Ryan333: Just to keep things real here – the title of this post is a bit misleading. You can save as much as you want, but you can only create one character by default. If you want to completely start over from the beginning with a completely independent character that does not share any progress with your previous character, then you need to purchase the “Additional Slot: Avatar”. And no, I don’t think that’s “splitting hairs”. I certainly don’t agree with this tactic, but at the same time I don’t think we need to add any more sensationalism than needed. A more appropriate title for the post might be: “Wanna replay your game? Pay up!” Yes, that’s still a dick move, but it’s not quite as dicky of a dick move as the post title suggests.
I suspect Konami’s (misguided) rationale here is that the typical player will want to focus on a single character. Presumably, the game is being designed in such a way to discourage alternate characters. Thus, the assumption is that the only time a player would reasonably want to create an alternate character would be if a roommate, sibling, friend, etc. also wants to play the game. And the assumption is that the “Additional Slot: Avatar” will allow another person to “share” your game… for $10. Because, “why would a rational person ever want to play through the game with multiple characters when they can just replay missions on their original character to gain more benefits/achievements/etc.?”… or something like that. Again, I don’t agree with the logic – and I can come up with lots of counters to it – but that seems to be what Komani is thinking, as misguided as it may be.
Don’t get me wrong – I don’t like this tactic at all. But I think it’s a big enough dick move that there’s no need to misrepresent it. It’s not “you have to pay to save your game.” But still… “you have to pay to restart the game” is bad enough that it will generate enough negative hype on its own. (At least I hope it will. And if it doesn’t, then I weep for the future of gaming.)
Konami was never misguided in their idea this was all intentional to milk the playerbase. It's not just the save slots. You get one squad to sent out in the field to do things for you, want more? Well just cough up $10 per squad. Want more loadout slots? Well just cough up $5 per slot.
They knew what they were doing from the start and this was the plan all along these big publishers want the f2p model on top of a full priced game.
