Marvel’s Avengers Microtransactions Could Mean a Very Expensive Game
Marvel's Avengers microtransaction system suggests that this game will demand a lot of time or money to unlock everything.,
A PlayStation Store listing reveals more about how Marvel’s Avengers‘ microtransaction system will work, and it’s about as “aggressive” as you probably assumed it would be.
It seems that Marvel’s Avengers’ microtransaction system will revolve around credits. When the game launches, you’ll have the privilege of being able to choose between four different kinds of credit packs:
500 Credits for $5
2,000 Credits (with 200 credits bonus) for $20
5,000 Credits (with 1,000 credits bonus) for $50
10,000 Credits (with 3,000 credits bonus) for $100
So how valuable are credits? Well, at the moment, it seems like the only thing you can purchase with them are cosmetics. Said cosmetics include everything from new costumes to finishing move animations and emotes. That being the case, the “value” of credits in relation to what they give you is somewhat hard to measure as it depends on the specific cosmetic and how much you happen to value it.
The potential value of credits is further complicated by a rather extreme gap in the price of individual items. Some items will only set you back a couple of hundred credits while the rarest items cost about 1,400 credits. We’re waiting for more information regarding the full available unlocks for every character, but it’s not unreasonable to suggest that you’d have to spend a couple hundred dollars or more in order to unlock all available items (at least the ones available at launch) solely through in-store credit purchases.
You can earn credits and items through gameplay, but the process is complicated. Basically, every Hero comes with a “Hero Card” that you level up via gameplay activities. It’s essentially multiple Battle Pass systems. Reaching new levels grants you credits and other cosmetic unlocks, but the process of fully-leveling a card will require an as-of-yet unconfirmed number of gameplay hours. Furthermore, each Hero Card will include both free and premium unlock tracks.
Each of the game’s six starting heroes will feature fully-unlocked Hero Cards at launch (including premium tiers). However, post-launch characters (such as Hawkeye) will (at least at this time) not ship with unlocked Hero Cards. In order to unlock those cards, you’ll need to spend 1,000 credits, which amounts to about $10. The current plan seems to be to not retire cards, credits, or unlockables, so it should be possible to earn enough credits as you unlock all items on the starting Hero Cards to purchase future Hero Cards without having to directly buy credits from the in-game store. You can continue to earn credits from a Hero Card even after it is completed, which should help those who only intend to unlock items via gameplay. As you can probably tell, though, working your way through every Hero Card’s unlockables will take quite a bit of time, which is where the incentive to simply purchase credits will likely come from
It’s your fairly classic mobile game arrangement, and this system does little to curb our fears that Marvel’s Avengers will aggressively encourage players to spend money in order to unlock various items that will seemingly be one of the game’s biggest draws. It remains to be seen how this all plays out, but things are looking a bit grim at the moment.
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Matthew Byrd is Games Editor at Den of Geek and an entertainment enthusiast living in Brooklyn. When he's not exploring the culture of video games, he's…