Developer Insight – Rarity & Monetization

Hunters,

We are back again to discuss a hot topic in any gaming community: monetization. With this post, we want to clarify our philosophy around monetization in Hunt: Showdown 1896 and provide transparency to how we have reached those decisions.

Ultimately, the key message we want you to take away is this: Our central goal with monetizing is to support live service operations, updates, and new content going forward.

We want to ensure our processes around monetization are fair and transparent, and we will discuss some instances where we missed the mark as well as some examples of successes. We acknowledge we do not always get it right on the first try, but it is important to us that you understand that the money you spend in-game funds all aspects of Hunt’s development and ongoing operations.

Base Game Sales

Earlier this year, we reduced the price of the base game globally—in some regions this reduction was as much as 30%. We made this decision to ensure Hunt was accessible and affordable, while also staying competitive in the market. The results from these adjustments have been positive, and we are confident this was the right call.

DLCs and Blood Bond Content

Our approach to premium content is that it should be optional for all players, rather than creating restrictions for those that choose not to buy.

We felt that putting a Blood Bond cost on basic features that influence the outcome of gameplay was unfair and posed restrictions on the player. As such, we have decided to remove all Blood Bond costs previously affiliated with such features, such as respec options for Traits and Health Chunks on Hunters.

By eliminating any 'forceful' spending options we also want to focus on the fact that Blood Bonds is a premium currency that is crucial to help continue fund the development of the game. As such, we have decided to cut Blood Bonds earned from the post-Mission accolades, while keeping some that can be still earned from Weekly Challenges through dedicated play.

One topic that came up with the launch of Update 2.0 was how Blood Bond content is displayed within your Gear Screen. We have taken steps in recent patches to make it clearer which Skins you own and provide some barrier in the form of a golden pop-up to reduce unintended purchases. We will continue to make improvements to these menus as we ship more updates. We in no way want people to purchase premium items by accident, as it’s a clear pain point and quickly becomes a customer service issue which is frustrating for you and costly for us.

Item Rarities and Future Availability

With Update 2.0, we introduced a new item rarity system to our premium cosmetics that is intended to reduce player confusion about content pricing, quality, and availability. To review, the new item rarities are as follows:

• Uncommon
  
• Rare
  
• Epic
  
• Legendary
  
• Mythic

One of our main goals with the rarity system was to establish a fairer pricing scheme by taking the visual complexity and the development costs of content into account. This also meant that we needed to revisit and adjust the pricing of premium content we have so far released in the past. As a result, we have reduced the price of a vast majority of premium items across the board, thus making them more accessible. To name a few, the Tainted Resin (New Army) skin had its price reduced from 900 to 200 Blood Bonds, whereas the Old Faithful (Romero 77) skin from 800 to 200. The Noose (Vetterli 71) skin is yet another great example that shows how basic design changes allow us to offer more accessible cosmetics, with its adjusted rarity now reflecting a more reasonable price (reduced from 900 to 300 Blood Bonds).

Item rarity is meant to reflect the level of which an item’s base model is changed through color, decoration, and/or theme. Uncommon items might have minor color changes or dressing, but a Legendary item should have strong model, theme, or color changes.

Mythic is slightly different, however, and is a level of rarity reserved for time-limited items only. This means it is only attributed to items that will not return after their availability window as part of Battle Passes or other special events.

We do have some seasonal items that return annually during holiday seasons, and for this reason seasonal items do not meet the criteria to be Mythic, despite being time-limited in their own seasons.

Rarity Corrections

When we first introduced item rarity, there were a few errors with some of the Skins announced. For example, within the Scorched Earth Battle Pass, we featured items that are part of a matching set but were given different levels of rarity: Thunderstroke (Epic), Covert Messenger (Legendary), and Shrewd Savior (Rare).

This variation was not intentional. These items were not available for individual sale, and the rarities have been updated along with several others. A full list of items that had their rarity updated was released as a part of the Update 2.1 Release Notes. We hope that item rarity can serve as a clear indication of pricing, quality, visual complexity, and availability going forward.

Thank you for your patience, support, feedback, and criticisms. We do not want to shy away from the monetization topic just because it is uncomfortable. We want to create a system that is fair and consistent to you, the player, and one that allows us to fund the continued development and operation of the live services.