You'll Be Able to Buy Wumpa Coins in Crash Team Racing Soon

Crash Bandicoot has been on the upswing (which is more than can be said for his similarly-rebooted '90s mascot peer, Bubsy) with the release of the remastered classics and the new cart-based racing game, Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled. So far, there’s a lot to like about the game: it’s well-built with a fun cast of characters, a lot of cool tracks to race on, and even unlockable cosmetics for your characters, items, and carts. Heck, there are even new characters and new maps being released for the game frequently… what’s not to like?

Well, the fact that it’s being published by Activision, mainly. Because it was just announced on the Activision blog that they’re adding microtransactions to the game! Hooray!

Starting in early August, players will have the option to purchase Wumpa Coin bundles from their game console stores to supplement the Coins they earn by playing. This option won’t change the game’s core mechanics – players will still earn Wumpa Coins by playing the game in any mode, just as before. They will just able to purchase additional coins if they choose.

So that’s a thing.

To their credit, no one’s complained about Wumpa Coins being hard to earn, the way people complained about Street Fighter’s currency being insanely difficult to earn in-game. So if this is just a tool to give lazy people a quick way to access the customization content they want (with a direct purchase, too, not a stupid loot box), then fine. That should be fine.

Except that’s never how these things wind up, are they? This is Activision we’re talking about, I’d bet good money that they’re going to add more and more customization options that will cost more and more Wumpa coins, and eventually, the game will be bloated with things you can technically earn but will realistically have to buy.

And they’ve given me no reason to suspect that won’t be the case.