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Over the past few years, the introduction of loot boxes in games which players pay really money to earn a crate that will award them with randomly generated items for use in the game have quickly become the norm. Over the past year the idea has been subject to scrutiny as have the games and game developers alike, and one in particular; Star Wars Battlefront 2. It would however seem that one such game isn't such a fan of the idea of the loot box system, and even went and removed a microtransaction from their game after it was noticed that it acted in a similar fashion; the name of the game? Warframe.

Warframe was released in 2013 for PC and PS4, and then in 2014 for Xbox One as a free-to-play third-person shooter in which players control a race of ancient warriors that, after centuries of cryosleep, have awoken to find themselves in the midst of a war with aliens and humans.

In a recent documentary centering around Warframe, the developers discuss the trials and tribulations of creating a free-to-play multiplayer game, and one particular story which resulted in the removal of a microtransaction. This particular microtransaction allowed the player to pay for a new colour design and pattern for their pet Kubrows; nothing pay-to-win, merely a buyable cosmetic change; who would have thought that there would be a player that would pay for the cosmetic re-roll in excess?

Studio manager Sheldon Carter mentions the following:

"The guiding tenant is try not to push them so that they're going to grind their face off to get something but also give them enough variance so that getting those resources is interesting.

We had a lever, basically, for all intents and purposes. And we saw, you know, a guy pulled the lever like 200 times. And it's just like, 'oh my dear god, what have we done? We've created a slot machine.' And so you know, it was a couple days I think it took us to take it out--a day, day and a half. That one is a big regret.

WARFRAME DOCUMENTARY VIDEOS