Who Creates Microtransactions: The Production Context of Video Game Monetization

This paper examines the production context of video game monetization, asking who actually designs and implements microtransactions, loot boxes, and other in-game purchase systems. The authors argue that prior scholarship has concentrated on game content and player reception while largely neglecting the professionals behind these features, a gap they attribute to broader inattention to production and distribution in game research and to the industry's tendency toward secrecy. They position their inquiry as a way to better understand why monetization remains a contested element of video game culture and why it has drawn growing public and regulatory scrutiny.

The study draws on a mixed-methods design combining nine semi-structured exploratory interviews with German game professionals, analysis of 91 English and German job vacancy notices mentioning "monetization," and a review of in-game credits from 68 titles released in 2018. The sample includes both bestselling triple-A games containing microtransactions and top-grossing freemium titles ranked by Google Play charts. The authors present these findings as preliminary, and the German interview base and single-year credit sample limit the geographic and temporal scope of the conclusions.

Preliminary results indicate that monetization responsibilities are typically absorbed into existing roles such as game designers and product managers rather than assigned to a dedicated function. At the same time, emerging positions, including economy designers, live operations producers, and data analysts, increasingly carry monetization duties. Interviewees also reported that the work is sometimes outsourced to external monetization specialists. Notably, the credits of games with in-app purchases rarely identify who is responsible for monetization design, which the authors interpret as evidence of its integration across disciplines and possibly as a deliberate effort to downplay the more controversial aspects of these games.