EA putting micro-transactions "into all of our games"
"Consumers are enjoying and embracing that way of business."
EA is building micro-transactions into all of its PC and console games, the company has announced.
The decision comes despite the recent controversy surrounding micro-transactions in Dead Space 3 - the first game in the EA-published series to be impacted by the payment scheme.
"The next and much bigger piece [of the business] is microtransactions within games," chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen said, speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference (transcribed by Seeking Alpha).
"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.
"Consumers are enjoying and embracing that way of the business."
In the past, EA has outsourced the work of operating micro-transaction systems to outside companies. In a move that suggests its growing importance, EA will now bring the whole operation in-house.
"Without a doubt, you're going to see more digital business and particularly more digital components of the gameplay allowed because the ease of it will be much better and the storage capability better," Jorgensen concluded.
Dead Space 3 was not the first EA console title to feature micro-transactions; you can buy extra credits in Mass Effect 3's multiplayer, and the whole system has its roots in the time-saver DLC that's been present for years in games like Need for Speed.
But Dead Space 3 did mark the first time that the game appeared to be engineered towards guiding players towards them.
"It's not about crudely forcing the player to spend extra with brick wall obstacles, but a more subtle psychological invitation, leaving the option out in the open, like a box of chocolates tantalisingly within reach," Dan Whitehead wrote in Eurogamer's Dead Space 3 review.
"I managed to complete the game without spending any extra and never felt like I'd been held back, but by the same token there were plenty of moments where I fell just short of what was needed. I scraped through, but faced with an uncertain journey to the next workbench, it's easy to see how the temptation would be hard to resist, especially when certain resources are conspicuously less common than others."