Resident Evil 4 Remake dropped on 24 March, 2023, to rapturous acclaim from pretty much everyone and anyone. Players, critics (including this very website), fans, your weird cousin who never leaves his flat; everyone was raving about it, sending it rocketing up Metacriticās Best Games of 2023 list, where it currently sits in joint-second position alongside Tetris Effect Connected, and behind joint-leaders The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Complete Edition and Metroid Prime Remastered (funny how theyāre almost all remakes, isnāt it?). On 7 April – two weeks later, long after most reviews had gone live and on a UK and US public holiday, no less – Capcom quietly added a handful of new items to the gameās various digital storefronts. Described as āWeapon Exclusive Upgrade Ticketsā, they were slotted in alongside RE4R's other microtransactions, which – at the time – were chiefly alternate costumes for Leon and Ashley. There are six in all, as well as five additional upgrade ticket bundles of various configurations, too. For £2.49, you get āaccess to a weaponās exclusive upgrade at any time, regardless of the weaponās levelā, ultimately exchanging your real-life money for a fairly hefty real-life time saver. Thatās what theyāre called these days, isnāt it? āTime saversā. Just as we became accustomed to āpre-order bonusesā and ācosmetic itemsā, ātime saversā slowly tiptoed into the back of the room alongside them, becoming more and more widespread. Itās like the moment we became resigned to the fact that DLCās a thing – weāre just giving you extra content, silly! – and then the microtransaction epidemic – thereās no in-game benefit! Theyāre just cosmetic! – time savers arrived and asked cosmetic gun skins to hold their beer. Yes, I know, ātime saversā are not anywhere in the same league as lootboxes. Unlike lootboxes – those insidious randomised things that are increasingly being banned across the world – thereās a tangible benefit for picking up a time saver microtransaction. Just how tangible it is – and how much someone is willing to pay for it – will vary from person to person, I guess. And in defence of Capcom – and that may well be the only time I type those words today, by the way – itās by no means the first, and absolutely not the last, publisher to sneak in additional paid content after the review dust has settled. Itās really sly, though, isnāt it? Thatās the bit that makes me uneasy. We all know that gaming is as tribal as it is cultural; you may not agree with it, but thereās no denying that we support certain studios and publishers because they share our ideals and beliefs. Maybe they publicly denounce crunch culture, or are committed to telling inclusive stories, but those shared values influence our support for a studio every bit as much as their ability to forge our favourite make-believe worlds.
Credit: Capcom.
Vikki Blake has a column every week here at whynow Gaming. You can read her previous dispatch here.