H1Z1 has been getting a lot of criticism over the last few days or so with it's debut into Steam Early Access. The zombie survival MMO has been accused of being "Pay to win" which is usually a death sentience for any free to play title. In this instance, H1Z1 uses a system that allows players to call in an air drop by paying with real money. The airdrop has a random assortment of items which can include food, water, or even weapons and ammunition.

Now this to many players has been a point of interest because it sounds pretty bad. (Need some help? Give the developer a few bucks and BOOM! You got a new rifle and ammo to spare.) Now it doesn't really work this way 100%. You still have to work for it. When someone calls in an airdrop of supplies, everybody in the area can see it and also steal it. Now you might be thinking this is a little extra shady, but this is actually what the developers want to happen. When survivors all over the map see this crate falling from the sky, they know it has something worth while so all these people will converge on this one location. CHAOS!

When I first heard about the micro transactions being more than just cosmetic items, I wanted to stay far away from H1Z1; But something clicked inside my head. I thought about the Hunger Games. All these people know where the supplies are, and now they are all headed to the same place, knowing that they are not the only ones. You're not buying supplies, you're buying a war zone.

The concept to me actually seems pretty cool. Now you might feel a little misled if the messaging wasn't just right, and that is part of the developers problem. In earlier talks about the game, they went out of there way to say that the game would not be pay to win. “We will NOT be selling guns, ammo, food, water... i.e. That's kind of the whole game and it would suck in our opinion if we did that.” - John Smedley.

More recently, Greg Henninger stated - “We have made the decision to allow paid-for airdrops into the game with things like guns and other things being randomly selected as part of the airdrop,”

The situation that Sony Online Entertainment has put them selves in is a tricky one, but if the game is good and people don't feel robbed when using these micro transactions, the game will still do well with a community to back it.

Signed, Eric Groves

I think it's crazy that the paid air drops don't guarantee you an item. It's definitely interesting though. I'd be annoyed to spend money on an airdrop and have someone kill me and take it. I don't think that stuff will be a big deal. They changed the drop radius of the air drops and the number of people needed on the server to call one in. Also the drop rate of weapons in the crates were drastically lowered.

I think it's a fun concept. They're walking a thin line by letting people pay for any advantage in a genre of game like this. I'm watching the game closely. I played for a bit but got my refund while they were offering it. Mostly because the loot was completely broken, making the game unplayable. The air drop fiasco didn't bother me too much. I may jump back into it in a few weeks. These types of games are only good for a couple hundred hours for me and I'm done and move on to the next.

I just want a survival game that's focused on survival rather then killing everyone. I like the PvP stuff, but it's hard to strike a balance. Eventually you have so many resources that all that's left to do is kill and rob people. The actual survival stuff needs to be harder with a slower progression of gear/guns/loot.

I don't know if it would be an over-reaction, but if I were to pay real money to get a crate drop in order to do more than scrape by, and someone with high level gear came in and killed me and stole it, I would be livid – and I sure as hell would never put another cent into the game.

It's a good idea I think, knowing that people have to compete over the drops server wide is very cool.

Most of the initial backlash was from bandwagoning idiots on Reddit that failed to read what the crates actually do. Surprise surprise!

Can you crush people with the airdrop crate?

H1Z1 is a DayZ clone.

DayZ is a broken pile of garbage for at least two more years.

Both can fuck off. Microtransactions and all.

Sony Online Entertainment is releasing games in early access now? Jesus... That's it, pull the plug. Games are done.

Jim Sterling made a video of this game today and in it he calls down an airdrop which spawns a chest of supplies and about a million zombies for some reason. He dies while trying to get his supplies before the other players running around it do. He dies to zombies and the other players either end up taking his stuff, or getting killed by zombies as well.

That's horseshit.

Sounds fucking awesome to me.

Hah, that sounds absolutely awful. I like my money too much to waste it like that and basically invite other players to steal what I spent it on.

No thank you!

@steadying: Then You don't have to buy in. I'm sure he knew what he was getting in too when he called it down. Did he seem salty about it? I haven't seen the video yet.

Here is the flip side to this coin, you could never buy in to a air drop for your whole time playing H1Z1, but you could totally loot as many as you can if you make the effort to snatch it before someone else does. I would take this over simply putting shotguns in my account inventory that I can put on every character I make. That's the dark path this game could have taken.

Is there a way to call in an air drop without paying real money? For instance, can you essentially earn an air drop through playing the game?

That sounds fucking terrible. Microtransactions are bad enough but to not even be guaranteed that you'll get something out of it? How despicable.

TF2 sells rings that literally do nothing.

This is a lot like that.

You pay some money, to make A Thing Happen. You're not paying for the items, you're paying to basically cause total anarchy for a short period of time and enjoy that.

It has microtransactions?

It's not worth my time, simple as that.

I dunno don't you get fucked out of stuff "you bought" in traditional games all the time? Like I payed for Titanfall but then 100% of every match is me dying. So what did I pay for? Seems roughly equivalent, just a case of one transaction vs. many transactions. I'm also reminded of games like EVE where your hard earned money/items are never safe.

There are a tons of scenarios we can point to where basically you pay for something in a game and then never get a chance to use it.

More importantly this game is excessively boring and it's free to play and there are better versions of this same game out there.

if you pay for it it should be yours permanently. Airdrop that shit straight to your inventory.. I'm usually not one to get uppity about michael transactions, but that seems a bit ridiculous to swallow. They don't have to be permanent benefits I suppose (depending on how much you pay for them), and maybe it's even ok if others can steal it off of you if they kill you, but it definitely should go straight to you with no bullshit. Or, at the very least, it can't be picked up by others and when you pick it up you are invulnerable for a few moments so you can get away without being camped and killed instantly.

Now if there were random airdrops that people had to fight over that's not as big of a deal and could even add something to the game.