A few years back, you may recall that the gaming world was seemingly united against the scourge of microtransactions in full-price games.

The most prominent event that demonstrated this was the case of Star Wars Battlefront II, where an EA representative managed to score the most-downvoted Reddit comment of all time for his bollocks about “a sense of pride and accomplishment” while defending the lootboxes that were part of the $80 game’s predatory monetisation system.

Fast forward to 2024, and we have an article on a high-profile gaming site actually praising a game for not being quite as bad as other games that do similar things. Is it time to wave the white flag? Hell no it isn’t.

For those who can’t be arsed to click through the link, I’m talking about PC Gamer writer Morgan Park defending Helldivers II’s use of a Battle Pass system, and how its implementation of said system is not quite as predatory as some other games that do the same thing.

For the sake of those who aren’t aware, a Battle Pass is an in-game system where you can unlock new items for use in the game by grinding in some form — be it through experience points, medals, currency or whatever. Most Battle Passes have a two-tier structure, where a “free” model will unlock you some fairly ho-hum stuff, while the “premium” (i.e. paid) tier will get you the actually desirable items.

It’s most commonly seen in free-to-play games, and indeed was popularised by the runaway free-to-play success story Fortnite, which updates its Battle Passes regularly with new characters, costumes and all manner of other stuff. At heart, a Battle Pass is designed to do two things in perpetuity: keep players playing that one game to the exclusion of all else, lest they miss out on unlocking something cool; and convince them to spend money to unlock the really cool stuff.

Helldivers II is a full-price game, and as such should probably not be taking cues from free-to-play games, but regrettably, such practices have become so normalised today — to such a degree that a certain breed of gamers will now defend them — that people don’t see the problem. I’m not denying that Helldivers II is more generous than most games of this type — for one, its Battle Passes don’t expire, unlike the ones found in most other games with them, and also you can earn enough premium currency to get yourself most of the way to the paid tier through gameplay — but it’s still honestly kind of bullshit.

Why? Because it’s just the latest example of a game being designed as a means of continually generating revenue first and foremost, a decent game second. By all accounts, Helldivers II sounds as if it’s a fun game, but I am never touching it with a barge pole thanks to its use of a Battle Pass. Nothing takes me out of a game experience faster than when the game I’m trying to immerse myself in starts wanting me to reach for my real-life credit card.

And Helldivers II isn’t worthy of praise just because it’s “not as bad” as some other games. It still has a structure designed to monopolise your time lest you miss out on unlocking something cool. Granted, they’ve taken the time pressure away — but it’s still pretty transparent that they’re going for user retention here as much as they are revenue. They don’t care about the game as a work of art; they care about it as a business venture.

Compare and contrast with Granblue Fantasy: Relink, which I’ll have more to say on in the coming days following my initial impressions. Here we have a game that is based on a mobile title that makes use of one of the most exploitative, predatory business practices out there — the gacha system — but which somehow manages to break free of those roots to create an absolutely fantastic, compelling and engrossing game where you’ll want to keep playing simply because it’s enjoyable to do so.

It would have been so easy for them to ram Granblue Fantasy: Relink full of microtransactions and a gacha system — but they wisely thought “hey, maybe we should appeal to the folks who don’t like free-to-play monetisation”. And the result is an excellent game that, at no point, breaks me out of the experience to reach for my wallet.

Helldivers II should not be praised for doing slightly less than what we should expect as the bare minimum from premium-priced games. Helldivers II should not be praised for having “modest monetisation” when the optimal situation is “no monetisation”. And the people who are defending it by saying that buying the premium Battle Pass is “supporting the developer” are, frankly, deluding themselves into thinking they’re doing a good thing. Helldivers II’s developer and publisher are not going to see that microtransaction revenue and think “oh, the gamers sure are grateful for us making a great game”. They’re going to see it and think “cool, our monetisation works, let’s keep creeping more of it in”.

You want to support a developer? Buy their other games. Buy gift copies of the games you like for friends. Write them a nice letter saying how much you enjoyed their games — heaven knows most devs would probably like a break from the abuse they usually get on social media. Don’t engage with a crappy business practice just because its implementation is not quite as bad as it could have been. If there are two cloths covered with dog shit in front of you, but one has quite a bit less on it, you’re still going to be smelling dog shit all day regardless of which one you rub all over your face.

The defenders of this seem to think that they have no choice but to engage with this business model — that it’s this, or just stop playing games. But I’ve already given the example of Granblue Fantasy: Relink as a game where this sort of thing isn’t present, and that sold a million copies in a couple of days. And in the last couple of decades since microtransactions started to become a thing, I can honestly say that very few of the games I’ve played have featured any monetisation whatsoever — including in the big budget space. So it is possible for games without any of this crap to still exist and thrive.

So why should I care about Helldivers II? Because it saddens me that people who should know better are defending it. And it concerns me that, over time, the growing normalisation of games with predatory monetisation practices will eventually begin to encroach on the fields that I enjoy.

There have already been attempts — Namco have outright sold level-ups and special items for several Tales games in the last three console generations, for example — but for the most part, the games I enjoy have remained blissfully free of this kind of crap, and even in instances such as Namco’s shenanigans with Tales, that stuff is kept out of the game itself and relegated to DLC you specifically have to go looking for.

As soon as you insert some sort of monetisation model directly into a game, you unbalance it. Deliberately so. Because you want to encourage people to click that “Shop” button and pay up for your “Best Value!” bundle of premium currency (that it just so happens is the second-most expensive, and not quite enough to buy the coolest thing in the game). Not only that, you break the game’s immersion factor, turning it from escapist media into capitalist activity. You go from being immersed in another world to being badgered by salespeople at Disneyland. The game goes from being a work of art to being a product, or, worse, a service.

And sure. There are times when you want to engage with a product or service rather than a work of art. Sometimes you want something that is an activity — and you might even be willing to spend money on what you feel would enhance your experience with that activity. But this sort of thing shouldn’t become the norm for such an incredibly creative, diverse field as gaming. And I sincerely hope it doesn’t.

So basically fuck Helldivers II, and play Granblue Fantasy: Relink instead. It has co-op and everything.

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More about Granblue Fantasy: Relink

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