Payday 2 is Slowly Killing Their Fanbase

You know, I go into every week thinking 'what the hell am I gonna write about this week on the blog?'. Then there's always something that pops up or I find out about something and then think 'welp, there it is. My topic of the week.'

This week is pretty much no different. So it's been publicly known that the developers of Payday 2 have made it clear in the past that they do not want microtransactions in their game. In 2013, one of the producers of the game, Almir, stated in the Steam forums that: "We've made it clear that PAYDAY 2 will have no micro-transactions whatsoever (shame on you if you thought otherwise!)". On another occasion before the launch in 2013, Overkill Software stated "No. No. God, I hope not. Never. No."

Welp, I'm sad to say that Payday 2 has introduced microtransactions into their game as part of their annual free-to-play Crimefest event going on. This led to a complete backlash by the community, rightfully so since they just broke their promise they made 2 years ago about the game.

Now, let's talk about microtransactions for a bit. Most games tend to use microtransactions as a way to boost revenue, and with the growing trend of AAA games using microtransactions, many of these companies tend to only use microtransactions for cosmetic purposes, in-game items that would not at all affect the core gameplay. Of course not all games tend to do this (Evolve's level 3 skip, anyone?) and free-to-play games definitely add a few "pay to win" aspects of the game to keep their game afloat, but regard AAA gaming, that's generally how things are done.

Welp (again), I'm sad to say that not only was this the worst way to implement microtransactions into the game, but they made it so that it would alter the core gameplay in a terrible, terrible way. You essentially get safe drops in the game now, and buy a drill from Steam to open them (essentially the case and key system of Counter Strike). The safes will contain a random cosmetic skin, or you would think they would just be cosmetic.

Unfortunately, a lot of these skins, when slapped onto the guns, have stat boosters. Here's a picture of one scenario I literally ripped off the Overkill Software site.

As you can see, this specific skin increases stability of your this weapon by +4. Don't forget that there are plenty of mods in this game to customize stats the way you want, so essentially with the right "Legendary" skin and right combination of mods you can essentially have a tank gun and break the game from its original design.

And as if THAT isn't bad enough, the final nail to the coffin in all of this is that if you open up a case and it's a skin for a gun that's part of a DLC pack, you will not be able to use that skin until you purchase that specific DLC pack to use the gun in the first place. Wow.

I don't think I've ever seen a company punch its fans in the gut so hard in a single update. The entire community is just infuriated with this system to the point where the Payday 2 subreddit tried to gather enough people together to bring its Steam and Metacritic ratings down. That's really, really bad.

So after a few days, Overkill Software actually did respond to all this controversy, and around Day 6 of the annual Crimefest, they added the special drills into drop tables into the game. Essentially, you can get some of these drills in-game without having to spend any money, which I guess is nice. I guess you could just stack up drills and open up a bunch of cases every now and again, I'm not exactly sure how the drop tables work as I don't own Payday 2.

BUT the 2 other points still stand; the fact that Overkill Software broke their promise and the fact that you'll still have to buy DLC packs for skins that you get for weapons you don't have access to with just the base game. I've also read up a lot on the whole Payday 2 situation, and it seems that the company is reluctant in ironing out the bugs that its still had for months now, yet keeps pushing out DLC for people to buy. I can't exactly confirm that this actually happens myself as I don't own the game but I've seen A LOT of people complain about it.

All in all, I'm just sad that companies are able to just get away with this. Like what's to stop Destiny from not including their newest expansion to season pass holders? (Oh wait, that happened). We need some quality control in this industry. Any company, any individual, any content creator can do whatever the hell they want, and essentially that means any and all our purchases have no buyer protection. Tread carefully, gamers.