They'll get your money

this article is a work in progress

No matter in which game you’re playing, microtransactions will be there in many cases. No matter if you’re playing a mobile-, indie- or even a AAA-Game, microtransactions are with us since over 15 years.

 

It’s probably Bethesda with it’s horse armor that started the now widely known trend of paying an additional fee for a virtual good.

 

There are games out there that try to hide the real costs you will sink into it and some make it relatively easy. A very few will even be ‘fair and square’ with you but that’s a rarity.

 

 

The first trick you will encounter is hiding an items real value behind a virtual currency. In the examples we’ll use we say ‘Credits’ and we start right away with our first example.

 

Imagine you can buy 10 Credits with 1 Dollar. The item you want costs you 3 Credits. You have to do your math if you want to know the real value of the item and in this case roughly 33 Cents.

 

 

Most of us will do some form of simple math but as soon it’s getting a bit more complex you need to put in more effort and now the game tries to blurry the real world value of an in game item even more. Buying a secondary currency with your first virtual currency and here is our second example:

 

You can buy 250 Super-Credits for 10 Credits and the item now costs 120 Super-Credits. Already it’s now much harder to figure out the real value.

 

You have now paid roughly half of your Dollar for the same item instead of roughly a third. Here already we will have players that aren’t interested in doing the math and that’s what the companies want. You think you got a deal but in reality you pay even more.

 

 

Trying to hide the real world value of an in game item is a very common practice and it will get even more tricky for you as consumer. Because no matter which game: The transaction in many if not most cases will never be fair. Now lets start with our first example of the ‘strange numbers’ trick.

 

You can either buy 6, 12 or 20 Credits for 1, 2 or 3 Dollar. The cheapest item costs 15 Credits and the most expensive one costs 35 Credits. What we see here very quickly is that no pack except the most expensive one can give you the cheapest item. This trick is wisely used to make you pay as much as possible because of another simple mind-shenanigan:

 

“Well, I have x amount of credits left so I’ll buy another x amount to buy this neat thing I want”

 

This trick is so extremely common and aims directly at your psychological behavior that this is the most important one for many games with microtransactions out there. And because of the “sunken cost fallacy” you are now invested into the game – you are on the hook.

Another well known and extremely often used trick is the time trick. This aims to your fear of missing out something awesome, missing out a potential bargain and many people fall for this trick very easy. Here’s an example:

 

“This awesome bargain is just for you! Only for the next 10 minutes you get 60 Credits for 6 Dollar!”

 

 

This is actually two clever psychological tricks in one: First it’s the limited time offer. If the timer goes to zero you lost your chance on this deal. Second trick is that you’ll save 3 Dollar because 20 Credits cost 3 Dollar.

 

Fact is: You never ‘save’ within a bargain. I’ll explain it:

 

When you have 100 Dollar and want to buy something that costs 100 Dollar you already have the money ready and are willing to pay this exact amount. If you now see the item reduced to any amount under 100 Dollar that’s when you save money.

 

When you don’t plan to buy an item you don’t have the money ready and you are not willing to spend it now or later. But the item is reduced from 200 Dollar to 100. You’ll “save” 100, right? No. Because you did not plan to buy this item you do not save any single dime. You instead pay 100 Dollar to get the item.

 

Everyone uses psychological tricks to get your money.

 

 

The bigger problem with microtransactions is that they often enough offer you to buy so called “loot boxes”. But loot boxes are another clever psychological trick and the most evil one on the market in my opinion.

 

 

Let’s go back to the “fear of missing out”. This trick is so common and widely spread you will find it everywhere. YouTuber selling a limited amount of merchandise, the 50” wide display on Amazon, your friendly Supermarket offering you a coupon – They all have one thing in common: They are usually timed.

 

Clever people will use that to their personal advantage and use the time to plan, save up money and strike a deal because those people can wait (long) times. The weaker minded ones are the main target for the ‘fear of missing out’ tactic.

 

This isn’t demeaning in any way. Some people have a stronger mind, others have a weaker mind and that’s completely normal. I fell for the ‘fomo’ tactic myself in younger ages. The problem is that companies know exactly what they’re doing and if they’re not regulated they will get many people into trouble.

 

 

How many lost their livelihood because they went into deep debt because of microtransactions? How many put their parents into a huge pool of problems by stealing their credit cards for some in game currencies?

 

 

Do not forget this: They’re after your money.