'%20x='0'%20y='0'%20height='100%25'%20width='100%25'%20%0A%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20xlink%3Ahref='data:image/jpg;base64,/9j/2wBDAAYEBQYFBAYGBQYHBwYIChAKCgkJChQODwwQFxQYGBcUFhYaHSUfGhsjHBYWICwgIyYnKSopGR8tMC0oMCUoKSj/2wBDAQcHBwoIChMKChMoGhYaKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCgoKCj/wgARCAAGAAoDASIAAhEBAxEB/8QAFgABAQEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUH/8QAFAEBAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA//aAAwDAQACEAMQAAAAxucKX//EACAQAAEDBAIDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAECAxEABBIhBQYTIkH/2gAIAQEAAT8As1de8cKa5PPD22iDrdPnjlPOFlFyGio4BShMfJr/xAAUEQEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA/9oACAECAQE/AH//xAAWEQEBAQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABACH/2gAIAQMBAT8AHb//2Q=='%3E%3C/image%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Once Human just released its newest gacha event, the Pyro Glide Lightforge Crate, and the pricing is ridiculous. The overwhelming sentiment from the community on platforms like Reddit and Twitter has been negative regarding the high price of these items. Some have retorted that this sort of practice is acceptable because the game is free-to-play and the items are purely cosmetic.
Once Human is an open-world survival-craft MMO developed by Starry Studio and Netease. The game has players adventure through an expansive post-apocalyptic world where they can fight monsters, gather materials, and build a home base. There are also vehicles like cars and motorcycles in Once Human that players can pilot and collect skins.
In this article, we're going to examine the pricing of the newly released gacha lootcrate and learn why players are upset.
Trending
Once Human's gacha lootcrate pricing casts a concerning blot on an otherwise clean sheet
The new Once Human Pyro Glide lootcrate event has highlighted a few things about the game's monetization tactics. This game is free-to-play, so microtransactions are inevitable, but how fairly developers price those is not so easy to assume.
Some popular games like Azur Lane, Deep Rock Galactic, and Helldivers 2 have been praised for their fair monetization despite microtransactions. The 'fairness' of this pricing often doesn't revolve around whether there are in-game purchases, but whether they seem consumer-friendly or predatory.
Helldivers 2 has many different battle passes, but they can be purchased with earnable in-game currency and don't expire when a new one is released. Deep Rock Galactic offers purchasable supporter skin packs while leaving all battle passes for free. Azur Lane charges players for purchasing cosmetic skins, but otherwise almost entirely leaves its character gacha to be free-to-play.
So with this in mind, it begs the question of what separates Once Human from other games whose monetization is similar.
Once Human's Crystgin pricing is insidiously predatory
In Once Human buying anything with real money requires converting your real-life currency to Crystgin, the in-game premium currency. However, you may have noticed that the conversion rates are confusing, to say the least. Below are the pricing options (in USD) for buying Crystgin in-game:
At first glance, these numbers probably don't seem problematic, but when you compare them to the cost of rolling on crates, you'll start to see the issue.
To do one full-price ten rolls (a term used in gacha to refer to a higher price pull that gives ten results, usually at better cost-effectiveness) you need 1600 Crystgin. Now let's look at the price table again and how to obtain 1600 Crystgin. You can buy a 2280 Crystgin pack for $29.99 or a combination of the three packs below that price point.
It's important to note that none of these packs, even if added together, equate in any exact way to 1600 Crystgin.
Let's compare Once Human's Crystgin pricing to a game that has received plenty of backlash for its monetization, Goddess of Victory: Nikke. The following are the pricing options, in USD, for the aforementioned gacha game's premium currency, Gems:
As mentioned before, Nikke is no stranger to monetization controversy. It not only has a character gacha, but also cycles premium battle passes. It also has a paid in-game item shop, and both $20 skins and a gacha skin system. Yet even this game offers its players the option to buy the exact currency amount of a ten pull of its gacha, 3000 Gems, via two of the $19.99 options.
On top of all this, players quickly figured out that it would cost around $300 to guarantee all the skins from this crate. This works through what is commonly referred to as a "pity system" wherein players are guaranteed drops after a certain number of gacha pulls.
In Once Human, you are guaranteed to receive one of the five Lightforge collection items after every 30 pulls, without the possibility of duplicates. This means, assuming you're unlucky, given heavily weighted probabilities, you'll need to pay for 150 pulls to get all five Lightforge items.
The best rate at which you can get this is through the $29.99 Crystgin pack, which gives 14 pulls (2280/160 = 14.25). This would mean you'd need to buy 10 of these packs, except that this will only give you 22800 Crystgin.
To get all 150 pulls you'll presumably need slightly less than 23200 Crystgin considering the first 10 pull discount. However, we can't say for sure how much you'll need exactly as this will differ based on how many duplicate roll tokens you receive.
You may very well end up needing somewhere in the range of 400 more Crystgin which can, at the cheapest, be bought via one $4.99 pack and two $0.99 packs. Because of course, there's no 400 pack.
It's very important for anyone reading this to take a moment and look at all the math I just had to lay out to explain how to gamble in Once Human. Why, one could ask themselves, has Netease chosen the most obtuse and confusing amounts conceivable for their currency system?
Of course, I can't say with any certainty because I don't work for Netease, but I'd wager this system could easily confuse you into spending more than you intended. However, I'm sure there's a reason that Netease chose to implement the in-game equivalent of casinos not having clocks so gamblers lose track of time.
Knowing all this should then explain why the pricing of Crystgin is so ridiculous. Why should players be expected to accept that a game that isn't gacha at its core and has predatory pricing than most gacha games?
The games Warhammer 40,000: Darktide and Last Epoch were forced to tweak their premium currency prices after facing similar backlash. Last Epoch's developers even made a public statement reading:
“Admittedly, we ended up leaning too hard into following the established and successful models in the industry... When we were evaluating our options, we leaned on advice designed around previous titles, and that was a mistake.”
This came after they had their premium currency purchasing options listed at amounts that could not equate to the cost of their cosmetics.
The developers of Darktide also updated their shop to have more fair equivalents for their Aquila premium currency, stating:
"We forgot to add one of the bundles. The idea was always to be 1:1. We realized a bit too late that one of the bundles wasn't in. It takes a bit of time to get it approved and stuff like that. But we for sure need to improve that, and we hear people. We got that one wrong, and we need to rectify that to make sure people don't have that friction at all."
However, the fanbase was understandably skeptical that this was a mistake and not a convenient cover for an attempt at pushing monetization boundaries.
This is not the first time that players have dealt with non-gacha games exhibiting unfair and predatory monetization tactics that encroach past what even gachas do. The question is whether the playerbase of Once Human will be receptive to this pricing or if the developers will be forced to make changes.
Check out our other guides on Once Human:
- All Gold Mods in Once Human, and where to get them
- 5 beginner tips for Once Human
- Once Human Mobile release date
- Once Human Dayton hospital crate locations and puzzle
- Once Human weapons tier list
- All active Once Human Redeem Codes
