Plants Vs. Zombies Microtransactions Pricing

As revealed on Monday, EA is adding in microtransactions to the cooperative shooter Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare. PopCap’s third-person followup to the best-selling undead-killing tower defense series will now give players a choice to buy coin packs on both Xbox One and Xbox 360, giving gamers a chance to get their hands on some of the more obscure items available in sticker packs.

The controversial addition was not an unexpected one, given that many players and critics - include us - quickly discovered that the game's economy was design with selling goods in mind. Players can purchase the in-game currency directly from the Sticker Store and the good news is that even the smallest coin bundles can buy plenty of the cheaper sticker sets, such as the Reinforcement Pack, whilst the $9.99 option can get a player a massive advantage — worth stacks of the Spectacular Character Packs, and with change to boot.

Cue the concerns for pay-to-win on character upgrades and the the issue over selling games for a retail price and double-dipping consumers for them to access the game's content at a faster rate. The details of the bundles, as posted in an update by EA, are as follows:

Pack #

Coins Awarded

$USD Price

1

13,500

$0.99

2

30,000

$1.99

3

85,000

$4.99

4

200,000

$9.99

EA have stated that “we see our players having a great time within the game and want to give them and any new players a greater degree of choice with how they want to play.” The microtransactions will not allow players to buy any Plants Vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare content that is not already available in the main game, or the Garden Variety or free Zomboss Down DLC, and that “all packs and content in the game can be earned by playing through the maps and modes.”

That said, the purchase of PvZ coin bundles is bound to speed up advancement in-game, particularly against players who don’t want to buy one of the packs. We mentioned in our review that the game seemed designed with microtransactions in mind, with PvZ coins allowing for greater customization options, buffs for characters, and consumables for game modes. With the game already so multiplayer focused, lacking a single-player option, will the competitive game modes mean players are more likely to get a coin pack to give them an edge?

What do you think of the microtransactions? Are you likely to use them? Although new, free content is being added to Plants Vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare, will the addition of coin purchases skew the dynamics of the game?

Plants Vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare is currently available on Xbox One and Xbox 360, and is set for release on PC on June 24, 2014.

Source: EA