EA has never been known as a publisher with its fans' best interests in mind, but this might be taking it a step too far. The company announced today that it plans to build microtransactions into all of their future games.
In case you are a little behind on the lingo, microtransactions are when players can make optional purchases from within a game, often for relatively small amounts of money. These purchases can include extra weapons or ammo, power up bonuses, or customization options. Historically, many free-to-play titles have used this business model, but gamers have often raised concerns when they appear in full priced titles. After all, asking people to pay $60 for a game, and then charging them even more once they're inside of it seems a bit wrong in principle.
EA apparently doesn't feel that way. CFO Blake Jorgensen said, "Consumers are enjoying and embracing that way of the business," presumably while trying his hardest to keep a straight face. The quote was grabbed from his talk at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference, where he also spoke on their plans to incorporate microtransactions into every EA game.
Jorgensen stated, "so to the extent that... we're building into all of our games the ability to pay for things along the way, either to get to a higher level to buy a new character, to buy a truck, a gun, whatever it might be, and consumers are enjoying and embracing that way of the business."
Yikes. It's not entirely a surprise though, considering many of EA's recent AAA releases have included microtransactions to some extent. Mass Effect 3's multiplayer component featured purchasable equipment, while Dead Space 3's singleplayer campaign allowed you to pay for quicker access to different weapons.
It's still concerning though that EA is considering microtransactions to be a priority. Even if it doesn't end up including them in every future release, just the fact that this ideology is in the back of their minds is a bit worrying for the future of $60 games.