Summary
The upcoming arrival ofDragon Ball: Sparking! Zeromay have gotten a small bump in the road, as revealed by its revised ESRB rating.The new rating indicates thatin-game purchaseswill be a part of thetitle, which could pose a problem for those who wish to get everything out of the fighting game without paying extra cash for things they don’t desire.
The revelation was caught by X (formerly Twitter) userSparking, who posted side-by-side pictures of the official ESRB rating forDragon Ball: Sparking! Zero. The one on the left –Sparking! Zero’s original rating – made no mention of microtransactions, but instead referenced blood in the game.
However, the blood warning is gone in the newly revised ESRB rating, and in-game purchases are included. This raises questions about what Bandai Namco aims to put into the title both before and after launch to require microtransactions. The most immediate concern is thatmicrotransactions could affect the availability of new characters added toDragon Ball: Sparking! Zeroafter launch.
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For example, games likeTekken 8, Street Fighter 6, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and more have Season Pass content, which brings in new fighters on a regular basis to the titles. Capcom’s first Season Pass for its fighting game recently ended with thearrival of Akuma, with Season 2 likely to be announced soon.Super Smash Bros. Ultimatehad two Fighter Passes and brought in several fan-favorite characters into the mix, like Sora, Byleth, Sephiroth, Kazuya Mishima, and Joker.
The fear of microtransactions likely ties into what Bandai Namco did recently withTekken 8.The fighting game’s launch was highly anticipated and received acclaim from critics. However, not long after launch,Bandai Namco dropped not only the Season Pass content but also the Tekken Fight Pass and Tekken Shop, where people would have to pay an extra fee to get premium content. The reception to this was not positive and casts a shadow over Bandai Namco’s upcoming title.
Given the wideroster of charactersDragon Ball: Sparking! Zerohas already shown off, with more to come, it’s entirely fair to speculate that the game would have at least one Season Pass full of characters. In the gameDragon Ball FighterZ, 20 DLC characters were added after launch. WithDragon Ball Xenoverse 2, there have been 17 DLC packs for the title that have featured characters across the series' history. As such, it’s impossible to know what Bandai Namco will do withDragon Ball: Sparking! Zero’s microtransactions until it’s officially announced, even if restricting post-launch characters seems the most likely.
