Ragashigo's post is super important. (Destiny)

by Harmanimus , Sunday, October 22, 2017, 20:39 (2380 days ago) @ Kahzgul

It sums up a lot of my feelings, but I decided this was a better location to affix my reply. I've only been able to skim the first article, but the one about micro-transactions in Freemium games seems to have a high probability of being used to reinforce an existing bias. I would like a lot more data than just what appears to be a broad aggregate. I'm sure I have to pay to see the actual detailed report because the link doesn't take me straight to a report.

Questions I have right away:
- What games are being considered in this? It specifies mobile games and freemium, but nothing else
- We have no information of socioeconomic backgrounds of those people paying most into them (or any end user data at all)
- It does not detail actual strategies used in those games which lead to the micro-transactions let alone what the majority of the micro-transactions actually purchase (is it more lives or hint items?)
- How does the data actually correlate between large purchases, repeat purchases and relative timing of those purchases (specifically regarding "$1 and $5 represent . . . only 27% of total revenues ... over $50 account for 0.7% of all purchases and contribute 9% of total revenue" and the fact that purchase rates in that blog post don't specific size of purchases)

And I would like to underscore this part from Ragashingo's post because it is very important:

Understanding why players find games fun and using that knowledge to make your next game more fun is not the same as preying on players.

It is pretty much common knowledge that people will more actively part with their money in small portions because the valuation of such a purchases is weighted higher as it is less of an overall budget. This is why I made the point to bring up perceived value. So long as players are receiving what they consider a positive, beneficial exchange it is no different than any other commodity exchange.

What it sounds like to me, on a root level, is that you are not in opposition to micro-transactions but in fact all transactions. As capitalism itself is predatory business practices. What revenue practices consumers accept is the only metric you can judge the ethics of it. Alternately, your issue is with people who have limited self control being perceived as being taken advantage of.

I'll accept that there are people where gambling (in a casino) is a substantial, measurable problem for them, but I would be interested how large that portion is relative to all people who are gambling in casinos. Just as I would be curious how many people are actually having real problems due to mobile game micro-transactions, or buying too much Silver in Destiny or credits in a CoD game or Loot Boxes in Overwatch.

Back to that blog and its nebulous conclusions, if you have 0.15% accounting for 50% of your micro-transaction revenue it sounds a lot worse than 10% accounting for 50%. Numbers don't lie, but they can deceive. Add in streamers/content creators dropping hundreds of dollars in a stream for loot openings and to otherwise support their content and I would be curious how many regular consumers are spending anything that is actually damaging their budget. Micro-transactions actually don't impact my personal budget. I only use secondary income sources to pay for them. I guess you would consider me one of the savvier purchasers, but in some (rare) cases I could easily be in the higher end of cash value. It's actually a really easy thing to not feel bad about because I cut alcohol out entirely which opens my budget to other frivolous purchases.

tl;dr - the actual purpose here is that micro-transactions aren't the problem, because the majority of people who partake in them do so with knowledge of what they are and what they are getting out of them, and that a very small portion of players are spending larger sums on them where we don't have sufficient practical data to make honest judgement of those purchases.