It was announced last week that Halo Infinite’s cosmetics would be getting some reduced pricing. 343 Industries has heard the outcry from fans and starting, January 18, prices for cosmetics and microtransactions would be reduced in the in-game store.
The news was posted to Twitter by 343’s head of design Jerry Hook. He announced there would be other changes to the store besides price reductions, like “providing stronger values in our bundles, starting to put individual items outside of bundles, and more.”
I was excited to see that they will be splitting items from the bundles so each item can be purchased individually. I think this is a great addition because I bought the cat bundle a few weeks ago and I wasn’t happy with the armor coloring that came with it. I mainly wanted the cat ears but the gun charms were also good too. It’s good that they are going to give the player more ways to purchase stuff in the store.
Hook added, “We will be trying new things throughout the rest of the season so that we can continue to learn and improve for the future.”
It is heartening that the team at 343 are using this first season as a sort of beta period. It’s good that they are throwing somethings at the wall to see what sticks. It is a difficult balance for any team because the community wants everything for free but the dev team and their publisher want to try and make some money off of the whole endeavor.
Later in the replies to the tweet, a user mentioned that 343 wouldn’t need to lower prices if there were a free way to earn the currency used in the in-game store. Hook replied that the studio should be looking into doing both.
I have never felt that in-game cosmetics needed to be cheaper because they just aren’t that important to me. I have always played service based games with the idea that I am never going to have everything.
I was recently in the Halo Discord and this debate was raging. There were people speaking to both sides of the issue but it’s always hard to debate against the idea that everything should be free all the time.
I hope that 343 is able to keep tweaking things to keep people interested in their game. I have been having an awesome time with the game. Like most people, I have some issues but overall I have been having a lot of fun playing Halo again.