As a gamer, there are few things more grating than opening a menu and discovering in-game currency or items being sold for real-world dollars.

Microtransactions are nothing new in the video game world. App games, PC games and console games alike have had them for years now. In theory, they’re pretty beneficial; completely optional purchases that can help gamers speed things along if they so choose and in the process give developers a little extra profit that can go toward the development of new, fulfilling add-on content in the future.

Rarely, however, is the theory ever the reality.

I classify microtransactions using two categories: benign and aggressive. Benign microtransactions are the kind that are very peripheral and not very impactful in the grand scheme of things. For example, Bungie’s multiplayer FPS “Destiny” allows players to purchase a currency called Silver which allows one to buy loot boxes--chance-based mechanisms that issue random prizes of varying rarities--that contain emotes and other cosmetic items.

These are ultimately not that important, however, considering that the game’s real meat and potatoes lies in obtaining armor, weapons, and gear--which can be acquired without using your hard-earned, real-world dollars. Bungie has also allowed the contents of these boxes to be obtainable through weekly-issued loot boxes.

This is not the case for aggressive microtransactions. This type subtly coerces gamers to drop money on things that will allow them to progress. It’s at this point where the counterargument to microtransaction criticism should be addressed. Now, anybody could easily say, “Just don’t buy anything,” but this doesn’t fix the big problem with microtransactions. In fact, it only exacerbates them, especially because other people will buy them anyway and convince developers that nothing’s wrong.

Let’s look at a triple-A title to analyze just what’s wrong with microtransactions in our games today. In Blizzard Entertainment’s “Overwatch,” players can obtain items like voice lines and character skins through loot boxes. Items can also be purchased using in-game currency, but guess where you get the currency from?

Loot boxes. Do you see where this is going?

The microtransaction system in “Overwatch,” thusly, offers loot boxes to players. That’s right: you can spend anywhere from $5 to $500 on what is essentially a lottery where nothing is guaranteed. While you can earn loot boxes through playing the game, you only obtain one (yes, one) after leveling up, which takes more and more time as the game progresses. In effect, “Overwatch” reduces the incentive for playing the game--you know, the thing that developers should want you to do--in lieu of purchasing easy access to items.

Oh wait, it’s not easy access. It’s chance-based, meaning you could spend over $100 on things you either don’t want or don’t care for.

And Blizzard isn’t even the only developer guilty of putting these kinds of microtransactions in their games. Games of all kinds from many different developers are implementing gameplay systems where paying extra gives you some sort of edge to prevent the game from getting stale and/or get you the things you actually want and need. Now, I get it, game developers need to make money. But let’s think about this rationally.

A brand-new, factory-sealed PlayStation 4 retails for about $300. Controllers for the console, which a consumer is likely to buy at least one of, retail for about $50. Extra visual or audio peripherals, like headsets, TVs, or sound systems, range from the double to the triple to the quadruple digits. If you want to play online, a membership is worth $5 a month. On top of all that, the games for the console retail for anywhere between $20 to $60.

To be a PlayStation 4 owner with online support, good audio-visual equipment, and a decent amount of games, you’re looking at spending close to or above $1000. Now answer this: with these costs in mind, would you really want to pay for RNG-based loot boxes, in-game currency, or items that should really be obtained through gameplay?

Gaming costs way too much nowadays to warrant aggressive microtransactions. Gamers don’t want an easy way out or something to enhance their gameplay using real-world cash; they want value. They want to know that their hard-earned disposable income is going toward games that aren’t a waste of time or strong-arm players into paying more after already spending money on the game itself.

The very presence of microtransactions isn’t inherently awful, but that’s only because in cases like “Destiny,” they do not in any way prevent you from enjoying the main focus of the game at hand. But when microtransactions are tied to the main focus, we start to run into problems.

In the video game days of yore, we only paid once for our video games. There were no microtransactions, there were unlockables; if you wanted something, you got it by playing, not paying. And that’s the way it should be today.