Pokemon Uniteis a recent addition to the ever-expanding universe ofPokemongames. With the game being a MOBA where the player takes on the role of various Pokemon as they try to beat an opposing team by collecting points and shooting them at opposing goals, it can be addicting, and one of the best aspects of the title is that it isfree-to-play.
Outside of battle, players can decorate their trainers and evenget clothes called “holowear” for their Pokemon. Like most free-to-play games, there are optional items that cost real-world money. Most of these paid items are the holowear for Pokemon, ranging from dressing up Gengar as an astronaut to getting Charizard to wear pirate clothes. However, some are quite pricey, with the Ninetails and Lucario outfits coming in at a cost of 40 real-world dollars.
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The Story Behind The Costly Holowear
The first particularly expensive piece of holowear to be released was for theAlolan Ninetales, costing 2,499 Aeos Gems - which is about 40 dollars in real-world money. Aeos Gems cannot be earned by playing the game, as they must instead be bought in the game store. Holowear costing real-world money was normal, but never at this magnitude. Most items cost about 400 Aeos Gems or 1,200 at the most, so the Ninetales outfit has doubled the most expensive price.
Of course, fans had a lot to say about this sudden price increase. After all, for the price of this one outfit, players can instead buy entire Nintendo Switch games. The greatest fear was that this increase in price may be just a taste of what is to come forPokemon Unite’seconomy. Players on Reddit and other sites have told fans to not buy the skin to send the message to Nintendo that it is far too expensive, though it is unclear if this strategy will work.
The Concerning Conclusion
Unfortunately, the fears of fans came true whenPokemon Unitereleased another 40 dollar skin, this time for Lucario. The theme for these 40 dollar skins is that they appear to targetfan-favorite Pokemonspecifically. Despite fans telling each other to not buy these skins in order to send a message to the game devs, it is not unusual to encounter another player with one of the expensive skins on during a battle.
Microtransactions in video gameshave always been a sore spot for gamers, as some see the content as a greedy scheme to make more money. To add salt to the wound, the Lucario and Ninetales skins are some of the most pricey microtransactions in a game to date, as they are more expensive than any cosmetic item sold in bigger games likeFinal Fantasy 14, League of Legends, Dota 2, andSmite. However, a game that does have similar expensive skin issues is also a recent free-to-play game calledValorant. The fact that these two games came out close to each other may be a sign that they are both testing the waters for higher skin prices in future free-to-play games.
The best players can do is continue to be vocal about the skin being too expensive, while also urging others to not purchase the item. If players are not vocal and enough people buy the holowear, expensive content will likely continue to be produced. Of course, there are those that say the holowear is not worth complaining about because it is simply a cosmetic option, though there is a chance that the 40 dollar holowear selling well could encouragePokemon Uniteto have paid content outside of justcosmetic items for the Pokemon. After all, the game is still young, so it is still in the phase of discovering what kind of online game it really wants to be.
Pokemon Uniteis available on Nintendo Switch and mobile devices.
