https://youtu.be/_87zvl0LcEg

“Call Of Duty: Infinite Warfare is caught in a pay-to-win controversy,” idigitaltimes.com reports. “CharlieINTEL has confirmed that there are supply drop exclusive weapons. As expected, the community is far from thrilled.” Over at the aforementioned link, commentator YoungMurf resembles that remark. “F*ck supply drops.” For those of you unfamiliar with the issue, here’s the problem:

Every leveled-up weapon in the Prototype Lab can be earned via virtual currency called Salvage or by leveraging the supply drop system, which costs real-world money. In Call Of Duty: Black Ops 3, for example, a rare supply drop costs 200 Call Of Duty Points or $1.99, or 30 Cryptokeys.

In other words, because all of the game’s guns can be unlocked through a paid structure, those unwilling to grind for upgrades simply have to shell out a few extra dollars to substitute for the hours of actual gameplay that most players will endure.

To make matters even more troubling, however, the grind seems like it will be quite tedious for those patient masses. If the recent beta is any indication, matches will offer about 10 Salvage per round, and it takes 6,000 Salvage to unlock every tier for a single gun. That equates to 600 games to get every perk for just one weapon!

Geddowdaheah! I thought FPS video games were the ultimate socialist paradise! Infinite Warfare was unlocked today at high noon EST. Somehow I don’t think this controversy will have the slightest impact on the game’s profitability . . .

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35 COMMENTS

  2. This is so offensive to gamers. We spend our hard earned money only to be nickled and dimed to death (respawn?). No thanks, i was planning to buy this solely for the remastered cod 4 but now I’m just going to save my money and put it towards a real gun.

  3. “Infinite Warfare was unlocked today at high noon EST.”
    I think you mean EDT, since we are still on Daylight time until Sunday , November 6.
    You can also just use ET, for Eastern Time, as opposed to Eastern Standard Time and Eastern Daylight Time.
    There is a one hour difference between EDT and EST.

    • 12 FPS on an Overclock 1080, with 64 gigs of RAM and a 6700 i7 will kill the game.

      Right now, it’s not playable. There is either a driver issue, or the game is screwed.

  5. Buying one’s way to the max level in a video game doesn’t make a better player anymore than dropping $4,000 on a custom AR-15 with optics makes a better marksman. Also, who in their right mind plays this botched appendectomy of a video game while Battlefield 1 exists?

  6. If you have to endure hours of gameplay, it sounds like a terrible game. I’ll stick to Battlefield 1 than you very much. Despite the inaccuracies as described by Ian over at Forgotten Weapons, it’s a hoot.

    • The great thing about BATTLEFIELD is that it really rewards team play, and if you can get a group of friends together and do a little bit of thinking, you can really do well in the game.

      The bad thing about BATTLEFIELD is that it really rewards team play, and if you can’t get a group of friends together and do a little bit of thinking, you will get your hat handed to you constantly.

  7. Buying max level content in a video game makes you no better a player than dropping $4,000 on a custom AR-15 and optics makes you a better marksman.

    • In video games, unlocking better weapons does give you an edge, because the exact same skill equals more damage.
      That said, competitive gaming requires money. Milliseconds matter, so a monitor with a 144hz refresh and the video card to drive that gives you a distinct edge over people who can’t afford that kind of hardware.

      • Having weapons that do more damage or OP items may provide an edge, but it isn’t a substitute for knowing how to play well. If it really is that easy, the devs made a mistake. I haven’t been a gamer since high school, but I recall seeing people get thoroughly rekt in Modern Warfare 1, myself included, by guys with nothing more than an M4 + red dot.

        • It depends on the game. Some are OP and you can’t compete without the unlocks.
          You can’t compete at the highest levels without the unlocks, because every little edge counts.

  8. It’ll keep happening because it makes them (more) money. They would rather have all the money with an annoying game than have some of the money with a great game.

  9. Ummm…. Slow news day? So what? They found out people will pay for it, so they incorporated it into the game. Capitalism at its finest folks.

  10. That’s not “pay-to-win”, that’s “pay-to-accelerate”. Under the PTA model people who pay don’t have any other advantage than spending a bit less time to get something. Trust me, not nearly as bad as “pay-to-win”, which locks the best items behind a hard paywall that you HAVE to pay to unlock with no other ways to access the material.

    But this isn’t a gaming blog, soo…..

    • TTAG should stick to its guns. RF evidently doesn’t know enough about the gaming industry if he is dismissing p2w controversies as the product of socialist thinking.

  11. Micro transactions are starting to piss me off. They work in an MMO but not in an FPS game. This new COD game is likely to end up like Eve Online. Loved by a few people with a lot of expendable time, or in this case expendable money, and hated by pretty much everyone else.

    IMHO the current best FPS is still BF4. Best milsim is Arma 3. Best 3rd person shooter is TC’s The Division.

    The COD franchise, at this point, can eat a bag of dicks. Now, if Robert’s Space Industries could unfuck the development of Star Citizen… that would be badass. FPS plus dogfighting in space? Fuck yeah! Oh, and DAT CryEngine rebuild! Gorgeous!

  12. And this why CoD Black Ops 1 & 2 are still played online. They are fun and don’t try to nickel and dime the players.

    I’m not very good and I am mostly a target for the better players. But occasionally I can get a hit on one of the better players.

  13. Unsolicited old guy advice of the day. Put the console down and pick up a PLC ladder logic book, put the same energy into understanding it as you do your games. Why? The automation industry needs your skill set.

    • It’s a special blend of arrogance and ignorance to hear about one interest or skill that somebody has and immediately assume they have no others.

  14. “For those of you unfamiliar with the issue, here’s the problem:”

    Translation: “For those of you who have wives, lives, and the wisdom to have put away childish things when you became a man, here’s the problem:”

    • Some of us between 25-39 manage to be functional adults with families while still knowing what video games are. I wonder what recreational activities of yours we can use to prove you’re an immature kid. Maybe you waste your time watching sports, instead?

    • Console gaming maybe just for kids but adults will still play games on PCs. And not just first-person-shooters. I also enjoy strategy and role-playing games as well.

      I’m in my late 40s and gaming is something my son and I do together. At first it was taking turns in Call of Duty Black Ops 1 & 2 multiplayer bot-match, discussing tactics, weapons, and add-ons between rounds. Now it is playing together as a team in Battlefield 1942, Unreal Tournament, UT2004, Day of Defeat, Quake III, Diablo, and others. It is probably one of the best parent-child bonding methods around as it takes physical ability out of the equation.

  15. As someone who never has enough time to grind through the game to unlock the really cool stuff and therefore gets PWN3D by a bunch of teenagers on a regular basis, my reaction to this little money-can-be-exchanged-for-goods-and-services scandal is: “And…?”

  16. solution: dont play COD, EVER. its a shit franchise and has been for sometime now. Battlefield beats it hands down in every way.

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