Devil’s Avocado: About That Whole Avenger’s Season Pass Thing


I’m not going to defend it.

Welcome to The Devil’s Avocado, a column where I take issues that people are getting angry over and explain that it’s probably not quite as bad as you thought it was. It’s like one of those “you’re doing it wrong” clickbait videos, but you’re not actually wrong and I’m not being condescending.

First off let me just agree with 95% of my viewers: Marvel’s Avengers is a game that deserves all of the anger and contempt that it has received for being a shameless greedy cash grab, because it is. After all, it’s Crystal Dynamics and Disney working together in unison to hold you upside down and shake the dollars out of your pockets. And punish you for not subscribing to the correct phone service or buying the right gum. I get it. I’m in agreement.

But I want to talk about the idea of character specific battle passes and how each one is purchasable for real money. Effectively this is to offset the fact that Marvel’s Avengers is going to be Destiny without the paid expansions; all characters and story content, missions, and regions are going to be at no additional cost to your initial investment. To subsidize this content and obviously make a crapload of money off of people who are too impatient to play the game, they are selling battle passes.

I know what you’re thinking, but stick with me. Every character is going to have a challenge card which is the Avengers version of a battle pass. Each card has 40 levels of free and premium rewards, and rewards are earned by completing daily and weekly challenges. Rewards include premium currency, name plates, emotes, costumes, resources, and more. Everything you’d expect. Each challenge card’s premium track works out to roughly $10.

Again, I know what you’re thinking. So let me list the upsides of this.

  1. All six starter character cards come with the game, and…
  2. Each card pays for itself. That means if you complete all six cards you will have at least $60 worth of premium currency to do whatever with.
  3. The cards are not seasonal, do not have a time limit, and will not be replaced. They are not following the Fortnite model.
  4. There is a free track for each card.

Now let’s list the downsides:

  1. This is definitely a lazy cash grab for those who are too impatient or have more money than sense, as they are selling level skips.
  2. Let’s assume a minimum of $1 per skip as that seems to be the industry lower limit, that means upon launch Marvel Avengers will have $240 worth of level skips at launch. The industry standard is generally $1.50 per level, which means $360 worth of level skips. For you people who don’t actually want to play the game.
  3. Crystal Dynamics is boasting over 12,500 credits in value per pass which translates to $125 (go figure). That means Marvel Avengers has at least $750 worth of cash shop value at launch, which is a sentence that makes me sad.
  4. This is going to be an increasingly overwhelming mess to anyone who comes into the game one year in. Or two years in. Or three years in. Or four…yea you get the point.
  5. Overall it is just terrible optics for a game already seen as shamelessly greedy.

It does raise a lot of questions.

  1. Are the daily/weekly quests the only method of progress? (Destiny 2 and Fortnite also progress just through playing for example)
  2. How much progress does each level require (the screenshot shows 0/200 but is that the same for each level)?
  3. How much progress does each challenge give?
  4. How long is each battle pass expected by Crystal Dynamics to take?
  5. How much are skips?
  6. How often will characters release?
  7. Anything else my readers might think of.

There are a lot of unanswered questions that thankfully I will be answering on Tuesday because that’s the day that the early start begins for people who have the digital deluxe edition. I have the digital deluxe edition. It wasn’t a press thing, I bought it because I’m willing to sacrifice my time and money for you, the viewer. So I’ll be here on Tuesday writing about whether or not I think the Avengers battle pass is a total ripopff.

Because I love you.