A lot of interviews have been released since the announcement of the closed beta. One highly discussed topic: microtransactions and post-launch content. We were almost sure about that Tom Clancy’s The Division will offer at least some sort of microtransaction system, but according to Magnus Jansén, Creative Director at Ubisoft Massive, there won’t be any microtransactions in the game, while post-launch content (free and paid) is already planned.
This leads to some confusion as video creators have already mentioned – based on their 1:1 conversations with developers – that the game will only offer cosmetic microtransactions and nothing else. However the Creative Director said something completely different in interviews with sites like IGN, GameSpot and VG247, namely that there won’t be any.
So we can’t definitely say what’s the case now, but an interesting video released by GameStar (German-speaking) tells us more about it, if we can believe the editor who’s speaking. According to him, he received the same answer as the YouTubers during his playtest-session – that there will be cosmetic microtransactions. But on the next day, as he interviewed the Creative Director directly, he said no to microtransactions.
This now brings us to the important point of this whole story, because during his interview with Magnus Jansén, one of the other developers asked Magnus something like “hey, the game will not have microtransactions, right?” and he confirmed this again.
“No” to Microtransactions?
The list of possible microtransactions in The Division could be endless, starting from time-saving packs to new items or only cosmetic stuff, but according to aforementioned interviews with Creative Director Magnus Jansén, they have looked into it but decided to not implement them at all.
In the VG247 interview for example he answered a “And is there any microtransactions in the game?” question with
It’s one of the things that we looked at because if people like the game and want to purchase extra things I don’t mind that. But microtransactions, as it’s defined, we do not have them. You cannot spend a little bit of money and fast-track to get better gear or pay to win or vanity items. We do not have that. The short answer is no, we don’t have microtransactions, period.
We will have DLC. We don’t have it yet because we’re just barely finishing the game. I just don’t want anyone to say that when we announce the DLC, “you said [no microtransactions]Magnus Jansén, Creative Director @ VG247
We personally wouldn’t have a problem with microtransactions for cosmetic items (vanity items), because players could simply decide on their own whether they want to buy them or not.
Post-Launch Content
Meanwhile post-launch content has been confirmed in an interview with IGN and GameSpot, saying that there will be downloadable content you have to pay for, but also free stuff that will be released every now and then.
An online game isn’t done on release day. We’ve been working on this game for quite a while, and we’re very happy to release it, but our work is not done then. We’re gonna kick [the post-launch] off with a couple of free updates, new content and new features, and down the line we’ll have normal DLC as well.Magnus Jansén, Creative Director @ IGN
Moreover he stated that
all the investment is showing up in this game. We’re not holding anything back.Magnus Jansén, Creative Director @ GameSpot
