Video Game Monetization Mechanisms in Triple A (AAA) Video Games

Abstract

The process of video game monetization has existed ever since video games became a consumer product. It underwent multiple stages throughout the years until it reached a mature state in the economy of today. Monetization in video games is a highly relevant and controversial subject as it has caused a negative outcry in consumers. This is due to frequent exploitation on a moral and ethical level focused on identifying psychological weak points in consumers and using them to achieve a financial advantage. On the other hand, the revenue boost that has been provided with these advanced marketing strategies cannot be denied as they generate billions of USD for the major players on the video game market annually and contribute to the massive growth of the video game market of today. Furthermore, since the topic’s complexity has only been increasing parallel to the economic importance of this marketing sub-process, it is becoming one of the most important segments of a video game’s business model. The en masse implementation of various in-game currencies enabling consumers to purchase so-called “in-game unlockables” has begun. These currencies, such as credits, tokens or plain virtual money, are highly differentiated and usually unique per game, with the common denominator between them being the way of acquisition – by paying with actual money. Their implementation has generated undisputable increase in revenue for companies in the game industry as currently hundreds of millions of US dollars are being generated by purchases made with in- game currencies [1, 2].

Appendix

Table 3. Business Model Types according to the primary revenue generation activity [20,21,22, 28, 29].

Table 4. Survey questions and answers [19].

Fig. 3.

Distribution of revenue from the purchase of a triple A (AAA) game in 2011 in the UK [24].

Table 5. Types and specifications of loot boxes [2, 17, 25]