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Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. Rainbow Six: Siege. Street Fighter V. Payday 2. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. Destiny. Rise of the Tomb Raider. Assassin's Creed Syndicate. All of these games are full-priced.

All of them have microtransactions.

While I believe that we're in a golden age in the games industry right now, with games being more varied, fun, and innovative than ever, and new technologies being devised and built to enhance our experiences, there are a lot of kinks in games right now that need to be ironed out, and the biggest right now is greed. When many gamers hear "greed", the first thing that they probably think of is EA, which isn't true at all; so many publishers, from Konami to Activision to Ubisoft, have all started getting too greedy with their games, implementing Season Passes and microtransactions, chopping up bits of their game and selling them as extras.

The best (and probably most controversial) example of this is Destiny. Now, before I'm accused of bias – I very much enjoyed my time in Destiny, but once its first "expansion" The Dark Below was released, I was completely put off. Not only is £20 for a piece of DLC extortionate, but, from then on, Bungie started treating the people that didn't pay a lot worse. Firstly, the company occasionally prevented players of the base game from playing certain weekly strikes and Nightfalls. House of Wolves made this happen more frequently, and finally, The Taken King completely prevented anyone who didn't pay the steep £40 asking price from playing Nightfalls and Strikes.

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And that wasn't even the end of it. After that, the developer then went and added microtransactions to the game, just because it knew that it could. Why should a fan, who, if they've bought all of the DLC, has paid £120, still have to pay even more to unlock cosmetic items? Hell, why should someone who paid £40/50 have to pay more money in order to not be locked out of Strikes and Nightfalls? Surely, if you've bought a game, you should be able to play all of it, not get locked out of certain sections after a year because the developer decides that they want more money from you?

But there's always the argument of "but they're optional, you don't have to pay for them". While, in some games, that is absolutely true – Destiny being one – there are so many cases when "optional" microtransactions may technically be optional, but in practice really aren't. Case in point: Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. I won't give my opinion on the title as a game because I'll probably get slaughtered (hint: I prefer Metal Gear Solid 4 over it) but the FOB system that Konami implemented is terrible.

In MGSV's Mother Base mode, you get your first FOB for free – so far so good. But if you want to buy another, you'll have to spend MB coins, which you earn every day by logging in – but you earn a pittance. So, you can either wait for ages and save up for a new FOB, or pay £8 – the equivalent of the value of an FOB. That system bears a striking resemblance to every single F2P mobile game that's ever existed, yet MGSV is a full price, AAA game. How the hell is that system optional? That's like paying for a film that lets you watch it for half an hour, before asking you to either wait a week to see the rest of it, or pay more money to watch the rest now.

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But it didn't stop there for Konami. After that, it added FOB Insurance, a power-up that can't even be bought with in-game currency, before releasing tiny pieces of micro-DLC such as women's stealth suits that can be unzipped for a "tactical advantage" and even flamin' horse armour. It seems that publishers are getting more greedy than ever.

Some people might say that "it's just the state of the industry now" and how there's no point fighting against it, but that's just wrong. Very recently, the gaming community successfully overturned Deus Ex: Mankind Divided's god-awful 'Augment Your Pre-Order' program. Not only that, but the ongoing battle between PayDay 2 developer Overkill – who went back on its word and added microtransactions to the game – and the community is eking out in the community's favour. Remember when FIFA, Madden, and other EA games used to have Online Passes that had to be bought again if you bought a game pre-owned. Those aren't used anymore.

And it's not like some developer's aren't doing it right, either – CD Projekt Red is one of the many devs that has realised that, if you treat the fans right, they'll treat you right. Every copy of the The Witcher 3 came with a soundtrack, a written note from the developers, a cardboard sleeve, a manual, and a printed version of the game's map, alongside 16 pieces of free DLC. The latest expansion, Hearts of Stone, offers astounding value at £8 – the same price, as you may remember, as one FOB in MGSV. Yeah.

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If you're not sold on the argument that microtransactions and publisher greed is a terrible thing, think about how unbalanced it makes multiplayer games. Battlefield 4, for instance, allowed players to buy stat boosts, upgrades, and shortcuts, meaning that someone who just bought the game can unlock more things someone who's played for a while with the flick of a credit card. That creates a knock-on effect that forces others to either also pay and not get crushed, or not pay and have less fun of a time. This is why I'm not looking forward to Rainbow 6: Siege anymore – the microtransactions will just reduce it to a boring grind.

You may remember a little debate that happened when my Guitar Hero Live review came out, where some people argued that the Plays system – which allows users to rent songs with real money, but not buy them – was a good idea, and the lesser of two evils. After all, you can't expect all of the songs to be free.

But here's the thing: every main Guitar Hero game since 2 has had at least 70 songs, with Warriors of Rock having a whopping 93 on disc. Guitar Hero Live only has 42. Just goes to show that greed has become a little more popular in the gaming industry.

What can we learn from all of this? Never, ever pay for a microtransaction. If a game stops being fun and becomes a grind, or the fanbase is split up because of an expensive DLC, then just stop playing that particular section of the game. No one's forcing you to pay microtransactions, so don't. Take a leaf out of the PayDay 2 community's book – if your favourite game is going to have a new microtransaction or mini-DLC system that you don't like, make your opinion heard. Sooner or later, the developer will get the message.


Do you agree with Sam that the industry's getting greedy, or is this simply a side-effect of increasing development budgets? Buy some credits in the comments section below.

Do you think that the industry's getting greedy? (146 votes)

  1. Yes, devs need to stop adding microtransactions to full-priced games88%
  2. Hmm, I'm not really sure to be honest with you9%
  3. No, games are expensive to make so microtransactions are necessary3%

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