It has already risen”.
Things started to change just in 2010, when the “development efficiency was in a bottleneck”. Research firm IHS Screen Digest released a report at that time. They pointed out that the profits generated by paying users in the entire game industry are declining. The first decline since 2002. However, microtransaction sales are growing, which shows that the payment model of games is at a turning point.
The micro-transactions that first focused on mobile games and online games were gradually discovered and transformed by big companies with a history of buyout content. Some practitioners have a keen sense of smell. At that time, Yoshitoku Ono, the producer of the “Street Fighter” series, said that micro-transactions will be “pervasive in all games”, which will not only bring new markets, but also lead to a lot of content closely surrounding this The design of the system is a lesson learned.
The addition of micro-transactions to 3A games is not a one-step process. Even EAs who are well versed in this set of EAs only implemented some tentative measures in 2010. For example, two DLCs were inserted in the first month of “Medal of Honor”, both of which were in multiplayer mode. After a little thought, I knew that it was deliberately opened to paid download content.
Now this approach is no longer a problem in our eyes. For game companies, the price of $60 cannot recover profits, so they have to find other ways to recover profits. It is commonplace to first disassemble part of the content of the ontology into four DLCs and sell them for $60 in total, and a discount on the season pass is only $40. If it is not enough, add a krypton gold mall in the game, piled with a dazzling array of props and consumables, and guide those who are in the head to pay sky-high bills. Collector’s edition, season pass, chapter payment, micro-transactions, these things cost far more than 60 dollars.
It is even certain that simply increasing the purchase price of games will not have any fundamental impact on these business models, because