DLC and Microtransactions: New Study Shows How Gamers Feel About Them

"Zero microtransactions purchased to-date Crew" checkin in

Those stats don't make much sense. And those parts where the article says stuff like "most people say that" or "more than a half". Come on guys. You have those studies'numbers. Give us those actual numbers rather than being as imprecise as you can be... ah yeah... i get it... saying 51% has much less impact than "most" or more than a half...

Depends. I'm fine with DLC so long as it isn't too overpriced and lives up to expectations.

Microtransactions, sure... but just for cosmetic s***

It's a business model. If you can't or don't want it then don't buy it. Deal with it. :)

Lol @ the self entitlement oozing from people's comments below.

I don't have a lot of exp. with micro transactions but it's usually seems like character skins or accesories. In that regard it doesn't bother me, I still won't bite, though. If it's pay to win micro transactions, it's BS. Dlc... I hate dlc. Very rarely is it ok, like the last of us story dlc. But most of the time it feels like content purposefully left out. I hate to say it because I was looking forward to this game but the new deus ex was the last straw for me. What an empty experience followed up by story dlc one week after release? I traded that shit right after I beat it and haven't looked back. That series is dead to me now. Also very turned off by dlc for Lego games. It's literally the only reason I haven't bought the force awakens.

I don't have a problem with microtransactions if it's done correctly and if it's done for a game that deserves my money quite frankly. I use this example time and time again but I paid $80 Canadian for Doom and played for 12 hours. I paid $60 for Overwatch and played for over 100 hours. If Overwatch has an option for microtransactions and I think they're worth it... then what's the issue?

Where it starts becoming an issue is when the game design itself is clearly revolved around it as a necessary purchase. You see this a lot with free to play games in particular.

OH SURPRISE! No one likes DLC and microtransactions... go fucking figures! We obviously needed a study to prove the fucking obvious.

oddly none of the game industry will listen to the feed back.

Pay2Win has ruined online pc gaming for me. I used to love playing multiplayer games, but with all of this micro-transaction crap (and rampant cheating), I rarely play pc multiplayer games anymore. Tribes Ascend is the perfect example. Look what Hi-Rez did to that franchise. They ruined an awesome game with greed and it backfired on them anyway.

These are sad times for pc gamers.

Micro transactions are the worst thing to happen to video games. I can understand paid DLC that is a good, separate addition to a game (unlike shit that should have been in the game to begin with like destiny), but micro transactions are cancer and ALWAYS only give other players an unfair advantage

As suspected, it's young people who don't know any better driving this trash. This stuff should be in the game for free, included in the full price. The cosmetic unlocks. The cut content sold back to you. The cheat modes. All of it.

Thank you for ruining gaming, because microtransactions NEVER enhance a game and DLC rarely is worth its asking price.

I think in general they are crap. The only additional money I spent was on the two GTA 4 DLC packs for lost and damned and gay Tony.

I hate micro transactions.

I never buy dlc or micro transactions. I always wait for the GOTY if I feel the game is going to have a ton of dlc or very rarely buy DLC which adds a substantial amount of content.

I'll be buying the Dark Souls 3 this month and the only other DLC I have bought in the last two years was the Witcher expansion pack.

Publishers know that the older generation of gamers don't like microtransactions. They are targeting a younger generation who might think them as 'not-that-bad'. Publishers will push these kind of unethical business practices until everybody stops complaining and microtransactions become the 'norm'.

I have never brought a microtransaction in my life and I dont ever plan to, DLCs I will buy if its a good game that gave you a lot of content for your money like witcher 3, fallout 4 etc, then you have games like grand theft auto 5 that I am literally begging them to make a damn DLC and take money but they dont want it.

All companies have to do is stick with it, it will become 'normal' soon enough. Children will know no different thus will always think it as being the norm...you can throw in wifi, digital sales, touchscreens etc into that as well.

A kid of 5 will expect that they can get a digital game download instantly through wifi on a touchscreen and that the game will have added extras you have to pay for.

Personally will buy Witcher 3 style packs any day of the week, other games that drip feed cut out content and other nonsense I just wait for GOTY editions.

Not a whole lot of surprises in there, except perhaps the 16%, and the 68%. Both of those seem a bit lower than I would have expected.

I like dlc and have purchased my fair share of it for a variety of games. I've never purchased microtransactions though. I don't really have a problem with them per say. If I can enjoy the game and just get things through normal gameplay then I don't really have a problem with them being available for those who want a shortcut. If I feel like I need to buy them though in order to enjoy a game then I'll just stop playing that game.

I have never bought a microtransaction in my life and never will.

If the games industry turns to complete shit because people want to pay money for a game and then pay more money to skip most of the gameplay in said game then that is their brain dead faults. At least I can hold my head high and know that I didn't aid in its destruction.

DLC is fair enough as long as it isn't a blatant rip off. Like map packs that add almost nothing to the game and Destiny style "expansions" which were clearly cut from the base game to sell to us later.

An expansion made after the fact though (like the Witcher 3 expansions) I'll buy them any day. Skins are fair play as long as they aren't waved in your face. Rocket League for instance. Buying a few new cars for a brilliant game. No problems there.

Microtransactions are the reason F2P games are utter shit. Developers just can't resist. They just HAVE to make a ridiculously grindy game in order to force you to buy stuff. What they fail to realise is if they made a game that I WANTED to play and which was a good game in its own right they'd have people buying their stuff left right and centre. Instead I avoid them like the plague.

While I'm not a fan of DOTA it does prove a point. If you make a compelling game people WILL come and they WILL spend money.

Personally, I hate all microtransactions and refuse to buy any of them. However, I don't mind DLC if it includes a large amount of new content and it is clear that the DLC was developed after the game was published. The Dragonborn DLC for Skyrim and the Road to Gehenna DLC for the Talos Principle come to mind as great pieces of DLC.

Well given the update to this article that they included smartphone micro-transactions, this makes this survey now quite flawed. The PC/Console gaming world and the smartphone built-in app purchase world are two complete different things. It would of been better to conduct two separate surveys and compare them. The results would likely be very different.

So, here is an interesting aspect of the study which seems to say something about the people responding to it (though I expect that these types of anomalies are not limited to this study):

"However, 78 percent of respondents said they would consider spending money to buy microtransactions to get things like weapons and power-ups, among other things."

BUT

"68 percent believe the pay-to-win aspect of microtransactions within gaming is unfortunate."

If we assume that buying a power-up is equivalent to pay-to-win, then 78% of people want microtransactions to buy weapons and power-ups, and 68% of people think pay-to-win is unfortunate. Even if we assume that all of the 22% of people who don't want such microtransactions also are within the 68% of people who think paying to win is unfortunate, that still leaves at least 46% of people who want to buy weapons and power-ups and also see pay-to-win as unfortunate. So nearly half of respondents would not seem to be acting consistently with their stated positions.

People are great.

@CallMeDuraSouka: Here is the NPD press release regarding the study. It appears they have not made the actual study public, only their findings: https://www.npd.com/wps/portal/npd/us/news/press-releases/2016/latest-report-from-the-npd-group-provides-insight-into-gamers-purchasing-usage-and-perceptions-of-additional-gaming-content/