A few weeks back, following Korea’s Fair Trade Commission ordering Nexon to pay nearly $9M in fines over its deceptive gamble-upgrade mechanics, players went ballistic over a chart from the KFTC that purports to show the biggest individual spenders on MapleStory for 2019, 2020, 2021, and 2022. The figures, converted to USD, are quite frankly insane. If you thought the idea of paying $48,000 for a Star Citizen bundle was dumb (and it most definitely is), wait until you learn that in 2021, somebody paid Nexon over $200,000 for microtransaction fripperies. In fact, it’s pretty clear that the first year of the COVID pandemic really pushed some of these big-spenders to spend even bigger, as back in 2019, the biggest spenders were dropping closer to $30,000 a year.
I’m gonna be honest, I’ve been doing this a long time, and I know how dumb people are with money. And I don’t have a particular dislike of MapleStory, even if it’s just not my thing. But what on earth could you possibly be buying in a 20-year-old sidescrolling anime MMO worth that kind of money? I feel like it demonstrates a real lack of imagination, if anything, for what you can do with $200K. MMORPGs are literally my life, but if I won the lottery, I wouldn’t even be tempted to go ham in a cash shop.
Surely the weirdo whales of MapleStory aren’t alone. How much do you think the whales of your top MMO spend in a year?
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!
