As part of player engagement, Pokémon Unite includes weekly challenges with specific requirements and rewards, but this week’s challenge, themed around Garchomp, has some players frustrated. The MOBA takes many of its cues from past titles in the genre and includes a free rotation of characters each week for players to try out, as well as microtransactions. Though it is possible to play Pokémon Unite without spending money, player revenue is how the game funds future development, so it is part-and-parcel with the genre.
These days, more and more games are pivoting to the “games as service” model, offering a steady drip of updates and content in exchange for putting parts of the game—usually character skins or DLC—behind paywalls. Pokémon Unite is no different as a game designed to be played for the long term and features microtransactions designed to improve the player experience. Microtransactions have to walk a fine line, though. Most players will accept them when they’re reserved for cosmetic items, but much fervor has been raised about microtransactions that affect gameplay. Pokémon Unite has faced this itself, with a survey a few months back acknowledging “pay-to-win” accusations. Players want to feel like everyone has a fair shot, and if those with money have an advantage, that is often seen as exactly the opposite of fair.
A few days ago, Pokémon Unite unveiled another week of challenges, Reddit user PumpkinKing333 and others are displeased by the requirement that they use Garchomp. The issue here is that Garchomp is not one of the characters featured in the game’s free rotation this week, so if players don’t already own the character, they’ll have to pay in-game currency or real money to acquire it and complete the challenge. Acquiring currency in the game takes time, and so if players are far from the 10,000 coins they need to unlock Garchomp (or if they just don’t want to use their coins on it), they either must pay money or just not be able to complete the challenges. That might be fine if the game kept costs low, but with the recent Pokémon Unite Alolan Ninetales holowear costing $40, that’s clearly not the case. It puts players in an unfortunate position, and they’re understandably frustrated.
But that’s not the only issue. In that same Reddit thread, many have drawn attention to another challenge that requires players to participate in 8 ranked matches with friends. It seems that some Pokémon Unite players are lone wolves, and don’t have enough friends who play the game to be able to complete that particular challenge. Between that and the Garchomp challenge, that’s two of the four of this week’s missions that players may be unable to complete, leaving half the week’s rewards out of reach. One answer to this may come in the form of Pokémon Unite squads, which are relatively easy to join and connect up to thirty players who can then play together, but for those not in squads, few solutions present themselves.
It’s understandable that a free-to-play title like Pokémon Unite would try to find a variety of ways to fund its continued development, but players will only accept microtransactions so much before they start to feel like they’re being nickel-and-dimed. Pokémon Unite has already been accused of being pay-to-win, and missions like this that almost require money to be spent certainly don’t help.
Pokémon Unite is available now on Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android.
Source: PumpkinKing333/Reddit