Payday 2's annual "Crimefest" event was supposed to be a free-to-play celebration of the popular cooperative shooter. So when this year's event required players to pay real money to unlock some random loot drops, many players weren't happy.

Last week, Starbreeze Studios (parent of Payday 2 developer Overkill Software) announced it was "join[ing] the Steam economy" with a "Black Market" update. That update introduced randomly dropped safes that required the purchase of a $2.49 drill to open up. Those safes contain new weapon skins, some of which come packed with special gameplay modifications and stat boosts, and all of which can be sold and traded through Steam's marketplace.

A popular Reddit thread titled "fuck you overkill" summed up the reaction to this move from many Payday 2 fans, with many commenters tagging the game with the dreaded "pay-to-win" label. "So I bought the game, bought all the DLC they kept rolling out, bought the optional extra to support the game during hype train so that we'd all get something for free," user Tobax wrote in the thread. "And now get told I have to buy 'drills' to unlock the microtransaction safes to get 'cosmetics' which insanely also gives stat bonuses... yeah thanks a lot."

Frustrated players also flooded Steam's user reviews with negative takes on the move. "Well what can I say. I got 1200h+ Hours played... But adding Stats to tradeable Skins is a way to even stop me from playing," Steam user Armin wrote.

Many users found the microtransaction move especially galling given Overkill producer Almit Listo's previous statements decrying the business model. "We've made it clear that Payday 2 will have no microtransactions whatsoever (shame on you if you thought otherwise!)" he wrote on the Steam forums two years ago when discussing pre-order bonuses for the then-upcoming game.

Now, nearly a week after the Black Market update, Starbreeze and Overkill seem to be responding to that fan outrage by walking back their plans a bit. The "Day 6 Crimefest" update makes drills part of the game's random loot drops, meaning players can get those weapon skins from safes through the course of normal gameplay. While drills can still be purchased directly and traded through Steam, there's now a way to access the sought-after items without shelling out real money.

That's a welcome sign from a developer that seems tuned in to the desires of its biggest fans. Even if we accept the fact that microtransactions have become entrenched in the business plan of practically every big-budget game, paying for that kind of content should always be considered optional for dedicated players. Whether that means that paid items are purely cosmetic or unlockable by spending enough time playing the game itself is up to the developer.