PlanetSide 2 'implants' scrapped over pay-to-win fears

Sony Online Entertainment has walked back plans to include purchasable Implants for PlanetSide 2, amidst a sea of negative player feedback.

Ozzie Mejia

July 18, 2013 12:00 PM

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"Pay-to-win" is one of the worst possible consequences of free-to-play games, which is why PlanetSide 2 players were in an uproar over the idea of purchasable "implants," which would have provided temporary benefits during battle.

Players were none too pleased.

Implants would have offered bonuses like health regeneration and protection against flash grenades. Many players expressed a deep concern that Implants would negatively affect game balance.

Having listened to player outrage, SOE President John Smedley took to Twitter today to publicly scrap the current course of action, saying "after reading through your comments we have decided to go back to the drawing board on implants."

However, Implants haven't been completely scrapped. While they will no longer be included in the upcoming GU13 update, they might pop up in another way.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?