Written evidence - Anonymous
Concerning Monetisation & Addictive Game Design
Written evidence for the inquiry into the growth of ‘immersive and addictive technologies’
This submission to the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee is to outline growing concerns that the games industry is prioritising how to get customers to pay for their entertainment and how the interactive entertainment is being optimised to keep customers engaged to encourage further spending.
I’m a young adult with over 10 years’ experience playing PC and console games and currently starting a new career to work in the games industry. I speak primarily for myself as a gamer but believe I’m not alone in my views.
This submission is relevant to ‘Tackling digital and gaming addiction’ and ‘The links between gaming and gambling’ in the terms of reference of the inquiry covered by two sections
At the end of this document I provide 4 cases regarding various subjects discussed.
At the centre of the argument and reasoning for this submission boils down to why I believe we buy and play games… Challenge and reward.
At the core of video games, board games, card games, pen and paper role playing games and even physical sports is players are presented a challenge or competition and are rewarded for solving said challenge or best performing in the competition. With this belief its expected video games would in subtle ways test the player’s puzzle solving, strategic thinking, resource management or hand eye coordination like how physical sports tests for a player’s physical stature and team playing competitively.
As video games have evolved their challenge and reward design has became layered and more complex which is why I wish to avoid the details and keep to a core pillar of the entertainment.
I recommend the reader to keep this core principle of challenge and reward as described in mind throughout reading this submission to understand the context of arguments presented.
To explain my concerns on how game design appears to be driven to keep customers playing longer and to spend more, I will first establish in brief the common ways on how customers pay for games.
A simple and traditional model of paying upfront shelf price for a game.
A game that requires monthly or annual subscription to play or a service that gives customers access to premium games for a subscription.
A more complex model where the game is free to play and uses in-app purchasing as the means to make profits.
After a game is released it can be financially supported further with the following:
premium content for an already released game. Sometimes also called expansions.
means of paying for in-game items that have in-game value.
In-app purchasing better known by gaming customers as microtransactions are a means which the customer can pay to obtain digital items of in-game value for said game. In-App purchases are generally accepted for freemium games but can become a point of contention when found in premium games despite it today being a standard practice for certain publishers and game titles.
Because microtransactions can sometimes allow customers to pay for an item of in-game value which is comparable to that of an item that they are rewarded for playing the game, microtransactions without careful consideration for game design can undermine the very purpose of the interactive entertainment.
Games that use microtransactions have to carefully balanced to assure the game doesn’t become one of the following statements that break the core principle of challenge and reward:
A term used to describe a game with microtransactions that allow the player to complete the game by purchasing all the rewards the game has to offer.
A term used to describe a game with microtransactions that allow the player to pay to be excessively rewarded such they can skip certain challenges and game content.
A game is described as gambling when it has microtransactions that could be continually spent to acquire random in-game items.
(See Case 4 a developer of a popular freemium game admits they accidently created a form of microtransaction that found itself being used excessively and removed it.)
Games with microtransactions usually have in-game currencies where the in-app purchase obtains a virtual currency instead of an item of in-game value. In these cases what the customer can spend the in-game currency on has to be carefully balanced the same way.
Because Downloadable content known as DLC can be purchased by customers after a game is released much like microtransactions, it’s important to explain why DLC normally does not potentially undermine game design. In comparison to microtransactions, DLC provides the customer with both new challenges with corresponding rewards effectively providing more game content, whereas microtransactions provide the customer with a digital item of in-game value that’s a reward in itself or directly affects how rewarding the game is.
The purpose of this section is to explain how both game design and non-game design aspects are altered to encourage spending of these microtransactions and could be a potential issue for people with addictive personality.
(See Cases 1 – 3 provide examples of issues related to random rewards and potential gambling)
Random reward systems use a game of chance to reward players for completing challenges or matches and are usually but not exclusively found in the form of a loot box mechanic. The loot box is a digital item that holds no in-game value until it is “opened” which then it becomes an item of in-game value which is usually cosmetic but has been known in the past to be an item that affects the challenge and gameplay. The issue regarding games using a random reward system is they effectively control how rewarding the game can be by dictating the chances of being rewarded highly desirable in-game rewards. Due to the design of this reward system, this can mean the player is not guaranteed to be respectively rewarded relative to the difficultly of a challenge presented to them or their performance in a competitive match. To get the more valuable in-game rewards the player would be required to replay the game completing the same challenges to eventually get the reward they desire.
Games such as 2017 title Player Unknowns Battlegrounds from Bluehole, 2016 title Overwatch from Activision Blizzard and 2017 title Star Wars Battlefront 2 from EA all have a random reward system as their primary way of acquiring in-game rewards. What all these titles have in common is they are online competitive games and have a concept of a loot box.
I will note that both Overwatch and Player Unknown Battlegrounds random reward systems are purely in-game cosmetic items and have therefore been far more accepted by the majority of gaming audiences even though I personally don’t agree with the practice.
The more traditional progressive reward system on the other hand rewards based on performance and or efficiency of the player completing challenges or matches meaning, the harder the challenge or better performing in a competitive match means the better the reward will be. This is the reward system is what I look for in games as it supports my core principle, we play to be rewarded for completing challenges.
2013 title Payday 2 from Overkill where the player is tasked to pull off heists combines both a progressive reward and random reward system. After completing a heist, player is rewarded accordingly to how well they completed the challenge and in addition they get a random item of in-game value. This adds replay potential without compromising the entire reward system.
Gearbox Software’s Borderlands series started in 2009 is an intriguing example of using random systems to supplement a progressive reward system. In an borderlands game the in-game rewards are effectively randomly generated, but follow a levelling system to assure they are as valuable as what the player has already been rewarded in previous challenges and more desired rewards generated with a rarity system can be acquired through defeating more difficult opponents and challenges. In this case the rewards are random but are progressively always better and have clear means of acquiring more desired rewards.
When a game uses a random reward system with loot boxes and combines it with microtransactions to purchase loot boxes or pay to open loot boxes, gaming customers will call this reward system gambling. This is important to note as when combined with the random reward system, this may not be as rewarding as it could be, this in turn could potentially drive players to make recurring spends on microtransactions to obtain more loot boxes in hope when opened they will get the reward they want. I call this hopeful spending…
My very limited personal expose to this issue is 2017 title Player Unknowns Battlegrounds where you are rewarded an in-game currency after every match that can be spent on loot boxes. Amongst the loot boxes that can be opened there are a few types of loot box that requires the player to pay via a microtransaction to open them to get a random in-game reward.
I spend money to purchase something, not in the hope of purchasing something and this is why I call this gambling as do many others. The items rewarded through this type of spending only have value within the context of a video game and have no intrinsic value. This is why I believe UK Gambling Commission and others around the world do not see this fitting the legal definition of gambling. To date only Belgium and The Netherlands have declared what I describe as gambling.
Gambling loot boxes aren’t as common as they were in 2017 in PC and console gaming after customer dissatisfaction but I believe this is an issue for regulation to assure it doesn’t happen again due to the financial appeal of such systems.
The game industry trade associations responsible for self-regulation such as the Entertainment Software Association and its child organisation ESRB in the United States have voiced very little concern over the issue of potential gambling. I do not wish for regulation on this industry but I believe it’s now required in regards to how this entertainment is being monetised and charged for.
To challenge any potential gambling issue in video games I believe microtransactions and random reward systems need to be disconnected from one another. This way the player is guaranteed of what they are purchasing when spending on a in-app purchase rather than continually spending on in-app purchases to get an in-game item they want.
I suggest the committee to seriously consider regulative action to assure in-app purchases cannot be continually spent for random in-game rewards and in addition assure such measures are also applied to any related sponsorship of the game with other products.
Back in 2017 a prominent consumer advocate game critic I regularly watch on YouTube showed how marketing is applying player analysis and machine learning to encourage spending of in-app purchasing by showing a company called Scientific Revenue. This company boasts dynamic pricing and various other ways to make in-app purchases more desirable for customers.
If the application of player analysis and technological marketing is being used to boost in-app purchases in video games then I feel the committee should perhaps inquire into further on how marketing techniques could be affecting video games and addiction.
When gaming customers, journalists and critics challenge microtransactions or loot boxes a common rebuttal is the microtransactions gives “player choice” of investing time or money to skip the time required to play their interactive entertainment. Following my core principle that we play games to be rewarded for completing challenges this argument goes against every reason why I should purchase a video game.
Gamers such as myself who do not purchase microtransactions believe they are not optional unless the game itself is already rewarding. I refer Case 2 as a potential example that games can be less rewarding to make microtransactions more desirable to purchase causing the quality of the entertainment to be lowered for everyone.
Another rebuttal against undesired microtransactions is creating video games is expensive and the added microtransactions on shelf price games are required due to the cost of development. I agree games that with huge budgets are expensive but would put forward an example of high budget video games such as 2018 title God Of War from Santa Monica Studios and 2018 title Spider-Man from Insomniac Games that both did not include microtransactions and publicly announced as successful, dampening this argument into a potential excuse for premium games justifying why they have microtransactions.
I understand balancing game design to be intriguing to keep players interested by being rewarding while encouraging them to spend especially where freemium games are concerned can be a difficult and potentially a reactive learning process for the developers to avoid creating addicted players. However, I believe over the last few years simply understanding what games are as an interactive entertainment and why people play them has been enough to understand what was and has been done is not good game design. Games don’t have to be an endless cycle of sub-par entertainment designed to ask for your time or money, they can be a competitive sports or finite experiences good enough in their own right for us to revisit much like how we relisten to the same music or re-watch films we enjoy.
Games I’ve referenced that I have played:
Game I’ve referenced I have not played:
https://www.polygon.com/2015/10/21/9582468/payday-2-microtransactions-drills-safes
https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/payday-2-is-ditching-microtransactions/
https://uk.ign.com/articles/2018/04/03/shadow-of-war-permanently-removes-microtransactions
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-42024077
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-41981979
https://kotaku.com/warframe-removed-a-microtransaction-because-a-player-us-1824002323
January 2019