Microtransactions News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

It’s taken a bit of time, but it would appear that Dying Light 2‘s post-apocalyptic community of survivors has finally discovered a tucked-away trove of firearms, against all odds. It was revealed early on that the world of Dying Light 2 wasn’t going to include guns as such, with the sole exception to this rule being the meagre scrap blunderbuss. At the time, this was a lore-based decision, with the developer Techland choosing instead to focus on the game’s melee combat. Yet, an upcoming content update throws this entire explanation into the bin.

Into the Echo developer Etlok Studios has released its free, browser-based lore game, Journey Across Raava , which will connect its lore to the eventual release of the MMORPG. The new experience will be episodic, with new monthly content.

Sigh. Guess it's time to open up my wallet and pray to the RNG gods because mobile gacha game Final Fantasy 7: Ever Crisis is making its way over to Steam.

What’s in a name? When EA announced it would change the title of its premiere soccer series from FIFA to EA Sports FC24, we all wondered: is this also the year it finally takes a real step forward, out of the microtransaction-focused darkness and into the light of its full potential? Well, the answer is a resounding… kind of. There are breadcrumbs of greatness in EA Sports FC 24, with many new mechanics like Evolutions and Tactical Visions showing the series can evolve into something better. Yet, for every exciting improvement added in, there's still far too many of the same things, like poor AI, that have frustrated me for years.

Mobile game Final Fantasy 7: Ever Crisis is being developed for PC and will be available via Steam.

Final Fantasy VII: Ever Crisis - a sort of mobile gaming RPG sandwich of the original Final Fantasy VII and its spin-offs Crisis Core and The First Soldier, plus gacha mechanics - is coming to PC and Steam, publisher Square Enix have announced. The Steam release will share data with the mobile version.

Fortnite generates plenty of profit through its V-Bucks and microtransactions. Over the years, there have been plenty of reports of parents hit with breathtakingly high bills after a child goes on a Fortnite spending spree. Anyone who’s faced such a situation may be able to claim a refund thanks to a ruling by the Federal Trade Commission.

Visual Concepts came to an important but necessary conclusion with NBA 2K24: it needed to dial back the superfluous aspects of the series back. For the past two years, on PS5 specifically, the release’s popular MyCAREER mode has wanted to touch upon all aspects of basketball – including the cultural stuff, like fashion and music. This year’s game, however, is focused fully on the court, and as a solo experience it’s all the better for it.

Marvel’s Avengers, the video game made by Crystal Dynamics, is having its last run with an incredible mega-sale.

At the Sony State of Play, we got to see titles both old and new. While Honkai: Star Rail has already made its debut earlier this year, we got confirmation today that PlayStation owners can experience MiHoYo’s latest universe on October 11.

Mortal Kombat 1 is almost upon us, which means developer NetherRealm has started getting into the nitty gritty of what fans can expect from certain modes. Invasions is one of the new features coming to Mortal Kombat 1, a brand new single-player mode that functions similarly to modes in previous MK games such as Towers of Time and The Krypt.

Less than a week after NBA 2K24 hit Steam, the latest annual instalment in the basketball game series is competing for an unwanted title: the worst-reviewed PC game on Steam.

The Sims 4 has had an unusually long lifespan, though EA and Maxis have been working on the next entry in the popular life simulation franchise. In 2022, developers confirmed that they are busy with Project Rene, which will be The Sims 4‘s successor. A few things have already been confirmed about the upcoming game, including the fact that it’ll feature collaborative play and cross-play.

The latest update from The Sims team includes another development on the game that's currently codenamed Project Rene, which we're calling The Sims 5 in the meantime. Importantly, Maxis confirms that the next major Sims game will be free-to-play and that its base game will include more features than The Sims 4 did at launch, thank goodness.

Sports games are one of the genres in the video game industry that can be both easy to make and yet difficult to maintain over the years. It can be easy to make because the game is simply recreating the sport of basketball, which, by this point, has been done in various ways across gaming generations. You can get people to try it out as long as you keep things looking good and playing as they should. But the more titles you make of the sport, the harder it is to keep players coming back, as NBA 2K24 is finding out the hard way.

NBA 2K24 is the second-worst reviewed game on Steam following a hugely negative reaction from fans to the PC version.

The recently released NBA 2K24 is currently the second-worst-rated Steam game of all time after a backlash from PC gamers.

While Dying Light 2 originally came out over a year and a half ago, Techland has continuously updated the game with many free updates, including some major ones that improved parkour, combat, and the night experience, among many other aspects.

NBA 2K24 launched last week, and players have already made it the second-worst-rated Steam game of all time.

Techland has released the Summertime update for Dying Light 2: Stay Human, which comes with the kind of sunshine news every player loves to hear about: the game's added a premium currency. Yay! Microtransactions are not new to Dying Light, with the first game offering several bundles over the course of its long and well-supported life, but these have previously been purchasable via online stores and the trusty method of the US dollar (or whatever your local currency may be).

Runescape developer Jagex has almost totally walked back the MMO's unpopular new pay-to-win Hero Pass, admitting "we messed up" after protests consumed the community. 

A few weeks ago, Dying Light 2 developer Techland announced that it would be introducing a new Item Store, along with a new premium currency called DL Points. It explained that this store was primarily implemented to keep players in the game, and to avoid having to list bundles on platform storefronts. However, now that the store and premium currency have been introduced, fans are furious to find unfriendly business practices and broken promises that these bundles would only contain cosmetic items.

In an interview with GameSpot, World of Warcraft Vice-President Holly Longdale spoke about the recent addition of tendies to microtransaction bundles in the store. Full GameSpot Interview Longdale mentioned that, while there have been some tendies added to a couple of bundles in the store, the Trading always has been and «will continue to be» a way to reward players for playing, not focused on microtransactions. The additions have only been experiments to help those players who don't have time to complete their monthly Trading Post grind but still don't want to miss out on any reward.

The RuneScape community is facing the perfect storm of MMO drama, and this is among the maddest I've ever seen this particular bunch. A new battle pass recently hit the already microtransaction-filled MMO, and players have responded with review bombs and protests amid reports of a corporate buyout at the game's parent company.

Publisher Tilting Point has revealed Cypher 007, a new top-down action game starring James Bond, coming to Apple Arcade on iOS devices later this month. It launches on September 29 and takes players into «The Mind Trap.» 

Last week, French outlet Dealabs reported new details about EA Sports and Codemasters' upcoming WRC game. The article shared information on the game's release date, pricing, and editions you can purchase, as well as what will appear on the front cover. Assuming it's all legit, it pointed to a proper reveal in the near future, and now, the game will finally be shown tomorrow, 5th September 2023.

Mortal Kombat 1 will launch on Steam with Denuvo DRM, according to an update on its storepage. The controversial anti-tamper software is intended to prevent, or at least halt, efforts to pirate the game, but it is also linked to performance issues.

Mortal Kombat 1 will be playable five days early for players who buy the fighting game's Premium Edition.

A listing on the Xbox Store has revealed that Mortal Kombat 1's in-game currency, Dragon Krystals" can be used to purchase skins, gear, colour palettes, "and more".

The mere announcement of Diablo Immortal was enough to cause an uproar at BlizzCon 2018. At the time, fans were dearly hoping to learn about a new mainline game coming to PC and consoles, but Blizzard unveiled its first Diablo title for mobile devices. The negative feedback was so strong that even Activision's stock took a hit.

Before Diablo 4 came out, Blizzard had concerns that their latest ARPG would tank the popularity of their most recent entry in the series, Diablo Immortal, Blizzard's franchise general manager Rod Fergusson tells RPS. Immortal, which launched last year as a free-to-play MMO game, left quite a bad taste in our mouths when it launched on PC, especially when it came to the prohibitively high cost of its various microtransactions. Despite this, though, the game's continued to enjoy great success over on mobile, but even Blizzard weren't sure whether its popularity would last once Diablo 4 arrived.

Digital Extremes’ Warframe is one of the longest-lasting live-service games on the market, having started its free-to-play romp back in 2013. Some of the game’s oldest fans may well remember that DE’s sci-fi adventure ambitions started earlier still, with the original concept behind Dark Sector: a game that embodied many of Warframe‘s core design principles at first, only to eventually be retrofitted into a bog standard (albeit charming) cover-based third-person shooter. Well, Dark Sector has always had more than a few parallels with Warframe proper, and those parallels may be explored in a new context with Warframe: 1999.

BioWare writer Lukas Kristjanson, who has worked at the studio for more than 25 years, has been laid off. This comes as 50 developers lose their jobs at BioWare, despite having at least two huge games in development: Dragon Age: Dreadwolf and Mass Effect 5.

Killing Floor 3 is coming, and I can’t wait to get my hands on the FPS game right on release. If you’ve ever played either of the first two entries in Tripwire Interactive’s series, then you know how chaotic and fun Killing Floor 3 may be, especially with friends. With all of the excitement building for the iconic series’ new installment, many of us have been wondering about microtransactions and how they’ll work. In an exclusive interview during Gamescom, we got to sit down with the creative director, Bryan Wynia, to discuss this.

Fallout 76 is gearing up for Season 14, and every time that number gets bigger I just can’t believe it. It feels like just yesterday that the disastrous launch took the world by storm, followed by subsequent promises of NPCs and an even bigger focus on microtransactions. But all of that is in the rearview (well, except the microtransactions!), and we’re so far removed from that launch mess that it’s not even funny. Here’s a quick look at what’s coming to Season 14.

It’s safe to say that the gaming industry’s obsession with live-service titles and microtransactions won’t wane anytime soon. However, the remarkable success of Remnant 2 has shown that there’s still a substantial market for smaller, more contained experiences. Remnant 2‘s sales have been so remarkable, in fact, that the game managed to dethrone Diablo 4 last month, skyrocketing to the very top of the July list of bestsellers.

Google has banned Luck Be a Landlord from its app store in 13 countries, according to the game's developer.

Baldur's Gate 3 represents a shift for AAA RPGs that's hard to put into words without sounding overly trite but needs must. If Breath of the Wild was an event horizon for exploration in open worlds, then BG3 does the same for depth and character choice in RPGs. It's been causing other developers no end of anxiety, with lots of pre-emptive sandbagging being done over the last month in an attempt to brand the game as an anomaly, that gamers shouldn't expect this «raised standard» moving forward. The conversation was largely spurred by this viral post on X.

In a franchise – and, to our knowledge, sports game – first, NBA 2K24 will introduce a paid Battle Pass, which builds upon the existing Seasons feature. For the first time, progression will be unified across MyCAREER and MyTEAM, so you won’t have to earn rewards individually. All of the existing unlockable items – a total of 40 across both modes – will continue to be available for free.

Quantum Error is a cosmic horror game on the docket for PS5 (recently doing away with the PS4 version), and we've been keeping an eye on it for a while now. Its intriguing setup (firefighters sent to help survivors of a research facility in lockdown encounter an interdimensional entity), along with some meaty-looking gunplay, has us hoping for word of a release date soon.

It’s hardly a secret that Destiny 2 and Bungie are in a bit of a pickle right now. Most years, the big “State of the Game” blogs used to signal big batches of positive changes coming to the game with the next paid DLC. This did not happen this time around. Instead, the community raised pitchforks after Bungie clarified that, no, there wasn’t a big PvP content drop on the horizon. And no, there was no yearly ritual armor refresh because the team was too busy working on microtransaction armor.

2K confirmed its upcoming NBA 2K24 will come with two premium season passes. 

Dark and Darker classes will now be available for free, meaning players of the Ironmace RPG game can access the Bard and Warlock without spending money. Previously, these two classes were available either through long-term playing or via a real-money purchase. However, in the latest Dark and Darker update, Ironmace says that it is removing this particular microtransaction and will offer refunds to players in the near future. Dark and Darker classes are now all accessible without any expenditure, as we also await the game’s possible return to Steam, and the full Dark and Darker release date.

Remember last October, when Steam updated its pricing guidelines for non-US currencies, resulting in recommended price increases of anywhere from 18% to 485%? Well an update from Valve has announced that now the platform is changing its minimum price thresholds to match those recommendations, and the long and short of it is that any game at Steam's cheapest price point is about to get a little more expensive outside the US.

Overwatch just launched on Steam for the first time, having skipped the platform since its initial launch in 2016. But with recent high-profile controversies and overall dissatisfaction with the state of the game, things aren't going smoothly. In fact, right now, it's going record-breakingly awful.

Fancy putting yourself up to the challenge today? Well, Brave Brain: Trivia Quiz Game is now available to download on Android devices. Featuring charming and colourful art, Brave Brain is a great way to exercise your knowledge on a daily basis.

Final Fantasy VII Ever Crisis, the mobile RPG retelling the FFVII saga, finally has a release date. The game was first announced in February 2021. 

The Overwatch 2 Steam rating has already fallen to ‘overwhelmingly negative’ after a day since its release, with players posting reviews that criticize the Blizzard FPS game for its microtransactions and paid missions. The first Blizzard game to launch on Valve’s store, Overwatch 2 released on Thursday, August 10, and has already attracted over 22,000 reviews. It comes as Overwatch 2 Season 6 delivers several significant balance changes alongside the OW2 PvE story missions.

By Ash Parrish, a reporter who has covered the business, culture, and communities of video games for seven years. Previously, she worked at Kotaku.

Assassin’s Creed Mirage is only a few months away and promises to be a return to form for the storied franchise with a more linear experience focused on what made the series popular in the first place, such as parkour and stealth. However, it seems Ubisoft can’t quite give up on all its modern trappings, especially when it comes to making extra money.

Assassin’s Creed fans are waiting on the next mainline installment to release into the marketplace. We know that this next game is coming in October, but most recently, there were a few headlines that popped up. A leak revealed a cosmetic microtransaction that would be featured in Assassin’s Creed Mirage. Since then, there was a wonder as to how far Ubisoft would be taking microtransactions for their upcoming video game. Now we finally have a statement to confirm microtransactions are coming and what players can expect from them.

As the Dark and Dark early access launch continues, Ironmace has confirmed already that the RPG game will feature microtransactions, and that it is deploying a range of fixes to help with stuttering issues. Now the developer says it is introducing a controversial feature found in other seasonal games such as Diablo 4, Rust, and Escape from Tarkov, as it also works towards the full Dark and Darker release date. If you’ve spent a while building and refining your Dark and Darker character, they might not be around forever.

It was widely seen as a triumph when the PvP dungeon crawler Dark and Darker arrived in a surprise early access launch earlier this week, but some of that initial thrill has given way to widespread criticism of the game's microtransactions. Numerous fans have taken issue with developer Ironmace's decision to sell additional character classes and races through Dark and Darker's in-game store—and the pushback has been strong enough that the studio is considering changing course.

Dark and Darker surprised us all with its recent early-access launch, as Ironmace released the RPG game seemingly out of the blue. Many fans were thrilled to finally see Dark and Darker out in the wild, accessible to players anticipating its early access. Now that the game has been out for a couple of days, Ironmace has released the first Dark and Darker early access update, and it’s a hotfix patch that aims to make your gameplay experience a bit smoother.

Following Dark and Darker‘s surprise early access launch on Monday, August 7, Ironmace has confirmed that the RPG game will include an in-game store and that it is a “realistic” caveat of running a live service game. If you’re a Dark and Darker player, that’s either news you didn’t want to hear or really wanted to hear.

Ubisoft has confirmed that no, Assassin’s Creed Mirage will not have microtransaction features like a subscription model or upgrades to block ads, but that it will contain cosmetic packs for purchase. With the Assassin’s Creed Mirage release date around the corner, the stealth game is continuing to appear in regional ratings, which has seen Ubisoft address talk of microtransactions in Assassin’s Creed Mirage‘s full release.

CRPGs such as Baldur’s Gate 3 have typically been regarded as niche titles. Even in their heyday in the late '90s and early 2000s so it seems that just about everyone – Larian included – is surprised at just how many people have been playing the game since it’s PC release. And nopw, we’ll be taking a look at the Baldur's Gate 3 player count to answer how many people are playing BG3.

If you’re loving Baldur’s Gate 3 and hopeful for some DLC down the line, you’d better reign in those expectations for now, as developer Larian has clarified that it has no plans for the colossal RPG game to get an expansion. While our Baldur’s Gate 3 review evaluates what you can expect with the game right now, with over 100 hours of content to satisfy you, it’s only natural for hits like Baldur’s Gate 3 to raise questions as to what’s next.

There’s this mobile game ad I see all the time on social media. It shows a number of vials filled with differently colored liquid. The goal is to combine matching colors until all vials have one single, solid color contained in them. If you’ve never seen this before, one version of it looks like this:

Assassin's Creed Mirage may be bringing the series back to its roots with scaled-back environments and a focus on stealth, but one aspect of the more recent entries could also be part of Basim's adventure - microtransactions.

I’m sure you expected it, but Assassin’s Creed Mirage will come with microtransactions. That seems to be on par with other video games released by Ubisoft, so most of us probably already had assumed microtransactions would be featured. But today, we’re discovering that the first microtransaction for the next major Assassin’s Creed game was leaked online. It doesn’t give us too much insight into what this in-game purchase offers, but it’s at least a small window into what type of content we can expect.

Baldur’s Gate 3 has just fully launched and we couldn’t be more excited about the Dungeons & Dragons-inspired RPG game. There are so many features in the release version of Baldur’s Gate 3 that hadn’t yet been touched on in the early access game, giving many players countless more hours of fun gameplay to get through. Larian Studios has been hard at work preparing for the launch, answering frequently asked questions from fans and newcomers alike. One particular question has to do with microtransactions, and we think you’ll like the developer’s answer.

Video games are expensive. We don’t have to tell you that, I’m sure. But with this latest generation of console platforms came a price increase for new AAA titles. Before, we were paying $59.99 for the standard new video game release, but that’s now been pushed to $69.99. So knowing what games to pick up at launch and which to get after being discounted is crucial. Fortunately, there are always discounts and promotions going on. If you’re after some video game sales, then you don’t typically have to look very hard. In fact, some discount deals are going on right now through the official Xbox digital storefront. 

Last month we got to see gameplay for the upcoming social MMO Palia, and it left me feeling excited. The developers at Singularity 6 invited me to jump in and take a look at Palia ahead of its closed beta launch today. Excited for the opportunity to make some friends and go fishing, I pounced on the offer.

Cozy games have grown in popularity, and life simulators have gone from a rare treat to a much more populated genre. Palia, an upcoming game from Singularity Six, is a cheerful cottagecore MMO that takes a few comfy, chill gameplay loops and combines them into a delightful package. During the preview period offered to press, I have completed Palia’s first leg of content, graduating from copper to iron and venturing into the game’s second zone over the course of three days. I resent the time it is taking me to write about Palia, because it is time I could be spending on playing more Palia. This game has grabbed me in a way that few games in this genre do, and it did so without any dirty tricks or manipulative microtransactions.

Publishing giant Take-Two has doubled the compensation of two of its top executives.

Take-Two has doubled the pay of its top executives, as detailed in its annual proxy filing.

In an interview with Famitsu yesterday, Naoki Yoshida—director and producer of Final Fantasy 14, also known as Yoshi-P—revealed that his team's been preparing a second starting point for new players. This would allow players to skip the bulk of Final Fantasy 14's story in the wake of the game's new expansion, Dawntrail.

As promised, Grinding Gear Games delivered a major Path of Exile 2 update at ExileCon 2023, hosted yesterday in Auckland, New Zealand. To begin with, the developer clarified that Path of Exile 2 will be a full sequel instead of being considered a mere standalone campaign as originally announced.

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It's been nearly four years since our last significant dose of Path of Exile 2 news, but Grinding Gear Games took to the stage today to finally pull the veil back on the ARPG sequel during today's ExileCon 2023.

When Path Of Exile 2 was first announced in 2019, it was billed as an extra large expansion patch to the original game - an update, so to speak, rather than a standalone sequel. Since then, however, the scope of Grinding Gear Games action RPG has grown so much in the intervening years that they've now decided to make it a "completely separate game". The news comes from tonight's ExileCon, which also marks the first time we've seen Path Of Exile 2 in action since that original announcement.

Path of Exile 2 has graduated into a full standalone sequel to the original Path of Exile, fully shaking off its origins as an expansion pack.

During ExileCon, Grinding Gear Games revealed that as Path of Exile 2 grew since its announcement in 2019, they realized it was no longer just an expansion to Path of Exile as originally planned. With over 100 developers working on Path of Exile 2, it has become a much bigger project than originally anticipated. Moving forward, Path of Exile 2 will now be its own standalone title. Each game will still be supported and have its own unique mechanics, leagues, and features.

Blizzard's plan to replace Overwatch with Overwatch 2 proved to be just as messy and confusing as it sounded, but it did at least do one thing right by ensuring that players could transfer over all their skins and cosmetic items to Overwatch 2. Today Path of Exile's developers made the surprise announcement that they're not replacing Path of Exile with its sequel, which was the plan when Path of Exile 2 was announced back in 2019. Path of Exile 2 is now going to be a wholly separate game, Grinding Gear announced at ExileCon today, but it's one-upping Blizzard by making cosmetics both forward- and backwards-compatible.

The Embers Adrift team has released a new “State of the Game” update blog, with reflections on the switch to a buy to play model, recent updates, and new stuff, including updatesto the King’s Keep.

Epic Games has filed a request with the US Supreme Court, asking for it to support a previous court ruling that forbids Apple from preventing developers directing players to payment systems outside the iOS ecosystem.

A Diablo 4 bug is making Legendary items more expensive to re-roll at vendors.

Missed the GamesBeat Summit excitement? Don't worry! Tune in now to catch all of the live and virtual sessions here.

Missed the GamesBeat Summit excitement? Don't worry! Tune in now to catch all of the live and virtual sessions here.