I remember the days where I’d play to have fun and nothing but that and I prefer to keep it that way.

But pesky microtransactions do nothing but ruin the fun and make “play” into “pay-to-play” and often times, “pay-to-win.”

Gaming microtransactions throughout multi platform businesses are known to be a leading negative cause in gambling for underage consumers, including students of all ages.

Microtransactions are optional purchases in a video or mobile games slightly enhancing gameplay experience, whether it’s buying currency to spend for benefits or in-game character skins.

This may sound completely optional, but now game companies are taking advantage of this optional business practice in order to squeeze every cent out of their consumers.

Recently, Electronic Arts released their new games “FIFA 19”, “Madden 19” and “Battlefield V” with microtransactions prohibiting the progress of the game itself.

Their intentions and their greed are as clear as day. They simply do not care as long as consumers succumb to their bait and purchase overpriced in-game goods.

Several problems occur with the addition of microtransactions.

The most common problem involves the addition of “loot boxes,” optional goodie bags that can be purchased with real money in order to acquire skins, icons or weapons.

However, companies have purposely taken advantage of these loot boxes by making the chances of these items appearance excessively small that it costs a fortune to obtain something consumers want.

Gaming companies across different countries such as Finland, Belgium, Russia and even Washington State have declared the outcomes of microtransactions as an act of illegal promotion of underage gambling.

As the reinforcement of gambling laws continue, Electronic Arts have refused to comply towards the deletion of microtransactions and are currently in a lawsuit that may lose them millions of dollars in stocks.

Soon it will be other companies who must apply this change. But remember it isn’t just Electronic Arts utilizing microtransactions in their game.

Whether it’s a mobile game on a smartphone or a simple children’s game, microtransactions exist in every corner.

It used to be that a game was meant to be played for fun. I prefer to keep it that way for as long as we can.