Is Disney Speedstorm actually Pay-to-Win? (Discussion)

Is Disney Speedstorm actually Pay-to-Win? That is the question we want to answer in this discussion today.

There are arguments to be made, why Speedstorm has a severe P2W problem, but there are also arguments to be made, why this issue only affects a part of the game and shouldn't necessarily discourage people from playing and trying out this game.

Let's start with the reason why I believe that Disney Speedstorms P2W issue, while it should be addressed, is overall in my opinion overrated. There are essentially 5 different parts of this game. There are the Singleplayer modes, which consists for one on the Season Tour, which is a season-based campaign of races, and on the other hand on daily, weekly and special Events. Neither the Season Tour nor the Events have any elements of P2W. All Missions and Events have certain Level requirements, but all Bots in these races will be based on these levels. You can easily level up, so you can participate in them as a free player without investing anything.

Than there is the Multiplayer, which has 3 different parts. There is the ranked mode, the regulated Multiplayer and Freeplay. In Regulated Multiplayer all players and drivers are scaled to the same level, so there is 0 P2W. Than there is Freeplay Multiplayer, where players can play alone or via Splitscreen with up to 4 players. Players can choose their maps and Bot difficulties. Once again there is 0 P2W here.

Now we have to address the biggest problem of the game, which is the Ranked Mode. Every Driver has his own ranking. You start at Rank 0 and can move up to Rank 40 (ranks btw don't reset after a season ends). In contrast to Regulated Multiplayer and Freeplay, drivers are not scaled equally. Drivers with higher levels will have better stats than drivers with lower levels. The game usually tries to somewhat balance the Ranked and Driver Levels of the players for the matches, but experiences can vary quite drastically.

Driver Levels can be upgraded via Upgrade materials till a max level. In order to level up further, the drivers require higher star levels, which can be achieved through more driver shards. The Upgrade materials are primarily earned through rewards from the Season-Tour, the Events or Ranked mode Level-Ups. Upgrade materials however can also be unlocked in the daily selection of the item shop as well. These will usually require Season Coins, which all players can unlock through the Season Tour and daily events. Nonetheless, paying Players could also cash into the Premium Currency and transform them through horrible conversion rates into Season Coins, so they can unlock upgrade materials more often. So this definitely has some P2W potential, but Speedstorm actually does give out a lot of upgrade materials through the daily and weekly events, plus the Season Tour. Therefore I don't think this is too much of an issue.

Much more problematic are the armies of item shop packages and lootboxes, in which players can straight out buy the much rarer driver shards. Especially epic driver shards are much harder to come by as a free player. Players investing huge amount of money into gambling via the lootboxes can therefore have a significant advantage, if they reach higher star levels and are therefore also able to level up their drivers much higher. This is by far Disney Speedstorms biggest P2W problem.

During the first 15 Ranked Levels, where players can not loose points, this doesn't play too much of a role and as a free player I never feel at a disadvantage. These lobbies are also filled with a lot of newer players. Any experienced driver should therefore be able to compete for wins in pretty much every race regardless of your driver level. From ranked 15 to 25 things become significantly more competitive, but as a regular free player you should still be able to compete in these lobbies. From Ranked 25 or 30 onward however the P2W problems will become much more apparent and reaching max rank without paying seems more of a fever dream than a real option.

So this is definitely an issue and something people should call the developers Gameloft out for. I nonetheless think it is a bit sad, that many potential players are going to completely miss out on, in my opinion, one of the best kart racing games ever made. The gameplay of Speedstorm is fantastic and if it didn't have these P2W issues, it would probably sit right there in the Kart Racing Olympus besides the Mario Kart Games, the Sonic and Sega Racing games, Crash Team Racing and the often overlooked Diddy Kong Racing. Now it only sits right below them. Yet I still think it is important to point out, that the overwhelming majority of Speedstorm has no P2W issues. I understand and respect everybody, who doesn't want to play the game because of this issue, but I also believe it is important to point out, that this game has much more to offer and players should at least get the full picture, before they decide whether to try this game out or not. If you want to play Disney Speedstorm casually or competitively in Regulated Multiplayer, than there is certainly a lot to like here.