PayDay 2

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Payday 2

Genre	Shooter
Gamming Style	First-Person
Platform	Windows, Linux, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch
Release Date	August 13, 2013
Developer	Overkill Software
Publisher	505 Games
Website	Payday 2 - Overkill Software

Payday 2 is a cooperative first-person shooter developed by Overkill Software and released on August 13, 2013. In the first month of its release, the game sold over 1 million copies. Throughout the years, the game has remained astoundingly popular. In the fourth quarter of 2019 alone, Payday 2 garnered $7.84 million in sales. Payday 2 is a sequel to Payday: The Heist and is currently available on multiple platforms including Windows, PlayStation, Xbox, and the Nintendo Switch.

Just like its prequel, Payday 2 takes place in the Washington D.C metropolitan area, where players are given the choice between which heists they want to commit. There are many different heists, each varying in difficulty and scenario. Players can either perform these robberies alone or with up to three other teammates. Unlike its predecessor, Payday 2 expands upon character customization, weapon variety, and map interaction.

Since its release, more than thirty downloadable content (DLC) packages have been released, all of which require further payment. DLCs build upon the game by introducing new characters, storylines, and weapons. In general, DLCs have been received negative reactions by the community, with many players claiming it to be “pay-to-win” addition to the game. In 2015, players were outraged as this "pay-to-win" system was able to circumvent microtransactions to obtain DLCs through the use of hacking. In addition to concerns regarding the use of physical currency to buy virtual goods and hacking, other ethical considerations for Payday 2 include its graphic depictions of domestic terrorism and excessive violence.

Overview

Payday 2 follows the Payday Gang, a group of masked criminals who commit crimes around Washington D.C. These gang members commit these crimes for other people and are rewarded monetarily for their success. They receive crime requests through an application called CRIME.NET, which is a network that provides the Payday Gang a list of criminal jobs to take care of. Because of its success and reputation, the Payday Gang has since grown from a group of four to now a group of 22 members. Descriptions of the founding members are listed below:

Original members of the Payday Gang

• Dallas: A 44-year-old American man. He is oftentimes seen as the leader of the group and wears a mask with the American flag on it during heists.
• Chains: A 37-year-old American man who is a 10-year army veteran. During heists, he wears a white, blue, and pink mask.
• Hoxton: A 32-year-old British man who wears a pink and white clown mask during heists.
• Wolf: A 34-year-old Swedish man who wears a white and red demon mask during heists.

Gameplay

Payday 2 is played from the first-person point of view. The game consists of a series of heists that players can do alone or with other players online. Each heist has its own unique objective, oftentimes requiring players to steal a certain amount of money, an artifact, or a piece of useful information. Security guards, police, and FBI are common enemies within the game that will try to prevent the player from accomplishing their goal.

Before the Heist

Prior to the start of a heist, the player is able to choose the difficulty level of the heist. As the difficulty level increases, the game will introduce more and stronger enemies, indestructible security cameras, and stronger safes that make it harder to achieve the objective. Currently, there are seven different difficulty levels:

• Normal: No enhancements are made to the enemies or the environment.
• Hard: The number of enemies is slightly increased.
• Very Hard: The number of enemies and the health of the enemies are slightly increased.
• Overkill: The number of enemies is slightly increased and the health of the enemies is increased.
• Mayhem: The number of enemies is increased and the health of the enemies is significantly increased.
• Death Wish: The number of enemies is increased, the health of the enemies is significantly increased, and headshot damage on enemies is decreased.
• Death Sentence: The number of enemies is increased, the health of the enemies is overwhelmingly increased, and headshot damage on enemies is decreased.

During the Heist

While performing a heist, the player has the option to do it stealthily or loudly.

If the player chooses to carry out the heist fully in stealth, their goal is to accomplish the objective without drawing attention from any civilians and security forces. If the player is detected, they will be forced to finish the mission loudly.

If the player chooses to carry out the heist loudly, their goal is to accomplish the objective by brute force and to stay alive while fending off against waves of security forces. This option leads to a lot of gunfire and many casualties.

After the Heist

If the heist is finished successfully, the player is brought to a results screen, which displays information such as statistics and rewards of the heist. In regards to personal statistics, the player is able to see information like how many enemies they killed, the number of headshots they got, and how many civilians they killed. Rewards are broken up into two categories: cash payout and experience points.

80% of the cash payout from the heist is sent to the player's offshore account. This money can be later used to buy more contracts for new heists and to upgrade a player's character. The rest of the cash payout is sent to the player's personal bank account, which can be used to buy and customize weapons, purchase resources that may help during a heist, and cover expenses for killing innocent civilians.

Experience points help players level up and gain new abilities. The amount of experience points a player gains from a heist heavily depends on the difficulty of the heist. The harder the heist, the more experience points the player gains. The experience point multipliers are listed below.

• Normal: 0x
• Hard: 2x
• Very Hard: 5x
• Overkill: 10x
• Mayhem: 11.5x
• Death Wish: 13x
• Death Sentence: 14x

Ethical Issues

Hacking

Unlike many other games, Payday 2's anti-cheat system does not ban cheaters. Instead of punishing them, the anti-cheat system simply places a red label titled "cheater" next to the player's username. As a result, there is less of a deterrent to cheating as the repercussions are not as severe. Forms of hacking within the game include unlimited ammunition for the hacker's weapons, prevention of cops from shooting in the current heist, and teleportation. Since Payday 2 is a multiplayer game, hackers ruin the game experience for other players who may want to play the game fairly. Unfortunately, normal players are helpless as there is no system in place that punishes hackers for such behavior.

Promotion of Violence

Upon its release, the violence in Payday 2 has been criticized by many parents. Violence is highlighted in Payday 2 through gunfire, blood splatter, and cries of pain. The game provides little to no restriction on what the player can do with their weapon. Players have the ability to shoot anyone and anything, often with limited and unrealistic repercussions. For instance, players are allowed to shoot innocent civilians and are only penalized with a reduction in their in-game cash reward at the end of a heist. Due to all of this, Payday 2 has an ESRB rating of Mature 17+.

Pay-To-Win

In Payday 2, players can purchase downloadable content (DLC) packages, which provide new characters, heists, and weapons. While several DLCs are merely cosmetic and do not impact the gameplay in any way, other DLCs provide a variety of weapons that are noticeably stronger than their default counterparts and are only unlockable through spending real money. An example was in 2015 when there was an update to the game that introduced safes, which were only openable through drills costing $2.50 USD. Within these safes contained rare weapon skins that not only looked different but also provided stat boosts to the weapons, such as increasing damage. This addition thus divided the player base into players who were able to spend money and those who didn’t, creating a power imbalance as paying players would have a much easier time accomplishing heists by having access to such inclusive, powerful weapons.

Flaming

Flaming occurs in Payday2 as in any other online video game. Flaming is a form of cyberbullying that intentionally acts on writing hateful and hurtful comments to another user online. Within Payday2, flaming is very common as many players become frustrated with their teammates and will resort to degrading them because of their poor in-game performance. Currently, there is no punishment for flaming in Payday2 as the game mainly prioritizes on calling out cheaters during the game rather than putting effort into controlling the community from such negative behavior.

This sort of toxic behavior online inflicts emotional pain to other users who are undeservingly harassed, which can easily affect their mentality within the game and even outside of the game. As an online video game, Payday2 gives users a sense of psychological freedom to act aggressively and threaten other users without any serious repercussions. The idea of Payday2 is for a group to carry out various heists together. Since the game requires good teamwork and strong coordination within a team in order to successfully finish a heist, it is incredibly prone to players flaming one another based on bad in-game performances. Depending on the difficulty, just one wrong move can ruin the remainder of the heist causing players to easily become frustrated with the user who made the error. As a result, players who experience such toxicity within the community while playing with random players online often have a better experience playing with just their friends.

As seen in an online discussion forum, a new Payday2 user is curious about what it would be like to play with other players within the community. Due to the known issue of flaming in video games, such players are hesitant to play with others online. Responses are given to the user that cautions about the toxic community toward new players and advice on how to avoid such toxicity.