Elite Dangerous gets its own kick in the Steam ratings shin over real money ship sales

Just yesterday, Morgan observed that tanking a game's Steam rating has become a reflexive response to PC gaming grievances big and small. Now, as Helldivers 2's user review average recovers from its weekend PSN account linking fiasco, another game is being hit with a smaller, but still conspicuous, influx of negative Steam user reviews.

The recent reviews for space sim Elite Dangerous are sitting at a «Mixed» rating as some players express disappointment over new offers in the game's store.

The latest update for the nearly decade-old Milky Way simulation adds a new ship, the Python Mk II, but only for those willing to spend at least 16,250 ARX, a currency that can be earned in-game (but with a 400 ARX per week maximum) or purchased with real money. The ship won't be available for the non-purchasable in-game currency, called credits, until August 7.

Along with early access to the new ship, Elite developer Frontier has added powerful pre-built ships to the ARX store. «We envision these Pre-built Ships to be a quicker way for newer players to get involved in the areas they have the most interest in, or for our existing players who are considering a new career path in game, but do not have time to devote to a new build from scratch,» the studio said in April.

Some players are not taking such a positive view of the change. 

«They went pay to win!» declared one recent Steam reviewer. «The whole point of the game is to earn credits, explore a beautiful galaxy, and buy ships. Where is the problem with this? Well now you can skip the work to earn credits for ships and just pay real money for pre-built ships to do what ever you want. Don't even get me started on the fact that the new Python MK2 is locked behind a cash shop pay wall until August 7. What a shame it was a good game.»

With just over 550 new Steam reviews averaging to a «Mixed» rating over the month since the announcement, this is certainly no Helldivers 2 situation, which saw that game bombarded with over 200,000