These days, loot boxes and microtransactions are seemingly everywhere and everyone has an opinion. PCGamer recently interviewed CD Projekt RED’s co-founder Marcin Iwinski regarding his stance on the recent loot box controversy. He had some choice words on the subject that reflect his company’s philosophy:
“If you buy a full priced game, you should get a big, polished piece of content, which gives you many, many hours of fun gameplay,” explains Iwinski. “The definition of ‘many’ may vary on a title-by-title basis, but in our case it was always 50-60+ hours of the main story-line, with a couple of hundred hours of side activities — if you really wanted to max out the title. To me, this is a fair deal. You get what you paid for, plus we are always trying our best to overdeliver. There is no better PR than a happy gamer recommending your title to their friends.” said Iwinski to PCGamer.
CD Projekt RED’s previous game, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, was praised by gamers and critics alike for, as Iwinski described, overdelivering on content with hundreds of hours of side quests and a long and engrossing main story. The game’s two expansions, Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine, added even more content. Speaking of expansions, Iwinski proclaims his company views expansions and DLC in two very different lights. “What we call Expansions… [are] meaningful [pieces] of content delivering many hours of new story and gameplay. Finally, there are the DLCs…they’re small pieces of content which should be available for free.”
“The moment [gamers] feel you are reaching out for their wallet in any unfair way, they will be vocal about it,” concludes Iwinski. “And — frankly speaking — I think it’s good for the industry. Things often look great from a spreadsheet perspective, but decision makers often aren’t asking themselves the question of ‘How would gamers feel, or is this offer a fair one?’ Gamers are striking back, and I really hope this will change our industry for the better.”
