It’s no secret that Marvel’s Avengers has been underwhelming, buggy and mired in controversy. But now, even the game’s most loyal fans are angry at Crystal Dynamic’s development team. Prior to the game’s launch in 2020, fans were promised that the only microtransactions present in the game would be for cosmetics, and it seems that the developers have broken their word.
Players are now able to purchase various consumables in the game’s marketplace, which are essentially experience boosters to help with leveling up a lot more quickly. The developer explained on their blog that consumables can be purchased in bundles for a certain amount of credits, which in turn costs real-world money. Square Enix currently sells credit packs of as large as 13,000 for $99.99. While pay-to-win mechanics have become the norm over the years, it's especially frustrating for a game like Marvel's Avengers, where players can quickly be lapped by friends, making it difficult to find squads and team up on missions.
Selling XP boosters could be the culmination of a larger strategy by the studio. Earlier in March, the game was updated so that players gained less overall XP, slowing the rate at which they could level up. In practice, this meant more hours spent grinding out levels to unlock high-tier missions, especially if a player is planning on teaming up with friends. This angle is particularly notable as it comes a few weeks after Marvel's Avengers was added to Xbox Game Pass, creating an influx of new players looking to join up with an existing player base that had over a year head start.
This is far from the first time a developer has used this strategy to inflate their sales figures. Other popular MMOs and live service titles have taken a similar approach, such as Fallout 76, in which Bethesda used updates that reduced XP and loot gain in the game to encourage players to use the Atomic Shop. There are also the infamous shark cards for GTA Online that players can purchase from Rockstar Games. While there are no XP boosters present in that title, players can instead use that money to purchase all of the best apartments, weapons and vehicles in the game without ever doing any missions.
It’s possible that when the studio said there wouldn’t be pay-to-win in their game they meant it, but a buggy launch and ever-dwindling player base, even when released on new platforms, may have pushed the developers to find a way to reignite their player base or even just recoup their losses. Nevertheless, Crystal Dynamics has broken their word and, in the process, they’ve alienated what’s left of their base. Whether or not they can make it up to fans somehow remains to be seen, but for now, the future looks bleak for Marvel’s Avengers.