Yesterday, in the State of Play announcements, many Digimon fans rejoiced with the announcement of Digimon Story Time Stranger. The game will be releasing in multiple platforms, including on PC via Steam. However, one thing caught my eye, the Steam store page of the game that got released yesterday claims that the game will have “In-Game Purchases”. This is an horrifying revelation to many fans, and they are now rightfully worried about this. We at Infinite Start will cover what this could mean for the game and its sales.
Digimon ain’t the champions
The Digital Monsters series was always a mishandled one, aside from the times before the anime was even a thing. It started primarily as a spinoff to Tamagotchi, but more cyberpunk and sci-fi oriented. After the initial push of the franchise back from 1997 to 1999, the core team had moved away for unknown reasons. It was at that moment that Toei took the franchise to produce an anime that barely had to do anything with it, aside from the monsters.
Digimon has suffered lots of negligence on the part of Bandai and Toei through the years. Be it failure to localize relevant content overseas, or terrible decisions in the anime and game sector, Digimon always stumbled with something. Now, this is the latest blunder by the Digital Monster franchise. The Steam page clearly states in small print fashion that the game will include “In-Game Purchases”. This is a blight that has been plaguing the industry for too long, and it finally attacked our beloved Digimon.
It is sad to once that once a great franchise at the beginning, with amazing storytelling and world building that rivaled every other monster IP fell so low. It is terrible to announce this but, aside from the successful card game, it seems that Digital Monsters aren’t coming back. After decades of terrible series being produced, it was clear that the purpose of the IP was to wrangle lots of cash for the minimum quality possible. Long gone are the days of thoughtful and interesting games and animation that truly made the consumer think on serious topics about tech and the future.
