Players of the recently released mobile RPG Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds have some thoughts on the game’s monetization, particularly its engrained pay-to-earn crypto scheme and how the associated cryptocurrency can be used to pay for incredibly powerful PvP items.
The Reddit post drawing attention to the problem offers a gallery of images from the game’s crypto item shop, highlighting a few such items that literally let players pay-to-win in PvP. The post also reports that cryptocurrency gates other aspects of the game like crafting, trading, and upgrading familiars; the redditor notes here that earning enough tokens to participate in these activities can be done through gameplay, but there is a grind involved, making this aspect of monetization fall into the pay-for-convenience realm.
Readers will recall that Netmarble has been pedal to the metal in terms of crypto’s inclusion in gaming despite blockchain games being banned in South Korea, so this news is probably not terribly surprising, but it’s certainly an upsetting development.
