'Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2' Claims To Have No Microtransactions, But Features Season Pass And Paid Cosmetic Options
Developers for the upcoming Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 game declare that the game has no microtransactions, but in the same breath they revealed the game does have microtransactions via paid cosmetic options.
That's just how it goes when people constantly go "cosmetic only is fine" and "MTX is the bad word and only applies for 'buying power.'"
People have brought this on themselves for propping up "power" as the only thing that is negative from DLC packs, and let themselves be nickle and dimed on cosmetics without a single care.
Because god forbid you be able to unlock things in a fucking video game. Nah you need to pay 2.99$ for the Chaos skin their art guy already finished in the last 6 months of development while it was only coding left.
This was always a completely retarded take. Cosmetics are as much part of the game as sound effects, level design or progression are. I remember the days when cosmetics were a legitimate reward for skillful play or for discovering secrets.
People claiming otherwise are idiots.
I don't disagree at all.
But as a different conversation on this chain went, the mindset really was "meh, its cheaper than the alternative!" without realizing the cheapening comes at the cost of the industry standards and makes everything lower its quality.
Its Chinese tools in a media sense.
The upside is, they usually end up more or less giving away the base game after a while to get people in the door and get them to buy cosmetics.
Which is how F2P games and their predatory nature takes off. As in, the entire reason the idea of battle passes took off in the first place, to milk people who got foot in the doored into paying again and again.
Part of the way these industries work is that they always take lessons taught to them from consumers, and then run them into the extremes. If you say "its okay this time because I benefit" then they will make sure the next time they do, and then keep going until the consumer gets minimal benefit at all.
Sure you'll win today and get a free/cheap game, but that decisions still has repurcussions on the industry going forward. And they will never make choices that are pro-consumer as those will always run contrary to their legal requirements to their Board of Directors' bullshit. And every little company who bucks that trend will get gobbled up by those massive Corporations soon enough.
Meh, 10-20 years ago you had to buy a MMORPG, the expansions AND a monthly subscription. These days you basically only have the monthly subscription and even that's optional.
For example I play Genshin Impact. I pay 5-15$ a month for the monthly passes. Back in my Everquest 2 days I had to pay 15$ per month and 30-40$ per expansion (and that's before adjusting for inflation).
And that's how we end up here. Shrugging "mehs" as we justify it to ourselves.
20 years ago I bought Guild Wars. It didn't have a sub then and still doesn't. I bought it once and got a full game I could play online forever, and each expansion until the final was treated as a full separate game you could buy and play on its own. Heck I can still play it just fine and its got a solid population even now.
MMOs are also a unique beast designed to be obsessed over with their skinner box nature, knowing that FOMO power will both increase your chances of spending money on their cash shops with minimal dev time needed to keep them updating and running.
But do they have female transgender Space Marines and a LGBTWTFBBQ rainbow chapter?
Sounds good. Paid mission DLC usually splits the player base which is a death sentence for smaller games.
Cosmetic-only mtx is about the best you can hope for from any high budget Western developed game in 2024. There’s also a decent chance that this project has been in the works long enough that it will escape at least most of the franchise’s immediate wokening. As a fan of both unapologetic masculinity and co-op, I’m somewhat optimistic for this one.
Well kudos to them on haggling us down to where we shell out the money for something that'd be barely a part of an expansion pack of old. 1/64th the content for the same dollar!
Paid cosmetics are usually fine. Though it would be cool to have, even if it's like the ps3 Neptunia games and you do it out of game, painting minis. Redoing textures (and having other people's custom ones as a toggle online) would be pretty cool. Even if you restricted particles, sounds etc to paid skins.
Fuck that gay shit. Alternate costumes used to be neat unlockables you got for playing the fucking game. There's no reason to be ok with that being turned into a shameless grift. Have higher standards than that, Jesus Christ...
Did you read the entire post where I laid out a preferred option or short-circuit at a generalization?
Fuck that. This is why they will not get a dime from me. It is that normalized bullshit that has ushered this in everything
As opposed to needing to buy an entire new set of minis for an alternate appearance this is downright generous by GW standards.