Jump! Dodge! Roll! Up! Oops, that was the wrong swipe on my running game. I was so close to beating my high score, too. I don’t have any free revives, so I am left with two options: either let the timer count down and start over or buy a few revives for $1.99. And I’ve only got a few seconds left! What am I going to do!?!
Freemium games have been a lucrative industry for a few years. Now that nearly every child in the world has a screen where they can go into Fortnite and win Battle Royale whenever they want, some problems have started to emerge with these sorts of games.
If you’re like me, when you got a digital phone, you excitedly went to the app store to see what games were available. In the olden days of 2014, I wanted a few options. My favorites then were Temple Run: Brave, Fruit Ninja, and Angry Birds. Notice a pattern? They are all free-to-play games.
Let’s Take Our Kids to the Casino!
One way of looking at this topic is as a form of gambling for children. You know those loot boxes pushed in their face after a disappointing loss? It’s only $2.99, not that much money when you really think about it.
That’s the danger of not teaching kids the value of money and connecting your credit card to the tyke’s device. I’m sure you’ve heard horror stories of children spending thousands of dollars on digital currency or customizations for the character. And the worst part is that video game companies don’t refund that money.
To give you a quick refresher from psychology, gambling exploits the dopamine receptors in your brain to make you override your frontal lobe or your rational side. If you won a jackpot at a slot machine, odds are you’d win a better one soon after that, right? But you’ve already burned a lot of money, but what’s one more pull?
Dopamine is one of the happy chemicals in the brain that is released when you deem something victorious that has happened. Ever get that rush of joy when you get the grade you wanted? That’s your brain telling you congrats. But the sad part about this is that you might not get that feeling often, so you look for alternatives to chase the next high.
Since children’s brains are not developed enough to get healthy amounts of dopamine other than doing well on a test, getting some candy, or an occasional Victory Royale, they don’t realize how much they are spending to get that next hit they crave. That’s why as parents, we need to teach our kids that every cent we spend in the real world will come back to our bank accounts in the future.
Now You See the Money, and Now You Don’t
Another interesting psychological fact I’ve learned is that your brain doesn’t register pain with credit cards the same way you do when you pay with cash. What do I mean by that? When I was younger, having physical money was a big deal. Every time Grandma would give me an extra $10 as a gift, I would squirrel it away in a secret area so that no one could find it.
Now that I’m older, I have a credit card that alerts my Dad whenever I use it. If he sees something suspicious or doesn’t know I was getting food for someone, I always get a text asking if I know anything about it. And yes, I’ve had the talk about being responsible with the card and not spending it on frivolous things.
I don’t like using that card on anything I buy for myself, so I usually save up cash until I can go out and buy something. I will tell you, every time I hand the cashier my money, there’s a little twinge of pain that I feel in my brain. Maybe it’s physically seeing the amount of money I’m giving the person, or maybe the thought of “Do I really need this?” that gives me pause.
Now that we’ve got a handy piece of plastic with all of our money tied to it, it doesn’t feel the same to have to worry about the pieces of paper we carry around in our wallets. The number in your bank account needs to be positive, and as long as the bills are getting paid, who has to worry? Since I had training when I was younger, I am very cautious about spending more on myself than needed.
Are Freemium Games Really Worth It?
I’m sure we’ve all been faced with the reality of spending a lot of money on something. In freemium games, microtransactions are a sneaky way of getting more money to the company than you were willing to spend in the first place. Since they are digital, these “products” don’t cost the developers anything.
If we are irresponsible children with money, odds are we will be irresponsible adults with money. That’s a sad fact about how our brains are wired. I feel like many of the problems we face as a society are because some of us are not good at management, and then we throw money at the things we think we need, which never turns out well.
Freemium game developers know how to bait the general populace into their game. If they see a free game advertised, I would advise people to look at reviews or actual gameplay footage. The higher-ups want you to blindly trust that they’ve got a big surprise in store. You have to grind for hours or get behind the paywall they set up.
Ultimately, the decision is up to you. If you see a free game that looks fun, go for it. If you want to spend money on it, that’s up to you; unless your money is connected to your parents or guardian, ask permission beforehand. In the meantime, keep one eye on your wallet and the other on what makes you happy.
Want to read another article I’ve written on a free-to-play game? Here is the link to an article on Dislyte, a mobile game with funky music and lots of mythology to explore.
I watched this video on YouTube to prepare for this article. These two have a great way of explaining things about the game industry that I did not know about.
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