Reader Discussion – Have You Ever Paid To Unlock Content You Could Otherwise Earn?

With the recent news of Capcom offering players the chance to simply unlock everything in Resident Evil 2 by paying $5 instead of playing through the game multiple times, it raises the question: How many among us have paid to unlock something we’d otherwise be able to earn ourselves?

I’ve technically done it. The Street Fighter V character passes have you pay for characters you can otherwise “earn” through fight money get from playing the game itself, and I’ve paid for those. That approach is more like a free-to-play scheme, where you grind for currency and are then tempted to skip that grind by paying real money. Resident Evil 2’s unlock DLC feels different in that you’re not skipping a currency grind, but you are paying for the option to skip playing the game multiple times (something you should do with Resident Evil 2, specifically) but it’s more or less the same thing, right?

Have you ever done it? Have you paid for that Resident Evil 2 DLC? Or paid to play as a character in League of Legends? Can you think of other games that do something like this (bonus points if they’re not free-to-play games)? Let us know in the comments.