Microtransactions

Though Dragon’s Dogma 2 received critical acclaim ahead of launch, many buyers on PC are leaving negative reviews due to the game launching with 21 optional microtransactions. Dragon’s Dogma 2 launched today (March 22), and at time of writing, currently holds a ‘Mixed’ user review rating on Steam, with 60 per cent of all player-submitted reviews marked as negative. The criticism is largely driven by the inclusion of microtransactions in the single-player game. Dragon’s Dogma 2 has 21 available microtransactions,…

Gearbox Entertainment When video game developers and publishers constantly hunt for their own live service white whale, many of them fail. Even fewer of those get second chances like Gigantic is about to. Originally developed by Motiga and published by Perfect World Entertainment, Gigantic was a hero-based multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game that was heavily marketed in the mid-2010s. Unfortunately, it failed to garner enough attention or make enough money for its developer and publisher for a variety of…

Escape From Tarkov is set to introduce microtransactions with the new 0.14.1.0 update. The 0.14.1.0 update went live earlier today and, according to the patch notes, “the in-game stash expansion and access to the practice co-op mode will become available for purchase in the profile page on the official Escape From Tarkov website. Purchase of additional stash lines will be available regardless of the game edition.” Stash expansions allow players to increase their in-game inventory space while offline co-op practice mode…

Take-Two Interactive has an interesting response to gamers upset with what the company does with the in-game currency they buy. In an ongoing dispute over whether money is essentially stolen when a game’s servers shut down, Take-Two characterized in-game virtual currency as “fictions created by game publishers.” Currently Take-Two is facing a class-action lawsuit in California related to microtransactions in the NBA 2K games. Particularly, the lawsuit takes issue with the fact that when Take-Two takes down servers for…

The Escape from Tarkov universe is expanding with the release of a new spin-off, Escape from Tarkov Arena. The game doesn't have a release date yet, but we do know it will not have any microtransactions.Nikita Buyanov, studio boss at Battlestate Games, told GameSpot in simple terms that Arena will have "no microtransactions for sure." He went on to say that there will be no pay-to-win elements either. "We are against that," Buyanov said. You need a javascript enabled…

Warner Bros. will be heavily veering into a live service model for its future games. During its latest Q3 earnings call, CEO David Zaslav confirmed that the company plans to transform its biggest video game franchises into long-term products, bolstered by regular content drops and heavy monetisation. In recent years, gamers have developed a distaste for such money-hungry practices, which often lock out content behind some form of paywall or a battle pass, instead of providing a complete game at launch. The idea is for…

Square Enix's cutesy Final Fantasy-themed racer, Chocobo GP, has had a surprise resurrection this week, with the game re-releasing on Switch with no trace of microtransactions.The game had a rocky launch due to controversy over aggressive monetizations and grindy battle passes, which led to Square Enix discontinuing its main in-game currency, Mythril, and releasing its last major content update just nine months after launch. The update stated that after Season 5, released on December 21, 2022, there would…

After a decade-plus away, EA Sports is back in the business of baseball games on console. The lighthearted, arcade-style Super Mega Baseball 4, from EA's Metalhead Software, is out now on console and PC.Fans have been waiting a while, as the COVID-delayed Super Mega Baseball 3 was released back in 2020. Metalhead was acquired by EA in 2021, and some feared that the next release in the series might add some of EA's business practices, namely microtransactions. These fears were unfounded, as Super…

Activision Blizzard is being fined by the PEGI (Pan-European Game Information) Complaints Board and Enforcement Committee over the inclusion of microtransactions in its 2022 mobile game Diablo Immortal. This news comes just after Nintendo got sued in North America over its implementation of loot box microtransactions in Mario Kart Tour. However, this decision comes from the European game ratings board PEGI after a reassessment of Diablo Immortal’s rating. Activision Blizzard, along with Hunt:…

A fan-favorite mode arrives alongside a curious store addition The Mercenaries mode for the Resident Evil 4 remake dropped at midnight last night. But alongside that surprise was a seemingly unannounced feature: microtransactions. Several different weapon upgrade tickets have been added as paid DLC in the store for Resident Evil 4, offering access to a weapon’s exclusive upgrade at any time. Here’s the store text description for one of the ticket optons: To gun enthusiasts, knife collectors, and lovers of weapons of any…