Were I a much younger man with tons of free time and no family to worry about, the fact that soon players will be able to purchase coins in Plants Vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare might annoy me. But alas, I am absolutely thrilled.
In an EA blog entry posted on Friday, producer Brian Lindley confirmed the launch of microtransactions, an addition to the game that was not unexpected — and in some cases mildly begged for.
Coins in Plants Vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare are normally earned through simply playing the game. If I focused on the game for a couple of hours, I could probably earn 40,000 or so. These coins are used to purchase sticker packs, which offer cosmetic items, weapon upgrades and resources, as well as multi-part stickers that unlock the game’s alternate character types when completed.
I’ve been playing on and off since launch, and I’ve unlocked four variant characters. As of the recent Zomboss Down free expansion, there are 48. So yeah, I could use a little help.
Buying coins won’t give anyone an unfair advantage in the game — dedicated players can earn the same equipment through playing, and since the sticker packs are for the most part random, it’s not like there’s any cherry-picking involved. The game also features special modes where no unlocked characters or upgrades are allowed, for those looking for an experience unsullied by wealthy players who haven’t worked for their Dolphin Gun.
Play Plants Vs. Zombies Garden Warfare Your Way [EA via Polygon]
Comments
22 responses to “Microtransactions Coming To Garden Warfare This Week. Thank Goodness.”
There was a similar dealie in Mass Effect 3. I purchased a few of them during my play sessions and it always seemed that the items/ gear/ characters that were in the packs i used real moneyfor were not as good as the packs that I got by playing the game (which kinda makes sense) I wonder if they will do something similar in this game.
Im fine with this. The game is great and if this means that they will be able to fund more free maps and modes than I’m all for it!
As long as you can still earn everything through playing the game legitimately and there’s no secret paywall. Then fine.
What about paying giving you an advantage?
Everything can be obtained in the game if you’re willing to work for it and, as Mark said, there’s also modes where none of the variant characters are allowed. No real advantage to paying. It just allows you to avoid ‘grinding’ for coins.
But does it give you the skill? I’ve seen people in other games who shell out money for the big guns etc, but they can’t use them for shit because they haven’t spent the time learning the ins and outs, the intricacies of them etc. If people just buy it all, that’s their deal, but they won’t be as good at it as someone who legitimately earns their way through it.
Cool! I’m gonna buy killstreaks!
Micro transactions in full price games make me sick. Anyone who is OK with this is part of the problem with the games industry today.
If people are willing to pay money to skip parts of your game maybe those parts of your game need rebalancing?
It was a budget title at 50 bucks. It has had numerous updates and add ons all free.
Let me know when some one has a gun to your head forcing you to buy in game items.
I like that you call it a budget title @ $50. Granted, it’s not $90, but…
First of all, 50 bucks is not budget, Dark souls 2, Tomb Raider, Civ and many other games only cost me 40 and even Battlefield 4 only cost 50.
I know you aren’t being forced to buy these things, Its just that if nobody says anything it will simply reach a point where what once was an enjoyable hobby is now nothing but grind and frustration which you pay to avoid.
Perhaps then I will finally go outside.
Where to begin with that…
The arrogance of that comment is just mindnumbingly horrendous… if some of us don’t want to leap at what’s happened like overreactive zealouts then we’re part of the problem? Or perchance are we reasonable and see it as the non-issue it is?
The point being, if someone CHOOSES to do this, so be it, let them spend their money, it’s *their* money to spend. Why does that affect you? I mean asides the rhetoric and A Current Affair style catchcries we’re reading right now like ‘IT RUINS TEH GAME!’ No it doesn’t, it just gives some douche with some cash access to stuff. It doesn’t make him a GOOD PLAYER. Hell, in Counterstrike 1.6 I was more proficient taking people down with pistols than I was with machineguns? Why? Practice. Lots and lots of practice.
So don’t worry about what someone else has, worry about how good YOU are.
The entire point of these things is to increase the grind as much as they can to get people to pay without increasing it enough to make you quit.
With each additional game they will push it a little bit further, increase the amount of grind to try and push more sales of micro transactions. They will also push further into full priced games.
This is the kind of thing you only tolerate in F2P games because they are free.
I don’t think its ruining the game because it gives them any kind of advantage, I think its ruining the game because its making design choices that put profit before fun.
Couldn’t agree more.
It seems that from Mark’s point of view, he’s all for the microtransactions – as he doesn’t have time to unlock them all. But that’s exactly the purpose of it all – it shouldnt be that time consuming or tedious to unlock content to the point that were willing to pay to skip the grind.
If youre willing to pay to get to the end, why not just have it unlocked from the beginning for free? I remember games back in the day were like that, albeit a lot less customisation.
Having a bit of grind makes the game more fun and gives it a bit of substance – a bit of grind is good. But when it gets to the point where you find you would rather pay and skit it, when you have already paid for the game itself, it is clearly a design choice implemented to maximize profit.
Just do what I do and have a 10 year old who has set out to amass every single character the game has to offer! They’re a bit more expensive though!
I just want this on PC already!
I loved the first one, but I don’t think I care for this one. It reeks of cheapness, like a lot of EA’s casual titles.
Clearly you have no idea what your talking about. The first one was a tower defence game. This is a tps filled to the brim with charm. No part of this game feels cheap.
lol, eat a snickers or have a poo. I didn’t feel the charm in it. It just felt really tacky to me. Sue me. As for the change in mechanics, meh, franchises have been known to change their engines from time to time. Big deal. I happen to enjoy GTA 1&2 more than IV. Want to set the hounds on me on my differing tastes on that, too?
I can count on one hand the number of games I’ve seen that fairly balance time and money. Most games introduce a fabricated currency generated in proportion to time invested solely to make a microtransaction time skip attractive and usually complement it with the non-microtransaction route taking more effort and time than the majority of players can tolerate.
I’m not saying microtransactions are evil, I’ve bought a few weapon packs and item sets to get though a game before myself. It just really irks me when it’s obvious the design was always to strongly encourage microtransactions rather than letting people naturally decide to purchase things.
v1.0 – No IAPs; you don’t need them!
v1.1 – IAPs, but you don’t need them!
v1.2 – IAPs required.
EA probably call it “maximizing profit over the product lifecycle”. Most call it “bait and switch”. I miss the days before autopatching!
So you’re not just ok with putting money into a game you’ve already paid for, you’re actually excited about it. I completely agree with @piratepete that you, and everyone like you are part of what’s wrong with the games industry today. And when games are ruined because they all have Micro-transactions in them I will know exactly who to point the finger at.
Micro-transactions have NO place in full priced games,