Question Mid-Week Question: Do you buy battle passes? And do you complete them?

[PCG Chris]

With loot boxes more or less phased out of most games, battle passes / season passes have become the de facto monetization strategy. On the plus side, you can see what you're getting in advance. On the other hand, there's often a lot of grinding to actually acquire the stuff you've already paid for.

Our question: Do you buy battle passes? Do you actually complete them? Have they been good, bad, or so-so?

Let me know by Wednesday and we'll publish your answers along with ours!

 

[McStabStab]

I've put many hours into competitive multiplayer games and battle royale games, the majority of which (at least the current ones) offer battle passes, and I have never purchased one. I appreciate that the creation of the battle pass has allowed these titles to go free-to-play and keep the player count up, but I don't find the rewards add anything significant to my gameplay experience as they're usually cosmetic or quicker unlocks of things I can get by playing anyway.

With all the hours I've put into Warzone, I almost start to feel bad about not buying at least SOMETHING, but then I think back on how I shoveled out $100.00 for the Black Ops 4 premium edition and figure that's enough to give to Activision for a while.

 

[Alm]

I have never bought a battle pass. Despite not being interested in the content in the main, I still try to vote with my wallet on things I want to see more of in games. I got burnt on loot boxes on CSGO (bought around 30 keys for crates at £2 per key - with about 2 good skins being acquired) and so that helps with self discipline on these things.

 

[drunkpunk]

No, not anymore. I have in the past, but I no longer support that style of monetization. Live service gaming is becoming a low-effort attempt to keep a revenue stream going, and battle passes seem to be the new replacement for compelling game content. I enjoy incentives to chase cosmetics, but if that is all or most of what a developer puts their effort towards to entice players to keep playing, to me it demonstrates a lack of creativity or future vision for the game. Battle passes also often use something I absolutely despise, which is time gating. It's cheap encouragement to get people to log in for an hour or so a day.

I have no problem with monetizing a game to continue development, but battle passes are not it for me. I would rather see a shop that just sells you cosmetics, and real content that extends the life of a game in meaningful ways.

 

[Krud]

I'm familiar with Season Passes, and have, I think, bought one after the fact, but I had somehow gone until this thread without ever hearing of Battle Passes.

 

[Pifanjr]

I'm familiar with Season Passes, and have, I think, bought one after the fact, but I had somehow gone until this thread without ever hearing of Battle Passes.

I've come across the term before, but I figured it was just a different name for season passes.

 

[Alm]

Season passes give you added content that are completely unlocked by paying like map packs. Battle passes only last a few months and give you improved rewards for completing challenges like skins and xp boosts (I think on the latter).

 

[Zloth]

I get season passes pretty often but I tend to play games a year or more after release so I'm getting them after the season is done, patched, reviewed, modded, and put on sale.

 

[DXCHASE]

Season Passes/Battle Passes are blended with Destiny which is the only game i've bought into and completed over the last couple years. I think they are a good idea, it certainly is a way to keep people engaged with a particular game. Personally, the Destiny Season passes have been hit and miss, some seasons have good looking gear and weapons, others not so much, this also depends on how Bungie has changed the mechanics of the game as each season comes about.

 

[HaddesRuin]

Bought all the season pass on COD

 

[SoulFlare]

I really enjoy playing MTG Arena so I normally purchase the Mastery Pass for that game. It offers a decent amount of card packs, visual card styles, gems, gold, a cool pet and avatar plus some other stuff for a reasonable price. With the premium Mastery Pass I always feel like I'm getting my money's worth and on top of it since it's a free 2 play game it really helps with the continued development of the game.

 

[Protobear]

I do for Destiny 2, because the content you play is linked to it, without the battle pass I couldn't participate in this season of content.

But beyond that I wouldn't bother with it really, I don't care about the rewards. I think of it as a "soft-subscription"

 

[ketchupspill]

basically never.

most battle passes in games are due to the devs running out of new content and deciding to find a easy money flow. copypasted cosmetics and thats about it.

imo its not worth it but i dont mind anyone who does buy it, as it does look pretty enticing occasionally ingame

 

[elevenfall]

Bought the first Fortnite battle pass and never spent another dime for the next ones.
I've been doing this for 12 seasons now.

 

[Geaxx]

I find them as an incentive for keep playing some games, is like, i bought it, ithink i should finish it, but there where times where the game still feels repetitive, and yes, i have left somo battlepases at half to take a distance until coming back to the game.

 

[Echo84]

I used to, until my finances took an arrow to the knee.

 

[XoRn]

No and no. Battle passes are a strange transaction where developers ask player to pay them to hold the players interest. Imagine playing basket ball and half way though the game the referee holds out his palm and you hand him $15, at which point the ball changes colors and a meter begins to fill with bright sparks and whizzles. The game hasn't changed functionally, it's just added some colorful elements to make you feel like your progressing down a (meaningless) track.

If I'm losing interest in a game, I'm going to just stop playing the game.

 

[McStabStab]

No and no. Battle passes are a strange transaction where developers ask player to pay them to hold the players interest. Imagine playing basket ball and half way though the game the referee holds out his palm and you hand him $15, at which point the ball changes colors and a meter begins to fill with bright sparks and whizzles. The game hasn't changed functionally, it's just added some colorful elements to make you feel like your progressing down a (meaningless) track.

If I'm losing interest in a game, I'm going to just stop playing the game.

I kind of want to play sparkle-whizzle-ball now.

 

[Endyo]

Battle Passes are a decent idea if you're really into a game, but I think some of them require far too big of a commitment to be completed. I get the idea of making it worthwhile and having it continue as long as even the most hardcore fans need it to be, but for everyone else you're stuck getting half way through. It sucks to pay for something you can't access if you don't put all the free time you have into the game.

I'd rather have battle passes that require only moderate time commitments to finish the whole thing, but still give a a small bonus if you continue beyond that. The whole purpose is to incentivize people to play - which is why the model even has a lot of free versions now. It does a good job with that. I just don't want to pay $10 for something that I may only get $3 worth of content from because I couldn't dedicate every weekend to the game.

 

[Zloth]

If I'm losing interest in a game, I'm going to just stop playing the game.

And, when you do, you'll stop paying. Meanwhile, the folks that are having a lot of fun with it, will pay more and get more for it. Everybody's happy!

 

[SquireZed]

Whether I invest in battle passes depends on whether I think I actually want to play that game this much. The last one I purchased was for PSO2 NA when it launched on the Microsoft Store. It was great because I already knew I was going to grind up to a decently high level, having played on the JP servers, and the "premium" tier was available through in-game currency grants (and paid for itself if you finished it). So, I guess that doesn't really count as buying because I didn't spend real world currency on it, but I thought it was worth it. I think ultimately it really is game dependent. A badly done battle pass can sour me on a game entirely- Breakpoint's "battle pass" at launch immediately turned me off when I realized I would need to grind 30-40 hours over several weeks doing all the daily objectives to even come close to finishing it, and quite frankly at launch it wasn't close to being worth that time investment. The problem with a season/battle pass is that it tends to rely on FOMO, and if it's done poorly it can just embitter me towards the game's economy now that I want games to respect my time a bit more. The most jarring example, though this isn't a paid one, is Fall Guys' pass right now. Considering that the currency grind is pretty slow for the game in general, being one of the faster ways to earn unlocks should make it appealing, but when you have currency grants that are less than 50% of an item I might actually want it makes it feel laden with filler.