I wrote this two years ago on another website, I think it's still as relevant today as it was then.

If you're a gamer in any remote sense of the word, the development of this trend should give you severe cause for concern about the direction the industry is going.

The way games traditionally worked is that a developer would make a game to the best of their abilities, ship it, and gamers would play to the best of their abilities.

The first model change is DLC. That's fine conceptually - game companies still make games to the best of their abilities, only they carry on developing after the game has shipped and sell additional content post release.

If that's the way it happens in practice, that's ok. The problem with DLC is when that content isn't created post release, but actually created along with the main project, essentially making it cut content - content that would have been in the game under the previous model. Content made by people who are then immediately "streamlined" as soon as the bulk of the game has been made, leaving a small team to deal with patches etc.

There is no way to discern as a consumer whether your paying for the completely reasonable first option, or being fleeced by the second. With the second option, the games development costs would have been the same either way - you're just being sold parts of it for extra money you wouldn't have paid in the initial instance. That's the first problem with this trend.

Secondly, microtransactions are a complete con. If you remotely think that they are in any way, shape or form healthy for the integrity of the industry and for the enjoyment of consumers I worry for your mental health. Here's a quote from a gaming blog:

This wider trend is heading towards games that give you just enough of a sniff of the prize, let you have just enough fun, that you’ll feel compelled to spend a bit more money to make it that little bit better. That encourages shareholders to further encourage game designers to make their games that way – not based upon providing the best experience possible, but always just short of that. Always allowing room for manoeuvre; for more monetisation.

Essentially, you'll never feel satisfied with the product. It's the entire raison d'etre of mobile gaming, to actively abuse the human psychological process of effort/reward into pressuring you into making purchases. There's several studies on exactly that, and it's raising some interesting ethical questions. People will say "well none of it get's to me, I have the mental defences of a jedi" but plenty of people don't, and this model will prosper and grow through that exploitation. All that happens is you end up with a constantly inferior product to the one that could have been produced.

Another of the issues is, the consumer no longer knows "this takes x amount of skill to achieve" I.E - "playing a game", you know, that old fashioned concept. Microtransactions blur the distinction between real achievement and paid for achievements.

Do you want to know the really sad thing though? This line from the same blog:

Gaming is about the playing, the core experience of interactivity, and my concern is that will be watered down to cater to a model that suits the interests of the people at the very top, who will undoubtedly never pick up a controller.

Gamers don't want this model. Most programmers and developers are gamers, they don't want this model. Shareholders want this model. Greedy cunts destroying and watering down and raping every single thing they come into contact with. If gaming goes in this direction, and as the article says, basically hoodwinks an entire generation into thinking this is how gaming works, it's the end of truly great titles in a medium that has so much potential.