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Over the last few years I have gotten hundred of hours of enjoyment from games like League of Legends, Valorant and Halo Infinite and couldn't even tell you how

Over the last few years I have gotten hundred of hours of enjoyment from games like League of Legends, Valorant and Halo Infinite and couldn't even tell you how to spend money on those games if I wanted to. I honestly doubt I would have ever picked up any of those games if they were not free and I'm guessing since many other would say the same thing the lobbies would be empty and the games would die. In those case the free model is great and I don't feel like there is any loss for someone not wanting to spend money on them. I think those cases are different than the mobile app style which makes no sense to me since many of the games are single player so nobody will see the skins or whatever anyway.

Karawebnetwork 5y ago
"Laurey LoL statistics indicate players spend an average of $92 a year on the game."
- XCSme 5y ago
  The thing about IAPs in games is that most money comes from whales, people spending thousands of dollars for customizations or pay-to-win items, this rises the average by a lot. It would be nice to see the distribution of payments.
  - dematz 5y ago
    This is the only thing that makes me pause before dismissing the article as ridiculous in cases where it's people choosing to spend money on cosmetics. There might be whales who are addicted to the spending or gambling somehow. Otherwise as someone noted it's just price discrimination, and in a way that lets people try and play games for free. Really I love what video games have become.
- hfourm 5y ago
  I may spend 100-200 a year on Valorant. However, I am getting way more per hour value out of it than say, a 50 - 60$ single player game that I quit after a single play through. Or worse, the 50-60$ AAA titles that popup every few years, get a swarm of players in the first few months, then die off as the ADHD Twitch community moves to something else.
- andechs 5y ago
  The median spend might be zero $ per year.
  - spiderice 5y ago
    Also might be more. And with a game like Lol, where it is literally pay to win, I wouldn't be surprised if it were more.
    - loustak 5y ago
      Lol is not a pay to win game. Saying otherwise tell me you never played the game. Best players in the world start new accounts with no champions and are still able to climb to the top of the ladder. Also, since a few years the game literally give you tons of content such as champion and cosmetics for free.
    - comrh 5y ago
      What aspect is pay to win?
      - Strom 5y ago
        You need to pay for champions, they are not unlocked for free.
        philipov 5y ago
        You do not have to pay for champions, you can unlock them for free using easily-obtainable Blue Essence. Paying to unlock champions is pay-to-progress, because it gets you caught up to everyone else faster, but doesn't give you a competitive advantage.
        setr 5y ago
        You say progress, but it’s kind of both an endless treadmill and you’re weaker usually by lack of options; When I used to play LoL, like 5-7 years ago, I was playing a rate of like 3-4 hours daily, which barely scraped by the amount of essence needed to buy the next releases champion, let alone the runes system they had introduced at the time (don’t know if it’s still around) which had a fairly dramatic impact on the early game especially for specific characters. That is, while technically the game could be played purely on free tier and eliminate any competitive advantage… it requires a lot of effort to keep up. Not nearly as bad things like FarmVille used to pull, but definitely enough to say that ponying up cash is eventually needed. And having more options available to you (both characters and runesets or whatever they do now) is definitely an advantage, and a significant one at that
auto 5y ago
My experience lines up with yours, as a looong time Halo veteran who is a bit bummed with the state of Infinite, I'm happy to not pay a cent, despite spending thousands on Halo over the years. I've also spent a decent amount of the previous year playing Valorant, and I almost feel bad that I've paid nothing for it, but the the problem is that apparently the economists Riot employs have figured the sweet spot for selling in game items is $20+ (with many items in the 30-40 range), which is just too much for a single item for me. The irony is that if gun skins were all $5-10, I'd probably have already spent over $100 on them. Oh well, time to queue up again and contribute nothing back.
- Hasu 5y ago
  Queueing up IS contributing something back - it's a multiplayer game, so every person playing is helping keep queue times low. It also gives Riot a MAU and DAU which they probably track internally to determine how successful a game is (and thus how much to invest in more content for that game).
- vl 5y ago
  > despite spending thousands on Halo over the years But how could you have spent thousands? Original Halos don’t have micro transactions.
  - auto 5y ago
    Slightly disingenuous to say I spent thousands on Halo specifically, but I used to run LANs/tournaments, so at one point or another I've owned multiple copies of every installation in the series, bought multiple of the same consoles for the sole purpose of those events, combined with controllers, etc.
    - vl 5y ago
      We still have Halo LAN party with friends every week.
- sheepybloke 5y ago
  I completely agree! I feel that way about Hearthstone Battlegrounds cosmetics. I've been playing a lot and thought I might buy a skin pack or two to vary the experience up a bit, but all of the packs were more than $20 a piece! I was totally down for like $5-15, but once you hit $20, it's a like a switch flips in my brain to not worth it...
xeromal 5y ago
I'm in your camp. I'd posit an additional piece of my thinking. I feel like gaming, even with microtransactions, is probably one of the most affordable pieces of entertainment you can have. During covid, the height of my old-man gaming, I was probably playing an hour or two each day and 4 hours each weekend. That's about 700-800 hours a year I play. If I spent 200$ in skins on COD's battlepass, that is still an incredibly cheap amount of fun I've gotten for a whole year when the entire world was closed and I couldn't get out and have fun. I really don't see why people complain so much. Coin-operated arcades were literally a microtransaction model from the 70s and 80s! I'm paying 25 cents an hour on a game with a lot more labor involved than an old arcade game.
- mattbrewsbytes 5y ago
  I think I saw that some of the old arcade games were actually rigged to get harder at certain points to get more quarters/tokens put in them, then there was the countdown timer after you died where you could continue if you put more money in. Video games are for-profit companies and these days they are in heavy competition with each other and all the other distractions around. I can easily spend about $40-50 to go to a movie with the family and if the movie sucks it feels like a waste of 2 hours. Same amount of money on a game will get you 10x plus more time of entertainment.
  - xeromal 5y ago
    Yeah, that's exactly what I was getting at. I've wasted way more money on bad movies than games.

Karawebnetwork 5y ago

"Laurey LoL statistics indicate players spend an average of $92 a year on the game."

XCSme 5y ago
The thing about IAPs in games is that most money comes from whales, people spending thousands of dollars for customizations or pay-to-win items, this rises the average by a lot. It would be nice to see the distribution of payments.
- dematz 5y ago
  This is the only thing that makes me pause before dismissing the article as ridiculous in cases where it's people choosing to spend money on cosmetics. There might be whales who are addicted to the spending or gambling somehow. Otherwise as someone noted it's just price discrimination, and in a way that lets people try and play games for free. Really I love what video games have become.
hfourm 5y ago
I may spend 100-200 a year on Valorant. However, I am getting way more per hour value out of it than say, a 50 - 60$ single player game that I quit after a single play through. Or worse, the 50-60$ AAA titles that popup every few years, get a swarm of players in the first few months, then die off as the ADHD Twitch community moves to something else.
andechs 5y ago
The median spend might be zero $ per year.
- spiderice 5y ago
  Also might be more. And with a game like Lol, where it is literally pay to win, I wouldn't be surprised if it were more.
  - loustak 5y ago
    Lol is not a pay to win game. Saying otherwise tell me you never played the game. Best players in the world start new accounts with no champions and are still able to climb to the top of the ladder. Also, since a few years the game literally give you tons of content such as champion and cosmetics for free.
  - comrh 5y ago
    What aspect is pay to win?
    - Strom 5y ago
      You need to pay for champions, they are not unlocked for free.
      - philipov 5y ago
        You do not have to pay for champions, you can unlock them for free using easily-obtainable Blue Essence. Paying to unlock champions is pay-to-progress, because it gets you caught up to everyone else faster, but doesn't give you a competitive advantage.
        setr 5y ago
        You say progress, but it’s kind of both an endless treadmill and you’re weaker usually by lack of options; When I used to play LoL, like 5-7 years ago, I was playing a rate of like 3-4 hours daily, which barely scraped by the amount of essence needed to buy the next releases champion, let alone the runes system they had introduced at the time (don’t know if it’s still around) which had a fairly dramatic impact on the early game especially for specific characters. That is, while technically the game could be played purely on free tier and eliminate any competitive advantage… it requires a lot of effort to keep up. Not nearly as bad things like FarmVille used to pull, but definitely enough to say that ponying up cash is eventually needed. And having more options available to you (both characters and runesets or whatever they do now) is definitely an advantage, and a significant one at that

auto 5y ago

My experience lines up with yours, as a looong time Halo veteran who is a bit bummed with the state of Infinite, I'm happy to not pay a cent, despite spending thousands on Halo over the years. I've also spent a decent amount of the previous year playing Valorant, and I almost feel bad that I've paid nothing for it, but the the problem is that apparently the economists Riot employs have figured the sweet spot for selling in game items is $20+ (with many items in the 30-40 range), which is just too much for a single item for me. The irony is that if gun skins were all $5-10, I'd probably have already spent over $100 on them. Oh well, time to queue up again and contribute nothing back.

Hasu 5y ago
Queueing up IS contributing something back - it's a multiplayer game, so every person playing is helping keep queue times low. It also gives Riot a MAU and DAU which they probably track internally to determine how successful a game is (and thus how much to invest in more content for that game).
vl 5y ago
> despite spending thousands on Halo over the years But how could you have spent thousands? Original Halos don’t have micro transactions.
- auto 5y ago
  Slightly disingenuous to say I spent thousands on Halo specifically, but I used to run LANs/tournaments, so at one point or another I've owned multiple copies of every installation in the series, bought multiple of the same consoles for the sole purpose of those events, combined with controllers, etc.
  - vl 5y ago
    We still have Halo LAN party with friends every week.
sheepybloke 5y ago
I completely agree! I feel that way about Hearthstone Battlegrounds cosmetics. I've been playing a lot and thought I might buy a skin pack or two to vary the experience up a bit, but all of the packs were more than $20 a piece! I was totally down for like $5-15, but once you hit $20, it's a like a switch flips in my brain to not worth it...

xeromal 5y ago

I'm in your camp. I'd posit an additional piece of my thinking. I feel like gaming, even with microtransactions, is probably one of the most affordable pieces of entertainment you can have. During covid, the height of my old-man gaming, I was probably playing an hour or two each day and 4 hours each weekend. That's about 700-800 hours a year I play. If I spent 200$ in skins on COD's battlepass, that is still an incredibly cheap amount of fun I've gotten for a whole year when the entire world was closed and I couldn't get out and have fun. I really don't see why people complain so much. Coin-operated arcades were literally a microtransaction model from the 70s and 80s! I'm paying 25 cents an hour on a game with a lot more labor involved than an old arcade game.

mattbrewsbytes 5y ago
I think I saw that some of the old arcade games were actually rigged to get harder at certain points to get more quarters/tokens put in them, then there was the countdown timer after you died where you could continue if you put more money in. Video games are for-profit companies and these days they are in heavy competition with each other and all the other distractions around. I can easily spend about $40-50 to go to a movie with the family and if the movie sucks it feels like a waste of 2 hours. Same amount of money on a game will get you 10x plus more time of entertainment.
- xeromal 5y ago
  Yeah, that's exactly what I was getting at. I've wasted way more money on bad movies than games.