Activision’s Controversial Patent Encourages Junior Players To Make More In-Game Purchases

This week, Santa Monica, California-headquartered video game publisher Activision was granted a patent for a system and method that could boost microtransactions in its multiplayer games. However, the company quickly received a lot of criticism from players who are worried that its games could foster an unfair environment.

Based on the copy of the patent published online by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, it appears that the major goal of this new technology is to boost microtransactions and encourage players to make numerous game-related purchases. The matchmaking system, for one, will match a junior player with an expert or marquee player, so that the former would be compelled to make in-game purchases just to secure the upper hand.

With this matchmaking system, junior players can emulate marquee players as long as they are willing to obtain weapons and other items being used by their stronger rivals through in-game purchases. The technology explained in the patent also has a means of identifying which types of items should be promoted to junior players. In effect, more players could end up buying items to their advantage.

The patent details several instances that could make this new system and method useful. One of which explains how a junior player can be an expert sniper. “The microtransactions engine may match the junior player with a player that is a highly skilled sniper in the game. In this manner, the junior player may be encouraged to make game-related purchases such as a rifle or other item used by the marquee player,” a piece of the patent reads.

Activision’s patent also supposes that the technology could increase the chances of players making more future purchases. “If the player purchased a particular weapon, the microtransaction engine may match the player in a gameplay session in which the particular weapon is highly effective, giving the player an impression that the particular weapon was a good purchase. This may encourage the player to make future purchases to achieve similar gameplay results.”

Many players have already voiced their sentiments on Activision’s new patent. On Reddit, a couple of users expressed their distaste for the patented technology. “If this is ever found to be in an Activision game ever I for one will never purchase one of their games again,” one user wrote. “I might be paranoid but as soon as I read this I was thinking to myself ‘sounds like this is already in Hearthstone.’ I’ve heard of way too many new players that complain about playing against decks with tons of legendary cards,” another stated.

Activision has since clarified that the system and method detailed in the patent are not at all present in any of its published games. “This was an exploratory patent filed in 2015 by an R&D team working independently from our game studios,” an Activision spokesperson was quoted as saying by Rolling Stone’s Glixel. “It has not been implemented in-game.”

Last year, Activision Blizzard earned $3.6 billion from in-game purchases alone. The figure is significantly bigger than the $1.6 billion worth of in-game sales the “Destiny 2” publisher earned the year prior.