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Here I thought Assassin's Creed Valhalla might get away from those icky experience point boosters Ubisoft so like to put in their games, alas it was not to be. In Valhalla's in-game store you can now buy XP boosts for real-life cash, which effectively double your XP gain. They're designed to save you time, so you don't need to do tons of side quests to…
As is customary for a modern Ubisoft open-world icon-clearer, Watch Dogs: Legion launches today with not only a £50 price tag and a £34 season pass but optional not-so-microtransactions too. Ubisoft are selling 'WD Credits' in bundles ranging from £4 to £42, which you can spend on in-game goodies like unique characters, skins, maps of collectibles, and wads of digicash. You don't need any of…
Cyberpunk 2077 multiplayer will have microtransactions, but not singleplayer
CD Projekt Red have been clear about their 'no microtransactions' policy for Cyberpunk 2077 the singleplayer RPG for ages, but their vagueness on Cyberpunk multiplayer has caused trouble and confusion. This week they clarified yes, the Cyberpunk online doodad due after launch will have microtransactions, but no, they're not liars because this is a separate project. I'm not surprised that some fans have been confused,…
What is a free-to-play game, truly, without super cool overpriced skins? Valorant, Riot's CS-like tactical shooter, has just revealed its new line of Elderflame gun skins, which turn your weapons into fiery, roaring, wiggly dragons. They're fully animated, swinging around to look at you after you get a kill, and you even reload them by politely handing over ammunition for them to consume. You'll be…
Feature: Million dollar RPG man
Achaea: the game where microtransactions cost hundreds of dollars
Microtransactions have become a ubiquitous, if contentious, part of mainstream videogames. They crop up everywhere, from mobile games to $50 big-budget titles, with varying degrees of success and backlash. At the heart of the issue lies the equilibrium between the consumer’s valuation of media, and the developer’s increasingly tight margins as developmental costs rise. Recent events have raised all manner of real, pertinent questions (and…
Rocket League lowers prices for cosmetics following the Blueprint Update
High-octane ballsport Rocket League yesterday reduced cosmetic item prices, having started selling them at high prices with new systems replacing DLC and loot boxes in last week's Blueprint Update. Our Matt said only yesterday that "Rocket League's new Blueprints are too expensive, but still better than loot boxes" then a mere six hours later, Psyonix announced the price cuts. This is response to a solid…
No, Cyberpunk 2077 hasn’t confirmed microtransactions in multiplayer
Let's get this out of the way: CD Projekt Red really haven't confirmed much regarding Cyberpunk 2077's multiplayer. They know it's happening (eventually) but what that looks like, or when it'll happen? Not even Keanu knows. Last week it was reported that CDPR may know one thing for certain - CP2077 multiplayer would be monetised, and include "well thought-out" microtransactions. However, it looks like the…
Feature: A very serious article
This article is not about microtransactions (that is, buying virtual products with small payments) within the game of Hearthstone. It is, in fact, an article about micro transactions; specifically, it's about how the various characters from Hearthstone would react to the initiation of transactions involving very small amounts of money, according to me and my mate Trevar. Micro transactions in the real world are situations…
The latest patch for Fallout 76 released today includes some shiny new additions Bethesda revealed earlier this month: cameras and item repair kits. The latter can only be purchased with meta-currency, a departure from the in-game storefront's focus on solely offering cosmetic items.
FIFA Ultimate Team to effectively stop selling loot boxes in Belgium
Electronic Arts have thrown in the towel in their battle with Belgium over whether or not paid loot boxes in FIFA's Ultimate Team mode constitute illegal gambling. Without admitting to anything, EA today announced that they will soon stop selling Belgian players the 'FIFA Points' microtransaction currency used to buy Ultimate Team 'packs', effectively stopping selling them. Technically if someone is sitting on €657965468476 of…
The Australian Senate are launching an enquiry into microtransaction loot boxes, investigating whether they constitute gambling and to what extent they "may be harmful". While the enquiry won't change any policy itself, it could inform future laws.A number of politicians and bodies around the world have cocked an eyebrow at microtransaction virtuacrates of random digicrud in recent years, most notably after the loud backlash against…
The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB), the North American industry body which assigns games age ratings, will expand its labelling on physical boxed games to include warnings of "In-Game Purchases". This will cover everything that can be bought digitally for real money, from season passes and skins to microtransaction currencies and random loot boxes. They're only a decade late to noticing all this, then.Some industry…
Feature: Want a second character? Cough up...
Metal Gear Survive’s scuzzy microtransactions: paid saveslots, cash for emotes and buy-a-boost
I'm having a significantly better time than I'd expected with Solid crew spin-off Metal Gear Survive, but something about it does rub me up the wrong way - and I'm not talking about whether or not it stuck a dagger in Kojima's kidney or how heavily it borrows from other survival games. Like Metal Gear Solid V before, microtransactions have crept into Survive, and though…
Star Wars Battlefront 2’s microtransactions unlikely to include a pink Darth Vader
When Electronic Arts turned off microtransactions in Star Wars Battlefront 2 over that whole stinking loot crate progression system mess, they said they would bring 'em back after a rethink. Well, EA's chief financial officer said on Tuesday that is still very much the plan. While he isn't sure how and when microtransactions will return, he seems fairly certain they wouldn't include cosmetic items which…
Activision patent matchmaking system pushing microtransactions
Activision have created a matchmaking system which would attempt to put players in situations where they're more likely to spend money on microtransaction items. Perhaps it would match you against a great player with a fancy gun so you'd want to buy that gun and emulate that success. Or if you've already bought a fancy gun, it might put you in matches where that weapon…
League of Legends: Brexit pushes up price of in-game currency
Megahit MOBA League of Legends [official site] will raise the price of its premium microtransaction currency, Riot Points (RP), for UK players by 20% later this month.Seeing as the pound has tanked since the UK voted last year to leave the European Union, developers Riot Games say players elsewhere in the world have been paying more per point than Kingdomeers. Raising UK prices will "restore…
Last year, Overkill Games upset a pretty vocal corner of their Payday 2 [official site] community by introducing microtransactions to the co-op heist 'em up - something they'd previously promised to avoid. In an announcement made yesterday, Starbreeze - Overkill's parent company - revealed they've now acquired full rights to the Payday franchise and as such will scrap paid-for in-game items via the next update.…
When Overkill Software first added TF2-like weapon crates to Payday 2 [official site], putting special gun skins with better stats in 'safes' unlocked by paying real money for 'drills', it went poorly. The vocal portion of the co-op heist FPS's playerbase were riled, to say the least. Overkill backpedalled a little, making it so folks might randomly earn free drills while playing, but it was…
We can be fairly certain that affordable time travel won't exist within our lifetimes because Payday 2 [official site] developers Overkill Software evidently haven't travelled back to last week and erase their mistake of adding microtransactions to unlock more-powerful versions of guns. If they had, memories of CS:GO-style weapon crates and keys concealing a random selection of garish weapon skins with better stats would fade…
An update due Wednesday (19 August) will bring six (6) new flavours of pet to Path of Exile [official site]. They include the fastest tortoise I've ever seen and a well-behaved lemur. Also a pukeko which I didn't know was a real bird until now. I'm mostly posting about this because it let me assess a bunch of digital pets.
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