There are so many ways to spend money in modern Electronic Arts games that it’s easy to miss many of them while playing. In 2012’s SSX, there are hundreds of functionally indistinguishable shirts, snowboards, and backpacks to buy, and nearly half the time spent in the game is in menus that casually offer them up for cold hard cash. See all those fancy guns in the loadout menu of Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer mode? Just click away and hand over the cash.
This week’s Dead Space 3 is redolent with microtransactions, making it difficult for players to build possible weapons in the game without paying for components. EA’s horror game may not be the cash cow it could be though, as players have already worked out a way to get the goods without paying.
According to a report at Eurogamer, there’s a glitch in Dead Space 3 that allows purchasable items to reappear in a room where they’ve already been picked up. By exiting and then re-entering a room, resources will automatically appear. The item is random, so even if a health or ammunition pack is dropped rather than an item for building a new weapon, those can be sold at a shop for the in-game currency to buy new parts.
The glitch will likely be patched, but don’t put it past spendthrift players to find yet another way around the problem.