NEWS
Over the weekend, Trion Worlds promoted its new Revelation Pack for ArcheAge via Facebook.
ArcheAge is an MMORPG developed by Korean
developer Jake Song (former developer of Lineage) and his development company,
XL Games. The game was released in Korea on January 15, 2013, Europe and North
America on September 16, 2014, and has also had a closed beta in China.
ArcheAge is described as a "sandpark" MMORPG, which the developers
say is a hybrid of the open content style of a "sandbox" game and the
more structured play experience of a "themepark" game.
One reader asked if the packs
would be available for the upcoming Fresh Start servers, which are meant to
give all players a new starting point with no inherent advantages, and the
response from Trion Worlds was:
GREAT QUESTION — NO, THIS PACK IS FOR
LEGACY SERVERS ONLY. THE FRESH START SERVERS WILL HAVE A DIFFERENT PACK
AVAILABLE AT LAUNCH THAT’S FOCUSED ON COSMETICS NOT POWER OR P2W. WE WANT TO
MAKE SURE EVERYONE PLAYING ON THE FRESH START SERVER HAS AN EVEN PLAYING FIELD.
So if the Fresh Start packs are “focused on
cosmetics not power or P2W”… does that mean the regular Revelation Packs are
focused on power or P2W? Did Trion just admit that ArcheAge is pay-to-win?
That’s the cause taken up by fans on that
Facebook page, as well as on Reddit. Frankly, I think it’s a little overblown,
as far as being a “smoking gun” that implicates Trion as admitting ArcheAge is
P2W. Rather, I think it was just the community rep going to any length to
assure players that the Fresh Start pack wasn’t P2W, rather than comparing it
to the other packs and saying that they’re P2W. Whether ArcheAge in general is
pay-to-win, apart from these packs… well, that’s a well-trodden topic that I’d rather
not get into right now. I’m sure the comments won’t disappoint, though.
Here’s Trion’s big misstep, though, and
it’s one that nearly all game companies have been making over the past few
years: In their frenetic haste to unilaterally declare that their games aren’t
pay-to-win, all developers and publishers have managed to do is render the term
meaningless. It’s the first question that’s asked of any new game, especially a
free-to-play or non-subscription one, and the answer is always — always — “No,
our game isn’t pay-to-win.” Wavering the tiniest bit, or introducing even the
slightest sliver of a notion that that isn’t 100% the case — as seen above —
lights the community on fire and invites a horde of negative commentary that
causes more trouble than the original question ever could have.
At this point, saying “Our game isn’t
pay-to-win” is about as meaningful as saying “Our game is fun.” Of course the
creators of the game are going to say it’s fun, but that’s not for them to
decide. Everyone has their own definition of pay-to-win, just as they have
their own definition of fun, and what works for one person may be reviled by
another. The question will still be asked, though, and if you must speak on the
question, the answer should be as brief and unequivocal as possible, to give
the players as little ammunition as possible for an attack.