Yes, the Star Wars Outlaws toilet paper roll is real. And no, I don’t own a printer at home so this craft involved an awkward conversation with the man who works at my local print shop.
But instead of wasting your time with a painstaking, cringe anecdote of how I had to explain to a 50-something-year-old gentleman that I wanted the paper of this A2 print to be as thin as possible because it’s for a custom toilet paper roll I’m making for an article, can I interest you in discussing the issue at hand?
Star Wars Outlaws Kills Player Interest With Pricing Model
Here we are on the Ubisoft pre-order page for Star Wars Outlaws. The standard edition starts at $69.99, which “only” includes the base game. The Gold Edition throws in three-day early access for a single-player game, the Jabba the Hutt mission, and a season pass for $109.99. And then, the Ultimate Edition, which includes two additional cosmetic bundles and a digital artbook slams a price tag of $129.99.
What’s So Odd About This, You Say?
At first glance, these seem like standard practices.
Companies have been putting a price tag on cosmetics ever since Bethesda sold a horse armor pack for The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion back in 2006.
From Destiny 2 to Call of Duty Black Ops, and now Diablo IV, they’re all about those season pass shakedowns.
These days, it’s hard to find a blockbuster AAA game that doesn’t hit you with two or three different pricing levels. The only exception to this pricing rule is smaller games like Helldivers 2 or Children of the Sun.
Aside from being the priciest model I’ve laid eyes on, second only to Saint Row 4‘s absurd million-dollar Super Dangerous Wad-Wad Edition, it’s the fact that they’ve crammed in every dodgy pricing tactic that’s plagued gaming into one single pricing model.
Since 2020, the $70 price tag has become standard for many AAA titles. We raised our eyebrows at Diablo IV for selling a cosmetic horse armor for eight bucks. Just recently, Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League, a single-player disappointment, slapped on a battle pass in addition to that $70 base-game price.
Why People Are Upset (And You Should Too)
Maybe it’s Ubisoft’s triple whammy that’s got people upset: first, hitting you with a three-tier purchase starting at $70, then throwing another punch with a $40 season pass, and finally delivering the finishing blow by locking cosmetics behind a paywall. My wallet is K.O.’d alright.
Could it be that it’s not just cosmetics behind the paywall, but a whole questline featuring a major Star Wars character, Jabba the Hutt, locked behind the premium editions?
In Star Wars Outlaws, the “Jabba’s Gambit” mission, included in the game’s season pass, is gated behind a paywall. It’s not part of the base game priced at $70. If you want to experience “Jabba’s Gambit”, you’ll have to shell out for the season pass, which is only available in the Gold and Ultimate edition bundles. Yep, the ones that’ll set you back over a hundred bucks.
Ubisoft Has Been Doing This for Years Now
Star Wars Outlaws isn’t Ubisoft’s first rodeo when it comes to paywalling more than just cosmetics and digital artbooks—they’ve also locked quests and additional content behind premium purchases before.
The lackluster, dull, and repetitive Viking game, or as some like to call it, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, hit shelves in 2020 for $60. This game had a season pass costing over $30, and not just one, but three quests paywalled behind it.
Far Cry 6 followed suit in 2021, with the Game of the Year Edition going as far as charging $120. It also includes a battle pass, which now costs $40. Bold move, Ubi. This marks the first time Ubisoft has technically paywalled characters, with the only relevant one being Vaas Montenegro.
But Jabba the Hutt? Now that’s a whole different ball game. He’s a major character from a franchise that’s even bigger than Star Wars Outlaws and Ubisoft itself and has been around long before they even existed. Locking him behind a paywall? That’s a power-hungry move that seriously leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
A Vinegary, Nasty Deal
But, no. The real reason I’m fired up – and you should be too – is the sneaky agenda behind this pricing. This ludicrous Star Wars Outlaws model is just Ubisoft’s crafty scheme to suck you into their monthly subscription trap.
In case you’ve been living under a rock, or just exclusively use Steam like the rest of us, Ubisoft has its own subscription service. If you subscribe to Ubisoft+Premium, you get access to Ubisoft’s library of games, which includes Ubisoft’s 30 Assassin Creeds, six Far Crys, and their latest and quadruple A failure: Skull and Bones. They’ve made it crystal clear that you’ll get day-one access, including early access launches, all for the tidy sum of $18 a month.
I don’t need to spell it out, but: Why fork out 70 bucks for Star Wars Outlaws when I can just cough up 18 a month, binge-play everything, and then cancel my subscription?
Hold off on cueing the X-files theme; this isn’t some conspiracy theory, it’s just good old-fashioned price anchoring at play. By jacking up the prices of individual items, they make their $18-a-month Ubisoft Plus bundle seem like an absolute steal.
If you even dare to try your luck with any other online retailer for Star Wars Outlaws, think again—it’s exclusively tied to the Epic Games Store. So while Ubisoft happily lines its pockets with Tim Sweeney’s cash, they’re still sticking it to customers with their sky-high prices.
Should You Buy Star Wars Outlaws?
It’s mind-boggling: a $70 single-player game, without online features or live services, demands an internet connection just to install, not play. So why bother with physical discs or boxes? This, for the sake of brevity, is a discussion for a different day, and perhaps a different toilet roll.
Star Wars Outlaws comes out on August 30, 2024, and, if you must, you can buy it for a daft price upfront or cave in and sign up for their monthly subscription service. But since they’re not the most transparent, I’ll let you in on a not-so-secret deal: you can also wait two months after release, and get it in late November on their usual our-game-flopped-so-now-it’s-50%-off sale.
As for the Star Wars Outlaws toilet paper roll I printed, it won’t be gracing our bathroom for obvious sanitary concerns. Instead, I’ll preserve it as a memento, a perpetual symbol of gaming’s unfortunate downward spiral.
Looking for more opinions on popular games? Check out John’s breakdown of Predecessor in his first and second features.
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