Marvel Rivals’ ongoing anniversary event celebration brings generous giveaways for all players, including 2,500 Units, free cosmetics, and a bizarre gacha mechanic that no one saw coming.
The latest Van Dyne fashion store recently opened on Times Square, offering a selection of fancy cosmetics for Rivals’ roster of iconic heroes. One skin, the Daring Daifuku Psylocke, can only be acquired using the good ol’ gacha mechanics, and it feels like a slippery slope of what’s to come for NetEase’s competitive hero shooter.
There’s no denying that Marvel Rivals’ cosmetics are so profitable. They earned NetEase and Marvel Games a whopping $135 million in revenue during the game’s first month alone. Since then, NetEase has been hard at work producing new cosmetics for every season, with prices from $10 to $20. Of course, these cosmetics are usually tied to character popularity, with Luna Snow, Emma Frost, and Invisible Woman getting more skins than the rest.
For the first time in the game’s history, the Psylocke skin’s exclusive gacha mechanic feels like NetEase is heading in a direction they are usually known for in their mobile games, like Identity V, Where Winds Meet, and Destiny: Rising. Who knows? A few months from now, store-exclusive skins for heroes like Spider-Man might be locked behind a gacha system, milking their consumers dry until they get the best pull.
The Psylocke skin isn’t the only gacha mechanic around. Unlocking Jeff the Land Shark’s “Business Shark” outfit requires players to participate in “Jeff’s Break Time,” which takes gacha literally, as players need to spend unlocked coins in a vending machine to claim their rewards. It isn’t as direct as that of the Psylocke Daring Daifuku skin, but it feels like a template for future content, and I don’t like it.
Marvel Rivals is a hero-shooter game first. Everyone knows that hero balance and matchmaking are essential to keep players from coming back. NetEase is aware of this and is actively working to improve the game every season.
FOMO is already a thing in Marvel Rivals. Yes, while NetEase is generous with its ‘no-expiration Battle Passes,’ players who did not purchase one can no longer acquire the rewards from it. Seasonal skins also come and go, and those who missed out on buying them will have to wait before they appear in the shop again.
Personally, the added gacha mechanics feel cheap for NetEase. I just want to get my skins and cosmetics directly from the in-game store. Players are already aware of how much a skin normally costs, but adding gacha elements to it only emboldens players with bad spending habits. Worse, children play this game, and they might be susceptible to its increasingly demanding cosmetic unlocks. We don’t want news of kids stealing their mom’s credit cards.
This doesn’t look too bad as of yet, since most of the skins are purely cosmetic. Marvel Rivals has no pay-to-win mechanics, which is a good thing. However, this business model’s slow creep into the Marvel Rivals monetization isn’t looking good.
It’s a good thing NetEase takes feedback seriously, and hopefully, the gacha mechanics are just a one-time thing for the game. Otherwise, we will be staring at S or A-rank pulls for Captain America skins.
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