If there's one thing gamers collectively hate, it's the plight of microtransactions. It's the bane of modern video games and a toxic anti-gamer business practice some companies uphold without shame.
Not only do microtransactions give developers an opportunity to force players to shell out more money on top of the full price of the game, they also cultivate this culture of purposefully rationing a game's features in order to sell them individually and thus make more money that way.
Microtransactions
It's a highly criticized practice, and just this past November, history was made when a comment from an EA spokesperson about Star Wars: Battlefront II's unusually sketchy microtransaction system became the most downvoted post in history. But Konami is trying to beat that by doing something far more ridiculous: charging $10 for a new save slot.
Metal Gear Survive New Save Slot
On Metal Gear Survive, players have access to just one save slot, with three additional ones locked behind an in-game currency purchase. Needless to say that this isn't sitting well with fans.
While purchasing a save slot doesn't directly require real-world money, it does require spending SV coins, the game's unique currency. Konami is selling those in batches: 100 for $0.99, and so on. An additional save slot costs 1,000 coins, which roughly converts to $10. For a save slot. Yikes.
SV coins are also used to spend other things within the game, such as character emotes, armor, and lots else. It can also "be used to increase the productivity of Exploration Teams, increase food production and boost other features in the game," according to Konami.
Considering that players already have a lot of items to purchase with SV coins, spending 1,000 just to unlock a save slot seems rather sketchy, even downright preposterous. Video games typically offer multiple save slots for free; it's not even a question. But it appears that with the microtransaction culture getting tremendously out of hand, even new save slots cost money. Sure, some games only offer one save slot, but at least they don't charge $10 for creating a second one.
Metal Gear Survive
Metal Gear Survive is available now on PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. It's received lukewarm reviews at best, with IGN calling it "weird," and GameSpot calling it "oppressive."
"In its sometimes clumsy efforts to merge stealth action, base-building, survival sim, and horror by stitching together pieces from past Metal Gear games, it's effectively scrubbed those elements of the series' signature humor and personality," IGN wrote.
Thoughts about Metal Gear Survive? How about its save slot microtransaction? As always, feel free to sound off in the comments section below!
