It was going to be inevitable for Anthem to not be dragged through some sort of controversy involving microtransactions as being linked with EA always brings up the case ahead of its release. EA and BioWare have both collaborated to create Anthem, in which players take the form of freelancers who wear exo-suits and carry out their missions.
With the amount of notice, Anthem is receiving ahead of its release, it was fairly certain that it would certainly storm up a controversy. A screenshot was recently revealed which showed Javelin paint jobs priced at around 2000 shards. Shards are the in-game currency, and it got a lot of people talking. There were a lot of rumours being spread that 100 Shard would equal to $1 but it still has not been confirmed yet.
BioWare’s Chris Schmidt commented on this topic, saying:
these [prices] don’t represent final, stamped for all of eternity pricing. We are iterating on our economy design and balance almost daily, so you’re seeing a snapshot of one iteration. This is why we tend to not discuss things like pricing, because it’s one of those iterative things that’s sure to change frequently right up until the day you play the game.”
This certainly does not give out the perfect explanation that we hoped for but still does not mean it is a cause for concern just yet.
EA Microtransaction History
EA botched the microtransactions and loot boxes of Star Wars Battlefront 2 by incentivizing spending real money or the players could get stuck grinding for hours, this brought a lot of negative feedback from the community and EA faced a lot of flak and saw a steep decline in their share prices.
It does raise eyebrows but as of right now, nothing has been confirmed and there already seems to be a lot talk going around blaming EA and BioWare before the game is even released.
We will keep a close eye on this subject and will keep updating soon as more is revealed about Anthem.
Also Read: Bioware Plans To Reveal Some Cool Things On Anthem This Sunday
