Season passes are, sadly, becoming an increasingly common thing. It’s fine when a lot of publishers do it, because they usually deliver an absurd amount of content for a very cheap price – developers such as CD Projekt RED, Bethesda, and Nintendo – but on the whole, they are just another way to extract more money from the user for the least amount of product possible.
For multiplayer games, they can be especially toxic, since they can fracture the whole community. This is also the view held by Microsoft’s Major Nelson.
“[DLC passes] can be really dangerous when it comes to multiplayer, because what happens is it fractures the community,” he said. “‘You have the maps, I don’t have the maps, I didn’t buy that map but you bought that map,’ so when we all get together, ‘Oh, you couldn’t play the map.'”
The position makes sense from his perspective- Microsoft and 343 Industries are offering all map based DLC for Halo 5: Guardians for absolutely free, instead choosing to monetize the game by selling microtransactions (that can still be earned in game purely through gameplay).
“So what 343 has done, which I think is rather brilliant, is that everybody gets the maps,” he explained. “But they’re going to make things up with the Req packs. That’s how they’re having some additional revenue, I assume, on the side. It’s such a great way to execute it and keep the fans together.”
I’m not sure I want microtransactions over Season Passes- but at least Halo’s implementation is something that I can hardly take issue with, so I will let this slide for now.
Halo 5: Guardians is out on Xbox One.