The words DLC and microtransaction are about as universal as it gets in the modern gaming industry. Ever since the legendary horse armor of Oblivion landed, developers and publishers have been pushing in-game purchases harder and harder. The big question right now is, how do purchases and offers work within the strictly balanced world of esports titles?
Classic Models
There are two kinds of added content: walled-off and open. The latter is, as the name suggests, available to everyone, and is usually given as a promotion or as a goodwill gesture. It’s common in a lot of digital industries outside of gaming, such as online casinos. For example, the Paddy Power free bingo games only require a basic account to play, effectively making them open to everyone without extra payments required. Examples from gaming would be the ‘FreeLC’ in the Total War series or earned skins in Warzone.
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Walled-off includes anything that requires some extra monetary investment, whether that’s DLC, store purchases, limited editions, or pre-orders. Walled-off content is naturally limited to only a handful of players, in the same way that only subscribers to online services such as Amazon Prime get things like faster delivery or discounts.
Cosmetic Only?
This walled-off content is what is at the center of the monetization debate. Open content is given to everyone freely, so any advantage to be gained is available to all players. As soon as some people can pay to get an advantage that others can’t, then it becomes a massive issue of balance and fairness. It was an accusation leveled at huge online games like World of Tanks and they were eventually forced to drop all of those features.
It is why the most common policy now is that all added features that affect gameplay must be free, while anything paid must be cosmetic only. Particularly for esports, where even some cosmetics are deemed unfair like certain dark skins in Rainbow Six: Siege, this is very carefully controlled and naturally puts a lot of limitations on how far these games can be monetized.
The Dota 2 Approach
Valve has long been seen as the master of handling monetization in their games, notably with the Steam Community market which charges a flat 5% fee on all player-to-player transactions. This is most common with titles like CS:GO which falls into the ‘cosmetic-only’ category. These sales, however, don’t have any direct impact on the esports side of things, unlike their other title Dota 2.
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The long-standing policy of Valve is that 25% of sales of their Compendium, essentially packs of cosmetic and in-game bonuses, go to the prize pool of the International, the largest event of the year. It lets fans knowingly contribute to the esport while reducing costs on Valve’s part for operating and compensating for the scene. It’s a feature of Dota 2 that fans hold up with pride, and many more are willing to contribute because of it.
In short, monetization in esports titles is possible, but it needs a different way of thinking from other games. Creative ideas like Valve’s could be a way forward for competitors as well!
