You’re using an extreme example which is fine and I agree that what Candy Crush is doing is clearly trying to exploit people. However, I do believe there’s a stark difference between that and the examples we were discussing.
Tbh, I don’t think that Candy Crush is an extreme example. On mobile this is more the norm than an outlier.
And even on PC, there are far worse examples, like games that allow you to resell lootbox content, which is literal gambling. It’s a scratch card with extra steps.
Literally the only point for microtransactions to exist (versus e.g. expansions/DLCs) is to split up the cost into smaller chunks so that players lose track of how much they actually spent.
“I’m not paying €50 for a handful of cosmetic items” becomes “I’m just paying 20 gems for this one cool item, and then I’m going to do it again and again and again.”
The very concept of microtransactions is to hide the cost to manipulate and exploit players.
Otherwise they’d just release an expansion or a large DLC with all the content in it for a fair price.
Remember how everyone laughed at the horse armor? Well, that’s standard now.
You’re using an extreme example which is fine and I agree that what Candy Crush is doing is clearly trying to exploit people. However, I do believe there’s a stark difference between that and the examples we were discussing.
Tbh, I don’t think that Candy Crush is an extreme example. On mobile this is more the norm than an outlier.
And even on PC, there are far worse examples, like games that allow you to resell lootbox content, which is literal gambling. It’s a scratch card with extra steps.
Literally the only point for microtransactions to exist (versus e.g. expansions/DLCs) is to split up the cost into smaller chunks so that players lose track of how much they actually spent.
“I’m not paying €50 for a handful of cosmetic items” becomes “I’m just paying 20 gems for this one cool item, and then I’m going to do it again and again and again.”
The very concept of microtransactions is to hide the cost to manipulate and exploit players.
Otherwise they’d just release an expansion or a large DLC with all the content in it for a fair price.
Remember how everyone laughed at the horse armor? Well, that’s standard now.