Summary

• Starfield's latest update introduces a Trackers Alliance mission that's only accessible via microtransaction.
• Players feel disrespected by having to pay extra for additional content in a game they've already bought.
• The introduction of pay-per-mission content sets a negative precedent for the gaming industry.

The latest Starfield update, revealed alongside the Shattered Space DLC during Summer Game Fest, includes a fair bit of new content. From new missions to entire new planets, players will find they have a lot more to do in the Settled Systems after installing the new update.

But some of it comes at a cost. The update also introduced Starfield's take on the Creation Club, an in-game digital marketplace for ing custom content. This has been a long-standing staple of Bethesda's game design, and isn't all bad; it does provide opportunities to compensate modders for their hard work, and for console players to use mods they might not otherwise be able to access. But many Bethesda-made Creation Club s require payment, dealing only in virtual currency. And this newest iteration of the Creation Club has taken these microtransactions to new heights, leading to a spate of review bombing on Starfield's Steam page.

Starfield's Latest Update Includes A Microtransaction Mission

Players Shouldn't Have To Pay Extra For Trackers Alliance Bounties

Most of the stuff on Starfield's Creation Club is bog-standard custom content: silly little armor skins, fun-themed ship modules, guns that shoot potatoes, whatever. But look a little closer, and there's something much more sinister: Starfield makes players pay to unlock an exclusive Trackers Alliance bounty. The mission, called "The Vulture," is available on the Creations marketplace for 700 credits. But credits can only be purchased in predetermined amounts, and the smallest bundle that would still allow players to purchase "The Vulture" includes 1,000 credits for $9.99 USD.

Now, it's worth noting that there's one free Trackers Alliance mission and a series of radiant bounties included in the update; it's just "The Vulture" that costs extra money. But that could change soon. In a YouTube video outlining the changes coming in Starfield's June update, lead creative producer Tim Lamb explained, "We are periodically planning on adding new Trackers Alliance missions via the Creations platform." It's not immediately obvious whether there'll be any further free missions, but the message is clear: future Trackers Alliance quests will be pay-to-play.

And it's not like an individual quest is equivalent to a slice of DLC. The bounty doesn't offer anything unique; it's a simple, quick fetch quest like almost every other mission in the base game. Even then, players get far less bang for their seven bucks with "The Vulture." The last major DLC released for a Bethesda RPG, Fallout 4's Nuka-World, provides about 15 hours of content at $19.99. To be worth the price of ission, "The Vulture," at about a third of the price, should offer about a third of the playtime, roughly five hours of gameplay. Players have reported various completion times for the bounty, ranging from 15 to 40 minutes, but none of them even come close.

Microtransactions have been around for a while, but paying per mission is a new concept. Starfield is effectively locking story content behind a $7 paywall. It's one thing to charge extra for an optional side story (i.e., DLC) or a cosmetic item that doesn't impact gameplay. It's another entirely to charge extra for the continuation of a Starfield faction quest line that begins in the base game. Starfield already costs $70, and should come complete-in-box. Nickel-and-diming for scraps of extra content is disrespectful to consumers who have already bought the game at a and downright greedy, says Reddit Kakapac.

Bethesda's Microtransactions Betray A Slippery Slope

From Oblivion's Horse Armor To Starfield's Bounties

Bethesda has a long, uncomfortable history with microtransactions, and their prevalence has only increased over the years. It all began with Oblivion's Horse Armor DLC, way back in 2006. Bethesda charged $2.50 for a DLC that allowed players to purchase and equip armor for their in-game horses. Once equipped, the armor would give a horse additional HP, but it was otherwise mostly cosmetic. The DLC was widely criticized on release, especially after cut content was found to suggest horse armor was originally intended to be part of the base game.

Horse Armor seemed like a bizarre misstep at the time, but the practice of paying real-world money for video game cosmetics is now ubiquitous. Buyable skins are the bread and butter of live-service games. Players are forced to buy "bundles" of virtual currency, in amounts that somehow always seem to exceed the cost of one item, but come just short of the cost of two. It's not entirely Oblivion's fault, but as one of the first games to introduce such a practice, it shares a lot of the blame. Most of Bethesda's RPGs since have introduced a similar mechanic - the Creation Clubs of Skyrim and Fallout 4. These included both cosmetic items like weapons and armor, and entirely different gameplay options like Skyrim's Survival Mode.

Much of Skyrim's paid Creation Club content was eventually included for free in the Anniversary Edition, but players must pay $9.99 to this version.

If paid Trackers Alliance missions inspire a similar trend in other games, the problem is bound to get much worse. The games-as-a-service model has expanded: many games today are free-to-play, but provide better rewards for players who agree to pay a monthly fee for a Battle . Even Fallout 76 is guilty of this, with its Fallout 1st program. Given these trends and Starfield's latest microtransactions, it's not hard to imagine a future in which entire games are released in pay-per-mission structures, perhaps requiring players to pay separately for each faction they want to . This disincentivizes any attempt at making a good, complete game, instead pressuring developers to use cheap tricks that manipulate players into draining their wallets.

The new Trackers Alliance missions may be an irresponsible misstep, but they don't have to go the way of Horse Armor. Some, like shatter71 in the comments of the Reddit post above, are already vowing to voice their opposition by refusing to spend money on Creations. Their hope is that, if Starfield's first foray into paid missions is a failed experiment, it'll never repeat the mistake again.

Source: Bethesda Softworks/YouTube, Kakapac/Reddit