I just wanted to take a break from my normal posts to rant about something that has been on my mind lately. All normally scheduled posts will still be happening, but this is just a little bonus post for today.
Gaming is everywhere. Within the past few decades, the video game industry has spiralled out of control and casual gaming has come to fruition as a new genre and one that is capable of producing an incredible amount of income. What once was a market only geared towards those with a computer or a gaming console, has now become a majority of people gaming from social networks to cell phones to tablets to handheld devices. Even Smart TVs now have the ability to play simple games. Not only has this created a new market, but also a new strategy and view on how to look at gaming. Free-to-play games allow for a casual user market to play games free of charge while giving the player the option to pay for additional content via in game purchases. These tend to start as low as 99 cents or so and generate millions of dollars of revenue each and every day. In my opinion, this is bad for the gaming industry and is changing it for the worse.
Today, an open letter was published on the Internet by the creator of the 2010 app release, CandySwipe. Recently, King.com registered a trademark for the word Candy to protect their 2012 free-to-play release Candy Crush Saga, which just happens to currently be the highest profiting game on any mobile device. The letter accuses King.com of directly copying the game and then registering a trademark in result forcing the original creator to remove their game from the marketplace. The letter also questions the decency of the company and suggests that without this app the creator will no longer be able to support themselves and their family. The toxicity of money in the gaming industry has gotten out of control when an app that is making millions of dollars does everything in its power to destroy all competition that predated it.
Giving the option for users to make purchases is fine, but at what point is it dishonest? An alarming thing I’ve seen recently is microtransactions in paid games. Is it really fair to nickel and dime people who have paid $60 for a game in order to get the best content? Sometimes these microtransactions are small and completely optional, but when they become necessary to proceed in the game or the game itself is designed around these transactions being time savers it just feels like a scummy tactic to create a constant revenue stream. As seen with the Xbox One and games such as Forza Motorsport 5, some of these transactions can barely be considered micro with the real world pricing for some of the end game cars far exceeding even the $20 mark. An unfortunate thing to find in a full price title.
Even with free games without microtransactions, a hostile community has responded in some unfortunate ways. Recently, Flappy Bird creator Dong Nyugen has responded to harassment and death threats by completely pulling his game from the Internet – a game that was rumored to be bring in tens of thousands of dollars every day via ad revenue. Many people became frustrated and accusitive of the game stealing assets from Super Mario Bros and the anonymity of the Internet has caused people to say some less than polite things from the comfort of their own homes. This caused the media to create a frenzy of articles adding insult to injury to a man who was just looking to forget about the game, hounding him with requests for interviews and explanations on why Flappy Bird was being removed from the app marketplaces.
What does this mean for us? How can we fix this? The challenge I set out to everyone is twofold. First of all, just be decent human beings. There’s no reason to go all insane whenever something happens that we don’t like. Sure, I myself was not a fan of the Flappy Bird game. Guess what? I didn’t send death threats to the creator. I didn’t constantly tweet him about my disappointment. I definitely didn’t go around on the Internet telling everyone I know about how stupid he is to delete his game and throw away money. You have to be in a position of having that amount of money before you can even begin to relate to what his self-respect is valued at. I completely respect his decision to step away from something that wasn’t making him happy. Secondly, we need to stop supporting microtransactions. I get that it’s easy to drop 99 cents on something to gain a few levels or get some more play time, but these transactions add up and the industry it’s creating is seeping into all gaming as a whole. This is going to hurt the experience of full priced games as they will always be designed with this mentality.
But come on. I mean we are just a few people. How can we change the entire industry? Well, the best thing I can suggest is to support more independent development. There’s a whole group of people out there just making things they truly care about without looking for a giant paycheck. These games tend to be much more emotional and better experiences than the majority of content created by major publishers and usually for a much better price tag.
It’s true that Steam sales and indie bundles may have devalued the independent industry a bit, but I think we should all do our part to support the content we like in any way we can. I challenge you to find a game you are really excited for and buy it on launch day. If we give more of these developers the payday they aren’t specifically working towards, they can in turn provide us the content we deserve. If we avoid this toxic behavior of microtransactions and bullying the little guys, we can turn the entire gaming industry around. Heck, if the big publishers take notice, maybe they can even learn a thing or two.
braktheman 
Microtransactions are one of my biggest gripes with the video game industry. It’s depressing how we can throw billions of dollars at companies, yet they still make use of microtransactions to get millions more out of us. I guess it’s just business though, and business seems pretty good. Good article, though. Thanks for sharing!
-Patrick, of http://www.jollygoodgaming.wordpress.com