We’re way too thrilled for JULY FOURTEENTH at the following link.

I can’t really remember the last time I spent money on what’s called a “micro-transaction”. That’s a fun marketing word to get people to think they are only spending a tiny bit of money on something. You’ll find it in a LOT of games – mostly mobile games, but they show up in regular games as well.

“Fortnight” is a game that costs nothing to play. It’s free. Play all you want. There’s things in the game you can spend actual money on and that’s how they make money off the game. Apparently, there’s enough need of whatever is actually for sale in that game that people have spent over a billion dollars on it. That kinda blows my mind. Takes me back to the phone/tablet days of when you’d hear of parents getting massive bills cause their kids kept buying things because the app made it easy (or tricky). I don’t know if we’re there yet with a game like “Fortnight”. It’s on pretty much every available platform, but when a game that cost nothing to play pulls in that kind of money, it makes you wonder. It also turns on just about that many lightbulbs in the minds of executives who want to hop on that gravy train.

As much as I’d hoped this whole battle royale mechanic of gaming was going to stay in it’s own circle, this tells me otherwise. Unfortunately, it’s just getting started.