Molyneux's Latest Game Removes Microtransaction
By John Jacques 29 January 2016
22 Cans is canceling a controversial surprise microtransaction that forced Godus Wars players to pay a $5 fee if they wanted access to the second half of the game.
Godus Wars is the second attempt at finishing the original Godus game, and was released as a Steam Early Access title on Wednesday. Godus Wars is free to those who who had originally backed Godus on Kickstarter, and includes some of the content that was originally slated for Godus itself. The community was already on edge after the less-than-stellar original release, so you can imagine their disappointment when they finished the first continent in Godus Wars just to find a microtransaction pop-up informing them they would have to pay $5 to access the second region.
Godus Wars is available for $15 on Steam, which is $5 less than Godus originally came out for. Seeing as offering the title free of charge to original Godus purchasers was a way of apologizing for failing to deliver a complete game initially, it’s pretty easy to see why making gamers pay an extra $5 to access everything in their second attempt may not have been the best way to smooth things over.
Reactions on both Steam and the game’s community forums were extremely negative, which prompted 22 Cans to nix the microtransaction entirely and offer it for free.
22 Cans CEO Simon Phillips wrote a concession on behalf of the company to announce the removal of the microtransaction, whilst still defending the value behind it:
It’s been brought to our attention that the extra content being a premium add-on really isn’t a popular choice. Whilst we think that it does represent good value, especially considering that Godus Wars has been delivered as a free update to hundreds of thousands of users and the lower purchase price of the main game, we understand previous Godus owners’ frustrations with this.
Polarizing game creator and 22 Cans founder Peter Molyneux hasn’t commented on the incident, which was largely expected. Molyneux pulled a semi-Sean Connery last February when he vowed never to speak to the press again, but broke his own self-imposed vow of silence yesterday to speak to the press. Since then, though, Molyneux has denied that he was speaking to the press in the interview, and has so far not spoken to the press in regards to the microtransaction controversy. Vow of silence aside, perhaps it’s for the best that he shies away from his connection with the half-baked result of a Kickstarter campaign long ago.
If there’s one name that has become synonymous with controversy these days in the gaming industry, it’s Peter Molyneux and his fake retirements. The British video game producer may have a sterling repertoire of games under his belt, but a strange string of recent productions like Curiosity and Godus will have undoubtedly hurt the public’s confident in his creations. This is a shame, because his old titles like Populous and Black & White are absolute classics – we’d love if he just went back to the drawing board and created proper sequels for them.
What do you think about Godus Wars, Ranters?
Godus Wars is currently available on Steam for PC and Mac.
Source: GameSpot
