EA CFO Blake Jorgensen spoke about in-game purchases at the UBS Global Technology Conference recently and explained that the company was aware that microtransactions have a bad reputation.
“I do think there’s a bit of consumer fatigue around feeling like they’re getting nickle and dimed all the time. And a lot of mobile games don’t allow you to have fun unless you’ve paid for it,” said Jorgensen. “So we’re looking at new models of ways to try to alleviate some of that fatigue that’s going on. Some of those might come in the form of subscription-style, but some of them might simply come in different ways to play games over time so you don’t feel like you’re always getting nickel and dimed.”
He went on to explain that EA design a game to keep players engaged, and then decide on how to monetise the features.
“The fundamental way that we as an organization think about [microtransactions and subscriptions] is all around engagement,” he said. “How do we engage the consumer as long as possible? In the old days, people played Madden for a few months and then stopped playing. When the Super Bowl finished, they were completely gone. Today, with Ultimate Team, they engage for 12 months, all the way up until the time you start playing a new season.”
Source: Gamespot
The Lone Steven
Maybe, just maybe, it’s because it’s being forced into single player and some bloody games take the utter piss with it along with impacting on multiplayer!
It’s not like a certain developer made an item that you need to open safes part of the microtransaction process along with microtransactions taking out content to shove back to us in some games. Or the fact that if you truly want to play your way to victory, it takes twice as long due to the game ensuring that you go at a snail’s pace.
But that could just be me and my ol’ fasioned ways.
TSBonyman
That’s all very well but who is going to alleviate the fatigue of always-online singleplayer racing – i mean it’s not like you can pause for a rest..
Starman
I think with the demise of online passes EA and others are looking for alternative ways to get extra money from their games, and microtransactions are going to be that way. It seems now it’s rarer for a game not to have them included.
Ps I’ve always thought the term microtransactions was a bit inaccurate as none of them that I’ve seen are that micro really. More like “a few quid for not much-transactions”
ron_mcphatty
Good. Microtransactions exploit kids and those of us big kids with poor self control. I much prefer the old fashioned limited trials and one off payments for games, or straight advertising.
hazelam
how bout they stop putting bloody trading cards in every game.
The Lone Steven
But i enjoy buying a £50 game and ignoring everything in it so that i can just focus on the trading game and spend even more cash on the cards when it is just cheaper to buy real cards for much less and blowing all my cash on it then swearing when the game becomes self aware and throttles me in my sleep just before EA turns off the entire serve side of it in the future.
leeroye
I also have season pass fatigue, can they do something about that? What fatigues me more is season passes being on sale when no content has been announced for them. EA will always try and seem like they are doing the right thing by gamers, but they never truly will. They are the kings of the nickel and dime games they are now saying they will do something about!!!
badger3078
Why would they need microtransactions? If star wars is anything to go buy they just charge full price for a game with hardly any content and then make you pay another £40 or however much it is for the season pass, so you can access the rest of game. I hate EA more thanI hate my ex wife. They’re a shit stain on the gaming world