Games should earn the right to monetize, says director of Arrowhead studio, authors of Helldivers 2

Helldivers 2 Creative Director and Arrowhead CEO Johan Pylestedt believes that games must “earn the right to monetize,” adding that while players can “support this title” by purchasing microtransactions, Arrowhead “never forcing anyone to do so.”

With these words, Pilestedt responded to a tweet in which a player pointed out that “so many live services end up dying because they chase greed instead of fun and a big player base.”

Given that Helldivers 2 has a $10 “Warbonds” Battle Pass with access to exclusive weapons and in-game equipment, we can conclude that Pilestedt considers his game worthy of monetization.

Players mostly don’t mind – the game’s rating on Metacritic is 8.1/10. On the third day after the release, the number of players in Helldivers 2 reached 155 thousand. This is the highest rating for a PlayStation Studios game ever. The game’s Steam rating is currently 74/100 based on 28 thousand reviews.