Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 earned strong reviews at the time of its release and has maintained an active community of players. However, the game has repeatedly been criticized for its Black Market in-game store and its arguably predatory microtransaction practices, making it so unlocking everything will cost thousands of dollars. Now Black Ops 4 is once again under fire for its microtransactions, this time for selling what some feel is an overpriced reticle.
As of the latest Black Market update for Call of Duty: Black Ops 4, the game is selling the Smiley reticle for 200 COD points. That roughly translates to $2 in real world cash, and at the time of this writing, there is no way for players to obtain the Smiley reticle in-game without spending money.
While many video games sell cosmetics for real world cash, many seem to agree that selling something as simple as a reticle for $2 is a little steep. What makes this worse is that this isn't even the first time Black Ops 4 has sold something like this in its Black Market. Previously, it sold a simple red dot reticle for $1.
Many games are able to have microtransactions without drawing controversy, but that's harder to do when microtransactions are featured in full-priced games like Black Ops 4. The fact that it's just a reticle has also seemed to stir people up, as many don't see how it could really be worth $2 in real world cash.
Unfortunately for anyone hoping for games like Black Ops 4 and the video game industry in general to move away from microtransactions, that doesn't seem likely. Some forms of microtransactions may disappear due to legislative threats (as we've seen with loot boxes), but microtransactions themselves make way too much for game publishers to get rid of them entirely. But as long as the microtransactions aren't predatory and don't influence game design, gamers may not get too upset.
Some may even see the microtransactions in triple-A games like Black Ops 4 as a necessary evil when a game is a live service that is consistently updated. To its credit, Black Ops 4 does have regular free updates, including new game modes for Blackout, and so maybe microtransactions are just the trade-off for new, free content in a live service game.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 is out now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
Source: Eurogamer