Abstract
Microtransactions have become a major monetisation model in digital games, shaping their design, impacting player experience, and
raising ethical concerns. Research in this area has chiefy focused on
loot boxes. This begs the question whether other microtransactions
might actually be more relevant and problematic for players. We
therefore conducted a content analysis of negative player reviews
(n=801) of top-grossing mobile and desktop games to determine
which problematic microtransactions are most prevalent and salient
for players. We found that problematic microtransactions with
mobile games featuring more frequent and diferent techniques
compared to desktop games. Across both, players minded issues
related to fairness, transparency, and degraded user experience,
supporting prior theoretical work, and importantly take issue with
monetisation-driven design as such. We identify future research
needs on why microtransactions in particular spark this critique,
and which player communitiesit may be more or lessrepresentative
of.
