There was a time when World of Warcraft charging $25 for a sparkly pony was considered absurd fleecing of its playerbase. Times have certainly changed since then, and not just because it turned out that these mounts were a license to print money for Blizzard (hence the studio making a bunch more of them). No, we’ve seen a lot of grifting in the MMO sphere since then, to the point where getting upset for just paying for a mount seems almost quaint.
A full list of all the things that people have been enraged about and referred to as some form of grifting would take a lot more space than we have here, but there’s a lot of examples, ranging from non-games like Wild West Online and Infestation: Survivor Stories to failed Kickstarter titles like TUG to even otherwise respectable games like Lord of the Rings Online charging money for a minor content update. So what do you think of as the most egregious grifting you’ve seen in the MMO sphere?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
