Video Game Companies to Decrease Microtransactions This Year According to an Analyst
If there’s one thing that consistently made the headlines last year, it was how much gamers vehemently hated microtransactions. Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, and Forza Motorsport 7 were some of the biggest titles that offered some kind of loot crate or “pay to win” system in 2017, however without a doubt Star Wars Battlefront II took the most hate about the decision. After all of the outrage, a lot of people are wondering if microtransactions will cease to exist in most AAA games this year.
Analyst Doug Creutz, known best for his position with the Cowen banking firm, recently spoke with CNBC about this. According to Creutz, all of the negative attention the microtransactions had during 2017, complete with large protests about the practice, will have a negative consequences for both Activision and Electronic Arts this year. “Game development times are getting longer, and costs are growing faster than they had previously. This isn’t a monopoly business…Angering your customer with bad MTX (Microtransactions) does matter.”
Obviously this has already impacted sales for Star Wars: Battlefront II, which might encourage other publishers to avoid the practice. “(Star Wars: Battlefront II) had pretty clearly significantly underperformed expectations and remains without a live services revenue stream, while Destiny 2 has at the least suffered some unwanted engagement attrition. We suspect that 2018 will see a pullback on industry attempts aggressively drive MTX growth as a result.”
It will be interesting to see what this means for the industry moving forward. Who knows, maybe this will mean a reintroduction of a similar system that Call of Duty is known for: the season pass. This way at least, fans know what they’re getting when they pay for it.
What would you like to see the industry do? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.