Sadly, that is hardly the only example of microtransaction-based bullying. In the same year, The Children's Commission for Lost Ark Gold England organisation released a report in which they found other young Fortnite players were bullied for not spending money on exclusive in-game skins.Genshin Impact is another fascinating model of a well-designed game exploring new methods of pushing potential pay-to-win microtransactions.
That game infamously sports a extensive roster of characters available to play and is referred to as a "gacha" technique. There is only one way to get those heroes is through gems which players gradually earn in-game or can purchase with real money. To acquire rarer and more powerful characters, players need to sink more gems into the gacha system and hope Lady Luck smiles on them. For added complication players can upgrade characters by receiving replicas from Genshin's virtual slot machine. In order to fully upgrade the rarest characters, they must deposit more money/gems into Genshin Impact. There's simply no other option.
Games like Lost Ark, Fortnite, and Genshin Impact have different monetization methods, but it's difficult to miss the similarities. Lost Ark has a luck-based upgrade system hidden behind a paywall to monetize, as does Genshin Impact, and gamers who do not use the cash shop may be shut out of certain activities or even ostracized (not like Fortnite players who are using basic skins).
These are games that conceal their pay-to-win mechanisms so well that you won't realize how incentivized you are to spend money on them until you're feeling more like a commitment instead of Cheapest Lost Ark Gold an option. Simply put, it's getting more difficult to discern pay-towin games due to the pay-to-win mechanisms are becoming more obscure.
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