If you were worried about the multiplayer-only, $60 first-person shooter from EA and Respawn Entertainment focusing on gouging players at every turn to reload their gun, gain quicker access to a titan, unlock weapons faster, acquire higher-tiered weapons or maybe increase your team count to eight versus the opponent's six, you're fresh out of luck. None of the pay-to-win features found in many other online-only games will be making the jump to Titanfall.
Eager gamers keen on finding out if the upcoming triple-A blockbuster of Titanic proportions would follow in the footsteps of most other titles rocking the micro 'T' monetary method; you need not worry because Respawn has squashed fears of paying to win.
In a oh-so-simple Tweet let loose by the official Twitter account of Respawn, a discerning gamer going by the name of Shaun Kehoe asked if Titanfall would have either (or both) microtransactions or a season pass. What was Respawn's response? Check it out for yourself below.
Well, that's reassuring.
A lot of gamers have become distrustful and disdainful of a lot of big-budget titles with $60 price tags (and pre-order bonuses) that also come chock-full of microtransactions. The tactic is sometimes known as paying not to play, since gamers are essentially paying to speed through the game by accessing bonuses or power-ups so they don't have to “grind”. If you're paying not to experience the game then that speaks volumes of how poorly the game was designed.
So far, though, there has been nothing but a ton of positive praise for Titanfall from its closed alpha. Although, with the leaks of the EA YouTube scandal stinking up the netwaves and media circles, it's become rather obvious that any positive talk about Titanfall might be paid-for and promoted by EA themselves. Such a shame, too, because this kind of instance now thoroughly limits the viability of honest promotion.
Even for myself, I'm always going to question if the people playing EA games and shedding positive feedback are doing so because they want to or because they're paid to.
Nevertheless, it's at least in Respawn's interest to limit as much of the damage as possible by being as forthcoming as possible. I think making it known and making it public that the game will not have microtransactions is a good way to repairing their own reputation that may have been affected by association to the two-time running Worst Company in America.
Titanfall is one of the big games set for release in 2014, and will be available in early March for the Xbox 360, the Xbox One and the PC. It's just too bad that this game is being so heavily promoted by the two companies involved the heaviest with the YouTube-gate scandal.
