Video games have been around for quite some time. They are a lot of people's favorite pastime, and even a way to earn money. Video games quickly turned from a hobby to a job, especially when live video and streaming platforms like YouTube and Twitch came into being. With these platforms, many people have chosen their controllers in the hope of becoming the next player to make millions by doing what they love. With more people playing games, game developers need to come up with better and more up to date products. Even though these products aren't the best, they do it all for the money in the end because it's a business.
When video games first launched they were an incredible feat and all were unique in their own way. While they didn't look as good in the '80s and' 90s, they offered something that even a lot of games today don't. And that something is quality. In the last 5 years or so, video games have started to become more of a service than entertainment. Slowly, the best developers of Triple A began to incorporate microtransactions into their games, which are very different from DLC (downloadable content). The DLC was always an expansion or additional content to make the game more playable which made players more entertaining and wanting more. The problem is with video games attempting to sell coins from their game that should have been free or unlocked by actually playing the game instead of just entering a credit card number to unlock said heroes or items. This has been a common practice recently and it has given rise to a lot of problems, and even many countries are considering the game of “loot boxes”, which it actually is. A loot box in video games occurs when a player uses either in-game currency or real currency to obtain a random item or a set of random items. Now the value of these items is based on a scale, some players will be given rare or higher quality items over others just based on the odds. This is primarily aimed at young players who are more naive and are willing to spend all the money they have on a game to look cooler or play better. Simply to get ahead.
This practice is extremely dangerous not only because it promotes play in children, but it can also be addictive. There are many instances where people spend thousands of dollars just to get a single item or to improve their character or team. Obviously the developers don't care because it's just more money for them, but they never look at what it can do for a person's livelihood and even their family.
The main reason these practices are implemented is that the developers continue to make money even after the game is released. Based on the stats, microtransactions do more globally than the game itself, and these types Game series are released annually with little to no changes to the video game itself. It's extremely rare to find a completed game in a store or market that doesn't offer micro-transactions, even if they don't impact gameplay, that's still a major issue.
If developers want to entertain gamers and invest in their video games, they should be developing quality games instead of making barely finished games loaded with micro-transactions. The trend of games as a service is slowly killing the quality of video games. Sooner or later people won't even be allowed to fully own the game, it will all just be a rental, but the player still has to buy a code to play the rental, and then pay the rental to play the game that doesn't. is not even theirs. Look how crazy that sounds !? The only way this will all change is if the player chooses to change.