Disney Speedstorm fans are quitting the game over new 'predatory' monetization

Developer Gameloft has announced some big changes for Disney Speedstorm and its Golden Pass, and they’ve quickly proven unpopular with players. So much so that several are threatening to stop playing.

As with most free-to-play games, Disney Speedstorm has its own battle pass, dubbed the Golden Pass, with a new one introduced every season. While you can earn some of the Golden Pass’ content for free, you can purchase a premium Golden Pass with real money or with Tokens (one of the in-game currencies). In a community blog post from April 9, Gameloft explained how it wants to “make our Golden Passes more engaging and faster to complete for players” and allow players to unlock more rewards.

However, Gameloft’s strategy for this is by splitting seasons in two and giving each half its own Golden Pass. Both Golden Passes will sport 100 tiers of content instead of 50 (though Gameloft has said unlocking rewards will be faster) and you’ll no longer be able to buy the premium Golden Passes with Tokens; you’ll have to spend $9.99. Gameloft will also sell special bundles for $19.99 for each Golden Pass that include the first 15 tiers.

This isn’t the only monetization Gameloft is adding to Disney Speedstorm either. Starting from Season 7 (which is scheduled to begin on April 17), there’ll be new Tournaments you can participate in to unlock content from older seasons. On the surface, that’s not a bad feature, but the caveat is you can only play in Tournaments four times a day… unless you purchase a Vault Pass for $7.99, which has its own track of free and premium rewards. So, going forward, Disney Speedstorm will essentially have three different battle passes.

Initial reactions on X (formerly Twitter) were overwhelmingly negative. Users like beth_x3 and Durand Lewis are upset because they were saving up tokens to spend on a Golden Pass, and now they can’t do that. One user, gknasc1903, outright called Gameloft “thieves” since they just spent money on purchasing tokens, with both them and GraficKontent asking for refunds on the tokens.

Things are no better on the Disney Speedstorm subreddit. Several of the top threads at the moment consist of players complaining about the changes. One of the pinned threads, aside from the aforementioned community blog post, asks players to boycott the battle passes since, if you want all the content on offer, you’re forking over roughly $28 every season. Elsewhere, players like ArfenZard bemoan how these changes may have finally killed their interest in playing: “I’m never gonna fork out actual cash for something that has been directly taken away from me and anyone who does is actively paying to help the demise of the game.”

Disgruntled fans have also taken to Steam to leave negative reviews. “Predatory monetization that gets worse with every season while the bugs and other issues just multiply and get ignored. It’s not even mediocre anymore, it’s just bad,” reads one by Happimess. Reviews by Flare Kuraha and Busty Crumbhole admit the gameplay itself is perfectly solid, but the monetization makes it impossible to recommend.

Could these changes be the deathknell for Disney Speedstorm? It’s arguably too soon to say but, if data from Steam Charts is anything to go by, the game’s been bleeding players since November 2023. Further monetization is unlikely to attract new players, especially if they see all these negative comments, and if player counts are similar across other platforms, then Disney Speedstorm‘s future is looking awfully grim.