I’ve seen my fair share of crap DLC over the years, some over priced, some that simply were not fun, but this latest one from the creators of Mech Warrior Online is beyond insanity. They actually expect people to pay a staggering $500 for a gold mech, keeping in mind that this doesn’t offer you any special abilities, weapons, boosters, stats, not a damn thing, it’s just a texture replacement.
Even huge online games such as DOTA and LOL don’t have things priced this stupid, at least not officially and the fact that Mech Warrior doesn’t have the biggest player base to even get away with an offer like this. The game isn’t even official out until this fall, and this price tag just stinks of money grabbing and it saddens me that the developers ever through this was a good idea.
Literally the only thing worse than a company charging $500 for a mech skin in a free-to-play game is anyone who is stupid enough to waste such a large amount of money on something so pointless. Micro transactions are one thing, and the usual $5 to $30 packages would typically satisfy most who stuck with the game for some time. Yet the introduction of new packages priced at $240 and $500 are an insult to the gaming community as some free-to-play games are quickly becoming the most expensive games ever!
I’d love to hear our readers feedback on this one, so feel free to sound off in the comments section below.
Thank you Forbes for providing us with this information.
Image courtesy of Forbes.
Who else is thinking of EVE Online here? Monocles anyone? This whole “Micro transaction” stuff is bullshit. Micro means small, and since when is $30 a small payment for anything?
Here is how Russ Bullock tryed to explain those high prices away:
Clan Packages
A few quick points on the clan packages in regards to content and pricing concerns people have been voicing. First we need to remind everyone that MWO is committed to never being a P2W product and this new clan program does not violate that commitment. Everyone of course will be able to purchase each of these `Mechs for in game currency of C-Bills making them of Free to all who have put in the play time to earn the in-game currency. Love the Mad Cat and don’t want to spend a single penny?, no problem you can of course do that in MWO. As to the exact timing of the C-Bill versions post June 17th I do not have those answer yet although I am sure they are forthcoming soon.
Next on the subject of the Gold `Mechs, obviously they have caused a fair bit of a stir. These are for the hard core collector who wants something that will live on forever as being extremely rare. It’s purely a collector’s item and we are certainly not the first game to try something like this. If the idea seems ridiculous to you, essentially you can ignore them entirely, they will have no bearing on gameplay, other than be extremely cool. In the world of free-to-play, the people who spend more are picking up the tab for those who spend nothing. Their contribution should be appreciated by the other players, rather than invoke friendly fire as some people have suggested. They really should not offend you the world is full of avid collectors, everyone reading this knows somebody with a $20,000 collection of Magic the gathering cards and single cards worth huge amounts.
As to the general pricing of the Clan packages I think we tried pretty hard to make these packages of very similar value to both the founders and Phoenix packages. In particular I think the Phoenix packages were perceived to be of high value and if we compare directly to them the summary would look something like this:
Let’s assume the extra rewards like premium time equal each other out although Bryan Ekman mentioned that there are aspects of the rewards for Clans that are not defined yet like the group benefits that might boost the value of the Clan packages further. However if we assume the extra rewards are equivalent to the Phoenix packages it really comes down to the `Mechs. In each case you get the two free variants to go along with the Prime variants making an overlord package $80 or $20 per prime variant. With the Clan packages you are paying what equates to $30 per prime variant. But remember our pricing of MC in MWO has a relationship between MC and CB costs. Clan Technology is significantly more expensive, and is reflected in the package pricing. I think though that less people are concerned about the per `Mech math and see the logic involved, but are more concerned about the lack of a la cart options or more ways to pick and choose the money you wish to spend. This is something that were currently investigating, no promises at this point on what if any changes we will be making but I can tell you we will be listening to all polite feedback for creative ideas for changes to the package structure.
Think a gold texture pack is absurd and overpriced? Don’t buy it.
Literally the only thing worse than this texture pack is the quality of this fucking article. Get some journalistic integrity and cut it with the knee jerk gag reactions and terrible commentary. Not everyone is going to buy this. Maybe nobody will buy this. There are people who could maybe buy this. Does that concern you? Probably not. At least give us some information in your article other than going “yeah, this is happening and I’m gonna qq and baw about it online”.
you don’t have to be impartial or level to be a journalist. honestly, you should check kit guru’s point of view and reactionary news feeds to piracy, because the editor has strong views on it.
Let them express said strong views.
I think the price here is definitely too steep, especially when you think that this game will tail of in a few years and then you’ve spent a lot of money on a digital cosmetic item.
Your idea of journalistic integrity is having absolutely no opinion on what you’re writing about? I think you need to understand that newswriters aren’t just machines who churn out 100% factual objective information in a neutral way (even at sites that pretend to be neutral objective reporters of news, there is no such thing as true objectivity). They all have opinions and if you don’t like those opinions then you are entitled to disagree with them. But implying that a newswriter lacks journalistic integrity just because you dislike his opinion is pathetic.