Riot Games’ in-development Runeterra MMO has been a topic of discussion for director Greg “Ghostcrawler” Street for a long while now, and while there’s still not too much in the way of concrete launch details, he apparently has a lot to say in an upcoming two hour-long interview with YouTuber and streamer KanonXO, which got a little video preview ahead of the full premiere.
In the 12 minute snippet, Street talks about his thoughts on what makes some of the larger MMORPGs so successful, noting that budget plays a part, as does casting a wide net of interest, with WoW and FFXIV brought up as examples of games that serve many people.
“The bigger games are just better at serving a broader audience,” Street muses. “Say you make an MMO and you’re like, ‘Hey, this MMO is PvP only,’ you can probably guess there are gonna be players who are like, ‘Well, I’m out; that’s not me.'” Street also notes that he has no budget concerns, and that if the project is cancelled, it will be because Riot thinks it’s not good enough.
The conversation then moves to monetization model, where Street notes that his MMO won’t enter pay-to-win or pay-for-power territory, and while he believes that both subscription and free-to-play models have their place, he would also rather keep the door open for people to come back instead of churn out. He also says the team has “done the math” and believes the Runeterra MMO can be financially successful with a cosmetics-only cash shop, though there still isn’t any hard decision on the game’s monetization model yet.
The full interview is set to debut next week, but the preview is awaiting below the break.
