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Middle Earth: Shadow of War was released on October 10, 2017. Two hundred and eighty days later, he is now free of all microtransactions. This is a radical change and yet a sign that 2017 has been a turning point in the video game industry's brief obsession with loot boxes.
Today, Warner Bros. corrected Shadow of War to withdraw the paid currency from the game, ending a confusing microtransaction system that had been in place since the game's launch. You can spend more money on premium currency or loot boxes that allow you to randomly draw on high end equipment. You can no longer buy orcs on the digital market of the game.
The publisher had announced in April that it was going on, but waited until today to make the change. If you have spent money on the game, you will now find a message that says something like this:
Of course, it was the same argument that fans did before Shadow of War came out – the same argument that people have argued as long as microtransactions have existed. So what has changed? What is it that Monolith and Warner Bros decide to withdraw the premium currency nearly a year after its launch? Was it the anger of the fans? Legal threats? Or something else entirely?
Like most game publishers, Warner Bros does not share sales data, but there are some clues out there. One is that in October 2017, Shadow of War was the best seller on NPD, beating Assbadin's Creed Origins among others games. In November, Shadow of War fell to 12. The other clue is that according to recently disclosed Steam data, Shadow of War sold about 952,284 copies on PC, less than Origins (1,030,581) and significantly less than Shadow of the Mordor (4,468,234).
Incomplete data can not give an accurate picture, but these clues support a hypothesis: Shadow of War is sold well at first, then disappeared. Which is exactly what could happen if a highly publicized game was full of microtransactions that left players with a bitter taste, encouraging bad word of mouth. "Oh, this game is cool and all, but he wants me to spend extra money? No thanks."
By pulling all the loot boxes of Shadow of War Warner Bros sends a strong signal. That does not mean that Warner Bros. give up microtransactions, quite the contrary. Like all major gaming publishers, Warner Bros. doubles as "games as a service" in the hope of generating as much revenue as possible without charging more than $ 60 for its big-budget games. In the future, these games will be much more subtle about it.
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