What is Premium Currency Confusion?
Games convert your real cash into virtual currencies like gems, coins, or V-Bucks. This disconnects the in-game prices from real-world value and makes your spending feel much less significant.
Where it comes from
Free-to-Play Games (2000s)
How it hooks you
Exploits payment abstraction: each layer between your wallet and the purchase reduces the felt cost of spending.
What the research shows
Epic Games paid a record $520M FTC settlement in 2022, partly over dark patterns that made unintended Fortnite purchases easy.
How to resist it
Convert in-game prices back to real money before any purchase.