A recent survey for Pokémon Unite asks players about many aspects of the game, including accusations that it features some predatory pay-to-win mechanics. The Pokémon Company’s free-to-play multiplayer online battle arena title was released on the Nintendo Switch last week, with a planned launch on mobile devices coming in September.

While Pokémon Unite has gained a reasonably positive response from players, there is one aspect that has fans of Nintendo’s long-running monster-wrangling franchise less than thrilled. Not even a day after it launched, some players took note that Pokémon Unite uses five monetization strategies while most free-to-play titles only use two, and that progress slowed significantly after the welcome campaign unless they purchased certain in-game items with real cash. Having players spend money on bonus items to make up for the game itself being free is a fairly standard practice among free-to-play titles, but fans begin to cry foul if these items grant players a competitive edge or become necessary to progress significantly in the game.

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It seems that Pokémon Unite developer TiMi Studio Group is at least aware of the potential problems with its monetization practices, as evidenced in a survey posted on the Pokémon Unite Twitter page yesterday. Among the topics featured in this survey is a question about what frustrates players the most, and one of the possible answers provided explicitly mentions needing to pay real money to get ahead in the game. This can be seen in the screenshot below.

Despite the controversy over its monetization issues, Pokémon Unite is currently expanding its roster of playable pocket monsters with the most recent addition of the Psychic/Fairy type Gardevoir earlier this week. Joining it is the classic Pokémon Red And Blue mainstay Blastoise, who will be arriving at an unspecified date. Fans can already obtain Zeraora as a login bonus, and there is another, unidentified Pokémon on its way that has yet to be revealed as of this writing. Meanwhile, players have come across some rare but bizarre glitches, including one that accidentally rendered the multi-armed Machamp without its usual wrestling trunks.

Of course, all the roster additions and funny glitches in Pokémon Unite won’t mean much if players are being drawn away due to unsavory pay-to-win practices, but at least TiMi Studio Group seems to be aware of the problems some fans are having. If enough people cite Pokémon Unite’s potentially troublesome microtransactions as an issue they have while playing, it could convince the game’s developers to dial back on the worst of it to improve the overall experience of the new monster-training title.

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Source: Pokémon UNITE/Twitter

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J. Brodie Shirey
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J. Brodie Shirey is just a simple man trying to make his way in the universe, but aren’t we all? He currently lives in York, Pennsylvania. He is a big comic book, video game, and science fiction fan, and likes writing articles for ScreenRant or scripts for some of his crazy TV show ideas.

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