After reading the entry about EA wanting to sell spore parts, I thought a bit about microtransactions. I decided that, overall, I do not like this trend. There is a time and place for this kind of system, but I'm not really one who likes being part of these places or being present in those times.



X-Box Live is a huge source of these microtransactions, and once I saw the infamous horse armor in Oblivion I knew things were heading down a bad path. I thought about saying things like maps in Halo and stuff are find to pay for, but I don't think so. Remember that people were creating maps for Unreal Tournament years ago, and many of them were as good as if not better than the maps included in the few released Halo maps.



I always have this nagging feeling that companies are keeping out more and more materials just to sell it to us in a pack down the road. I don't want to pay $5 dollars for a set of guns that should have already been in my game. It is just silly. Sure, I don't have to have it, but am I the only one who feels like we're being cheated?

Right now we're still on steady ground, but if any company would push the microtransactions over the edge, I believe it would be EA. EA seems to be the monster of the gaming world by producing many low quality games--in my opinion, you may disagree--and charging an arm and leg for pieces of the games that really should have been in the retail game could be the next step. I hope it doesn't come to that, but can you imagine how tempting it would be to rush a game out unfinished and offer the rest--that didn't make the cut--for more money?



Some companies build their whole game on microtransactions. These games are normally free to play MMOs. A great example is Maple Story. I personally cannot get into these games that are free, but allow the players that have more money to spend to become the best players; however, it is an amazing marketing strategy.

I fear that microtransactions will not be going away anytime soon, but I hope they do not become the next big thing.