Gameloft has announced that it has changed how Golden Passes could be acquired in Disney Speedstorm. As of season 7, the upcoming season for the game, a new structure is being put into place, with players no longer being able to purchase Golden Pass premium tier rewards using tokens. Golden Passes are basically Disney Speedstorm’s versions of a Battle Pass.
What we have here is another prime example of Predatory monetization tactics, but I don’t see this going well for Gameloft.
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Learn all about the new Tournaments feature that will bring back old Seasons' content, as well as significant changes coming to the Golden Pass and Season Tour.
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— Disney Speedstorm (@SpeedstormGame) April 9, 2024
What exactly is happening
According to Gameloft, seasons will be split into two parts, each containing four to five season tour chapters. Each part will also feature a Golden Pass track, with no 100 tiers of free rewards to earn. Tiers will be quicker to earn, as they have received a 50% reduction and now cost 1000 XP to complete. The big change is that each part will have a premium Golden Pass ($9.99/€9.99) or premium Golden Pass bundle ($19.99/€19.99) in real money.
While there’s a free tier and premium tier for Golden Passes, the premium teir rewards will cost you real money, either by purchasing or $9.99/€9.99 rather than earning it by simply playing the game. If you want to bypass the tiers altogether, you can purchase a bundle for $19.99/€19.99.
While it’s not new that you can use real money to purchase Golden Pass content, once this new update is implemented, it will be the only way to do so; there will be no more free Golden Pass content.
That’s a hard pass from me—no thanks. I’m not the only one who agrees, either. When I heard about this news, I checked over on the Disney Speedstorm Reddit, and man, that place is on fire over this change. Various people are asking if they can get a refund, as they should, with others cursing Gamelot and Disney over this upcoming change.
Changes need to be made, we as a community need to go against this (Boycott Gold Pass)
byu/Sclaxin inDisneySpeedstormGame
One post in particular pretty much sums it all up. I felt that perhaps Disney was involved in this change, and apparently, so did this person.
"The Emperor's coming HERE? W..we shall double our efforts"
byu/Prizm4 inDisneySpeedstormGame
This is breaking Gameloft’s original promise
What stinks about this is that Gameloft is going back on its original structure and promise. When Disney Speedstorm was first released, players were told they could use Tokens to unlock the premium tier of the Golden Pass content within a season, skip Golden Pass tiers, and buy Season Coins.
With this change coming in season 7, that promise is broken, and there are scores of people who paid for the game via the Standard Founder’s Pack ($29.99), Deluxe Founder’s Pack ($49.99), and Ultimate Founder’s Pack ($69.99), knowing that this structure was in place.
I can’t say this will help the popularity of Disney Speedstorm, but as I’ve seen, the numbers for the game being played, at least on Steam, have declined. This will most definitely cause more concerns for Gameloft, but I don’t see them rolling back this decision. At the same time, I don’t see anyone looking to pay for something initially free and ripped from them due to predatory monetization tactics.
I was already playing less and less of this game, but I’ve already uninstalled it with this decision. Now, to see if Steam will let me get a refund due to this mess.
Source: Disney Speedstorm website
