The Battle Pass Phenomenon: Are They Changing the Game?
Dive into the world of gaming battle passes, their impact on monetization, and my take on their merits and flaws.
Ok so yesterdays post was a little experiment and I’d love to get some feedback! I really enjoy writing these posts, and am going to keep doing them paid or not. However, money is nice. I believe that people should be paid for their work, and I believe that I deserve to be supported for the work that I put into writing these posts. Which is why I + ChatGPT came up with the program that we used for yesterday’s article.
Considering the audience for this is still extremely small, I have a very small feedback system I can pull from for these posts so I’d love to hear your feedback about yesterday’s post. Finding a good balance of paid/free content and incentives is not easy, and it requires a decent amount of back and forth between me and you. So if things change a lot over these next couple of weeks or months please be patient.
All that being said I’d love to hear your feedback, and ideas for incentives!
Today by reader request we are going to talk about battle passes.
For the uninitiated a “Battle Pass” is a player retention reward system that gives out items based on how much a person played. Popular games utilizing battle passes right now include Fortnite, Rocket League, Overwatch 2, and more, to varying degrees of success.
This is usually accompanied by some sort of “objective” list that requires players to engage with the game in multiple different ways. At least, the good ones do anyway. What separates this from just rewarding players based on how much they play is the idea of “Seasons”. Battle passes have to take place in fixed periods of time called “seasons” that end. Once a season ends the ability to get any of the rewards go away forever (usually), everyone’s progress is reset, and a new season and reward list is created.
Battle passes are always accompanied by a “premium” tier. This tier basically always has the best rewards attached to it and offers the ability to finish the entire battle pass in less time.
My opinion of battle passes has flip flopped over the last couple years. In that time the method went from something that only Fortnite was doing to something that took over the industry as the leading monetization model. It frankly is kind of genius in the way that it generates profit and player retention all in one fell swoop. You have to pay to get the best cosmetics, and If you paid you have to play otherwise you miss out on the stuff you paid for.
These days I’m fairly lukewarm when it comes to battle passes. Some games do them better than others, and my opinion of them really depends on the game they are in.
Certainly there is a black and white consumer facing argument about, your money only being worth your skill level. Meaning that better players will get access to better cosmetics than worse players. But… That was already a thing.
That idea started in arcades where the value of your quarter determined how long you got to play the game. That idea has since cemented itself with delivery apps like uber eats straight up, gamifying work. Your wage is based on how well you game the system.
So is rewarding your most devoted customers wrong? No… not from what I can see. Is FOMO a bad reason to drive interest in a cosmetic? Again… perhaps morally in a digital space, but its not all that uncommon. As long as its the same for everyone there is no pre-established “issue”
Plus battle passes keep artists, typically people who are dropped late in a project due to not being needed anymore, in a job continuing to create content for a living breathing game. Which in my opinion is great!
The only negative I have with battle passes is for a person who pays for the battle pass then doesn’t play. That certainly can feel like a waste of money, and would be disappointing to say the least. However I’ve seen people use a strategy to counter this. The battle passes often let you level up for free and show you what you could get should you purchase the premium edition. People will play at the slower rate till they feel like they’ve earned the cost of the battle pass in cosmetics, then purchase it.
On the whole I personally don’t have that many problems with battle passes. I am getting older, and spending a lot less time playing multiplayer games than I did when I was 15. As a result I find myself getting fewer and fewer rewards from these games, but since I play them less I also find myself not really caring. If I load into a game of Fortnite I certainly feel pressured into buying skins and dances, but If I have to play a handful of rounds as the default dude I’m not all that worried.
And frankly compared to other monetization models battle passes are by far the most honest iteration of cosmetic monetization that we’ve seen yet. I absolutely abhor loot boxes that accept real cash, for reasons that I can’t fully cover here. I also dislike real-money shops since companies have shown that they will use every shady sales tactic in the book to obfuscate their pricing model. It all felt very insulting. Whereas battle passes are very honest and up front, play more & pay.
However I think the reason they are in hot water as of late is because of their involvement and addition to Overwatch 2. Overwatch 2, the artist formerly known as Overwatch 1, used to be a $40 title with loot box cosmetics that you earned from playing the game. You also had the option to buy them if you wanted.
During Overwatch’s transition to free to play (f2p) came changes to its monetization model. Including the removal of loot boxes, the addition of a cash shop and a season pass. The reason they were in hot water is because their new playable characters were locked behind a battle pass. Thus Alienating anyone who wasn’t able to fork over enough cash to skip the battle pass, or someone who didn’t have the time to play the game enough from access to the character for up to 3 months (Give or take).
That would make me pretty angry if I was an on-again off-again player. Double that if the new character is overpowered (which they usually are).
So on the whole my opinion is actually fairly positive of battle passes at the moment, but it definitely has room for improvement. Do you think battle passes are the way of the future or are you just waiting for the next big model to hit? Let me know what you think , either in the comments of this article, on my twitter, or in my discord!
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battle pass monetization analysis, Fortnite vs Overwatch 2 battle passes, seasonal content FOMO, player retention strategies, premium tier rewards, free-to-play monetization models, Overwatch 2 hero lock criticism, cosmetic vs gameplay rewards, loot box alternatives, ethical game design