Everybody loves a microtransaction! Or at least, that appears to be the line publishers like rolling out whenever justification of their existence is required. Following EA’s now legendary reimagining of loot boxes as “surprise mechanics” (“We do think [these are] quite ethical and quite fun”, it said at the time), Ubisoft now reckons microtransactions are helping to make its games “more fun” – but it is at least self-aware enough that it’s adopting policies to ensure they “respect the player experience”.
Ubisoft’s made the proclamation in its most recent annual report (initially released last month but only now doing the rounds – possibly because the document is nearly 400 pages long), sharing the sentiment in its Group Business Model and Strategy section. “Ubisoft is committed to creating gaming experiences,” it wrote, “that enhance players’ lives and environments in which they can fully enjoy the gaming experience with their friends in complete safety.”
It’s a slightly awkwardly worded mission statement that attempts to encompass multiple strands of Ubisoft’s strategy, starting with the assertion its games “offer more than just entertainment”. Assassin’s Creeds, for instance, enables players to “immerse themselves in history”, while Just Dance can help with fitness and family camaraderie. And if you ever wondered what Ghost Recon and Rainbow Six can teach players, that’ll be “tactical and cooperative skills”. It says it’s also seeking to create a “safe player environment”, and wants to adopt “monetisation and engagement policies that respect the player experience and are sustainable in the long term.”
Which obviously makes strategic sense. If microtransactions must exist, you probably at least want to avoid the really egregious ones to ensure you don’t thoroughly annoy – and decimate – your communities in the long-run. “The golden rule when developing premium games,” it continued, “is to allow players to enjoy the game in full without having to spend more.” Unfortunately, all this appears to be built on the questionable premise that “[its] monetisation offer within premium games makes the player experience more fun by allowing them to personalise their avatars or progress more quickly.”
There’s no doubt truth in the claim players get enjoyment from dolling up their avatars in “premium” multiplayer titles (even if they might get more if they didn’t have to pay silly money for their cosmetics), but Ubisoft’s stance on microtransaction-enabled progression has long been criticised and questioned, particularly in single-player games such as Assassin’s Creed – is the company really balancing its titles around ‘respecting the player experience’ when there’s additional money to be made by doing otherwise?, some have wondered; does the existence of progress-boosting microtransactions really make the base game “more fun” or does it just make it worse? But clearly there’s enough appetite among players that these microtransactions have survived the pushback from fans.
And Ubisoft is hardly the only publisher to stick microtransactions in premium games, with the likes of Capcom, Activision Blizzard, EA, and Warner Bros. all having been criticised for their microtransaction strategies in recent years. But not every developer is all-in. Last year, for instance, The Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077 studio CD Projekt said it does “not see a place for microtransactions in single-player games”.