Are We Actually Stunned By The First Descendant’s Monetisation?

Table of Contents

Toggle

Highlights

• The First Descendant’s monetization insurance policies, together with microtransactions and costly upgrades, have drawn important criticism from gamers.
• Nexon, the writer, has a fame for aggressive monetization and probably pay-to-win mechanics in its video games.
• Gamers ought to anticipate extra of the identical from Nexon and contemplate taking part in different much less monetized video games as an alternative.

I used to be fairly taken by The First Descendant’s trailer at The Game Awards final yr, although that was principally as a result of it used a music I actually appreciated. (There was lots of good music that year.) That curiosity shortly pale as I realized extra concerning the recreation although, particularly that it’s a free-to-play live-service looter shooter revealed by Nexon. Yawn.

Whereas our personal Harry Alston gave it 4 out of 5 stars in his review-in-progress of the sport’s pre-release model, it appears gamers are liking it a lot much less after seeing the monetisation within the remaining launch. Actually, the sport has acquired so many destructive evaluations on Steam that it’s dropped to Blended, with solely 50 % of gamers leaving optimistic evaluations on the time of writing.

First Descendant’s Monetisation Is Egregious

As with many free-to-play live-service video games, The First Descendant has microtransactions. That is widespread within the trade as a result of, nicely, studios and publishers must generate income someway in the event that they’re giving the sport away free of charge. However this recreation is drawing numerous flak due to simply what number of methods Nexon is squeezing cash from its gamers.

We’ve gone into element here about what particular monetisation insurance policies are making gamers so rightfully offended, however the lowdown is that there are a lot of microtransactions. Within the beta take a look at, pores and skin colors have been locked behind a gacha system, and Nexon retooled that. Nevertheless, within the course of, it someway made it worse. The colour schemes are now single-use, and you’ll’t use a color on a number of skins, that means you’ll must pay a number of instances to make use of the identical color for various Descendants. Gamers say the paints look completely completely different in-game as nicely, including to the anger.

Upgrades in The First Descendant are fairly costly throughout, judging from the evaluations. In accordance with gamers, it costs nearly $50 to unlock enough slots to craft all the characters, an ‘ultimate bundle’ for any character is $100, the battle go doesn’t allow you to earn enough currency to unlock the next one without forking out more money, and people who are shelling out real money for in-game currency aren’t receiving it. Some are even saying that item drop rates are falsified.

However Gamers Ought to Have Anticipated This

I’m not saying that this monetisation is justified: I’ve been fairly vocal about my distaste for the way in which most F2P video games squeeze their audiences for money and the scummy methods they facilitate habit-forming behaviours in gamers. However severely, it’s Nexon.

Nexon already has a fame with free-to-play followers. Particularly, that it’s the worst. Its video games usually disguise pay-to-win mechanics with energy creep and time-gating. It’s well-known for aggressive microtransactions. Simply this yr, it was fined by the Korea’s Fair Trade Commission for quietly reducing the drop charges of common objects in MapleStory and Bubble Fighter, even making it unimaginable to win among the hottest ones in any respect. It then lied about it, saying there had been no adjustments. It was given the biggest wonderful ever imposed in South Korea because it was the second time it had accomplished this – it had been fined a primary time for the same offence in its recreation Sudden Assault.

There’s an excellent probability that if Nexon is concerned with a recreation, there will probably be nasty monetisation. Quite a lot of gamers already knew this – simply have a look at what number of evaluations say, mainly, ‘typical Nexon’. On this case, the sport isn’t fairly pay-to-win. You can select to grind and cosmetics aren’t essential to play the sport. However Nexon’s historical past signifies that it will definitely may add pay-to-win mechanics on high of this already horrible monetisation, which might be a giant drawback.

My shock is that so many gamers got here away dissatisfied, as a result of actually, what did you anticipate? My recommendation is to go away it alone and discover one other much less egregiously monetised recreation to play, as a result of Nexon is unlikely to ever cease utilizing these techniques. It makes a lot cash from gamers that even an enormous governmental wonderful could be chalked up as a minor price of doing enterprise. Go play one thing else, ideally a recreation that isn’t revealed by Nexon, as a result of complaints, nevertheless justified, gained’t change a factor.