Gaming has been a pivotal force in the last two decades and many people have been exposed to it. As more players flood into this growing industry, one thing is clear: there are multiple opportunities to make insurmountable profits. One of the main sources of revenue in gaming is known as microtransactions (MTX).
MTXs were released around the mid-2000s and were usually under $10 USD. But with gaming’s rising popularity, companies sought to exploit this mechanic. In 2005, James Moor, from Dartmouth College’s Department of Philosophy argued that as technology evolves, “better ethical thinking in terms of being better informed and better ethical action in terms of being more proactive are required” in Why we need better ethics for emerging technologies. Because this practice was new, there was little to no regulation around it, and as Moor warned us, the social impact will be observed in the third and final stage of emerging technologies: the power stage. Shortly after, in the early 2010s, companies started to change MTXs.
“Better ethical thinking in terms of being better informed and better ethical action in terms of being more proactive are required”
A prime example is League of Legends (LoL), which enabled users to buy in-game currency (straying away from Downloadable Content) to purchase skins. Other games started to adopt this practice quickly, as they all saw the consumers’ willingness to spend money on MTXs. Some games, such as mobile hit Clash of Clans, let you progress faster in the game by spending money. Other games delved deep into human psychology and tried to exploit consumers by adopting gambling-like strategies through the use of loot boxes, which guarantee the player an item, while also containing a slim chance of getting a super-rare item.
As of 2020, and under Moor’s perspective, gaming has already reached the “power stage” and as a society, we can already observe many of its implications. Borrowing his terms, gaming can be classified as a technological revolution, and like many of these “they do not arrive fully mature”. This poses a threat to society as organizations cannot keep up with the speed at which content is being created. Thus, regulations don't arise until the damage has already been done. This has been the case with MTXs, where some countries, such as Belgium, have already banned loot boxes. However, this might not be quite enough, as consumers still fall to aggressive business practices. Sadly enough, only time will tell what should and should not be regulated.
William, I liked your article on micro-transactions. I feel your revision improved your article by bringing the readings in much earlier and explaining how they related to your argument. Although i personally feel as if your argument still was not as clear as it could of been. I feel like more explanation of how micro-transactions have negatively impacted the gaming community in your examples given could of strengthened this argument as well. Overall your revision did more to connect your article to class concepts and improved the quality overall, good work!
ReplyDeleteThis is a good blog post and a really good improvement from your first one! You did a great job incorporating the readings more and it was a lot more fluid of a blog post. I like how you brought up some points from Moor in the beginning and still followed up with how it connects to your topic later. Your summary of MTX’s was really well done and I’m sure people who may have no gaming experience still could’ve followed your points. The only thing I would consider adding is some type of personal anecdote or example of how MTX has effected someone. There was a lot of summarizing and I feel like some type of relatable example could’ve gone a long way. Regardless, this was a great post!
ReplyDeleteHi, i enjoyed reading your blog post! Compared to your previous post, you incorporated the reading at the beginning rather than just bringing it in at the end which was good. Style wise, I thought the font was too small for readability. To improve, I think you could have more of a hook in the beginning rather than just giving an overview of gaming (for example provide a crazy stat of the amount of profits). Good work!
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