2017 appears to be the year of publishers really testing the waters with in-game microtransactions in premium, retail games. As we saw earlier in the month with NBA 2K18 and with all the Shadow of War drama, it is not going well for anyone involved. But video game development often exists in a vacuum of sorts, so this is going to keep happening for a while. Enter Forza Motorsport 7 and its new set of outrageous microtransaction-related issues.
The in-game currency for Forza Motorsport 7 is pretty run of the mill. You earn it through paying money or through playing the game at a slower pace, then can turn it in for loot boxes and the like. The problem is in what Ars Technica is branding “pay to earn,” a system that encourages players to pay money so that they can create opportunities to earn more in-game currency. What?
This comes in the form of Mods. In the Forza Motorsport series, the games have all sorts of settings that can make the user experience more or less hardcore. Visual cues, control assists, and more are on by default to help players ease in. Traditionally, turning those helping tools off not only made the game more difficult, but also gave players a boost on earning in-game currency. Mods are items that can drop from loot boxes, and using them will modify a setting in the next race you play, boosting the earned currency by a certain percentage. Meanwhile, going into options and toggling options similarly no longer has an effect on earning. This might cause some problems with the fanbase.
Source: Ars Technica