They're not just cosmetic.

One of the main arguments that people often advance for the inclusion of paid, free-to-play-style microtransactions in full-price, AAA videogames is that they're just cosmetic, and therefore harmless. This is an argument that the AAA videogame industry has pushed themselves on multiple occasions, arguing that MTs were entirely optional, and weren't in any way intended to manipulate players, or the games themselves, to squeeze more money out of customers who've already paid for the games themselves.

There's just one problem with that line of defence: it's bullshit. AAA videogame companies absolutely intend for their MT systems to be as manipulative and exploitative as possible, and at least one of them is actively working on ways to make them even more so, as reported by Brian Crecente at Rolling Stone:

Activision was granted a patent this month for a system it uses to convince people in multiplayer games to purchase items for a game through microtransactions.

[...]

The patent details how multiplayer matches are configured, specifically how players are selected to play with one another. That process used by Activision involves a computer looking at a wide variety of factors including skill level, Internet latency, availability of friends and other things. It then goes through a system to first soft-reserve a slot in a game for a player and then assign the players to the same match.

This patent, though, specifically discusses how that system for pairing up players can also be used to entice a player to purchase in-game items.

"For example, in one implementation, the system may include a microtransaction engine that arranges matches to influence game-related purchases," according to the patent. "For instance, the microtransaction engine may match a more expert/marquee player with a junior player to encourage the junior player to make game-related purchases of items possessed/used by the marquee player. A junior player may wish to emulate the marquee player by obtaining weapons or other items used by the marquee player."

The patent goes on to note that the same information could be used to identify which sorts of in-game purchasable items should be promoted.

Activision, naturally, claim that they haven't put this patented technique to use in any games.... yet. Specifically, they haven't added this special bullshit sauce to Destiny 2, in spite of that game clearly having been designed around its microtransaction system. This was just some R&D people "working independently from [the] game studios," and doesn't represent any intention at all (😉) on Activision's part to basically turn all their online-only multiplayer games' match-making systems into the shittiest experience possible, and their players into helpless victims of this cynical exploitation.

Activision's newly-patented match-making system describes exactly the opposite of an enjoyable player experience. It literally sets the player up to fail in the least fair way possible, matching them against players who have out-geared them, and then advertising that gear to losing players in that emotionally charged and vulnerable moment, pushing paid content that will let them victimize other lower-ranking players in exactly the same way... and then going on to reward them with exactly that kind of griefing experience if they cave to the pressure and drop the cash. It's not so much a match-making system as a grief-making system, encouraging toxic behaviour that more-reputable developers are trying to eradicate from their games' online communities.

But Activision aren't planning to ever use it, of course. Heaven forfend!

BULLSHIT.

It is time to stop rewarding these assholes with your money. It is time to stop paying full-price for games are come deliberately broken in order to push free-to-play monetization mechanics at you. Do not spend money on any game that also tries to milk you after purchase for paid microtransactions. I don't care how "optional" or "cosmetic" they're supposed to be. These systems are not intended or designed to feel in any way optional, and they are not harmless.

At least lawmakers in the UK are starting to take an interest in this issue; hopefully more lawmakers in other countries follow suit, so that regulators can impose some controls here, since it's painfully obvious that AAA publishers either can't or won't do so on their own.

Jim Sterling, who's been covering this issue since dinosaurs roamed the Earth, has a pretty good video out on the subject, as do Pretty Good Gaming, who have been covering this issue pretty intensively for months now.