Dead Space 3 Microtransactions - not that big a deal

I didn't want to talk about the idiotic bloody DmC petition, but clearly a distinction needs to be made. If you're not aware of the petition, yesterday a bunch of real cretins (or epic trolls) petitioned the White House (via their Online Petition site, which was in the news a week or so ago) to remove DmC: Devil May Cry from store shelves,

If he had blonde hair he could be Cloude Strife.

Dear Mr. Obama: As a consumer to the Video Game Industry there is one Video Game that has caused a lot of controversy over the past few month’s.

The name of the game is DmC: Devil May Cry made by Ninja Theory and Capcom. A majority of gamer's are aggravated that this game has changed so much from it's past predecessors and the game actually insults the consumers in-game.

We, as consumers did not want nor need this reboot and we believe it violates our rights to have a choice between the original's or the reboot. This game is violating our rights as a consumer and we believe it should be pulled off shelves from game stores due to it's insulting nature and the fact that it violates our rights.

Please Mr. Obama, look into your heart and make the decision that will please us Gamers.

It's definitely possible for this to be an epic troll. Every single apostrophe in there seems to exist solely to piss me off. Month's? Original's? Gamer's? Ugh. The petition has been removed from the White House site, but it's still important. Why?

Because this sort of **** happens all the time. ****, it happened yesterday.

Eurogamer conducted an interview with Yara Khoury (Associate Producer on Dead Space 3) which has angried up some gamer blood. In it, when asked about a micro-transaction style screen the writer saw she says,

You can buy resources with real money, but scavenger bots can also give you the currency that you can use on the marketplace. So you don’t have to spend [real world] dollars.

Quite a bit of the outrage which has resulted is due to a lack of information about what these resources are used for. While playing through the game two weeks ago (my hands-on is available here) I earned quite a number of the resources in question. Let's call them Space Minerals.

The build I was playing was apparently far enough along and compatible enough that when the full game drops EA will send me my save game - so it's got to be close to the real deal. The Space Minerals I was finding are used to create everything from medkits and energy packs - and more.

So when you find Space Minerals you can make yourself a pretty new gun (provided you have enough of each weapon). Guns in DS3 are combinations of parts (which you can also find by simply exploring throughout the game - you didn't appear to be able to purchase parts individually) but with Space Minerals you buy pre-combined combinations of parts, which you can use to shoot Necromorphs.

So, where you might hunt around the world and find yourself a frame, a military engine, a ripper engine and an attachment or two to create a gun which fires bullets and saw blades all at the same time, if you have the requisite Space Minerals you can go to the store and buy that gun without having to buy all the parts.

A double gun! Two guns in one.

The minerals appeared to be easy enough to find - I had stacks by the end of my run - and it definitely didn't seem like the game was holding back Space Minerals to encourage purchases from players, especially taking into account the amount of gun parts I found (which you can't buy with micro-transactions). The microtransactions are there for people who might be a bit short of the gun they really, really want. They spend some real money, get a few extra Space Minerals and make their dream gun that has a plasma cutter and a flame thrower all in one crazy combo.

Further to this, weapon parts are shared loot in co-op, so if your buddy finds a gun part both of you get it (as long as you have inventory space). So you've got stacks of parts and enough Space Minerals to get you around - but the way the crafting system works, if you desperately want to try out some brand new gun but you don't quite have the correct combo, you can cheat your way to the end.

To make it clear - from my own hands-on experience with what is apparently a nearly finished version of the game, the microtransactions will eliminate grind for players who want to experiment with a lot of different weapon combinations. They won't allow players to get powerful end-game weapons early, and it doesn't seem like Visceral has shaped their game to encourage players to pay to progress.

There is an argument to be made for the fact that once upon a time if you wanted to cheat your way to the end of something you'd put in some code and watch the space minerals pile up without paying any money. Achievements ruined that, because nobody can handle the idea of someone getting an arbitrary cosmetic reward for less effort - so now if you want a shortcut to that achievement you've got to pay.

And to those PC gamers who accurately point out that they don't always get achievements in their games? Trainers still exist for PC games, rendering that entire point moot. Just edit some hex values and give yourself infinity Space Minerals. Or don't. I don't care. It's not like you'll need them from what I saw.

This just in; you don't have to buy everything you see, more at 11.

'How does this tie into the DmC petition?' you ask (if you're still with me). Your right as a consumer is to just not buy something. Exhibit some self-restraint and don't buy something just because it's right there in front of you. If you don't like that DmC's Dante has a different hairstyle and slightly altered fashion sense - put the game down (or wait for the costume DLC to drop, so you can dress your dolly how ever you want). That's your right as a consumer. If you don't like a microtransaction system existing in your Dead Space 3 game - just don't f**king purchase any Space Minerals.

Don't let some crazy philosophical aversion to buying things in-game stop you from getting Dead Space 3 though. If you played Dead Space 2 - one of the best games of 2011 - and managed to stop yourself from buying the DLC armour packs until you finished the game, you already possess the self-control required to play Dead Space 3 after just the one purchase.