All is not well in the world of Payday 2, thanks to a steady incursion of microtransactions in the game and Overkill’s apparently mishandling of community sentiment. Things have got so bad that several of the Steam hub’s (unpaid) moderators have downed tools in protest, and posted a public statement of their displeasure.
Having not played (or paid much attention to) Payday 2 in a while, I’ve been playing catch-up on the latest goings-on. It seems that microtransactions (in the form of purchasable drills, used to open safes containing stat-boosting weapons) were added in a ‘Crimefest’ update back in October. This, despite numerous assurances from Overkill employees throughout Payday 2’s life-cycle that it would not have microtransactions.
Though, if you’re being all semantic-weasel about it, that post from two years ago doesn’t outright say the game will never have microtransactions.
It was, however, specifically used as a selling point on the Steam store page. So you can see why people are annoyed about this reversal of policy.
Skip forward to the latest update, which rather than making amends for any of this and trying to rebuild some crumbling community bridges, actually adds more ‘pay-to-win’ style safe skins. These ones are ‘Team Boosts’ that increase XP and gold hauls for everyone who completes a given heist. They stack, so the more people on the team that have them, the better those rewards will be.
“If Overkill decides to let us go as moderators it’s something we are prepared for, i personally cannot sit by when they continue to promote immoral business practices,” writes moderator ‘Ashley’, who along with ‘Jones’ and ‘Tessio’ will no longer be going about her unpaid duties.
“I’m very sorry that it has come to this situation but the stress we have had to manage with, coupled with our unhappiness with the situation has pushed us to make this choice”.
The moderating team are requesting a public interview with a member of the Payday 2 development team, in which, they say, “We want to be heard and see what Overkill are willing to do to fix the situation”.
