monetization
Game devs are concerned about the sustainability of live-service titles
It certainly feels like live service is being tacked on to many recent game releases (whether it makes sense or not), which of course...
Global MapleStory resolves to ‘follow its own direction’ away from Korean version parity
Western fans of MapleStory have some understandable concerns about the future of their favorite cutesy MMO following news from the Korean version, specifically Nexon's...
Co-op third-person shooter Helldivers 2 promises a focus on ‘earning the right to monetize’ its players
Last week was a pretty big deal for fans of co-op action shooters, as Helldivers 2 made what looks to be a pretty triumphant...
Pax Dei ponders a box price with sub monetization balanced with a free trial and possible game time tokens
Where does the developing sandbox MMO Pax Dei stand on monetization? "Well, we’re sorry to say we haven’t figured it all out —...
Fight or Kite: Love anime, mechs, and battle royale? Super Mecha Champions is probably for you
If you’re anything like me, you love a good, dumb battle against other players. You also love all kinds of action anime. Maybe even...
The Daily Grind: Are you inured to MMO whaling and exploitative monetization?
Back in July, MOP reader Neowolf made an insightful comment about excessive monetization exploitation and MMO whaling - that is, MMOs targeting big-spenders with...
RuneScape’s Jagex on the much-derided battlepass: ‘We messed up’
All week, we've been covering the chaos brewing over in the RuneScape community as players have put up a strong protest against Jagex's new...
Player feedback (and a blast of review bombing) forces World of Warships to overhaul event rewards
World of Warships players have apparently joined the throngs of gaming review bombers and are taking to Steam reviews to voice their displeasure with...
EVE Online removes a contentious item from a cash shop bundle after player backlash
CCP Games decided to once again test the patience of the EVE Online playerbase this week after the studio offered - and then removed...
Blizzard promises a fix for Diablo IV’s season battle pass ‘dark pattern’ after widespread player complaints
Among the many complaints that players are leveraging against Diablo IV, one of them is arguably far more serious than class nerfs: a bit...
Discord announces additional monetization via new subscription gating tools for server creators
For regular users of the chat program Discord, monetization of the platform began a potentially worrying trend when the company announced the server subscriptions...
Valve is eliminating Dota 2 battle passes because almost nobody was buying them
A common refrain that's used to fight against unwanted monetization is "speak with your wallet" - ie don't buy a thing you dislike. That...
Massively on the Go: Five features location-based MMOs keep using – but shouldn’t
I was hoping to cover a couple of other location-based games besides Jurassic World Alive this month, but as I played them, there were a...
Massively on the Go: Jurassic World Alive plods on five years later, encumbered by over-monetization
Ludia's Jurassic World Alive is still stomping along. It's gotten some features over the years that seem, well, "borrowed" from that Pokemon GPS game, but yeesh,...
Embers Adrift defends its subscription monetization model in latest dev video
The most recent developer livestream from Embers Adrift began as most others, with the game's community manager Elloa reading patch notes for March's update...
Players cry foul over Call of Duty Warzone cash shop skins that offer unfair advantages
More often than not, the term "pay-to-win" is used as a weapon against almost anything, but in the case of some discovered premium skins...
Fight or Kite: Starborne Frontiers is an autobattler with plentiful monetization schemes
When Starborne: Frontiers was first announced back in June of 2021 (which, wow, I can’t believe it was that long ago), I was extremely...
Korean Elyon fans have already created a rogue server of the shuttered MMORPG
Fans of Elyon in both Korea and the west were basically being kicked out of the MMORPG by Kakao Games, with a December sunset...
Class action law firm probes Diablo Immortal over false advertising claims
This is a story about a gem in Diablo Immortal known as the Blessing of the Worthy, an item that could only be found...
New video looks at the history of microtransactions and how they flooded all of video gaming
The cosmetics shop. The battle pass. The lock box. Microtransactions are a part of our MMO, MMORPG, and multiplayer lives, not to mention many...
