For context, here’s the tweet with a statement regarding the in-game premium store by Rich Lawrence, the studio director behind the New World MMO. While you’re at it, you can also read the few corporate responses the company gave to commenters.
— New World (@playnewworld) May 15, 2021 Let’s break the statement down, starting with the first paragraph. The statement starts by saying that the premium store is “not, and never will be, to create a feeling that store items are necessary to enjoy the game”. There’s simply another game that proves this entire premise false, and that’s Middle Earth: Shadow of War.
“Premium store” and “optional” are inherently opposing ideas
For those who don’t remember, the Lord of The Rings (LOTR) spinoff game was chock full of microtransactions at launch. Gameplay was a massive grind, designed to push people towards spending real money to save time. In 2019, two years after its release, Warner Brothers Interactive (its developer) decided to remove the premium store. Gameplay was rebalanced to reflect this, too. Which made the “optional” argument very strenuous and contrived at best.
You’d think that the ruse of a premium currency store truly meant to be “optional” has been permanently dispelled. But it looks like that’s not the case, as plenty still attempt to justify the poor excuse. And New World is a game that’s still in Alpha, mind you. Moving on to the second paragraph, which starts with “All store items at launch will be exclusively cosmetic in nature”. In a twisted way, this statement deserves some credit for its honesty. Because it explicitly mentions “at launch”, we know that some form of premium, paid convenience is coming down the line. It’s not by much, but it’s at least a little better than what was offered in Bethesda’s Fallout 76.
Imagine paying premium currency to get out of the tutorial
Anyone who’s ever had any form of experience with literally any MMORPG would see why this would go wrong very quickly. Even as a service paid with in-game currency, this is often not cheap for the beginner player. At least not until they complete a couple more quests outside of the starting location. It’s a very good example of something that walks the fine line between a necessity and a convenience. And it takes someone who is colossally out of touch with MMOs to think that this is monetisable.
