10 Ways You Can Tell A Video Game Is Going To Suck
8. Multiple In-Game Currencies
The feeling of dread when you load up a game only to be greeted with two, three, or even four separate currencies at the top of the screen is unmistakable.
It instantly suggests that the game's most likely going to inundate you with a glut of over-designed systems centered around their own distinct rewards, and that at least one or two of these systems will most likely involve microtransactions of some kind.
It's exhausting having to make sense of all this - who remembers the halcyon days of all in-game rewards being governed by a single, uniform currency?
Even at their most innocent, multiple currencies mark an attempt to create an illusion of reward diversity, to get the player's dopamine receptors twitching when they receive some of those ultra-rare credits that are most easily obtained by opening their real-world wallet instead.
Above all else, it's just a painfully boring and cynical way to try and increase player "engagement," rather than focusing on interesting mechanics and a world or story they might dare to get invested in.