New Online Shooter Is Former EA CEO's Dream. Microtransactions in Arena Breakout: Infinite Are Daylight Robbery
Yesterday's release of Arena Breakout: Infinite cannot be counted as a success. Players are furious primarily because of the ridiculously aggressive microtransactions.
Yesterday, Arena Breakout: Infinite was released in Early Access, an online PvPvE extraction shooter that uses a free-to-play model with microtransactions. The debut was a disaster, mostly because of an extremely excessive microtransaction system.
According to players' feedback after spending several hours with the game, Arena Breakout: Infinite is considered a pay-to-win title, where you have to pay for almost everything.
- For real money we buy better armor, weapons, and even ammunition.
- The developers went to the extent of selling the option to send messages to the main communication channel in an attempt to maximize their profits from the players. You can purchase a package of, for instance, 10 extra statements because their number is limited without payment.
It's worth mentioning that the game is built on the foundations of the mobile Arena Breakout, which has a similar business model. Players playing on smartphones and tablets (especially in Asia) have unfortunately become accustomed to such pay-to-win solutions. PC users, however, don't intend to tolerate something like this, so the Reddit channel of Arena Breakout: Infinite is filled with posts from angry players.
Interestingly, the game isn't yet available on Steam. You can find this game's card on the platform, but the title can only be downloaded from the official site. Therefore, we are wondering if the developers didn't anticipate such a negative reaction and chose to postpone the Steam release to prevent gaming websites from being flooded with articles about the low percentage of positive reviews from users of this store the day after the release.
This nightmare of gamers is also the dream of the former EA CEO.
When writing about paid ammunition, it's impossible not to mention John Riccitiello. When he was the head of Electronic Arts, he became famous for a statement in which he suggested that it would be a good idea to introduce microtransactions for extra magazines with ammunition into the Battlefield series. At that time, in 2012, this idea was widely regarded as utterly ridiculous. Today, 12 years later, similar solutions are already being implemented in games.
