cash-shop posts

A not so long time ago in an interview located not too far away, one of our intrepid readers asked Alganon's David Allen if they ever considered a free-to-play model for their game. His response was the following:

"Right now, the industry standard is to squeeze as much money as they can out of players by introducing cash shops, and forcing them to pay for things that ought to have been part of the game. We don't want to do that. We want Alganon to be a service. You pay us a subscription so we can continue to develop and run a game that you enjoy playing. It's not a product where you hand us money and we hand you a vanity pet, or mount, or epic sword and then walk away. "

So, David... not to be "that girl" but... um... how's that cash shop working out for ya?

So, now that I've said what pretty much everyone was thinking when they heard that announcement from Quest Online, let's talk about cash shops this week and how we seem to royally keep screwing them up in our culture. Because, as the title says, "cash shop" just shouldn't be a dirty phrase in our industry.

When Allods Online soft-launched on February 16th, it had proven just how much buzz a free-to-play game could generate in a short span of time. Three days later, it proved how quickly a game's reputation could plummet, as the release of the cash shop prices sent most players into a paroxysm of rage. The official statements (and interviews) were seen as amounting to "well, it's our game so pay up," and the crowd was quickly turning around and heading for the hills. So an age-old strategy has been employed: the powers that be are reversing their position

The official announcement doesn't give any details, but it makes it clear that the community outrage has been heard, and the cash shop prices will be revised sometime this week. The structuring has been changed to make "participation in this element of the game" less onerous, and no doubt to try and reverse some of the animosity leveled against Astrum Nival and gPotato in recent days. It remains to be seen whether or not the turnaround will mollify players or if the changes will be too little too late, but it's good to see that the voice of the players has been heard all through Allods Online.

You'd have to be hiding under a rock to not have noticed the brouhaha that's been going on with the Allods Online cash shop. Players have been in an uproar about the Fear of Death mechanic coupled with the $13.50 price-tag for perfumes; the $20 pricetag for an additional 6 bag slots; as well as the changes coming to the Russian version of the game on patch 0.7 with mounts requiring a cash shop item to go faster than walking. They gave us a public statement before, but many people felt that it was marketing double-speak that effectively said nothing at all -- at least if our comments section is any indication.

When you add in the swirling rumors that the original developers had left the building and were no longer actively involved in helping to develop Allods Online, you can imagine the din. The forums were alight with people asking for some type of statement -- or just ragequitting.

Last night, the folks at gPotato finally decided to respond to player concerns with a statement many in the player community seem to feel is a far better one than last time. This one not only answers the question as to whether or not the original developers are still on board (short answer: yes), but also addresses the cash shop pricing, and opens a thread where they're soliciting constructive player feedback. if you've been concerned about this, now's the time to head over there and have your say. Also, be sure to check out Massively Speaking tomorrow, when our Editor-in-Chief, Shawn, will be asking a representative from gPotato the hard questions about Allods Online. We're sure you won't want to miss that!

We recently brought you the news that the closed beta for Battle of the Immortals has been delayed until mid-April. Several reasons were cited, including details such as Windows 7 support, revising the item shop and the AI behavior, and so on. The Perfect World Entertainment team took some time to expand on those reasons for us this week.

As we reported earlier this morning, the Allods Online item shop went live during open beta today, but the player feedback wasn't exactly positive. The main issue here being what fans felt were unusually high prices for in-game items.

Tonight, gPotato officially responded to the outrage, literally apologizing for the communication breakdown that happened today. "We made a mistake by not letting you, our most passionate players know when the item shop was going to go live and we didn't make the effort to learn more about how all of you feel regarding the contents of the item shop." Later in the statement, they've clarified a major concern on the minds of those interested in making Allods their main MMO: "You can still enjoy the entire game without ever having to spend a single cent."

When asked for a comment, Associate Producer Darren Allarde said to Massively, "We really appreciate the support from Massively.com and its readers. Again, we read every piece of feedback, so if there are comments anyone would like to make regarding Allods Online, please send it our way!"

Be sure to take a look at the entire official response for more on how the Allods team hopes to rectify the situation, and how you can contact them with any concerns you may have.

The Allods Online's community isn't happy with the game's cash shop prices. Currently, the cost of increasing your bag slots from 18 to 24 is $20, which is considerably higher than pretty much every other free-to-play game on the market. It's not entirely clear whether this is some kind of back-end mistake on gPotato's part or an actual pricing change.

And looking at the general section of Allods Online's official forums reveals that, in fact, a lot of players are pretty upset over the whole fiasco. Some are proclaiming rage-quits while others are considering boycotts but nobody is happy about the news. Of course, some more level-headed community members are attempting to communicate with gPotato in order to get the prices changed to more reasonable prices -- something which is apparently true of the Russian version of the game. We'll keep you updated as the story progresses.

NCsoft had a big year on the Aion front: the months leading up to launch are just as crazy as the months immediately following launch, so the community team is more than ready for a little vacation.

Not without one final community address, however. The Aion community team is leaving us until January fourth, taking a well-earned rest while we enjoy the Solorius festival. Good things are promised when they return in 2010, and this final address for the year gave us a hint of things to come.

The first item on the 2010 agenda is the addition of "paid account services" -- a cash shop for vanity items. The list includes character and Legion name changes, plastic surgery, and gender changes. Further details are pretty limited at this point, but more information is promised in February, along with a pricing plan.

The other item on the table is new content. The community address promised to "introduce a great deal of new content into Aion in 2010," but any more details are going to have to wait until the new year. Our assumption (and hope) is that the promise is related to Aion's Visions of the Future.

The full community address can be read here.

Martial-art fantasy giant robot MMO (yes, that's the genre) Titan Online is in their open beta phase and they're about to unveil their cash shop and all of the goodies contained within to their players, but they're not going to let anyone buy anything. Not just yet, at least. They aren't letting any user purchase their in-game currency, T-Cash, but they are opening the item shop on June 1st.

So how are you suppose to get the items in the cash shop then? Why you need to win them via an event, of course! Titan Online will be throwing an special event in for the unveiling of the cash shop where players of all levels will be able to win some of the items contained within. They're also letting players win some T-Cash in advance by uploading their fan made movies onto YouTube.

It's certainly an interesting way to open a standard feature of free-to-play MMOs, and hopefully it will be a bunch of fun for everyone involved. Plus, who can argue with free stuff?

Free-to-play games portal Outspark spoke out about their future plans two weeks ago, and it seems it slipped out of our vision by accident. Outspark will be soon making a formal announcement about the release of their upcoming games service platform, which will be providing solutions for huge developers and small developers who are looking to get their games out onto the internet.

The platform is a vertical business structure, offering the ability to tie the game into Outspark's own login system and cash shop system, their installer package, game statistics and finance statistics tracker, content management, and marketing structures. Simply put, a developer can publish a game to Outspark's system, reaching out to Outspark's already sizable user base.

Gamasutra had the chance to catch up with Outspark's CEO, Susan Choe, and talk in-depth about the upcoming platform. For the full story, jump on over to Gamasutra for all of the juicy details.

Tomorrow is going to be a big day for players of Nexon's MapleStory. For one day only, all items in the cape, overall, hat or shoe category will be completely free. You just simply visit the in-game "cash shop" to customize your avatar and try on whatever new looks you want -- and all without dropping a single penny.

Now we can finally get that toy we always pined for as children, if even for only one day!

This is actually a pretty cool gesture from Nexon, and we think it'll probably make for one of the busiest days in MapleStory quite some time. Now, if you'll excuse us we have to go try out that "Spaceballs! The Flame Thrower!" on a few zombies...

Worlds in Motion reports that you can now buy game cards for MapleStory and other Nexon games at your local 7-Eleven convenience store. The game cards -- which cost $10 or $25 -- can be used to purchase in-game items.

At first, this struck us as bizarre, but it actually makes some sense. A 7-Eleven representative is quoted in the Worlds in Motion article saying that the cards are perfect for the "tweens and teens" who enjoy MapleStory -- a demographic that also happens to frequent 7-Eleven. The representative calls it "the Slurpee-beverage crowd."

It's a strange world. Next thing you know we'll be buying EQ2 game-time cards at the gasoline pump!

It's Black Friday, and that means every one (in the United States, at least) is busy shopping for the holidays! And with MapleStory, shopping and online gaming go hand in hand. Nexon, the company behind MapleStory, announced that there will be a huge Black Friday sale for MapleStory users this weekend.

So, if you're into MapleStory, that's good news for you; items in the Cash Shop will be sold at a big discount and there will be special sales of very valuable items for very low prices at certain times. If you're not, well, you still have all the "real-life" deals we pointed out earlier today to salivate over.