We Need To Talk About Crash Team Racing’s Microtransactions

As most of you know, Activision has added micro-transactions to Crash Team Racing. It wasn’t really a shock, the Wumpa Coins page looked like a micro-transaction set up from the very start so it was no surprise when they added it despite it not appearing on the ERSB ratings. No that isn’t what shocked me, it seems to be a common thing especially with EA and Activision’s reputation. What really annoyed me this morning was popping onto Crash Team Racing for the usual daily grandprix challenges and realising that they had nerfed the Wumpa Coin amount by quite a lot. On a usual weekend you will get around 200 to 500 coins and sometimes more in an online race, well now you only get around 50 to 70. We all know why this is don’t we? This is done so that the grind to get coins is even harder and more frustrating in an already seemingly flawed multiplayer experience. So of course some of us may reach for the wallet in frustration at the grind and buy Wumpa Coins, not only that but for some grandprix challenges you need certain characters so in a way does it make it slightly pay to win to achieve some challenges if grinding coins for them is to much? In my opinion yes.

After a guesstimate it seems to earn 2500 coins which is the average cost of a character skin in-game you would have to race in at least 59 matches to get the skin you want. It’s not on, we can’t keep allowing this to happen especially in a 20 year old remake that never featured transactions in the first place. Not only that but the online experience is so buggy and unbalanced with power-ups being unleashed at relentless rates forcing people to quit in a rage the game needs fixing. Activision has pulled yet again another dirty move and absolutely destroyed the charm of a game I rated quite highly on this site but the lack of fixes and the speed of adding transactions takes the biscuit and I will be re-evaluating the review in its current state because I think the move they pulled was a dirty one. No micro-transactions from the get-go so then people think “oh brilliant a game I can enjoy without sinking tons of cash into” then boom, plug it in later when they’ve already made most of the sales on the title.

Micro-transactions are a plague on the gaming industry at the moment and it needs controlling. I don’t think I will be playing Crash Team Racing again for its predatory actions.