Konami, in its infinite gaming wisdom, has decided to micromanage in a way that would even make EA Games jealous of their “genius”. With the update released for Metal Gear Solid Online, Konami has instituted an online insurance policy where players can now pay real world cash in the event their base is decimated and all their soldiers and materials are stolen. However this new insurance policy does not work for nuclear weapons, so those thirty-plus hours you spent developing nukes are still going to be worth squat. I think this is a good plan for Konami because some idiots out there will actually put money down into it, and not realize you can actually cheat to get unlimited currency, supplies, and the best ranked soldiers. It’s a bit crass in the way of describing the situation, but allow me to break it down for you.

You’ve just spent forty-plus hours in Metal Gear Solid V working on your mother-base where all your soldiers are housed, and the moment you hit mission twenty-two all your resources and staff are now listed online. This means that all your existing offline resources are now able to be stolen by other players online. This will affect general game-play if you’re trying to go through the story and research weapons, items and other equipment for your characters.

The worst part is, even if you delete your saved game and try to start fresh, your account is still connected; all your resources will continue to pour into online mode. The only thing you would lose in this case is a second Forward Operating Base (FOB). So what Konami has done, knowing they have a cheating issue (where players can stealthily sneak into your base and steal your belongings and staff) is to now offer an insurance policy to help counter-act cheaters and other dishonest players.

Now for the most part this is good business, but also a very dirty tactic. There are some people new to the Metal Gear Solid experience, and this is not a nice way of handling the situation. Konami is even offering for real-world cash a way to fully upgrade your FOB. Now how is this a good thing for them? Well the more upgraded your FOB, the more resources you can produce to make offline playing easier. Now examining this, it goes to show that it’s just another way of saying: “Hey, I know you’re having a hard time playing the game, but if you give us some money we can make things easier for you.” This is interesting, coming from a company who just got out of the “triple-A” game industry and canceled all but one of their current projects. So you can expect that they are looking for any conceivable way to squeeze out as much money as they can for their last big title; by offering the most ridiculous micro-transaction to date.

-Daniel Clatworthy-

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