I cringe every time I'm downloading a new app and see that dreaded line beneath the title: Offers In-App Purchases. What this means is that if the game is competitive, there is literally a pay-to-win dynamic within the meta. While this includes many of those lame-ass top down resource management games (Clash of Clans, I'm looking at you) where players can pay real money to speed up resource production, it's often found in many games without a competitive element. For example, Galaxy on Fire II for the iPhone is a space-faring game with an economy element. Players can earn the required currency to complete various task, albeit at a deathly slow pace, or pay real money to bypass this. For those with little to no time to grind, it's a surefire way to get what you want in the game in addition to giving the developers exactly what they want: More of your money.

It's important that we define what a micro-transaction is. They typically involve a small amount of money (hence the "micro" prefix) for the most purchased items: 99¢ for a chunk of the rarer in-game currency, a dollar for a different color scheme/skin for a character and so on. These increase in cost with greater volumes of virtual currency returned to you. Think of it as a currency exchange, but for currency that is now useless. Trading real dollars for the equivalent Monopoly dollars, for example. More often that not, the top tier purchases of $100 or more claim to be the "Best Value!" and those lazy or moronic enough to not do the actual basic math will be screwed over, because in reality, they offer no deal at all. But nowadays, micro-transactions have reached epic proportions. One can spend hundreds, even thousands of dollars on a variety of in-game items, from different colorways for weapons, to a specific costume. All they really do is show everyone how rich and/or foolish you are, and to me, it definitely comes off as more the latter.

Even more of an issue is that many games now offer Day One DLC as a preorder incentive. Instead of including what should be part of the main game, the publishers attempt to sell you on a pointless piece of virtual gear that is "exclusive" and usually ends up being given to everyone else for free later. It's a genius marketing tactic taking advantage of gamers everywhere.

So until we stand up to this corporate greed, it's just going to continue. We're going to keep paying for items we should be getting anyway and paying outrageous amounts of real world money to save time. Unless you start doing something about it. Next time you can't beat a level in Candy Crush? Don't pay your way through to the next one. Do you really need that fancy looking costume that does nothing except change your appearance, and isn't really as exclusive as you think it is because everyone else buys it too? No, you really don't.

Do yourself a favor and demand more from your games.