14 DAY TRIAL // Borderlands 3 was announced a little over a month ago, and already some questions about micro-transactions are being raised by the community.
Most of the games that are being released these days have some form of micro-transactions implemented, and there is no getting around this simple fact, whether we like them or not. Developers and publishers will insist that some people want them, but you would be hard pressed to find someone who agrees with them.
Even if previous Borderlands games were basically multiplayer games with a powerful co-op component, they didn’t have what people might call micro-transactions. They did however had a ton of cosmetic DLCs, which are not all that different.
Cosmetics only
There are some differences between purely cosmetic items and play-to-win items. It’s one thing to sell hats that do nothing for the gameplay, and another thing to sell weapons or XP packs to level up quicker. The second is a pay-to-win mechanism and helps people to advance quickly if they don’t want to wait around.
Randy Pitchford, Gearbox's CEO, recently said during a live stream that Borderlands 3 wouldn’t have microtransactions, but he was most likely talking about pay-to-win stuff. On the other hand, Gearbox’s Paul Sage said for Game Informer that some cosmetic items would be available.
The studio finally settled the matter when Eurogamer asked them about it, and this is what Gearbox had to say about it. “Players will have the option to purchase certain cosmetic items like character, vehicle, and weapon skins, but none of these purchases would be considered pay-to-win or impacting on the gameplay, like weapons or actual gear.”
Even with all of this micro-transaction talk, Borderlands 3 promises to take players on a wild ride, especially since it looks like the recipe hasn’t changed that much. If the game is good no one will care about micro-transactions. Just take a look at Assassin’s’ Creed Odyssey; it was packed with extra purchases, but everyone was focused on the story.
