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Though EA continues to take a ton of heat for its questionable-at-best monetization practices, particularly their implemen💙tation in staple sports franchises like Madden🧸 and Fifa, Activision Blizzard have faced a near-equal amount of scrutiny regarding its handling of popular gaming institutions like Overwatch and, of course, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Call of Duty. The seminal military shooter franchise that helped to cement the popularity of FPS games on consoles back in the mid-to-late 2000s, the Call of Duty series has been at the foꦆrefront of every sha♚dy scheme and duplicitous ploy known to gaming over the past few years.
From rewarding players for to cramming microtransaction mechanics in the remaster of the original Modern Warfare, much of the in-game monetization introduced to the Call of Duty series during the eighth console gener🥀ation drew ire from the player base. That said, 2019’s quasi-reboot of the Modern Warfare subseries bucked the trend, opting instead to employ the battle pass system made popular by games like Fortnite.
Cosmetics Bundles Abound
Yet, Modern Warfare wasn’t entirely without traditional microtransactions, as the game’s storefront was eager to hawk cosmetics bundles and the COD points required to purchase them. While most of these cosmetics offered new and unique skins and trinkets that were admittedly a cu💖t above what could be unlocked free of charge in-game, most were outrageous🍸ly expensive, often costing between 500 and 1600 points to purchase.
Given that the game retailed for $60 when it first debuted, charging what🐬 was ostensibly a fourth of the game’s toꦑtal price for a single set of cosmetics usually containing one or two weapon skins—most of which can only be applied to either a single weapon or class of weapons—a weapon charm, a single vehicle skin—and perhaps an operator if you’re lucky—was nothing more than highway robbery.
Unওfortunately, this new take on extraneous con♈tent seems to have worked wonders for Activision, as it raked in a . Some of this could be attributed to the pandemic making consumers more likely to stay at home and spend more on in-home activities, but earning north of a billion dollars in a three-month period through in-game monetization alone is certainly proof that Activision’s new tactics are paying off.
Cold War, Hot Sell
Many players argue that the battle pass system seen in Modern Warfare and again in Black Ops Cold War is a cut above the loot box dependent schemes seen in previous Call of Duty entries, and that’s certainly a fair argument. For $10, Cold War players can earn things like weapon skins, weapon blueprints, operators, call signs, and much more as they rank up. What’s more, Activision has made it possible for players to earn COD points through the battle paᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚss, meaning that diligent players who make it through all 100 tiers will essentially ensure that the battle pass more-or-less pays for itself.
What’s much less acceptable, however, are the incredibly overpriced cosmetics bundles that Activision and Treyarch have brought back in Cold War. Though there’s certainly plenty of content that can be earned free of charge, the most impressive weapons skins and operators can only be purchased in bundles, some of which cost as much as 240ꦰ0 COD points.
Season tꦏwo alone saw the introduction of over 60 of these bundles, each roughly ranging in price from 600 COD points to well over 2000. There was particular upheaval when it was revealed that Samantha Maxis, a legendary figure in the long-running Black Ops zombies storyline, would be introduced as a playable operator for what worked out to $24 real-world dollars. That’s approaching half the price of the game for a single cosmetꦬic bundle.
Paying A Price For Transparency
Again, proponents of the new system will argue that it’s a vast improvement over the aggravatingly random loot box system which saw many eager players paying just as mu🅺ch—if not more—for cosmetics they didn't even want. Still, while this new system doesn’t ac🎶tively antagonize the consumer, an overpriced microtransaction is still an overpriced microtransaction.
It’s worth remembering the blowback Activision a🎶nd Treyarch earned when they first introduced extraneous cosmetics to Black Ops II in 2012. For two or three dollars, players could purchas✃e a set of skins that could be applied to any weapon without restriction, something that, if implemented today, would be hailed as one of the most consumer-friendly moves in years.
All in all, most players seem to prefer these bundles to the other monetization methods seen over the years, and there’s no doubt that up-front purchases with transparent benefits are far superior to the ugly, obfuscatory loot box swindle players had beeꦑn subjected to for far too long. Yet, I still long for the days when the cost of a game’s extra content wouldn’t exceed the price of the game itself.