes, or more generally, if your life has been affected by gaming, please drop me an email at ep1167@york.ac.uk. I would love to interview you for my research.

Source:- https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/rxiduc/research_results_predatory_monetisation_in_games/

Edit:- Here's the list of all types of microtransactions identified -

Interesting read!

I'm not reading the scholarly journal at work, but;

The article in The Conversation is bland, skirts being partial or fractal information, and has several contradictions.

It claims that the surveys were worldwide consumers, while focusing in on the UK, and discusses consumer regulations for protection while claiming the UK has NONE.

Futhermore, in the abstract, it leaves information out about post 2008 revisions to consumer protection across the world following class action lawsuits claiming gacha are gambling, that thwarted such assumptions in several areas, including but not limited to the United States (RNG was vastly increased in the online sales market following that decision, and many companies competing in pseudo-regulated territories changed their purchase/license agreements to shield against direct renumeration violations; like Archeage charging a monthly subscription + an in game land taxation system, shielded the company - Trion - from lawsuits over its p2w and RNG sales and structure. If the item being sold was an in game item that enhanced gear randomly, and not a gacha that randomly gave you an item, it bypassed almost every regulation.)

Generally, the courts will always side with the company with the contracts you agreed to when discussing unfair practices, especially in cases of paid services, RNG, and account suspensions. You agree to the risk. You agree to pay for services in a certain way. You agree to let them do whatever with 'your' account. You are just renting their services. You own nothing.

Interestingly enough, I did a larger and much more comprehensive study in this direct and field in 2013 in Economics. You have at least 4 dummy variables, and any findings are subjected to bias.

hey rekikyo, got a link to your study? Genuinely curious.

The arms race between game studios and regulatory bodies is rather fascinating to follow.

It's also somewhat vindicating to read the excerpts from the paper and see a number of other games besides PoE getting their knuckles rapped for psychological strongarm tactics, e.g. the dialog box right over the BUY screen pop-up, and the WoT shenanigans including timed boosters and FOMO league passes.

There's a whole separate class of chain-jerking that goes on outside of the mtx system but drives a lot of player misery, in a lot of the same ways. E.g. honeymooning, whereby artificial scarcity of rare RNG-determined events, including chase rare loot drops, secret bosses, hidden areas, or unlockable cutscenes are miraculously accessible for about 72 hours...then they become all but unattainable for the latecomers. Coinciding of course, with the press cycle for a big release weekend.

Legacy systems and PVP ladders are another form of FOMO abuse that while it doesn't directly drive MTX sales, it can push players to the market when what they're really after is something cosmetic or marginal that's arbitrarily locked behind competitive play, or some other game mode, that costs real money. Examples would include any Pvp-rank or ladder-specific decorative trophy, item, badge, or vehicle decal in any racing game. Some really useful things for non-PVP gaming end up arbitrarily locked behind a paywall in this way.

Cosmetics linked to certain skills in PoE are borderline - if you like toxic rain because it's got good clear so you buy black lotus pods mtx, then they nerf it so it has shit clear, technically the product does exactly the same thing, but it can only be applied to a skill that does NOT do what it did when you made the purchasing decision. Legally sound, but ethically feelbads.

"

crunkatog wrote:

hey rekikyo, got a link to your study? Genuinely curious.

The arms race between game studios and regulatory bodies is rather fascinating to follow.

It's also somewhat vindicating to read the excerpts from the paper and see a number of other games besides PoE getting their knuckles rapped for psychological strongarm tactics, e.g. the dialog box right over the BUY screen pop-up, and the WoT shenanigans including timed boosters and FOMO league passes.

There's a whole separate class of chain-jerking that goes on outside of the mtx system but drives a lot of player misery, in a lot of the same ways. E.g. honeymooning, whereby artificial scarcity of rare RNG-determined events, including chase rare loot drops, secret bosses, hidden areas, or unlockable cutscenes are miraculously accessible for about 72 hours...then they become all but unattainable for the latecomers. Coinciding of course, with the press cycle for a big release weekend.

Legacy systems and PVP ladders are another form of FOMO abuse that while it doesn't directly drive MTX sales, it can push players to the market when what they're really after is something cosmetic or marginal that's arbitrarily locked behind competitive play, or some other game mode, that costs real money. Examples would include any Pvp-rank or ladder-specific decorative trophy, item, badge, or vehicle decal in any racing game. Some really useful things for non-PVP gaming end up arbitrarily locked behind a paywall in this way.

Cosmetics linked to certain skills in PoE are borderline - if you like toxic rain because it's got good clear so you buy black lotus pods mtx, then they nerf it so it has shit clear, technically the product does exactly the same thing, but it can only be applied to a skill that does NOT do what it did when you made the purchasing decision. Legally sound, but ethically feelbads.

I'd have to search through three different Google Drives for a rough survey, but the actual study was a Statistics grade, and I've went through 4 computers since then. Mine was generally on Only F2P, with a focus on studios like Aeriagames/Gamigo, Daum Gaming, Trion, and Bluehole Studios. I had a sample of over 13,700 out of 50,000 submitted survey requests.

At the time I also had direct access to Aeriagame's Marketing Director, and Tera's Director of sales. Part of the reason I know that consumers never win these things. Game Publishers don't even have to fight all their lawsuits, because most are covered by gambling precedent.

Interestingly enough, in my early online gaming days, my large guild I ran was built around the premise that free players that are organized can beat p2w. I started that guild after a falling out with a pure P2W guild where I had a Guild leader who went all out on p2w to even buy 30 minute/1 hour buff items to do everything in the game we were playing (Shaiya/Nos potions) just to grind to max level and both show off to the people he was grinding with and to allowed monopolization of bosses. I managed to become one of his officers, and people generally started moving toward me rather than him personality wise, and one of his previous guildies hated that he got passed up for officer, so after running the guild about 9 months, the Guild leader kicked me after sufficient rear-kissing, (the general excuse was that Aeria games had had an event where really rare low level pvp zone gear came out of a bag they 1 time offered in game as a gold sink program, I got one, and he wanted it, but I refused. That item also cost me a Game Sage position, because I had moved it to a different account, which Aeria claimed was me trying to hide it; ironically my GL actually DID know a way to hide them from deletion, and made a ton of profit by making it so the deletion patch wouldn't detect them).

So, I started a guild with the defectors, and absorbed almost every other major guild on our server, and began a F2P experiment, trying to win content from the guild that kicked me, without spending. We had help though; The game had a third party market selling Game Cards for Gold. I managed to do enough flipping to accrue enough Cards for monthly Tier promos that matched that Guild's spending and then some, sometimes buying on 2-3 accounts- with other people's money. Technically, we were playing free. Someone was paying, though.

The rivalry kept the server the most active for about 5 years, every month consistently playing the tiers to gradually perfect our gear. I managed to win content about 30% of the time, as this was a top damage gets drops game. 70% of the time, my old Guild leader or one of his guild-geared super warriors won, but that was enough to break monopolization and recruit. At our peak we had 792 players online at a time. All thanks to those third party card sellers.

After Shaiya, I just started spending my own money. That was probably over $46,000 ago.

P.S. I forgot to mention: Shaiya basically forced you to spend.

Instead of play mode difficulty levels, if had Norma/Hard/Ultimate Characters.
Normal was 5 stats per level and a very limited set of skills you could learn.
Hard Mode was 7 stats. and a medium set of skills you could learn (except ultimate ability), and deaths would lose 5% XP.

Ultimate mode was 9 Stats, all skills, and no XP loss, but there was a major catch: If you died without a resurrection rune of Continuous Resurrection Rune (7hour/14 hour/1 week/30 day) You would be DELETED. All Gear. Character, Everything.

Would you even try to play anything but Ultimate in a game where stats and damage define who gets drops and you need all abilities?

A GM event almost killed me while my Conti expired, because the GM was spawning bosses across all maps (even PVE) randomly and spawned like 7 bosses right on top of me, and it took priests 2 min 36 seconds to reach me (Deletion after 3 min). After that I started multiboxing with a HM Oracle (Priest) to heal and a Tank to take aggro. I could almost solo setup bosses that normally took 16 people by the time I was done building.

PoE is quite literally one of the worst offenders in terms of MTX pricing I have ever encountered.

Not only does PoE *ON PURPOSE* never drop what would be considered 'cool looking gear', they make their 'end game' gear look so hideous the average player is going to want to spend money JUST to not look so fuckin' ridiculous.

I've been there. I've spent hundreds upon hundreds over the years JUST to have my character that I spent 1k hours on look 'cool', but you don't have to.

If you're reading this now, you need to know that PoE has completely morphed the 'gotcha' game mode. Yep, it's free to play. But guess what? You're paying hand over fist for ANY of the quality-of-life tabs, and they fucking charge FULL GAME PRICE for a simple pair of wings!

If the game itself was actually good I wouldn't be complaining. But they've managed to not only be the game with some of the most expensive MTX I've ever seen, but they've ALSO managed to completely ruin the core pillar of ANY arpg; the Loot. The actual loot from the mobs you spend hundreds of hours killing is horrendous, and the entire game is balanced around you just trying to trade for any actually good gear.

Stay away from this mess. Stay far away.

Here's the list of all types of microtransactions identified -

"

Bleu42 wrote:

PoE is quite literally one of the worst offenders in terms of MTX pricing I have ever encountered.

Not only does PoE *ON PURPOSE* never drop what would be considered 'cool looking gear', they make their 'end game' gear look so hideous the average player is going to want to spend money JUST to not look so fuckin' ridiculous.

I've been there. I've spent hundreds upon hundreds over the years JUST to have my character that I spent 1k hours on look 'cool', but you don't have to.

If you're reading this now, you need to know that PoE has completely morphed the 'gotcha' game mode. Yep, it's free to play. But guess what? You're paying hand over fist for ANY of the quality-of-life tabs, and they fucking charge FULL GAME PRICE for a simple pair of wings!

If the game itself was actually good I wouldn't be complaining. But they've managed to not only be the game with some of the most expensive MTX I've ever seen, but they've ALSO managed to completely ruin the core pillar of ANY arpg; the Loot. The actual loot from the mobs you spend hundreds of hours killing is horrendous, and the entire game is balanced around you just trying to trade for any actually good gear.

Stay away from this mess. Stay far away.

I'm sorry but if you think POE is the worst offender, you've been living in a hole.

I just paid $100 yesterday to not even get the TFT Little Legends I wanted from riot for 21 Eggs. Every skin in LoL is about $12-$20, and I've owned almost 90% of them on 8 accounts over time.

A sexy swimsuit in Scarlet Blade (shut down Nudity based combat MMO that Aeria Hosted) cost $100 and was structured into tiers.

Perfect World Cost $40 for a Mount.
Forsaken World Cost upwards of $30 for a dress.

Black Desert Minimum Pearl purchase was $150, which would translate into 2-3 MTX.

Tera would charge you $30 for PVP runes and $20 for custom dyes for your costumes.

I haven't even gotten into P2W costs.

Shaiya cost $150-$300 for an enchant service to enchant gear/weapons (which you needed to outdps other players)

Archeage cost 4000 credits ($40) for a single Red Regrade Stone (used to enchant weapons over (6), and the fail chance was high and there was never any sales on them.

----------

POE:
There's kind of a reason your characters/gear looks ugly: THE GAME IS OLD. SO OLD THAT THE ORIGINAL CONCEPT WAS STILL POLYGONAL AND Lacking in ALL environment detail. It was also BEGAN as a crowd funded donor game, not a game that had a principal investor or any original subscriptions.

You don't have to rebuy stashes. You don't have to buy all MTX. It's probably the cheapest game I've ever played.

Go try Archeage. You can actually full 3-D fly in that game.

"

Exile009 wrote:

Here's the list of all types of microtransactions identified -

Okay now I'm currently confused. This doesn't look like a Scholarly study because there's no way this data can be empirically evaluated as presented. Almost all types of monetization that are mentioned here have autocorrelation with at least 5 other "observed types."

I don't know how any scholarly journal would pick this up. Any result is going to be saturated with homogeneous data, be autocorrelated, and fail a test for heteroscedacity. It may look like statistically significant data - if you aren't means testing your data, because it likely has a low r^2 due to data not being independent.

Furthermore, it takes some factors independent of outright management, and makes them factors. Re-releases generally aren't single management decisions; they are publishers buying a developer's product and releasing them under new management. That's not a targeted plan for a developer to recapitalize.

Monetization usually becomes fairer when changed over the course of a game.

Fixed cost of a good is extremely fair, and argues the opposite of what you're trying to present. It prevents players from monopolizing a good and relisting it higher. Those goods are usually needed, mobility goods sold by NPCs in a Gold currency game.

Overpricing doesn't actually exist. It's a Supply/Demand argument being tossed to the wayside to argue that buyers know better than sellers what their good is worth. If it's a price that meets buyers' demands, they buy it. It if doesn't they don't. We have no data on how much of a certain good is intended in any specific market, and we're talking about digital goods, so we have to assume the seller either wants a low supply, or they will relist the good at a lower price. (If it's regrading, I guarantee the publisher wants to maximize revenue there, which means they will do what's fair).

It's okay to call something like this a Survey. I wouldn't call it a study though. Study implies you have a Hypothesis and statistics to back it up.

i still think ggg could charge 30$ for a temp league and people would play it.

having permanent leagues free of charge, the game could still claim to be free to play. you can still fight every boss and access every area of the game without paying money.


as a result, they could give away decorational mtx as ingame rewards.

and there could also be discounts for those who already kept the game alive over the years.

--

it could also end ggg's weird idea of mixing up the incompatible concepts of "supporting the game to get some good looking mtx" and "gambling to win the same mtx".

"incompatible", because it punishes those who want to support the game without gambling.