by Andrew Fenner ‘27

It has become a trend for video game companies to inundate their consumers with microtransactions on every game they make. Microtransactions are small transactions that involve buying in-game currency which the consumer can then spend on cosmetics. The first game to fully utilize this business model was Epic Games in 2016 with the release of Fortnite. Fortnite’s main appeal was that the base game was free. Epic Games was betting on players liking the game so much that they would pay for in-game cosmetics. After this was proven to be successful, many gaming giants have taken this concept and never looked back.

For a consumer, the constant badgering from the game to encourage you to spend ridiculous amounts of money on costumes and miscellaneous items is tiring and exploitative. Though it’s nice to be able to play a game for free, it’s almost not worth the game’s obtrusive strategies. Many young players on games like Fortnite have wasted tens or, in extreme cases, hundreds of dollars on in-game items because they lacked financial awareness. No kid would ever be knowledgeable on how money works. But that’s the problem with this business model: it targets kids who don’t know any better.