Dragon’s Dogma 2 was well on its way to the land of universal critical acclaim… then everything changed when the microtransaction nation attacked. Right before the game’s release, people learned that Dragon’s Dogma 2 would feature the option for players to pay for an easier experience. Many didn’t take it kindly, which you can attest to by looking at the game’s Steam reviews.
Even though the microtransactions present in the game are far from the worst we’ve seen in Capcom’s history, they still hit like an unnecessary betrayal — even worse, they’re predictable and boring. Here’s a list of truly groundbreaking microtransactions they should come up with next if they have the guts:
Monetizing Gravity
The idea for this whole piece came from a Reddit post titled “Monetizing Gravity”. Some people in my circle of trust found it hilarious, but I never saw the post because it got deleted before anybody got to save it.
I don’t know exactly what the original post was about, so I’m just going to imagine it was about paying for something like the Topsy Turvy Bomb from Armed and Dangerous. I’m talking about a huge screw that guarantees the player’s feet stay on the ground when it turns the world upside down — and the planet’s gravity with it, I assume — and makes all enemies fall off the planet. I’m not sure if such a weapon would work on dragons, but I’d totally pay for that.
Monetizing Asmongold
The world is weird. Asmongold is somehow one of the most popular Twitch streamers in the universe, but not even that is enough to make him a universally liked figure.
Mr. Gold has said some pretty questionable stuff in the past and, perhaps even worse, who knows, he both disliked and sucked at the original Dragon’s Dogma. The news that Asmongold would be in the sequel as an official Pawn didn’t sit well with many players, but Capcom can appease fans and haters — and make money off of it.
I totally see two great options for Asmongold-related microtransactions:
1- Get the AsNongold Silver package to make sure that the game won’t randomly pick one NPC and turn it into Asmongold whenever your character goes to bed to get what should be a calming and well-deserved rest.
2- Get the AsNongold Gold package to receive an exclusive patch that fixes this totally weird and unintentional glitch that causes every single NPC in the game to slowly begin turning into Asmongold.
Monetizing famous characters made in the character creator
The character creator in Dragon’s Dogma 2 is a great magical place you can spend hours in to create your idealized original protagonist, replicate a famous character, or even clone Timothée Chalamet. I propose Capcom implements a system that finds out whenever you’ve replicated a character from an existing IP or a Timothée Chalamet, and asks you to pay money for the right to use it.
Capcom doesn’t state if the money will go to the IP owners, the owners of Chalamet, or Capcom, stating instead that life is just so much better when it’s full of mysteries.
Monetizing Resident Evil characters as pawns
Everybody loves Resident Evil, so let’s list some popular characters that players can pay a small amount for, and then prime characters that they’ll have to pay a little extra to have join their crew as pawns. I’m thinking:
Derek Simmons from Resident Evil 6 – $6
Wesker’s son (Jimmy Whiskers, right?) from Resident Evil 6 – $6
The big baby from Resident Evil 8 – $6
Ramon Salazar from Resident Evil 4– $6
Steve Burnside from Resident Evil – Code Veronica – $6
Leon S. Kennedy – $60
Lady Dimitrescu – $200
Monetizing Bishops
Look, Pawns are cool, but Bishops are much cooler. What are bishops? Oh, I still have no idea, actually, but they’re above Pawns in the hierarchy of Chess, so that must be something. Capcom will introduce them in a future DLC when they’re ready.
Monetizing Horses
No, not Chess horses. Real in-game ones.
Remember the OG-paid cosmetic DLC? That absolutely abhorrent and useless horse armor from Oblivion? Well, that’s on Bethesda. Capcom is merely doing its job of pushing the industry forward and monetizing actual horses. I’m thinking of a DLC to own them, and another one to get to use them as a mount.
Doesn’t that sound nice? Maybe we’ll throw in some neat horse armor to make it feel more worth it.
Monetizing extra FPS
PC gamers care so much about having a high and stable framerate that some began plotting guides to murder every “unnecessary” NPC in the game in an attempt to ward off the game’s supposed inconsistent performance. Having blood on our hands is never the answer.
Capcom should just sell players a DLC that introduces a cataclysmic event that wipes out the exact number of NPCs needed for the buyer’s PC to run the game at 60 FPS.
Monetizing teeth
One really cool thing about the character creator in Dragon’s Dogma 2 is that players can deeply customize even their character’s teeth. I’m not talking about whether players get to have normal teeth, vampire teeth, or Xenomorph teeth plus their tiny extra mouth. I’m talking about players getting to pick just how many individual teeth they want their characters to have. Players can pick anything between a perfect set of teeth and no teeth at all.
To add to the realism of a medieval fantasy setting, Capcom should totally ask players to pay for a generous DLC combo of toothbrush + toothpaste for each character, or maybe for insurance for each tooth they don’t want to see accidentally falling off mid-cutscene.
