As many will know, free-to-play mobile games are often under fire for being loaded with microtransactions — real money expenditures that players are frequently encouraged to engage with if they want to continue playing these titles. Monster Super League is one such mobile game, and while I have never had an issue with its microtransactions before, the game’s latest event has changed that for me.
This new event, called Monster Super Mileage, features one particularly egregious offering. That is its Merlin character, which is available for $700. Yes, you’re reading that right — if you spend $700 you will receive one single character in Monster Super League.
To make matters worse, there is no detail provided on the character, which may mean purchases will receive an Evolution 1 Merlin. To briefly explain, there are three evolution levels in the game, with Evolution 1 being the weakest, and players need characters in multiples to evolve them further.
If players that buy the character through this new event due indeed receive an Evolution 1 Merlin, that means that they will need 14 more of them to get to Evolution 3. As such, I think it’s safe to say that an Evolution 1 character is simply not worth $700.
For that matter, nothing in this event is worth the amount of money being asked, but there’s also something else going on here: Monster Super Mileage only lasts eight days. This means that you can’t just put some small amount of money in every month and build up to what you want — instead, you’ll have to pay the entire amount now if you want to get the reward.
With all of this said, it’s understandable that the community’s response to the event has been mostly negative. Personally, I haven’t a clue why 4:33 Creative Labs, the developer behind the title, is even trying to pull something like this off.
While it may have little impact on the average player, the fact that the company is trying to charge $700 for a digital character, in its weakest form, is absolutely ludicrous. Only time will tell how far 4:33 attempts to push these ridiculous microtransactions, but this behavior needs to be called out now before it becomes an even bigger issue.
