Talk:Microtransaction

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 7 September 2017 and 20 December 2017. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): MoEldali. Peer reviewers: Louise Yang.

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 2 April 2019 and 17 May 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Always Tardy.

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 5 April 2019 and 1 September 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Domingler.

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 28 August 2019 and 18 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Gregory Zacharko.

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Requested move 28 April 2015

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Not moved. EdJohnston (talk) 23:53, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Microtransaction → In-app purchase – Per WP:COMMONNAME, with evidence including: Note that the target is currently a redirect to Glossary of video game terms --Relisted. George Ho (talk) 05:30, 6 May 2015 (UTC) &mdash; Amakuru (talk) 14:08, 28 April 2015 (UTC)
 * 1) Several of the references on the page do not actually mention the term "microtransaction" but refer to an "in-app purchase".
 * 2) Apple and Google both refer to them as "in-app purchases":
 * 3) Google books results: "in-app purchase" 20,000 results, "in-app billing" 1,190 results, "microtransaction" 561 results
 * 4) Google news results: "in-app purchase" 12,300 results "in-app billing" 460 results, "microtransaction" 3,060 results.
 * Oppose. The term "microtransaction" is more broad and refers to non-iOS/Android purchases, while the term "in-app purchase" implies exclusivity to the iOS and Android platforms. ONR (talk) 14:06, 29 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree with Old Naval Rooftops and oppose the move, but I support redirecting In-app purchase here. Red Slash 17:33, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Oppose, as the suggestion would seem to substantially change the scope of the article. —BarrelProof (talk) 23:23, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Comment - this article is currently entirely about in-app purchases. I think I wrote it on this page because I felt microtransaction had a more encyclopedic name. This article should probably be merged with micropayment in some way. Some guy (talk) 18:23, 8 May 2015 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Problem: Microtransactions and in-app purchases are confused as being the same
I feel there is a fundamental confusion about the relationship between microtransactions and in-app purchases. The current page presents them as one and the same. The page even directly claims Apple and Google refer to microtransactions as in-app purchases and in-app billing respectively, but the word "micro" does not appear even once on the pages linked as sources for the claim. Now that even a rename request (Microtransaction -> in-app purchase) has appeared, I think this would be more than a good time to tackle the issue.

While microtransactions as a business model is very commonly implemented through in-app purchases, the two are distinctly separate. The first is mostly used as a way to break the full price of a product into small separately purchaseable chunks of low cost. The latter is a way of providing or making a purchase. Saying they are the same is like saying cosmetics and department stores are one and the same because cosmetics are very commonly sold in department stores. You can also have microtransactions that are implemented with something else than an in-app purchase, just like cosmetics can be sold through other channels.

Examples:
 * If you have a game with an in-app purchase that unlocks the full version of the game, isn't it the exact opposite of a microtransaction (a "macrotransaction"? classically referred to as shareware) even if it's implemented as an in-app purchase?
 * You can offer a magazine subscription for a year and implement how the purchase is made using in-app purchases. The price might be $50 and includes the whole service. There is nothing micro about it in any sense of the word. Full product, full price -- but still an in-app purchase.
 * In the same fashion as a magazine stand app, everything on the Steam store is technically bought inside the Steam application. However, most of the items are full products, not microtransactions -- However, microtransactions for "bunny slippers" and "new machine guns" (which Valve uses as examples) are also sold. These can co-exist.

I believe the correct approach would be to mention "Microtransactions are often implemented as in-app purchases" and leave it at that. If there was a separate in-app purhases/in-app billing page, it should have the same in reverse, "In-app purchases are often used to implement microtransactions".

I don't believe we should treat them as synonyms simply because one is so often used to provide the other.

(If, on the other hand, you take the stance that "microtransactions" refer to all purchases of little cost (like alluded to by the Micropayment page), then almost every purchase on the various app stores is a microtransaction, whether purchased directly through the store or through an in-app purchase. In this scenario, limiting the term to in-app purchases only would again be wrong.)

Plikrg (talk) 09:12, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

I would have liked another point of view on this before editing, but oh well. The guidelines document sums up in-app purchases (on the first page) as a tool to support "a variety of business models", and lists both "additional game levels", "digital books" and "magazine subscriptions". The first could be easily classified as a microtransaction, but in the spirit of this article, the latter two very much not.

Based on this, I'm rewording the article so that it does not directly equate microtransactions (a business model) with in-app purchases/billing, a tool/framework commonly used to implement it and provide them.

Plikrg (talk) 18:30, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Peer Review from Louise Yang
''' Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you? '''

Everything in this article is relevant to the main theme, and nothing distracts me except for a few potential grammar mistakes. For example, in the sentence “While microtransactions are considered a more robust and difficult to circumnavigate than digital rights management”, the “a” should be excluded.

'''Is the article neutral? Are there any claims, or frames, that appear heavily biased toward a particular position? '''

Perspectives from both sides are narrated in this article, although introduction to the negative side of micro-transaction can still be developed.

''' Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented? '''

All the viewpoints presented in the article are presented at a proper level, although the critiques about micro-transaction can be introduced more specifically.

'''Check the citations. Do the links work? Does the source support the claims in the article?'''

Most links work, however the link to the "Free-to-play Revenue Overtakes Premium Revenue in the App Store" doesn’t work well, as my Google Chrome says it is not a safe connection, and after I reached the site I didn’t recognize any actual content.

'''Is each fact supported by an appropriate, reliable reference? Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted?'''

Facts stated in the article are all supported by appropriate references. Many of them are information from the official website of companies such as Apple or Steam, which make the information reliable. Some are blogs posts from game communities, which can be subjective in terms of opinion, and the author might want to consider using them as reliable sources.

''' Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that should be added? '''

Information provided in this article are all up-to-date, however I think the author can still add some specific case studies to the article (such as a particular game that have succeeded using this model). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Louise Yang (talk • contribs) 05:41, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

Society, Ethics, & Technology Course Wikipedia Assignment (Fall 2019 Semester)
Hi! My name is Gregory Zacharko.

I plan to add to the "Microtransaction" article here on Wikipedia for my Society, Ethics, & Technology course.

Reading over the article, I felt like the article was a bit lackluster in that there is not enough details in it. With Microtransactions being a massive thorn in Games Industry as of late, including numerous major studies, reports, and controversies arising out of the Mircotransaction debate, I feel that this article is in dire need of an objective update on the whole situation, as well as unbiased information regarding its history, types, development/growth, ethicalness, and impact on modern society.

Ultimately, this is the article that I chose for my course and so I would like to ask if I can help in updating this article.

Thank you!

Gregory Zacharko (talk) 19:39, 29 September 2019 (UTC)

Finished With Project for Fall 2019 Semester
Hello everyone!

I have finished writing my additions to the "Microtransaction" article and I am looking to be moving my stuff into the live article now. So, some sentences in certain sections may get edited or removed to help with the flow of the article. If you have any objections, please reply here and explain why you do not want me to "touch" specific sentences of the live article.

Thank you and I am so happy to be vastly improving this article as I feel it is such a relevant topic nowadays.

Gregory Zacharko (talk) 21:33, 22 November 2019 (UTC)


 * Hi Gregory Zacharko, please keep in mind that open wikis like Fandom are not reliable sources. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:36, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

Wording improvements across article
In response to Gregory Zacharko's mass-editing of this article more than six months ago for his semester project (the typical duration of which I'm unfamiliar with, not being American), provided he has completed said project then I think the article does need to be extensively refined as much of the wording used is not very formal or conventional for a standard Wikipedia article. I'm aware there have been some tweaks made since by several admins but in my opinion the whole article needs a thorough review. Also, while I've not read it fully or looked at all the sources, what stuck out to me first and foremost was the article's focus on the ethics of microtransactions purely on children, when in fact such monetisation practices affect those of a much wider age range, owing to how many people play video games, and including those who suffer from gambling addictiveness; I'm sure this can all be sourced. Wikibenboy94 (talk) 12:18, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Microtransactions on google?
I came to this page because I was looking for information; about how google, apple, microsoft, amazon, facebook, etc and their offshoots, make money each time I click a link, run a search, upload a selfie, or whatever, in a thousandth of a dollar, or the like. But there's not a trace of it. Is this a trade secret? Am I using the wrong word? I tried looking on the cryptocurrency article, but no luck there either... {Tomas Emma (talk) 08:13, 30 August 2020 (UTC)}
 * You're using the wrong word. "Microtransaction" generally refers to a business model, typically in video games, where the user pays a very small amount of money for some (often virtual) good or service. This definition is generally not applicable to online advertising, since the end user is not the one paying for the ads. However, some games will offer users a microtransaction to disable ads in the game. Some guy (talk) 20:37, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Hello Tomas Emma, you may be interested in articles like Latency (engineering), Response time (technology), Propagation delay, Network delay and Online transaction processing.--186.54.255.246 (talk) 20:28, 4 June 2021 (UTC)

Microtransactions other than videogames?
Hello, this article describes microtransactions only in the context of videogames. There are other other online services that have microtransactions, for example Reddit, Twitch.tv and OnlyFans.--186.54.255.246 (talk) 20:25, 4 June 2021 (UTC)


 * This article is honestly a hot mess because the article is almost exclusively about video game purchases (and it says so in the lede), but is named for the common generic term. There is also a page named Micropayments which is what I was looking for when I landed on this article. QINGCHARLES (talk) 21:51, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

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