The next game in the Assassin’s Creed series is getting a new weapon to make money: microtransactions.
Publisher Ubisoft confirmed that Assassin’s Creed: Unity will feature in-game purchases during a presentation at the giant Gamescom tradeshow in Germany today (as first spotted by Total Xbox). The game will present you with the option to immediately purchase digital upgrades and gear for your character with real money. This means that if you want to drop some cash, you can skip the tedium of actually playing the game to earn those rewards. At the same time, Unity senior producer Vincent Pontbriand claims that this new money-making strategy doesn’t “fundamentally change” the way the game works.
In-game purchases are an extremely effective tool for generating revenue in mobile and social games. Those free-to-play games often put up road blocks and “fun pain,” a term for dampening a player’s enjoyment so they’re more likely to spend money, to squeeze cash out of an audience. Traditional games on PC and console have usually avoided this in favor of upfront payments for access to the game or for additional content like downloadable map packs. These days, triple-A publishers are looking increasingly at the success of microtransactions on mobile — where the top games bring in around $1 billion annually — as they try to jam the concept into their $60 releases.
“If we think [microtransactions] fit the gameplay or the brand itself — the core values — we’re willing to take those risks,” Pontbriand said. “If not, then [we won’t]. We’re not going to make any compromises.”
If a game like Assassin’s Creed: Unity were to introduce mobile-like “fun pain” to encourage in-game spending, many gamers would consider that a compromise. We’ve reached out to Ubisoft to ask for more details about how its microtranscations will work and whether the developer is actively avoiding those kinds of tactics. We’ll update this post with any new information.
Unity isn’t the first premium-priced game to include microtransactions. A number of examples were in Microsoft’s first-party Xbox One launch lineup, such as Forza Motorsport 5, Ryse: Son of Rome, Powerstar Golf, and Crimson Dragon. These featured in-app purchases on top of their upfront cost.
