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GAMESCHART

Glossary

What are in-game purchases?

In-game purchases are things you buy inside a game with real money, such as currency, skins or passes. They are also called microtransactions.

Published Updated

How it works

A game can sell extras on top of its price, or be free and sell only extras. Most sell premium currency first and price everything else in it. Common purchases are cosmetic items, a battle pass, DLC and loot boxes.

PEGI and the ESRB both put an "In-Game Purchases" notice on games that sell them. When the purchases include random items, the notice says so.

In the games we track

  • Valorant: sells cosmetics and a battle pass for VALORANT Points, but no random items.
  • Call of Duty: Black Ops 7: the ESRB lists in-game purchases without its random-items label.
  • Baldur's Gate 3: sold at a one-off price with no in-game purchases.
  • ANEURISM IV: Steam lists no DLC packs or in-game purchases.

About the author

Aashish Khakhar · Editor

Aashish edits GamesChart and checks every drop rate, price and player count against the publisher's own source before it goes live.

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Sources

  1. PEGI – What do the labels mean?, published by pegi.info
  2. Wikipedia – Microtransaction, published by en.wikipedia.org
  3. Wikidata – In-game purchases (Q18344644), published by wikidata.org

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