Gears 5 Developer Calls Its Microtransactions "Player-Friendly"

As with any major video game coming out these days, one major avenue of discussion surrounding The Coalition's Gears 5 is exactly what its microtransactions will look like. While it's been said previously that the game won't feature traditional "loot box" mechanics, Gears 5 does still have additional monetization beyond the cost of the game itself -- because of course it does. That said, one developer went so far as to call the game's monetization "player-friendly."

The Coalition's Ryan Cleven, who serves as multiplayer design director for Gears 5, confirmed once again at Gamescom 2019 that there will be no loot boxes in the game. It does, however, have an in-game store where folks can spend actual money for digital currency, which can then be used to buy cosmetic items. This is in addition to unlockable customization options and other methods of gaining digital odds and ends within the game itself.

According to GamesIndustry.biz, Cleven called this "a very player-centric, player-friendly way of doing customization and monetization."

"We really think we're ahead of the industry here in getting rid of loot boxes and making sure that we can both service people that are looking to accelerate their progression or earn cosmetics using money but also keeping the integrity of the game experience," he added.

Cleven also said that the manner in which Gears 5 does monetization wasn't actually impacted by the recent legal troubles for loot box mechanics. Instead, it's merely a reinforcement of how Gears of War 4 operated.

"We were sort of reading the tea leaves, I guess," he said, "and we were one of the earliest to adopt card packs inside our game. We thought we'd done it quite elegantly in Gears 4 -- some people liked it, some people didn't. [...] We put the challenge to ourselves: can we still provide purchasable things to players that want to purchase and still have the rest of the players really enjoy the system? That was a challenge we set right from the beginning of Gears 5."

What do you think of how The Coalition is describing the game's monetization here? Does it make you more or less interested in picking up Gears 5? Let us know in the comments, or hit me up directly on Twitter at @rollinbishop to talk all things gaming!

Gears 5 is set to release for Xbox One and PC on September 10th. You can check out all of our coverage of the latest and greatest in the Gears franchise right here.