Trelliz wrote:..."player choice"...
I can't read that term now without imagining Jim Sterling's style of saying it
.
I heard a real-life story about "additional content purchases" at the weekend. A few months ago, one of my elder nephew's mates asked for some Fortnite DLC for his birthday and his nan bought it for him; this was done by entering her debit card details into his Xbox system. Over the subsequent months the lad kept asking his nan if he could download "other stuff" and his nan, not really understanding what he was doing or what charges were involved, said yes.
A while later the nan spoke to the lad's mum and mentioned that her money seemed tight; her balance was lowering and she couldn't work out why. Cue the lad admitting to his mum that he'd been purchasing Fortnite and FIFA DLC packs... to the tune of £1,400. The lad's dad then contacted Xbox and discovered that the total purchases over the past three to four months had now totalled £2,300.
Apparently Xbox (Microsoft) are now working with the family to reduce that charge; I guess to try and avoid more unwanted headlines. The dad literally smashed the boy's Xbox and made him work alongside him on some decorating jobs during the school holidays.
I'm not blaming the publishers or Microsoft for this incident. The lad was silly and his parents / nan should have had a tighter reign on his console expenditure. Even so, publishers will be willing to do almost anything to keep loot boxes in place as it is such a huge cash generator for them.
Tl;dr "player choice".