Last week, the augmented reality game Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery was released and offered a seemingly fun way to experience to wonderful world of Harry Potter. But it seems like the developer has focused a little bit too much on the teachings of Gringotts Wizarding Bank rather than how to make the game enjoyable and there are now tons of player complaining on the very intrusive microtransactions employed.
The problem is the energy system in the game which is needed for challenges. Energy can be gained by waiting, but you can of course also skip this by paying money. For those who don't, Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery is essentially a waiting simulator and this has caused an uproar on social media. In some challenges, it doesn't even help if you enter it with full energy, you will still run out and a strangle sequence seems to be one of the biggest complaints where your character simply is stuck and you must pay money to not watch your character get choked for 15 minutes.
Dave Aubrey from Pocket Gaming is one of the people upset over this rather blatantly practice and thinks especially kids won't be to amused by a long time of being strangling and might cave in to pay money, as he writes on Twitter:
"The fact that you will ALWAYS run out of energy in this encounter and can't leave, even if you start with max energy, with the game being aimed at children and the psychology of seeing your avatar being choked combines for a perfect storm of microtransaction bullshit."
It remains to be seen if the developers or the license holder will take action and solve this, but we still can't help but wonder how they even thought in the first place.
Thanks, IGN