Ninjala's brand new Sonic the Hedgehog collab is now live, meaning fans can finally get their hands on Sonic costumes in-game – not that you'll want to.
Amazingly, each costume costs a staggering £16 when totting up the necessary Jala (Ninjala's in-game currency) to purchase them. As you can see in the images below shared by our very own Jon Cartwright, each costume costs 2,000 Jala each, which equates to £16 of your real money. You know, the stuff that can buy you food, clothes, or practically anything other than this.
That means that if you wanted to grab all three, you'd need to hand over a whopping £48. Considering the costumes are cosmetic-only, meaning they have no effect on your character's performance in-game, that's an oddly high cost to pay.
Jala can also be earned in other ways, although those who have already paid to enjoy the game's Premium Battle Pass tend to benefit the most from this. If you want to look like Sonic and co., you'll be paying quite the price, it seems.
[source twitter.com]
Comments 58
That's 1.5 Hollow Knights.
I think someone forgot the decimal point.
Lmao. No. Just no.
Well, Pecunia non olet.
I can't imagine the game's doing too well if they're trotting out overpriced cross-promotions like this. I mean, On Smash the mii costumes make for fun references and they're cheap to the point of being trivial for most people. On this game, considering Sonic isn't the most successful brand out there, it reeks of desperation.
I mean, I can get a full game on sale for this. Am eyeing up some ps4 titles because of their Big in Japan sale. To put into perspective: Final Fantasy 15 with ALL of it's content is currently £1 cheaper.
It’s reached the point that any game that’s free to play, outside of a select few, the majority will eventually succumb to some form of insidious micro transaction or aggregious monetisation practices. Usually under the “it’s optional” or “it’s just cosmetic”; two long debunked arguments.
At least I have an option to never install this game or any of its like minded ilk.
Yikes. Good thing I stopped playing this game shortly after it came out. Trully a shame, I was intrigued when it was first revealed, but after playing for a week, I grew bored of it pretty quickly.
@FX102A You're absolutely right. If cosmetics don't matter, why do people put so much effort into making their characters look cool? Oh right, because it enhances the game experience to look awesome while doing awesome stunts.
There's some free games that are honest and reasonable with their cash shops, but those are like unicorns in this market.
A company that firstly says it will ban people unless they play the game in the way they want them too, then does this. What a bunch of plonkers!
Yeah I know why I don't like Free-To-Play Games
If you wanted to buy all three it would be cheaper than the article says as you would obviously buy a larger cheaper currency pack and not 1000 at a time. Still a rip off of course but let's at least get the facts right.
£48 can buy a lot of real physical clothes for my actual body.
Sega needs a bit of extra pocket change seeing how Microsoft isn't buying them.
Anyone who still thinks microtransaction prices are justified is beyond help.
WHAT AN AMAZING DEAL!
3 cosmetic items or a new AAA game. Hmmm.
That Dr Robotnik skin looks an awful lot like the LittleBigPlanet Dr Robotnik skin just without the material textures
Ridiculous....I can’t wait for the day when stuff like this is no longer allowed.
Absolutely ridiculous!
Yet it will still sell and the cycle continues...
But when some child steals Mum's credit card to buy these, it's not their fault.
This kind of thing should be illegal, no way is just a computer generated skin is worth that much
lol figured as much...
If Sega can make money like that, it’s no wonder they have stopped the Ages line
I played the game once. It was the digital manifestation of a migraine.
The price of these costumes alone is more than I will spend on the game EVER!
@BreathingMiit Just out of curiosity, I wonder how many real Sanic t-shirts that could bag you?
Well.. people were complaining about the price for Kirby Fighters 2...
@Zebetite The Batman skin around this price is Fortnite, that games doing fine.
I got my Sonic skins. I just paid for Sonic outfit because I wanted him to look like Were V-mon! And it worked!
It baffles me that people can complain about paid for cosmetic items in a free to play game. This is surely the dream scenario for free to play stuff. You pay it because you either love the game and want to support the developers, or because you've more money than sense.
Overpriced tacked-on crossover cosmetics in a bland, horrible-looking, trend-chasing F2P game?
Shocker.
Obscene. Utterly disgustang.
@dew12333 Your justification does not have logic no matter how you read it.
@Cosats I edited and it's better!
wow a bargain
🤣 ooookay then. people will pay this and soulless devs will keep laughing themselves to the bank.
I don't even buy real clothes for $20 bucks.
I'm really curious to hear the story about how this price was decided upon. Did Sega charge them $15 per skin so they are only earning $1 each, or was it a bunch of guys sitting in on a Zoom meeting auctioning off the price as to what the highest price could be:
$5 do I hear $6,
OK $6 how about $7 50,
no that's too cheap let's go $9.99
well let's make it $12 then,
no $13 that's a bakers dozen,
how about $15,
no $15 is too obviously fake make it $16,
OK how about $20,
$20 what are you crazy it's just a skin don't be stupid,
OK $16 it is.
If "go f**k yourself"s were a currency, I'd pay 48 of those.
Well I still got 800 jala because I preorder, and the player milestones. I might get the lil egg man boi.
Featuring Sonic from the Sonic the Hedgehog Series.
& Knuckles.
Anyone who buy this crap is actively making gaming worse.
I haven’t played this game for some time ever since I completed the story mode and did a few more online matches, this isn’t really encouraging me to come back
@FX102A for me that’s the issue people always trot out the “don’t need to pay if you don’t want” but it’s a terrible model that has stifled the whole market. People do pay. Stupid people. I want all the unlockables in all the games I played. That used to be the point of games to get everything unlocked. Now it’s to get the gamer score and half the content stays locked unless you pay. CTR being one the worst in that it made you pay full price and then whacked MT in and made the whole mechanics FTP - I hate it.
Dirt rally 2 shipped with less content and then had loads of content in season passes and year passes. Ugh.
Give me a game that’s got the content a current gen game should have (more than last gen) and then have DLC on top if over and above what should be included or incurred higher licensing costs.
It’s all about milking the gaming industry - no other industry has a model quite as bad because only gamers would tolerate it
I could buy an actual game for that
No more expensive than Fortnite skins.
oh my, no thank you lol. seems to be the same price as regular full costumes sets, which never seemed liked a good deal at $20
inflated price aside i honestly wouldnt mind chipping in more money if the lobby wait times werent as bad as they are. no point spending money on costumes if the game rarely connects me in matches to show them off in
PSO2 is free.
But there is a $60 edition that also includes Sonic items.
If they sold them for like $5 they would probably end up making more money because people would actually pay that much. Fortnite is way more popular and their skins are much cheaper!
And this is why I don't play freemium games
@FX102A @Zebetite Does the option of cheaper and more better value deals like the battle pass at least excuse the higher cost options? You can get the battle pass after a few seasons or a generous offer like them giving out 1.1k Jala at the start of s3, but I will admit that it is less new user friendly regardless.
@Marxally Its a constantly updating, so maybe you'll find something you like in the seasons that have passed or in future seasons.
@dew12333 Is that the banning people for being inactive thing? Because I don't think they've done that, they've definitely stopped people from matching for a set amount of time, but I don't think they've banned people for it, much less people who've done nothing wrong. Also, that "ban people unless they play the game in the way they want them too" part is kind of incorrect? I mean like, doxxing people, hacking, using exploits, harassing people, or other things like that are not "play[ing] the game in the way they want them too", but would you agree that its justified? If you're talking about something else, then please explain it to me.
@Bunkerneath I wouldn't say its computer generated, people have probably modeled it, but yeah, there needs to be a standard price for these things.
@clvr Why would you call Ninjala a bland, horrible-looking, and a trend-chasing F2P game? It has its own distinct style with several clothing brands, yeah it might look "bland" or "horrible-looking" because it uses unreal engine, but can you really blame them for that? I mean, I can't really contest those two because they are mostly opinion, but I don't understand what trend its chasing, the Splatoon trend? The f2p trend? The battle royale trend?
Hey, If you've made it to the bottom of this, thank you, and remember that I'm human too, not a corporate robot.
@TimeVolt I'd call it that cause it looks like that to me.
The style is bland and derivative, Unreal Engine or not, and the basic concept I find awful and nonsensical.
Splatoon: squids -> ink -> graffiti -> street/skate/punk/hip hop subcultures -> turf war & style
Ninjala: ninjas + bubblegum = profit?!
It sounds like a concept taken from a 4th grade student.
Another important thing is polish: luckily I've always had an instinctive notion of polish (being raised on Nintendo games probably played a huge part), and even though I'm very ignorant about art design, I have no doubt in my mind that everything about Splatoon's style is way more polished and thought out than Ninjala's, even if I can't tell you why.
And regarding trends, well, all of what you said. This game looks exactly like what a room full of stakeholders would greenlight after learning that Splatoon, Battle royale and Fortnite are popular.
Oh and the title of the article might also suggests why I think this game isn't worth it.
@clvr Alright, finally some solid reasoning.
Again, I'll say that the points you make about style are your opinion, so I don't expect you to change them or anything, but saying that... Derivative, yes. Everything is derivative to some extent, and Ninjala's style is quite similar looking to some other games', styles, but that doesn't necessarily make it bad, especially since it has several distinct clothing brands that aren't anything like the ones in Splatoon, and nearly every stage has a different style.
Yeah, Ninjas plus gum is arbitrary, and you might hate it for that, but it doesn't really harm the style, it just gives all the powers context, and a cool aesthetic in my opinion.
Polish is a big part of why Ninjala is flawed, and while I don't think thats a big issue with the art style, it definitely is a problem gameplaywise.
The problem with the argument that its "trend chasing" is that I don't think it is. I think a big reason why you don't like Ninjala is that it looks generic, which is why you have all these problems with it and its art style, but generic isn't the same thing as trend chasing, which isn't even a bad thing if executed well. Ninjala only has "battle royale" as a mode because the term is a popular one. Lots of games where you face off against multiple other opponents are technically "battle royale"s under your definition, and even though I don't consider Ninjala's mode a true battle royale, it definitely has some elements of one, but then again, everything has some elements of battle royale in it. If you look at most battle royale games, you are fighting lots of other people for a singular winner, and usually death is permanent for the match, Ninjala is neither of these things.
Yeah, expensive Jala stuff is bad, and it is another thing I don't like (if less than the more major issues because you can just play and get the Ninjala pass), but I wouldn't say these things make the game not worth it, but whatever, man, its your opinion.
@clvr yeah, it's my opinion, I've never stated otherwise.
I appreciate your passion and effort, and of course it's always good to have a level-headed conversation on the internet, but as you said you're not gonna change my mind, so don't get too hung up on my view 😅
I clearly stated that I don't like it superficially and that makes me not want to play it, so of course I cannot comment on the gameplay.
What I'm saying is, from the looks of how its identity looks like it was cobbled together without rhyme or reason, it doesn't give me the impression of being something particularly interesting or well thought out.
Splatoon, on the other hand, never really caught me until I played it, but even before that I appreciated its identity and style.
And don't even get me started on the whole "everything is derivative" thing.
Yeah, it is, I know, but that's not a good excuse at all. Originality doesn't equal quality, I know that as well.
Again, though, Splatoon exists and is one of the most unique I.P.'s around. And it's really good.
Did it invent online shooters? No, originality doesn't mean that. It means it has an identity that's way more than the sum of its parts (cause they're well thought out and well put together) and incredibly unique and recognizable.
Now that I've covered the points you asked me to, I'd like to put this to rest.
@TimeVolt What compelled you to respond to comments on an article that's close to half a year old? What do you gain from this post that no one besides the tagged people will ever see?
@Zebetite I just want to potentially change opinions for the better. If this was about recognition, I would have done thing far more differently. Also, I want answers, does the presence of cheap options excuse the expensive ones? I genuinely want your opinion on it.
@TimeVolt Alright.
"Does the option of cheaper and more better value deals like the battle pass at least excuse the higher cost options?"
That would be a no, as it all ties back into the same manipulative cash shop mechanics that mobile games have embraced wholly. The cheap options are actually more insidious as games of this ilk are designed to encourage players to make small purchases here and there without realizing exactly how much they're spending. No developer on earth puts a cash shop in a game and then doesn't try to get people to buy into it. You can get an entirely different game for the cost of one higher-end skin on Ninjala, something I will always find disgusting.
Tap here to load 58 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...