Moonbreaker ditches MTX contracts system following complaints

pcgamesn.com:

Tabletop game Moonbreaker is about collecting, painting, and battling teams of fanciful sci-fi figurines, but since its Early Access launch last week, it’s taken some flak for its boss rush mode, Cargo Run. Currently, you have to spend one ‘contract’ from the in-game store to embark on a Cargo Run mode, but Unknown Worlds says it’s ditching that system so players can use the PvE mode as much as they want.

Cargo Run pits you against five increasingly challenging AI-controlled bosses, and it’s the only way to earn seasonal XP in Moonbreaker that isn’t head-to-head PvP. Right now, you have to spend a contract in order to play. The Moonbreaker shop gives you one free contract per day, but after that, you’ll have to spend other in-game currencies in order to buy one.

As in many games, there are two of these in Moonbreaker: there are blanks, which are earned as rewards for successful Cargo Run matches and on the season track. Then there are pulsars, which you buy for real-world money. These come in packs of 75 for $4.99 USD, and with one contract going for 25 pulsars, is works out to about $1.66 per Cargo Run attempt (if you don’t want to use blanks).

This hasn’t sat well with some players, who have complained about the presence of a microtransaction-gated game mode in an Early Access game on its Steam forums. Game director Charlie Cleveland has announced that the team is dropping the contract requirement for Cargo Run, and offered an apology.

“Heads-up: we’re removing Cargo Run contracts completely,” Cleveland says via Twitter. “So you can play unlimited amounts. Sorry about that. Thanks for standing by us as we learn how to run a live-service game.”

Cleveland says players can expect this update “early next week.”