{"id":31006,"date":"2024-05-17T12:21:56","date_gmt":"2024-05-17T03:21:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=31006"},"modified":"2024-05-17T12:21:57","modified_gmt":"2024-05-17T03:21:57","slug":"square-enix-halves-microtransaction-prices-in-low-performing-foamstars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/square-enix-halves-microtransaction-prices-in-low-performing-foamstars\/","title":{"rendered":"Square Enix halves microtransaction prices in low-performing Foamstars\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Square Enix have announced price adjustments for their online PvP shooter <strong>Foamstars<\/strong>. From June 21, 2024 at 1:00 AM UTC, the prices of many of the game\u2019s bundles, skins and items will be significantly lowered, some almost halved.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This comes after Square Enix announced <a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/square-enixs-stocks-plummet-following-announcement-of-70-profit-drop\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">a big year-on-year drop in profits<\/a>, part of which is attributed to new titles falling short of expectations. According to Square Enix\u2019s comments to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2024-05-14\/square-enix-shares-tumble-by-most-in-13-years-on-weak-outlook\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Bloomberg<\/a>, Foamstars was one of the titles that did not perform as forecasted. The live-service game debuted in February this year for the PlayStation 4 and 5. Even though it&nbsp; had a strong day-one, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.truetrophies.com\/news\/foamstars-ps-plus-player-count\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">PSN data suggests<\/a> that Foamstars lost over 90% of its players only two months following launch. This is despite the game being available for free to PSN Plus subscribers until March 4, 2024.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Foamstars\u2019 DLC pricing was considered steep by some users, and the developers\u2019 use of the generative AI program Midjourney for in-game assets caused dissatisfaction overseas (although AI was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.videogameschronicle.com\/news\/square-enix-confirms-foamstars-contains-some-ai-generated-art\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">reportedly<\/a> used on less than 0.01% of the game\u2019s content).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>WIth Foamstars being moved off PS Plus\u2019s free games list, anyone who wants to play the game now must purchase it in addition to having the PS plus membership required for online play. It seems that Square Enix is trying to address the games\u2019 shrinking player base and DLC pricing complaints by lowering the cost of microtransactions in Foamstars. Bundle Sets that currently go for $44.99 will be lowered to $24.99, and $10.99 character skins will be reduced to $6.99 following the June 21 update. A detailed list of items subject to price adjustments can be found <a href=\"https:\/\/www.square-enix-games.com\/en_US\/simpleDocument\/notice-foamstars-shop-item-price-change\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">here<\/a>. The game itself is currently available at a 30% discount on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.playstation.com\/en-us\/games\/foamstars\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">PlayStation store<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After reporting the game&#8217;s underperformance, Square Enix has announced a revision of Foamstar&#8217;s DLC pricing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":31009,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-31006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Square Enix halves microtransaction prices in low-performing Foamstars\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"After reporting the game&#039;s underperformance, Square Enix has announced a revision of Foamstar&#039;s DLC pricing.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/square-enix-halves-microtransaction-prices-in-low-performing-foamstars\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Square Enix halves microtransaction prices in low-performing Foamstars\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"After reporting the game&#039;s underperformance, Square Enix has announced a revision of Foamstar&#039;s DLC pricing.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/square-enix-halves-microtransaction-prices-in-low-performing-foamstars\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"AUTOMATON WEST\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-05-17T03:21:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-05-17T03:21:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/20240517031006.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1193\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"610\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Amber V\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@AUTOMATON_ENG\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@AUTOMATON_ENG\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Amber V\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Square Enix halves microtransaction prices in low-performing Foamstars\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST","description":"After reporting the game's underperformance, Square Enix has announced a revision of Foamstar's DLC pricing.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/square-enix-halves-microtransaction-prices-in-low-performing-foamstars\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Square Enix halves microtransaction prices in low-performing Foamstars\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST","og_description":"After reporting the game's underperformance, Square Enix has announced a revision of Foamstar's DLC pricing.","og_url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/square-enix-halves-microtransaction-prices-in-low-performing-foamstars\/","og_site_name":"AUTOMATON WEST","article_published_time":"2024-05-17T03:21:56+00:00","article_modified_time":"2024-05-17T03:21:57+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1193,"height":610,"url":"http:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/20240517031006.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Amber V","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@AUTOMATON_ENG","twitter_site":"@AUTOMATON_ENG","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Amber V","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/square-enix-halves-microtransaction-prices-in-low-performing-foamstars\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/square-enix-halves-microtransaction-prices-in-low-performing-foamstars\/"},"author":{"name":"Amber V","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/fdc6517a00e35b6917ffdb02e8b574d9"},"headline":"Square Enix halves microtransaction prices in low-performing Foamstars\u00a0","datePublished":"2024-05-17T03:21:56+00:00","dateModified":"2024-05-17T03:21:57+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/square-enix-halves-microtransaction-prices-in-low-performing-foamstars\/"},"wordCount":288,"commentCount":1,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/square-enix-halves-microtransaction-prices-in-low-performing-foamstars\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/20240517031006.jpg","keywords":["News (Japan-related)"],"articleSection":["News"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/square-enix-halves-microtransaction-prices-in-low-performing-foamstars\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/square-enix-halves-microtransaction-prices-in-low-performing-foamstars\/","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/square-enix-halves-microtransaction-prices-in-low-performing-foamstars\/","name":"Square Enix halves microtransaction prices in low-performing Foamstars\u00a0 - 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Currently devoted to growing Automaton West to the size of its Japanese sister-site, while making sure to keep news concise and developer stories deep and stimulating.","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/author\/amber-vjestica\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31006","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31006"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31006\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31010,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31006\/revisions\/31010"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}