What you need to know
- As Dragon’s Dogma 2 launched on PC Thursday evening, a previously hidden suite of microtransactions became available for purchase.
- Things you can buy for the single player ARPG include fast travel points, Rift Crystals for hiring Pawns and buying special items, appearance change and revival consumables, a special camping kit that weighs less than normal ones, and a few others.
- In response to the microtransactions, Dragon’s Dogma 2 is being review bombed, with the game currently sitting at “Mostly Negative” on Steam.
I was responding in general to the concept, not specifically this implementation, which as you say is not the worst implementation for sure.
We’ll have agree to disagree on pay2win not being predatory. Again, this specific implementation may not be as bad, but the market as a whole absolutely has examples just as dangerous as slot machines. They’re built on the same psychology.
As for regulation, it doesn’t strictly have to come from the government. Both movies and games have rating boards specifically to avoid government intervention and I think they are failing consumers here. The threat of government intervention might see the ESRB and the various gaming marketplaces adopt more strict rules and warnings. Things like preventing the sale of games with specific, predatory mtx dark patterns and mechanics from sale to minors, stronger warning labels on games containing these sorts of practices and penalizing companies from adding MTX in a deceitful manner (such as after launch). A game would be heavily penalized for adding adult content this way and perhaps MTX should be treated in a similar manner.