Another microtransaction controversy that I’m on the unpopular side of (Metal Gear Survive)

Once again the hive mind is in a tizzy about microtransactions, whipped into a frothing rage by gaming sites generating ad-revenue through manufactured drama.

The game is Metal Gear Survive, a game the mob was pre-disposed towards hating anyway because they think Hideo Kojima was treated badly by Konami so now Konami is way up at the top of the “game publishers we hate list.”

The issue in question is one of character slots. The game charges you the equivalent of $10 in their real-money currency to purchase character slots beyond the first one. People are losing their shit over this.

While I’m not going to condone this (or maybe I am, see below) I think it is taken out of context. There are very few reasons you’d need more than 1 character slot in this game. There are no classes and you can unlock everything on a single character. You can redesign your character at any time for free. There are no “A or B” decisions that would lock you out of options.

The only thing you can’t change is your character’s gender. So maybe some players would want both a male and a female character for some reason (there’s no difference in the two other than visuals…no romance options or anything like that).

So I can think of 3 reasons why you might want a 2nd character slot:
1) You want both a male and female avatar for some reason.
2) Two people want to play the game on the same system profile
3) You leave the game for a long time, come back and want a fresh start but want to save your old progress

If you really want a 2nd character and don’t want to pay, just create a new profile and use that. It takes just a few minutes to do. It’s trivial to side-step this microtransaction. It’s worth noting that you can delete an avatar to free up your 1 slot (not that case in all games…again, see below).

So why would I be in favor of it? MGS launched at $40. I have no way of knowing if this was part of the reason why, but if I had a choice of the game at $40 with paid extra character slots, or paying $60 and having a couple extra slots I’d never use, I’ll choose the $40 package.

So why did they do this at all? Only Konami knows for sure. This is one of those “always online” games so I assume it has something to do with data storage on their end (your data is stored on their servers). Y’know how Destiny limits the number of slots you can have, one for each class? Same thing, I’d imagine. Destiny just doesn’t offer you the opportunity to pay to unlock more.

Let’s talk about Forza Horizon 3 now. You get 1 character slot in that game, too. There’s no way to buy an extra one. There’s no way to delete the one you have (it is stored on the Forza servers). If you want to re-start FH3, the ONLY way to do that is to create a new profile. (I know this from personal experience, which is also why I have a second profile on my Xbox. I wanted to start over.)

You know how much controversy that generated? Zero.

So Metal Gear Survive offers options that Forza Horizon 3 didn’t offer, though they charge for them. More options apparently equals more controversy. Konami would have had fewer PR issues if they’d not even implemented extra character slots. To me, that seems backwards. Why are we punishing a company for offering more options?

2 thoughts on “Another microtransaction controversy that I’m on the unpopular side of (Metal Gear Survive)

  1. LETS BE MAD BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE MAD AND IT FEELS GOOD TO BE MAD WHEN MAD PEOPLE ARE AROUND. ANGER. GRRR. ANGER.

    *ahem* there is so much faux rage over faux issues, and the bits and pieces that get shared on social media (esp twitter, with such limited engagement) further compounds the issue.

    Imagine a world that went like this. As a requirement.

    You read a headline from a tweet. It says “SELLING $10 CHARACTER SLOTS ON A GAME THAT IS NOT FREE TO PLAY!”. Before you rage and retweet and share your anger and boycott the developer and publisher you are required to:

    1. Find 3 articles of opposing views about the subject (Neutral, for, against) that are at least 1000 words long each. Read all three.

    2. Make a personal pro and con list about it with your newfound knowledge. Include such incredible questions as “How does this affect me PERSONALLY?”, and “What kind of personal energy should I devote to this?” and “Is this an issue that I should fight for?”

    3. Wait an hour after doing all of that to process your thoughts and emotions

    4. Respond however you feel is appropriate at this time.

    People still may be furious, but at least they had time to explore/investigate the other side, take some time to think about it and calm down, and represent themselves accordingly.

    (I know it’s too much work and too much to ask of people in the “instant” world of today, but imagine if people did that…)

    1. I have a lot of times where I think the ‘instant communication’ of the Internet has done more harm than it has good. I mean look at all the ‘fake news’ drama around the last election.

      But yeah, it’d be nice if people were forced to somehow think before they turned on the outrage.

      I mean I have a selfish motive. I want this game to do well so it gets supported and maybe expanded on since I’m really enjoying it. So a lot of my post comes from that space, but a little of it comes from my desire to fight what I see as injustice.

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