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These last few weeks haven't been great for Overkill Studios. The team decided to silently put microtransactions in to the game, which caused a lot of uproar amongst players. Then things got worse when additional bonuses were added to the new microtransaction system, which caused the game's Steam Forum mods to go on strike.
After all of that, Overkill has finally opened up about the recent updates and its lack of communication on the matter. In a Steam post titled ‘PAYDAY 2: An update and an apology, Almir Listo, Overkill's global brand director, offered players an apology.
“Players have been angry with us, media have written about us en masse and our volunteer moderators went on strike. For all the distress we've caused the past few weeks, I'd just like to take the time and say that we're sorry. We've done a lot of things right in the past, but these past few weeks we screwed up”.
The studio also held a Skype call with its forum moderators to get them back on-board and discuss better communication for the future. However, there is no indication that microtransactions will be going anywhere, so while the studio has apologised, it isn't backtracking.
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KitGuru Says: Overkill was pretty quiet on the subject over the last few weeks, though without any changes made to the current system, I do wonder what Payday 2 players will think about this apology.
Do people really still pay for the endless dlc?
The apology means little if the microtransactions and, as MetalGearSalad puts it, “endless DLC” don’t stop, nothing will have changed for me personally. If it’s true that they need microtransactions/DLC sales to support their expansion, I question their competency as a studio. Make something new that I can buy, and don’t add this shite to it. Pay2PayMore shite.
But the microtransactions are non-essential so why does anyone give a shit? Games dead anyway, and hacks for it are not only freely available to anyone who bothers to search for it but are almost completely undetectable, and when they are detected (placing too many mini sentries or whatever) The game does fuck all except stop you spawning more
People “give a shit” because when the devs where asked if micro transactions were ever going to be in the game they said “No they will not and shame on anybody who thinks we would do that” and now not only have they gone back on their word and put them in they sneaked them in under the radar and made it so that the only way to unlock these safes was to buy a drill at £2.50 per drill and alot of these skins give stat boosts and are not purely cosmetic making it Pay2Win.
Most of the rightful anger is because they went back on their word and didn’t make any attempt to inform players of what they were doing till after it was done.Given the way in which these were done a apology simply isn’t good enough
Just to be fair and clear, no, they didn’t exactly said it like that.
The real quote from the interview is “No. No. God, I hope not. Never. No.”
Indeeed they have gone back on what they said … after 2 years. Not such a commendable things to do, but frankly it didn’t suprised me things changed during that 2 years span time.
And since it is not a competitive game, but cooperative, boosting yourself with real money is hardly an issue here (and you can even win some drills by playing normally now).
But what make me laugh is “ok we apologize (but we won’t remove the microtransaction)”. Do they even now what they are apologizing for?
If they had been upfront about yeah it might have been forgiven and they only added the ability to win drills by playing normally because of the backlash.The main gripe people have is as you said they went back on their word and they sneaked them in in such a sly underhanded way.
I doubt they had any intention of allowing you to win drills by normal play if there had been no backlash,most people understand that its a business and that business’s have to make money but t here are good ways and bad ways to do it and breaking a promise made to your customers in such a sly sneaky and underhanded way is not a good way to do it.
TL:DR If they were going to make a change like this doing a 180 on previously stated policy then they should have informed players before implementation to see whether or not the player-base would approve.Because no business model will work if you piss off all the customers so much that they go elsewhere. .
Let’s be honest, as usual in this case, only a minority/core of players are being “noisy”. Most people didn’t care at all, and that’s why overkill don’t remove the micro-transaction thing.
People love to make a scene of nothing (I had a blast reading why Tales of Zestiria was trashed by japanese people ^^). Frankly, the “sneaky” argument has nothing to do with it, since the player response wouldn’t have been different if the devs said it up front.
I still play Payday2 from time to time when a new “heist” is available, but I couldn’t care less about micro-transaction. It’s not like if i’m playing against human players where the winner could be decided by how much money everyone put in (f2p style or like Street Fighter X Tekken).
In fact, the game is still the same thing they bought before the microtransaction stuff (some weapons were nerfed and others were boosted like every balancing patches for the past 2 years), it’s just something more which will not impact their game if they don’t want to.
At least, that’s my opinion.
Usually, a studio won’t support it’s game over 2 years with little updates like this. In order to make money, it’s better to sell a new game, even if it’s just with additionnal content.
Look at yearly sports games. Even MMO tends to sell their expansion at a new game price.
That’s why I like this continued support from the devs on this title. I couldn’t care less about skin and weapons DLC, but I buy every new “heist” DLC since they extend the fun of the game.
Both quotes are correct, to be fair.
Former Payday2 director, David Goldfarb, was quoted saying “No. No. God, I hope not. Never. No.” When asked if microtransactions would make it into the game.
Payday 2 producer Almir List said “We’ve made it clear that Payday 2 will have no microtransactions whatsoever (shame on you if you thought otherwise!)”
Thank you.
I never heard of this official forum quote.
Apologies to James for saying otherwise.