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Activision Evil Microtransaction that will destroy games like Destiny, Overwatch and Call of Duty
Activision has been the leading video game publisher already for a long time, and you probably have played a game before that was published by Activision. Some popular games from Activision is Doom, Tony Hawk Pro Skater , Call of Duty , Overwatch and of course Destiny.
And Activision has earned a lot of money with publishing these games, for a matter a fact, Activision (after the merger it is called Activision Blizzard, and for now I will refer it as activision) revenue was 6.6 billion dollars in 2016 , and this is up by 42% if you compare it with the 2015 earnings of 4.6 billion dollars.
And a big chunk of the revenue is coming from in game content purchases like overwatch loot boxes , call of duty supply drops and of course from Destiny Eververse.
This source of revenue has grown 125% year over year, to put this into perspective a typical normal company will be happy if they can get a 5% revenue growth year over year, so a 125 percentage growth is a number that can not be ignored by investors.
And investors will be looking at ways on how to accelerate this growth in revenue. And as a result Activision will be pressured to make sure their shareholders are happy by finding ways on how to do this.
And Activision might have found a way on how to increase these ingame purchases also known as microtransactions ,that will fundamentally change how micro transaction works.
Recently a controversial patent has been approved and granted to Activision.
The patent's description explains that it's a system and method to encourage players to spend money on microtransactions.
And they are not hiding the fact that the purpose of this patent is created to influence players to spend more money on in game content.
The following description is coming from the patent itself which i will link below where you can find the full description and explanation of the patent online.
The system may include a microtransaction arrange matches to influence game-related purchases
Let's have a breakdown of the patent and see how this works.
The patent makes up of 3 engines:
The Analytics and feedback engine,
The Pipeline Engine
And the Microtransaction engine.
The Analytics and Feedback engine analyses player's data in order to create a profile of the player based on how you play a game, and put you in scenario's where you will be most effective with that specific profile.
For example the system can identify that you like to play as a sniper, and it can put you in matches where snipers are more effective. For example it can place you on a map where the lanes are more suitable for sniping, and playing against players that have a more short range build basically making you the more advantage player with your long range loadout.
So the Analytics and Feedback engine, maps their players with certain data and can deploy them in situations that benefits them.
This engine is reinforced with the Pipeline Engine, which has the following description. The pipeline engine may generate one or more soft reservations for players based on a match score, game profile, player profile or any other information.
So what this basically does is it can queue you up and reserve spots in the queue for your next match based on certain information coming from the Analytics and Feedback engine.
In the patent it gives you an example where the engine can identify that your two friends match is ending soon and it can then reserve a spot for you in the next match so that you can play together with your friends.
I can definitely see the benefits of this, I have never been matched up with my friends in a match randomly without being invited to a fireteam. If you want to play with friends you have to set up a fire team because the chances are very low that you just bump into each other randomly in a match, strike or public events.
With this engine it can create the opportunity for you and your friends to bond more when you spend more time together completing events in the game.
The final and most controversial part of the patent is the Microtransaction engine, which according to the description may analyze various items used by marquee players and, if the items are being promoted for sale, match the marquee player with another player (e.g., a junior player) that does not use or own the items. Similarly, the microtransaction engine may identify items to be promoted, identify marquee players that use those items, and match the marquee players with other players who do not use those items. In this manner, the microtransaction engine may leverage the matchmaking abilities described herein to influence purchase decisions for game-related purchases.
So there are two parts with this microtransaction engine.
You can be match up with someone else that does particularly well with for example a weapon, which might influence you to go and buy that weapon.
On the other hand once you have bought a specific item lets say again you bought a weapon, in that case the microtransaction engine will put you in situations where you will benefit a lot from the item your purchased, in order to make you feel good about the item you bought, which will encourage you to buy additional items in the game.
This is the part of the patent where I have problems with. To a certain extent I believe that the Analytics and Feedback engine and the pipeline engine can actually help you enjoy the game more. The analytics and feedback engine can identify that I for example like PVP Control and match me up with more of those matches, and the pipeline engine can help me match up with players that I like to play with.
However I don't like the game to tell me what I should do, as a gamer I bought the game and I want to decide what kind of activities I am playing and not an algorithm influencing what I should play. For example with Destiny 2 I like to play control in the quick play mode which can consist of control but also other modes, and although it would be great if the engine can match me up more with Control and not supremacy or clash in the same playlist. The better solution is actually for me to have a choice on only playing control, or only playing clash or supremacy.
The pipeline engine is great if you want to play with friends, but sometime gaming is kind of a ME time, and here I also want a choice to choose to play with friends or not.
And CHOICE is lacking, if there is a microtransaction engine in place that is trying to influence you by cherry picking what kind of gaming experience you should have, and all of this is behind the screens because you won't know when this system is activated.
And that makes the whole gaming experience obsolete if you are not sure whether that experience you just had was a genuine one that was a result because of your own skills, or whether it was the microtransaction engine that has influenced the game.
It is like Big Brother is watching every move you make in the game, that would fundamentally destroy your gaming experience.
To be fair Activision did clarify in a statement that this patent was only "exploratory", and such a system has not been used in any games.
Well this statement is technically correct it has not been used in any games YET, because the patent just got approved, it would definitely take several years before Activision develops a system that can integrate this with any games.
And remember what I said in the beginning that microtransactions has grown 125% year over year. Whether we like it or not Microtransactions are a substantial revenue driver for game developers and the unfortunate truth is that unless we stop buying ingame content microtransactions will be there to stay.
At the moment there is a general consensus that microtransactions are ok as long as it is cosmetic and it does not affect the way you play the game.
But with patents like these we as gamers have to be careful and make sure that microtransaction will not go towards that direction and squeeze every penny out of the players.
Because if it does it will not only destroy our gaming experience but also the games that we love as well.
So if you are watching this video, please share this with your friends and your fellow gamers and lets make some noise that we as gamers will not allow this to happen to our beloved games.
Thank you all so much for watching this video. I really enjoyed doing the research and provide you all the information about this subject in a compact video. I hope you enjoyed watching this and have a better understanding of this patent.
A positive like rating is appreciated. Subscribe for more. And as always I will see you in the next video guardians.
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