When Marvel's Avengers was announced, the CEO of the game's developer Crystal Dynamics said that there would be no pay-to-win DLC, only cosmetics. However, this claim was proven to be false after consumable boosters were added to the game's marketplace. Although these have since been removed, players were infuriated at seeing the developer go back on its word.
Marvel's Avengers did not have an easy first year, facing various criticisms about its gameplay, design, and more. Adding pay-to-win DLC opened up another round of controversy, one that only served to make a bad situation worse for the game and its creators. Crystal Dynamics desperately needed to do something to earn some positive momentum, because Marvel's Avengers' boosters broke a promise, and the player base is upset with other changes that have been implemented since.
The game has had some successes so far, with Ms. Marvel being praised as a protagonist and the Kate Bishop expansion being very well-received. However, the issue of Marvel's Avengers' pay-to-win mechanics - even though now removed - still looms over the game. To see exactly why players are so mad, one needs to take a deeper look at the situation as a whole, as well as the widely disliked trend of microtransactions in general.
When it comes to DLC, there are some practices that have more or less been begrudgingly accepted. Generally, cosmetic microtransactions tend to be tolerated by most players. Superficial things such as new costumes that do not actually change the way the game is played or apply extra advantages to the buyer are something that most will let slide, and service titles need these microtransactions in order to support future content. Of course, if a cosmetic has issues, such as Kate Bishop's inaccurate MCU hair in Marvel's Avengers, fans will complain, but for the most part, DLC costumes are a trend that the gaming community has decided to live with.
Pay-to-win microtransactions or actual in-game advantages that cost real money are a different story entirely. There is a longstanding hatred for the pay-to-win mindset, where someone can spend money to advance in levels and unlock content more quickly than a genuinely skilled player who doesn't use microtransactions. The idea of money being used as a replacement for hard work is one that repulses most players, and that is reflected in the widespread revulsion for Marvel's Avengers' consumables. Simply put, when a game places a target for players to reach, it is disappointing to see someone jump ahead of the pack because they were willing to pay money in order to ease their way to victory. A similar situation occurred when players abused Fortnite's customizable superhero skin to blend into dark areas.
Adding buyable bonus consumables to the game was a bad idea from the outset, and the fan reaction was extremely predictable. The CEO said that it wouldn't happen, and fans loved the idea of the game not being pay-to-win. Knowing that not using pay-to-win microtransactions is no a selling point for some games should have been a warning not to inject them into Marvel's Avengers, but they went ahead and did it anyway. The impending controversy was telegraphed from the start, and it would have been easy to avoid had they read the room.
Consumers like being able to feel like they can trust the companies that they're buying from. When a company can keep a good name and avoid scandals, confidence rises. However, when promises are broken, that same reputation gets dragged down. The dismissive response to player scrutiny surrounding the GTA Trilogy had this effect on Grove Street Games, and Crystal Dynamics made this mistake when it added pay-to-win DLC after promising such microtransactions would never come to Marvel's Avengers.
Broken promises are something that a lot of players tend to remember, and many players felt disrespected after Marvel's Avengers' DLC consumables went live. Crystal Dynamics is far from the first developer to anger its fans, and its next steps could either start the healing process or make its problems worse. A similar situation happened with the recent launch of Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy - The Definitive Edition, which was released with a plethora of glitches that persisted even after GTA Trilogy updates. After a long ordeal for both fans and developers regarding the game, Take-Two's failure to make a satisfactory statement about the controversy incensed the fanbase all over again. Crystal Dynamics going back on its word had the same sort of impact, which was exacerbated by the poor response to Marvel's Avengers when it first released.
The fallout has not been helped by the game's EXP rewards being lowered not long before the paid consumables were released. This move was viewed by fans as a tactic to encourage people to buy the consumables in order to ease the difficult grind that they were now facing. Whether or not that was truly the intention, players connected the events and saw it as a scheme to promote the reviled consumables. Other microtransactions, such as Marvel's Avengers' shipments, have proven less problematic, but the broken promise over pay-to-win mechanics could prove damaging in the long term.
Crystal Dynamics' response was not immediate. Players raged for weeks about the game's paid consumables, and were met with silence on the issue. The developer even ceased interacting with fans on social media, making them feel frozen out and ignored. Combined with the earlier broken promise about pay-to-win DLC, players felt like Crystal Dynamics was not interested in what they had to say. This feeling of abandonment led the player base to grow even angrier towards the game.
After further unrest among the fanbase, Crystal Dynamics finally came out with a solution to the problem. After taking a barrage of criticism from players, a decision was made to remove the pay-to-win items from Marvel's Avengers. The game was no longer pay-to-win, and players were a bit conflicted on the issue. On one hand, Crystal Dynamics had listened, but on the other, it was a delayed response to something that shouldn't have been in the game in the first place. Either way, one thing that everyone who protested the boosters could agree on was that they were glad they were gone.
While it is good that Crystal Dynamics listened to the fans and removed the pay-to-win boosters, it still took a good amount of strife to reach that point. This could be seen as a first step towards rebuilding player trust. However, the studio must keep making improvements in order to do so. Players felt ignored during Marvel's Avengers' DLC controversy, so establishing a better connection with the fans would be a good first step.
It is hard to blame fans for being upset about Marvel's Avengers' paid consumables. They had been told that the game would not be pay-to-win, then watched that promise be broken. The word is out on whether Marvel's Avengers can recover from its troubled first year, but Crystal Dynamics still has some work to do to repair its reputation among fans.
