Following months of hype and a disappointing critical and commercial release for Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, Ubisoft has elaborated on the in-game purchase options that hit such a sour note with players. In sum, CEO Yves Guillemot describes the monetization of the game as only in place to provide its players with “options”, and its implementation was designed around purchases made in the previous game, Ghost Recon: Wildlands.

Guillemot went on to elaborate that, “In the case of Ghost Recon, our philosophy is for the player to play the full game, 100%, without having to spend money. We have no pay-to-win elements in our games, and what we can say there is that [this is] the philosophy we have for all our games, but it has to be linked to more events, more content for players to play longer… On live games like Ghost Recon Wildlands, we already had a store and people were buying items on the store. What we did was give more options at the beginning of Breakpoint.”

Via: kotaku.com

While the statement is true, it is perhaps the aggressive expansion of offerings that has pushed players away. Most problematic according to online discussions appeared to be the ability to buy skill points rather than earn them through play. While the design of the store in Breakpoint was modeled after the successful store in Wildlands, something clearly went wrong.

One possible explanation is that there was simply an overload on consumers for purchasable items with real money. Alternatively, Ubisoft may have misinterpreted the buying habits of some players in Wildlands and assumed that consumers would be happy to purchase a premium-priced game and then also continue to spend from launch.

Perhaps the failure of Breakpoint points to a broader trend in the constant attempt to monetize new games. When Mortal Kombat 11 first released in April of this year, the game was heavily criticized for carrying a premium price, similar to Breakpoint, with an extensive in-game shop to purchase cosmetics. As much as companies may want to continually push the boundaries of how to suck money from the pockets of their consumers, we may be nearing or have already reached a tipping point where the response is collective rejection of what amounts to corporate greed.

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While Guillemot may call the in-game store “options”, others see only a way to pay for the items one wishes to have. While every item can be obtained in the game through an indeterminate amount of grinding, the option to pay and immediately have a weapon blueprint or certain number of skill points is always going to rub some consumers the wrong way. It may not be strictly pay-to-win, but it is certainly not consumer friendly either, diving the player base into those who wish to spend ridiculous sums of money, and those who do not.

In any case, some good may come from this still. Gods and Monsters, Rainbow Six Quarantine, and Watch Dogs: Legion have all been delayed in the wake of Breakpoint’s poor performance. If there were similar microtransaction plans in the game, it would make sense to now see them removed in favor of a more consumer friendly approach.

Source: Playstationlifestyle.net

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