Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics introduced paid XP boosts in Marvel's Avengers less than a month ago, and now the feature is being removed, presumably for good. The development team faced severe backlash after seemingly breaking its promise of not adding paid items that affect gameplay, to the point where they issued a statement on Reddit saying targeted harassment and threats would not be tolerated, no matter how upset the fan base was.
"We apologize for not responding sooner to your concerns about paid consumables in the marketplace," Crystal Dynamics said in the announcement.
The next sentence offered a rationale for why it happened in the first place.
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Marvel's Avengers Paid XP Boosts Are No Longer a Thing
"We introduced them as an option for an evolving playerbase and did not see them as pay-to-win since they don't offer power directly."
Crystal Dynamics said that starting today, November 2, Hero's Fragments and Fragment Extractors will only be given out as earned items again, though any previously purchased Fragments and Extractors remain usable.
"We hope that this can be the first step in rebuilding your confidence in us as a team," the dev team said at the end of the statement.
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