It wouldn't be a huge stretch to say Dragon's Dogma 2 is having a rough launch. It's certainly not on the level of Cyberpunk 2077, but certain players are taking issue with the game's microtransaction strategy, which has led to a review bombing campaign previously discussed at BoingBoing. Despite this backlash, however, the sweeping fantasy epic managed to accrue over 200,000 concurrent players on Steam, making it one of Capcom's strongest launches yet, up there with the Resident Evil 4 remake.
As someone who loved the first game and is currently loving the second, I personally think the microtransactions are being blown out of proportion. Rather than the likes of Diablo, where exclusive cosmetics or weapons are locked behind truly ridiculous prices, the microtransactions in Dragon's Dogma 2 are solely consumable items that you can find without much effort for free in the game itself. Someone in Capcom's c-suite is patting himself on the back, and actual non-whale players won't even notice that buying these things is an option. Capcom's microtransaction setup seems to be a publisher requirement, as it's seen in every single one of their recent games (Resident Evil 4 included) – undesirable though microtransactions in any game may be, they're still unobtrusive enough to be ignored entirely.
Also, Dragon's Dogma 1 had them too. Twelve years ago.
