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Payday 2's New Microtransactions Are The Only Way To Unlock Cosmetic, Stat-Boosting Items
Payday 2 is the latest game to join Steam’s lucrative, player-driven economy. Overkill has announced that today’s Black Market update for the $19.99 game introduces loot drop safes that can only be opened by using an item purchased with real money.
As you play, you might earn yourself one of two different types of safes at the end of a match. If so, you can purchase a drill for $2.49 and open it for an item. As of now, there is no way to earn drills by playing.
These include weapon skins, some of which might have a special mod or a stat boost. Skins and drills can be bought and sold on the Steam Marketplace.
As of writing, Payday 2 is not listed in the Steam marketplace for item transactions. When it does, it will join Team Fortress 2, Dota 2, H1Z1, Warframe, and 13 other titles that offer this kind of integration. In the future, Overkill plans to also enable the community to create weapon skins via Steam’s Workshop platform.
Payday 2 was released in August 2013. Since then, it has received more than 30 content updates. Some of those have introduced free characters and heists.
Our Take
Cosmetic items aren't the most nefarious form of microtransactions, but the addition of stat boosts with the random element makes this an unfortunate development. Overkill has done a great job supporting Payday 2 on PC (the console versions have some problems), but this might do some damage to that community.
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