Well, never thought I’d say this, but even I find it hard to not be disappointed. Not only I was basically spot on in most things I said to the overly-pompous pseudo community cheerio post back in '20, but FS also outdid themselves and added this and the crafting thing to this list:
Bravo. Something to excel at. This is peak gypsy sнit.
I honestly don’t feel like such an a-hole now about the concerns about the currency. I still think they’ll offer it as a way to speed up the crafting process. The skins are very expensive and as OP noted the little FOMO timer is the worst kind of shithousery. Halo Infinite did this before having content and its playerbase TANKED in weeks.
Also FatShark I noticed the game had been given out to loads of streamers and some had even been payed to play the game. Ones that seemed disinterested at best and utterly confused by it at worst. If you think these people are going to garner you more support I think you’re horribly mistaken.
I guess they’re taking a leaf out of Escape From Tarkov book - around new '20 I think it was when every streamer and their dog was playing EFT. Some of that was actually hilarious when the clash between the so-called gameplay and the personality of the player was particularly prominent, but damn if it wasn’t the YT/Twitch hit. Every gamedev’s wet dream really - get lots of money, no refunds, and never actually release the game 
My friends and I would always joke about Tarkov having “streamer loot” because they’d always get so lucky in raids.
I think the streamers/early access reviewers received free cosmetics too. Can’t really make it up. I’ve only seen one guy on youtube properly slate FatShark over this. Bought and paid for the rest presumably!
I simply refuse to support such scummy tactics like this, especially coming from a 40 euro game that still has so many technical issues, and I’m even willing to ignore things like bad balance and the like.
Left a negative review with a link to this thread, and I’ll be bumping this one for visibility often even if they ban me off the forums for it.
fatshark, don’t don’t like you anymore.
This is some EA level bulls**t.
I think refusing to support is a good staring point.
Take a look at my post in here:
This was a few hours before the release started.
But i am more impressed to the following 2 posts after my post and how fast this was. 1 is from a i guess moderator of this forum.
I want it to be clear, I negativly reviewed this game, and you should too.
It has all the classic features as well, and compared to the cash-shop from Vermintide 2 it’s a downgrade.
Buy unique resource, spend unique resource. Makes you not think of money.
Timer to make sure that there’s some Fear of Missing Out in the mix.
Some of the cosmetics apparently cost almost as much as the damn game itself. How is that possible?!
And on top of all this, you decide to not bother finishing the crafting system and the game now runs even worse than it did during the Pre-order Beta. Holy hell, Fatshark. Get a grip.
I wish they put the same level of effort into making the game actually function at an acceptable level that they do into setting up predatory mtx mechanisms. It runs worse on launch day than it did in beta, has missing content and features, but lo and behold, the functionality of their financial strip mining system is the most polished and functional part of the game. Even if I did want to engage with the mtx storefront, I won’t be throwing so much as as another penny at this game until they actually address and resolve the myriad performance and stability issues.
yeah this is bad. At least in VT2 you just bought the outfits straight up as opposed to being forced to buy more of the currency than you need.
The timer is also disgusting. This entire thing is so predatory. I won’t be buying anything here out of principle - and I’m pretty sure I bought almost every outfit for the classes I played in VT2.
It is really bad. This is psychological manipulation.
I know other games/ companies/ … do this too, but, looking at VT2, I hoped Fatshark will do better, but sadly no.
(Also, just because every else does it, makes it NOT better, especially if it is a bad thing.)
They added, without reason or gain for the players (again THERE IS NO GAIN for US here), several dark patterns:
This means people are tricked and pressured into buying stuff, either because “it is just now available” or because the want to “spend all ther Aquilas”. All the while obscuring the spendings one does.
It is just a despicable move, which could largely alleviated if they had done the same as in VT2 - using real money to buy stuff. Why, just why, FS?
Ah, I get it, you really learned form VT1 and VT2, yes? You learned what is the worst way to do it, shame. Really.
I did refund it the moment I saw this.
What has changed since this, Fatshark? Why switch away to this nickle-and-dime currency pack nonsense now?
I got Darktide as a gift, but otherwise I would refund, too.
So I am in the nice spot of able to play the game and still criticise it 
No, joking aside, it is really bad, that they go this way.
More so because it is without need or reason.
They did quite great with VT2, why the change of heart? At least I know that I will not buy DT2.
Vote with your wallet. Do not buy these MTX.
I don’t have anything productive to add to this discussion other than some ramblings, so apologizes in advance if that irritates you; but did they seriously make the skin shop from Vermintide 2 worse by introducing a timer? Don’t get me wrong, the skins from that game were overpriced, for example $60 for a skin pack:
The industry has kind of normalized the cost for this type of content. $1.99-4.99 - see:
Then there’s League of Legends where their prices for cosmetics is mostly within a reasonable range for customers (I haven’t played League in a decade now so I’m not sure if that’s still true); that game is a leading leader within the Free to Play market space. So if you’re somehow pricing content that is somehow worse than a Free to Play title then something isn’t right. Additionally, with these skin packs, the real value* comes from bundling all that content up then selling it at the added price of it all being together. However, the consumer still has freedom to pick and choose what they want. In Vermintide 2 you pay twice the amount of these competitors for a singular skin. Which is fine I guess but you’re then paying the price of a triple a title for four skins. That’s not good value there.
Anyways, I didn’t think Fatshark would further disappoint me with their monetization policies. Overpriced skins is one thing, but adding a timer on top of using manipulative marketing of missing out to get people to spend money on this type of content, is simply ludicrous. At the bare minimum give the consumer the ability to pick and choose rather then missing out on a skin they wanted.
I’m astonished on how this developer is doing everything in its power to sabotage its own product for success. Performance has gotten worse for people but priorities are focused on a cash shop? Which most people won’t even bother with since Darktide has just released and reasonable people don’t dump money on a cash shop this early. Usually these type of nefarious tactics are reserved for those who’ll dump thousands of hours in the game. In other words you implement a cash shop like this later down the game’s life. Not when people are having troubles running your game. We don’t even know what numbers will look like for Darktide after first month.
value* it’s not really good value because when bundled the total cost is over hundreds of dollars, but hey, at least the individual pricing of each item is reasonable, lol.
Tencent I want to say, but they said Tencent has no hold over FS (albeit having the majority of them), so why is it? Cash is cash at the end of the day, but one way is malicious and nasty and the other brave and competent.
One way is psychological manipulation, the other transparent and welcoming.
I do not get it.