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Trends of Payment Within Video Games

Over the past couple of years we've seen a deviation of payment models within video games. 

Games have abandoned expensive large scale expansion packs in favour of micro-transactions. As an example look at one of the most popular game franchises of all time, Call Of Duty (COD). COD used to be feature the aforementioned expansion packs in some of its games such as COD: Black ops, but more recently the franchise has transitioned into the use of micro-transactions and the freemium payment model, most notably in its game COD: Warzone.

 The reason for this is due to the rise in demand for such models. After a wave of Battle Royale games such as PUBG, Apex Legends and most notably Fortnite have set the trend it's been proven that there is massive success and profit to be made in these kinds of games, games that can achieve a mass amount of players by playing to trends and offering itself to players as free of charge before enticing them with relatively cheap content that allows them to stand out and express themselves within the game (be it a cosmetic item / a piece of clothing) , due to this kind of content being near infinite there are near infinite profits to be made. As such, game developers are leaning towards this monetarily superior model of game and are enjoying huge success and profit because of it.

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In this post i'll be looking at analysing certain trends that are common within the sector of direct payment models in video games. The primary trend I've identified is the correlation between the type of game and the type of payment model, as well as how the presence of certain payment models have changed over time.

In recent years we've seen a shift of focus from DLC based payment models to micro-transaction based models, mainly within the time frame of the past 10 years. The most prominent games back then used large scale expansion packs as a form of DLC, games such as COD: Black Ops, Fallout: New Vegas and Skyrim all used this kind of DLC. Looking at the most popular games of today however we can see a clear deviation, Fortnite, COD: Warzone and League of Legends for example are among the most popular games in the world today, they all use transactions as extended content instead of expansion packs. Another thing these games have in common is that they're all free to play. Indicating further that there's a strong trend here.

Based on this information it appears that game developers have decided to give the bulk of their game away for free while locking certain in-game content off behind a pay wall. The reason for this is likely and simply that this method of payment model is far more profitable. Players buy non-existent cosmetic items within games for real-life money and it costs the game developers nothing to produce. In most cases these micro-transactions are not finite, eventually a DLC expanding on the games story will end and after it is complete the player can not buy it again. Micro-transactions can be bought an infinite number of times so the profits gained from a single player of the game are in theory limitless. Plus the development of these expansions cost a lot of money, it's as if you were making another game entirely. While micro-transactions take minimal effort to put into a game. In summary the movement towards micro-transactions and  freemium games is simply the evolution of video games, a natural selection of sorts. Those who move towards it will profit while those who shun it risk losing out on otherwise very easy money.

An example of a micro-transaction in a 

Call Of Duty game.