They really WROTE that. File this one under the “executives are out of touch” category. The company included this blurb in their annual financial report (a report normally targeted at the investment community).
Microtransactions (MTX for short) are an additional form of monetization that occurs in games. They can range from things like cosmetic items to boosts (additional experience or gold gains as examples). In many games, cash shop mechanics are an actual design objective. Game systems are specifically designed to remove functionality which a player can then “buy” back as a quality of life (QOL) increase to make their game play better (or as the way it was put, “more fun”).
When a company puts that verbage into a financial report like this, the above is what they are referring to. Mind you, in some genres like gacha style games, the entire business model is based on predatory mechanics (designed around human psychology especially when it comes to gambling addiction). I know there are some gamers who despise the use of the addiction phrase but this is the reality.
Old school RPG game design has its roots in “behavioral” game design though in the recent past, it was more about the dopamine fix and reward loop. Nowadays, these game systems are meant to extract as much money from the players wallet with game play designs that aren’t well designed to begin with (from the actual fun/rewarding play loop perspective).
And the game industry executives are wondering why the backlash continues growing while industry lobbyists (that would be the likes of the Entertainment Software Association and Videogames Europe) are playing dirty to try and put a stop to initiatives that would offer greater consumer protections. Similarly, a few of the larger AAA studios are adding their own psychological warfare twists (with fewer gamers biting). But there needs to be a much larger refusal on the part of gamers to STOP patronizing these games (buy2play, subscriptions, MTX) and we know that isn’t going to happen (especially with the game streaming crowd).
