Kotaku has had access to the UK report on addictive and immersive technology, which details the case of a casualty of microtransactions possessed by
RuneScape gold, from the Jagex study. Particularly, the report refers to"a member of the people whose adult child accumulated substantial debts" As indicated, this participant spent more than 50,000 lbs on such micropayments (about 60,000 euros) in just 1 year.
This debt"caused significant financial damage" to the family. For its own part, Jagex was unable to take"direct measures" in response to parental issues because of"data security issues." The report also echoes the way that Jagex arouses the monetization of RuneScape, thanks to this consultation of Kelvin Plomer, Director of Player Experience.
As Plomer indicates, RuneScape players"can potentially spend up to 1000 lbs a week or 5000 pounds a month," which would amount to about 1128 euros and nearly 6000 euros, respectively. All that the limit of the company prevents them from making purchases that are new. Apparently, this limit was made to stop extreme fraud, meaning that, indirectly, it helped this household to generate even larger debt just by chance.
RuneScape's microtransactions fit, in addition, in the definition of loot box: it has a system named Treasure Hunter, with treasure chests offering a random loot within them to
buy RS gold. The keys are bought with cash that was real. Oh, and also the items that players receive may give them advantages over other users, as Kotaku echoes.Runescape also offers other types of micropayments: battle passes, subscriptions and other superior offers. However, as observed from the analysis of microtransactions, it could function as mentioned chests that most affect the players.
