Games like Call of Duty, Overwatch, Counter-Strike and Rainbow Six: Siege have all pushed the envelope forward when it comes to micro-transactions, those seemingly innocent purchases of a dollar or more. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that the devs of one of the most popular games right now, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG), is looking to incorporate them into their game.
Last week, it was announced that loot boxes would be available for purchase within PUBG, even going as far as to offer up skins based on the film, on which the game is based, Battle Royale. What's odd, but not uncommon as of late, is that PUBG is a game that is still in Early Access, as in, it's not even considered finished. Yet, the developers are spending their time on creating other elements that do not pertain to completing the game's development and want to charge you money for it. If you're familiar with the volatile Steam and PC crowd, you could, or should, have seen the reaction coming a mile away. Players of PUBG are not happy, in fact, they've gone as far as posting a protest on Reddit about the decision.
Brendan Greene, the man behind the moniker PlayerUnknown, has taken to the interwebs to respond to this public outcry with a response that doesn't really do much other than to say, I hear you, but we're still moving forward with micro-transactions. In his response, he says:
"I must admit that our messaging wasn’t very clear, so I extend my sincere apologies for the confusion caused. The process of communicating our intentions precisely to our fans and communities should have been done in a more careful and prudent manner. I’ve learned a lot, and we’ll try to communicate better moving forward.
I do understand your concerns about the system, but I feel testing for a sturdy economy on the Steam Marketplace is necessary at this stage and ultimately beneficial for the game. And once again, this is a purely optional system, and you are not forced into participating if you do not feel like it. You will still get a fully featured game, with a polished Battle Royale game-mode, a wide variety of weapons and vehicles to play with, stat tracking, ranking and leaderboard systems, 2D and 3D replays and much more."
Greene is absolutely correct, the loot boxes are a personal choice and are not being forced upon players. If you don't want to use them, you don't have too, at least for now. However, if PUBG falls down the rabbit hole like Call of Duty, where certain weapons, which can only be obtained via loot boxes, tend to give their recipients an edge, then player will have a call for concern. If they tend to follow Bilzzard and Overwatch's path, where the items are 100% cosmetic and don't offer any players a competitive edge, then he'd still be in the right.
Either way, adding purchasable items into a game that's not finished, may still be the underlying problem with many players who want features they've been promised, like more maps, weather (i.e. snow) and of course the Xbox One version, which has since been delayed.
