Konami Shamelessly Charges Metal Gear Survive Players $10 For A Second Save Game Slot
Somewhere out there, a gamer loudly proclaimed, "No game developer will ever come up with a worse save system than limiting them to checkpoints!" Then Kingdom Come: Deliverance came along with its drunken method. Perhaps seeing this as a challenge, Konami declared, "Hold my beer" and proceeded to trump them all with the save system in Metal Gear Survive, by combining additional save slots with microtransactions.
Yes folks, Konami took the two biggest points of frustrations among gamers—bad save systems and microtransactions—and mashed them together into a single, horrific method. How so? Well, in Metal Gear Survive gamers can have a maximum of four save files. However, only the first save slot is free. If you decide that you want to start over, you will have to use in-game currency called SV coins to purchase an additional save slot. Seriously.
Image Source: Resetera via hanmik
An extra save slot runs 1,000 SV, which is roughly $10 in real world currency. The game itself costs $40, so if you were to purchase all three additional save slots, you would have paid 75 percent of the cost of the game all over again, just for the privilege of having another character to play with.
Microtransactions are nothing new. In this case, you can purchase 100 SV coins for $0.99, 550 SV coins for $4.99, 1,150 SV coins for $9.99, 3,500 SV coins for $29.99, and 6,000 SV coins for $49.99. Metal Gear Survive awards a log-in bonus, but otherwise can't be earned by playing the game—you can only acquire them by making a purchase with real money. So, if you want more than one character in Metal Gear Survive, you have to pay the equivalent of 25 percent of the game's upfront cost.
Reactions so far have been mixed.
"Oh wow. not only did they completely lose a ton of good will by ousting Kojima now they're completely f***ing themselves by adding this. Nothing better than watching an out of touch company go down in flames," a user wrote on Reddit.
Another user wrote, "What's the difference in this an MMOs that make you pay for extra character slots for years now? Still don't like the practice but why the outrage now?"
Most of the reactions have been negative, though at least on Steam, the game's rating hasn't taken a hit. Out of 600 reviews, Metal Gear Solid is standing firm with an average "Mostly Positive" rating.