Dragon’s Dogma 2’s microtransaction backlash: how much of it is fair?
Capcom’s Dragon’s Dogma 2 got off to a rocky start, with controversy growing over its list of in-game purchases as soon as it released on March 22. The microtransactions impacted Dragon’s Dogma 2’s initial user reviews, even resulting in a “Mostly Negative” status on Steam at one point. However, players more familiar with the game have offered some more nuanced opinions on the topic, and consider the microtransactions not to be as ill-intentioned as initially portrayed.
The PC edition of Dragon’s Dogma has recorded over 220k concurrent players at peak times (SteamDB), setting a record among Capcom’s singleplayer games. On the other hand, it has received a significant amount of negative user reviews and now maintains a “Mixed” Steam status and user score of 5.9 (Metacritic).
While performance and frame rate-related issues have contributed to this, Dragon’s Dogma 2’s paid DLC seems to be a significant cause of criticism. The DLC consists of in-game currency and item purchases ranging from $1-$5. Among the purchasable items are Wakestones, which are needed to revive the player and NPCs, as well as Art of Metamorphosis, which allows you to reedit your Arisen and main Pawn’s appearance. Also available among the DLC are Portcrystals, which allow you to place fast travel markers at any location. These are relatively rare items that can be acquired by playing the game too. The fact that Dragon’s Dogma 2 sells core gameplay-related items has been heavily criticized.
On the other hand, players who have advanced in the game have suggested that the criticism, particularly on social media, has been exaggerated and misinformed. For example, in the post below, Blaine Smith clears up the misconception that character customization in Dragon’s Dogma 2 is paywalled, assuring users that Art of Metamorphosis can be easily acquired within the first hour of gameplay. The Pawn Guild in the city of Vernworth can be accessed fairly early in the game, and the Rift Crystals needed for the item can be earned by renting your main Pawn to other players, which has been confirmed by other users.
Other players with 50 to 100+ hours in Dragon’s Dogma 2 offered similar opinions, noting that they didn’t notice or feel the need to purchase any of the DLC during their runs, with @MightyKeef commenting that they only found out about the existence of the microtransactions through discourse on X.
As for fast travel, the Portcrystals available for purchase cannot be used to actually perform fast travel, as this requires Ferrystones, which are obtained in-game. This means that microtransactions do not allow you to fast travel more than you normally can. On the other hand, using Oxcarts (available in-game), while not instantaneous, allows you to traverse long instances in a very short time.
In other words, the microtransactions in Dragon’s Dogma 2 seem to be an optional shortcut, rather than a necessity. The scarcity of Wakestones and Ferrystones is something that the game’s director Hideaki Itsuno purposely brought over from the first Dragon’s Dogma. In a past interview with us, he commented that the idea is for players not to be able to use Ferrystones on a whim, which is why he made them particularly hard to come by in the player’s first run and relatively accessible in subsequent runs.
With that said, even though the microtransaction in Dragon’s Dogma 2 are not as exploitative as was initially presented on social media, the very presence of such purchases in a full-price game, regardless of their content, is still criticized by many. Capcom have been addressing various user complaints and feedback following the launch of Dragon’s Dogma 2, but microtransactions of this type seem to be common in their games, with a recent but less discussed example being Resident Evil 4.
Dragon’s Dogma 2 is available for the PC (Steam) and will soon be released for the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.
Written by. Amber V based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2024-03-23 20:29 JST)
Hideaki Fujiwara
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DLC backlash is very fair when it seems more of the focus went to this end, than that of the performance end where there is crashes that you can not get past the character creation screen, the town is a stuttering mess and content wise it seems like a downgrade from Dragons Dogma Online that Japan had vs what came into America with DD2, such as the animations, the vocations, being able to find where your quest is, shorter characters etc.
Another question that should be asked is if the game is worth full price with a 10$ increase and if maybe this was released on the end of the fiscal year for personal gain. As someone that bought the deluxe edition and had to refund it. It was not and i believe that Capcom had no true intention of caring about DD2 other than forcing Itsuno to release it broken with DLC to skim off the top. I will consider getting the game when it is fixed and the game is a fully featured one than that of a rushed release to make profitable returns for investors.
I will say that this should worry everyone because if RE:Engine can not seem to handle open world of DD2 with it’s problems. What will happen with MH IW? What about the supposed open world Resident Evil? Are we going to see these games release broken with not much features but have tons of DLC on the top being the focus instead? I do think we may see this and Capcom is going back to being greed as they were 14 years ago unfortunately.