Through in-game purchases, even free games can easily become rip-offs. We show you how to limit the risks.
The most important facts in brief:
- In-game purchases refer to all purchases made during a game. In-game apps are referred to as in-app purchases.
The principle: users are regularly animated during the game, e.g. to buy new game functions in order to celebrate better or faster game success. - So-called “free to play” games can initially be installed for free. However, in-game purchases can make the game fun expensive.
- Even if you don’t pay money through in-game purchases, you can still reveal a lot of your data while playing.
No matter whether on the computer, via app on the smartphone or on the game console: So-called in-game purchases (or microtransactions) have established themselves as a business model for online games. In-game purchases are also referred to as in-app purchases for games via app on mobile devices.
The principle is common: During the game, users are repeatedly offered paid extensions. Especially in free games, in-game purchases are aggressively marketed, as the games are financed through them. However, additional in-game purchases are also increasingly found in paid titles. A popular example is FIFA Ultimate Team. If you want to unlock additional game content, play faster, reach higher levels or get better or rarer items, you have to pay real money in the game’s in-game shop.
In-Game purchases are basically all purchases made during a game. Typical examples of in-game purchases are: Points, coins, diamonds, materials, etc. (so-called in-game currency, which is used for follow-up purchases in the game and can lead to losing track of the costs). They also can be new characters, skills, equipment etc. which will lead to faster achievements, reaching a new level, shorter waiting times and so on.
In-game purchases can usually be made with real money within a shop that can be accessed via the game menu.
Be aware guys, don’t get addicted. There are thousands of gamer spending thousands of dollar every single month. They completely lost track over how much money they actually spent.
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