I tried to find an old YouTube video with an interview with the someone from, I believe it was an EA but my memory fails, who made the systems that monetize games with micro-transactions... As in they came up with the ideas that got woven into games to generate dolla from them.
Unfortunately due to YouTubes unique algorithms all it would bring up was content from all the REEEEEE merchants that stuff we've had linked on TEST over the last couple of months. Most frustrating and makes the platform virtually worthless as a archive, just watch the latest unsubstantiated bullsh*t like it's some kind of soap-opera... They might as well delete anything over 3 months old.
Basically the video I was looking for had one of the office people who'd been trying to make a turnover form one of their online games - it started saying the game began as a subscription model but didn't generate enough income. The purchase of the game and the running of the game seemed to be considered to be two different things, so if they'd made a billion off selling copies but couldn't make a profit from the playing community there was a real risk the servers could still be closed. In the end they made it generate a practical turnover by making it free to play and selling, you guessed it, cosmetic items.
But this video will have to do, it's good assuming it's accurate - After Battlefield 2 and the banning of lootbox gambling in videogames in many countries it looks for all the world that a $20 skin is EA trying to make a new money market for themselves:
"only this week [when this video was made] a wall-street anlysit claimed that gamers were overracting to the Star Wars incident saying that we are in fact under charged, he suggested that if we all bought the base game for $60 and then spent $20 a month on lootboxes we'd be getting a good deal."
Imagine if the monetization department put as much imagination in to coming up with new cash generation ideas using the assets they have and have access to as the game developers did making the games they sell?
Heck, if you've got 20,000 next-gen consoles playing such-and-such a game make a hive network and use 10% of each machines processing power to blockchain in the flippin' background. If it pays for a game to be free to play, it pays for it to be free to play and is directly scaleable to the current usage of the servers at any one time. There's an idea and it doesn't involve gambling or colluding with the rest of the industry to set an artificially high price on what essentially is vapor when the game servers are switched off.
People: Don't buy the $20 skin even if you can afford it. If they make enough revenue off it, it'll be the next get rich quick scheme for publishers and you'll be paying $20 a skin
everywhere.