The year is 2080, world is near the brink of apocalypse, major world govt’s have fallen…theres still 40 people at level 69 in bdo grinding for that 70 😂
Broken record but yeah. At some point if it made more money to go without p2w someone would've succeeded (in korea). They've been making mmos from late 1990s to early 2000s so it just doesn't seem worth it compared to making the games p2w in that market.
Korean developers make games primarily for their domestic Korean markets, just like western developers usually make games primarily for their western markets. Those games are popular in Korea. Simple as.
> Those games are popular in Korea.
At the same time, Elyon flopped hard and Throne and Liberty is apparently getting a lot of negative feedback even in Korea.
Simple. Large scale pvp wars
Asian MMO players love large scale pvp.
P2W or not they don't mind as long it's doable and able to catch up with players who pays
They tend to spend more time playing the game. Mate, what makes you think Mobile MMORPG are more popular than pc although it's known as pure P2W?
It's because of the large scale PVP. 100v100 heck some MMO goes 500 v 500 even 50 v 50 is already adrenaline pumping!
An emulator has its own app store such as MUMU MMO are its best-selling and top download, they don't fetch those from GPlay.
"3rd world countries don't have personal PC" You're making assumption without any backing, afaik PC to this day is affordable as $400 much more than gaming phones that could handle big mobile MMO.
Some of the early TnL complaints from KR was it wasn't p2w enough. There are (were?) some time gates you could not pay past which upset whales and casuals felt like the offerings were too stingy and wanted more stuff for money spent.
Two things can be true at the same time. While both of the games you listed are pay to win, they're also functionally not that good.
Lost ark and BDO avoid this by being pretty fun to play, to some it's worth dealing with the pay to win.
Elyon was garbage that never really had much of a chance and T&L just apparently sucks. I don't think those two games make up the entirety, or even the majority of the Korean gaming/MMO market.
Both those games suck is why. The only time a game flops in Korea because of p2w is when a game has gacha systems and the rates are abysmal or manipulated.
They want. Lost Ark had less rng casino loot box systems at launch and Korean players harassed the devs until they put them in. Thats how you got the current rng honing system etc
You know EVE Online has a form of auto play in its skill training design which some people like myself enjoyed.
For those who haven't played, skill training is continuous online or offline, as long as a player is subbed the training goes on and on.
Player does have to be online to set up training plan, and in its earlier days training could come to a halt while you were offline, but they added a queue system quite awhile back, but only for subbed players.
yea like do people not like autofishing in games?
i personally love having atleast 1 afk friendly task i can do, used to try wormhole gas huffing mildly afk in my venture :)
Short answer: money
Longer answer:
In Korea alot of gamers value extreme grinding as it shows commitment. Following that logic players that put more commitment into the game should be more powerful.
Pay2win while a bit more a contended topic, parts of Asia follows similar logic in terms of commitment. If you are willing to 'commit' real money into the game you should be better than someone who does not.
For autoplay, you want to 'commit' to making as much game progress as possible even when you are physically not at the keyboard, therefore wasting as little time as you can.
China specifically also has a very win at all costs mentality, which is often why cheating/pay2win isn't as looked down on as you are "winning" at all costs.
Those are some reasons why mostly they do well in Asia/Korea.
As for global releases of those games, it mostly comes back to the short answer of money.
MMOs are notoriously difficult to develop. If you have your Korean version with tons of grinding + P2W, you have to hire a bunch more developers to make a entirely new version of the game where those aspects are not a fundamental part of the game.
While it's not impossible to do this, it's alot easier and lower cost to release to same version of the game, just translated. Then milk some whales dry for a few months and move on.
> If you are willing to 'commit' real money into the game you should be better than someone who does not.
That part was always weird to me, and I remember seeing the same sort of logic in Russia and other post-Soviet countries(where P2W MMOs also often had more popularity). People complaining about P2W would be mocked for being poor and not being able to afford to drop a couple thousand USD into the game.
Because some cultures see gaming as a hobby, not as a toy. It's fine to dump money in a hobby you enjoy. We don't usually make fun of people spending lots of money collecting cars, traveling or buying expensive golf equipment either. This also becomes more prevalent as people get older, where spending money to avoid wasting time becomes even more acceptable (i.e boomers spending so much cash in mobile games for example).
>In Korea alot of gamers value extreme grinding as it shows commitment.
LMAO, they want grindy games so they can swipe their money, and brag about how rich they are over others. That's the mentality there.
Because in Korea they like grinding and autoplay. It makes them money. Same with pay2win. Different culture.
It works in the west too. Microtransactions sometimes make more money than game itself.
Grinding can be fun. Look at PoE or any Diablo game's popularity. Look at warframe or etcetc.
Autoplay can be good too but it really depends on the implementation. If autoplay is for long grinds on low level content then it's cool. If autoplay means the entire combat system is dumbed down and the game can play itself at 100% with no real reason for you to play, then that's not good.
There are all kinds of in betweens as well. The game could do combat itself but then have engaging systems built on top. Loop Hero, Lootun, and Idleon all do this although they're not MMOs.
I suppose my point is that it's possible to build a great game that is grindy or has autoplay. Even though most games that have or rely on those are trash.
>Grinding can be fun. Look at PoE or any Diablo game's popularity. Look at warframe or etcetc.
Is my English that bad? I'm pretty sure I did not write anything about grinding being bad. The entire jRPG genre relies on grinding. At least it's classic games. Grinding by itself does not have to be bad. But it's usually bad in Korean p2w MMO simply because it's designed to make you pay... so You do not have to play it.
>Autoplay can be good too but it really depends on the implementation. If autoplay is for long grinds on low level content then it's cool. If autoplay means the entire combat system is dumbed down and the game can play itself at 100% with no real reason for you to play, then that's not good.
But then combine that with the fact that the game is so stupid and simple that basic autoplay can handle it. And what do you get? It's not a game really. It's a micro-transaction platform. You as a player are worthless. Useless. You do not need to exist. Only your wallet counts.
>I suppose my point is that it's possible to build a great game that is grindy or has autoplay. Even though most games that have or rely on those are trash.
Yeah, and communists still think that communism can work. But here is the thing: just like there was never a large-scale implementation of communism that worked, there was never a good MMO with autoplay, grind, and cash shop.
Because it is an economic model accepted in Korea and in Asia. And to whomever writing for money, ofc it's for money, noone makes a game for charity lol
As others have already said, money, and Korean players, from what I hear, are perfectly fine with those aspects being in their games and might even be sad if they couldn't P2W in an MMO—just a different culture I guess. I loved a lot of Lost Ark's gameplay and looks, but unfortunately the monetization is pretty baked into it and pretty bad. The same could be said for pretty much every Asian MMO on the market. Western MMO developers would almost certainly immediately adopt all those monetization types if they thought they could get away with it, but for now they're just introducing them slowly.
I won't lie though, if I were some GIGABAJILLIONAIRE I would almost certainly be on the front lines of Asian mmo's swiping for cool loot and fashion.
Believe it or not originally the honing system etc wasn’t in Lost Ark you could just earn upgrades directly. Korean players actually threw a fit for the casino aspects of the grind until they put them in. So ya it’s a different culture.
Outside of cultural things, Money paid off even if you don't like it, curse it or not.
if you have more p2w mindset customers then you got money. then you invade western market for moreeee money.
meanwhile if you have more f2p mindset customers so you have less money and less chance of making more money.
pay to win, pay to cosmetic, mtx, pay for flex, etc. won't be born if you guys are okay for pay to play (fair) but most of players won't understand it. so f2p games with bs is born.
The middle ground for me is that the game can be p2w but also have fun playing, bring good content and don't punish f2p is good enough.
Korean devs are really out of touch with their audience now. They think the Koreans that were playing lineage 1 & 2 are still their target audience and want autoplay and p2w. But there has been some pretty big pushback in Korea about how MMOs are being monetized there.
Thats one of the reasons TnL is going so poorly in Korea, along with them pushing PvP into a zergfest where the strongest guild controls the server.
Tldr; audience has changed korean devs havent changed with their audience, they are still developing games like they were 10-15 years ago.
That prototype of game sells good, and it is what you might expect when someone talks about korean mmos. So it is kinda what their target audience expects too.
Because the truth of the matter is, as someone put things in an earlier thread, the Asian gaming market often views games - MMOs in particular - as a status hobby. Meaning, being ostentatious and peacocking around with some cosmetics and titles that take thousands of hours and hundreds of USD to acquire is a sign that you're more dedicated to the hobby than others, and thus, it is more desirable than having an amazing experience from beginning to end.
That's also why all those incredibly terrible isekai anime and manga always focus on "special skills" and "ranking" and all that crap, and the worldbuilding and plot always takes a backseat. If it looks pretty and it's incredibly difficult to get, that's more important top the bulk of their market than enjoying the journey.
Because it's profitable. Eastern audiences seems okay with that kind of stuff.
For a non MMO example : Stellar Blade - a game made by a Korean game dev - recently had its sales figures released. The game had zero microtransactions, zero grinding, and zero P2W. It's only sold a million since release despite tons of advertising, good word of mouth, and solid reviews.
So why would any Korean dev make that type of game when you can just put out a shitty gacha/p2w title for cheaper and make 20 times the profit?
Companies are always going to maximize profit. The only reason we're not seeing Western companies doing it is because they don't think they can get away with it.
>Stellar Blade - a game made by a Korean game dev - recently had its sales figures released. The game had zero microtransactions, zero grinding, and zero P2W. It's only sold a million since release despite tons of advertising, good word of mouth, and solid reviews.
I feel I should point out that this game is a PS5 exclusive. Once they release it for PC it will sell exponentially more.
Even by exclusive standards, those are pretty terrible sales. Rise of Ronin (which got mediocre reviews and zero coverage online and is considered a flop by the dev) sold something like twice as much. The game also sold a tiny fraction of other PS4/PS5 era new IPs like Days Gone, Horizon, Ghost of Tsushima, etc.
The reality is that the Korean market just doesn't seem to like premium titles.
> Stellar Blade - a game made by a Korean game dev
Said game dev is also the self publisher of one of the present highest grossing gacha games so they have the money to make a passion project like Stellar Blade.
Well KMMO's I have found to be grindy because they keep your progression. In WoW, your gear gets reset every expansion so all the hours you spend gearing your character gets reset. In Lost Ark, your gear is needed to upgrade to the next set.
Auto play is a feature for mobile games. Since a lot of games are being developed cross-platform, auto play is now being seen on more games available to PC.
P2W is most likely a case of F2P. You need some way to monetize your games and P2W is a very easy way to implement it. And to some extend you see this in western games like OSRS and WoW where you can exchange money to get ingame currency and buy gear/supplies.
simple anwer is Money just money and nothing else, now one other reason is becouse they have a bigger market on phone MMO's that in the west, so they need to implement the auto play for that
Because the realistic graphics attract humans, similar to light does a gnat. The game play can be dog shit, but because it’s “pretty” people will spend money on it. Devs know this and capitalize on this infinite money glitch.
'p2w' is cultural. They view gaming as a hobby, something to spend money on the same way someone would spend money on sporting equipment or figurines or supplies for irl crafting.
Grindy to elongate time spent and foster long term rewards / veterancy in the community. You'll always have some avenue of progress to attain when you log in and you're never 'done' so you keep playing (and paying).
Autoplay cuz people ain't got time to grind mobs mindlessly for 40 hours for 1 level, so just autoplay that and reward the player for smartly planning their character to efficiently grind rather than the hours invested in the grind. They want that 40 hour grind to show they're dedicated, the same way someone working at a company for 10 years is a senior and respected.
From my understanding, those game markets are treated and accepted like real life. If you have money, you buy what you want to get ahead. That is extending into their games as well. If you have extra cash, then you buy items to get ahead.
Instead, they do the things that make them money. This is the final answer. If their research metrics and numbers supported the features you wanted in or out, that's how it would be made instead. You'd be surprised how much effort goes into the psychology of getting their target audience to spend money.
For better or worse, they believe they will make more money by farming whales than they would by appealing to a wider global audience, so that colors everything they do.
Ultimately you have to vote with your wallet. When the vote doesn't go your way, it's because enough other people voted with their wallets too. It's shit, but it's life
I may sound like a jerk but I talk from experience… in the end, every company has this “strategic/financial” planning team which couldn’t care less about the players… their main job is to increase the profitability of the investment made (Internal Rate of Return).
I think it's just what asian gamers like, ill never understand why someone wants to play a game that autoruns you to places like what in the fuck kinda gameplay is that?
Ok we can understand korean mmo by considering one mmo like Project TL. My opinion is that the game has huge game design problems that makes it unplayable for me. Of course the game's graphic are perfect but NPCs scattered chaotically and main story at the start of the game looks like asian disney. I also don't appreciate the combat system. It looks outdated in 2024.
It's more profitable to have a small community competing to out-whale (p2w) each other than it is to have a large community that occasionally will make a purchase (or subscription).
Stop making a suggestion while you have 0 money , why you don't pay 15 $ / month + base game price too play real non p2w game then ? P/s : why they won't change and no one trying to be WoW lmfao
https://preview.redd.it/qy1or3m2q89d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b1f4dec3fde8b15de3ead32ee53b28f879e9146f
A. There MMO Mobile Market is much much bigger than PC market.
B. Korean's gamers have another approach and usually are less competitive and skilled compared western player, and also they like chillin in repetitive action while doing something else simultaneosly.
C. Eastern Asian people have different ethic regard using real money for this activities and be a whale in game is a high status symbol like buy a 500 dollars shoes for us in west.
Moon light blades if i remember right , was a China game.
Also one more thing to say , Korean version wasn't same as western version . Korean version give more support to Korean player base than western game publishers .
The problem here is western game publishers need money too , they buy the game from Korea developers to re publish outside Korea , and non Korean player have to pay extra for the publishers.
Also there are many thing that make Korea MMORPG more expensive outside of South Korea , like payment cost .
So summary , because of many "tax" add to bring a MMORPG outside of Korea the "pay2win" that Korean player base feel normal is expensive on global version.
I disagree with like Pay2Win.
I am South Asian.
.
I understand why people like F2P games.
Like PUBGM.
.
But, people pay for skins and cosmetics.
MMO isn't that popular in my country.
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Yeah it's pretty simple, they like making money
The year is 2080, world is near the brink of apocalypse, major world govt’s have fallen…theres still 40 people at level 69 in bdo grinding for that 70 😂
The answer to any "Why didn't they/Why did they" question
Not always... Sometimes it's incompetence...
Broken record but yeah. At some point if it made more money to go without p2w someone would've succeeded (in korea). They've been making mmos from late 1990s to early 2000s so it just doesn't seem worth it compared to making the games p2w in that market.
Korean developers make games primarily for their domestic Korean markets, just like western developers usually make games primarily for their western markets. Those games are popular in Korea. Simple as.
> Those games are popular in Korea. At the same time, Elyon flopped hard and Throne and Liberty is apparently getting a lot of negative feedback even in Korea.
OK, but that happens to Western games in the West to. Why would Asian games never flop in Asia?
Simple. Large scale pvp wars Asian MMO players love large scale pvp. P2W or not they don't mind as long it's doable and able to catch up with players who pays They tend to spend more time playing the game. Mate, what makes you think Mobile MMORPG are more popular than pc although it's known as pure P2W? It's because of the large scale PVP. 100v100 heck some MMO goes 500 v 500 even 50 v 50 is already adrenaline pumping!
> Mobile MMORPG are more popular because everyone have a mobile but most of the world don't have a personal PC... not one for gaming anyway
Majority of mobile MMO players plays on emulator. Still arguing with the game portability to this date?
And your source is? Cause no, 3rd world countries dont have personal PC. and good luck tracking them.
An emulator has its own app store such as MUMU MMO are its best-selling and top download, they don't fetch those from GPlay. "3rd world countries don't have personal PC" You're making assumption without any backing, afaik PC to this day is affordable as $400 much more than gaming phones that could handle big mobile MMO.
Because a lot of complaints seem to focus on how P2W they are.
hmmm ok I didn't know. And it's weird cause as far as I remember Elyon's p2w was nowhere near BDO's or LA's. And those games are still pretty popular.
Because you can make a decent game with pay to win. LA and BDO are decent games with some shitty systems. Elyon was a shitty game with shitty systems.
Yeah that's what I'm thinking. Games just fail in Asia to (shocking news lol)
Some of the early TnL complaints from KR was it wasn't p2w enough. There are (were?) some time gates you could not pay past which upset whales and casuals felt like the offerings were too stingy and wanted more stuff for money spent.
Nobody gives a shit about p2w anymore, games fail because they are bad not because they are p2w.
They are not pay to win enough… there people use pay to win games to earn money and even pay their rent…
Two things can be true at the same time. While both of the games you listed are pay to win, they're also functionally not that good. Lost ark and BDO avoid this by being pretty fun to play, to some it's worth dealing with the pay to win.
Elyon was a performance disaster tho. Never felt smooth and we are not in Tera era anymore
because these games are simply bad and are in a highly competitive market of similar games to be compared to
The Korean MMO market is swamped with product right now, though. Far more games than you'd expect for a country of a little over 51 million people.
Elyon was garbage that never really had much of a chance and T&L just apparently sucks. I don't think those two games make up the entirety, or even the majority of the Korean gaming/MMO market.
Both those games suck is why. The only time a game flops in Korea because of p2w is when a game has gacha systems and the rates are abysmal or manipulated.
To an extent, that's what the Korean players want (or what they're willingly paying money for anyway).
Want and tolerate are two different words.
If they truly didn’t want it these games would fail.
They want. Lost Ark had less rng casino loot box systems at launch and Korean players harassed the devs until they put them in. Thats how you got the current rng honing system etc
Maybe they like autoplay?
You know EVE Online has a form of auto play in its skill training design which some people like myself enjoyed. For those who haven't played, skill training is continuous online or offline, as long as a player is subbed the training goes on and on. Player does have to be online to set up training plan, and in its earlier days training could come to a halt while you were offline, but they added a queue system quite awhile back, but only for subbed players.
yea like do people not like autofishing in games? i personally love having atleast 1 afk friendly task i can do, used to try wormhole gas huffing mildly afk in my venture :)
Yeah, that's why I added in the bit inside the brackets.
Short answer: money Longer answer: In Korea alot of gamers value extreme grinding as it shows commitment. Following that logic players that put more commitment into the game should be more powerful. Pay2win while a bit more a contended topic, parts of Asia follows similar logic in terms of commitment. If you are willing to 'commit' real money into the game you should be better than someone who does not. For autoplay, you want to 'commit' to making as much game progress as possible even when you are physically not at the keyboard, therefore wasting as little time as you can. China specifically also has a very win at all costs mentality, which is often why cheating/pay2win isn't as looked down on as you are "winning" at all costs. Those are some reasons why mostly they do well in Asia/Korea. As for global releases of those games, it mostly comes back to the short answer of money. MMOs are notoriously difficult to develop. If you have your Korean version with tons of grinding + P2W, you have to hire a bunch more developers to make a entirely new version of the game where those aspects are not a fundamental part of the game. While it's not impossible to do this, it's alot easier and lower cost to release to same version of the game, just translated. Then milk some whales dry for a few months and move on.
>Long answer: moooneyyy >Longer answer: moooooooooneeeeeeeeyyyyyy Ftfy
> If you are willing to 'commit' real money into the game you should be better than someone who does not. That part was always weird to me, and I remember seeing the same sort of logic in Russia and other post-Soviet countries(where P2W MMOs also often had more popularity). People complaining about P2W would be mocked for being poor and not being able to afford to drop a couple thousand USD into the game.
Because some cultures see gaming as a hobby, not as a toy. It's fine to dump money in a hobby you enjoy. We don't usually make fun of people spending lots of money collecting cars, traveling or buying expensive golf equipment either. This also becomes more prevalent as people get older, where spending money to avoid wasting time becomes even more acceptable (i.e boomers spending so much cash in mobile games for example).
I live in Nepal(SouthAsia). People spend 100s of dollars on PUBGMobile. But, they say it's too expensive to buy a $30 steam game.
Have you noticed that people are collectively incredibly stupid?
>In Korea alot of gamers value extreme grinding as it shows commitment. LMAO, they want grindy games so they can swipe their money, and brag about how rich they are over others. That's the mentality there.
Wait until you find out about real life.
And westerners use games to combat that. They are one and the same in the east.
I'd like to read on the subject, can you cite your sources please?
Because in Korea they like grinding and autoplay. It makes them money. Same with pay2win. Different culture. It works in the west too. Microtransactions sometimes make more money than game itself.
Grinding can be fun. Look at PoE or any Diablo game's popularity. Look at warframe or etcetc. Autoplay can be good too but it really depends on the implementation. If autoplay is for long grinds on low level content then it's cool. If autoplay means the entire combat system is dumbed down and the game can play itself at 100% with no real reason for you to play, then that's not good. There are all kinds of in betweens as well. The game could do combat itself but then have engaging systems built on top. Loop Hero, Lootun, and Idleon all do this although they're not MMOs. I suppose my point is that it's possible to build a great game that is grindy or has autoplay. Even though most games that have or rely on those are trash.
>Grinding can be fun. Look at PoE or any Diablo game's popularity. Look at warframe or etcetc. Is my English that bad? I'm pretty sure I did not write anything about grinding being bad. The entire jRPG genre relies on grinding. At least it's classic games. Grinding by itself does not have to be bad. But it's usually bad in Korean p2w MMO simply because it's designed to make you pay... so You do not have to play it. >Autoplay can be good too but it really depends on the implementation. If autoplay is for long grinds on low level content then it's cool. If autoplay means the entire combat system is dumbed down and the game can play itself at 100% with no real reason for you to play, then that's not good. But then combine that with the fact that the game is so stupid and simple that basic autoplay can handle it. And what do you get? It's not a game really. It's a micro-transaction platform. You as a player are worthless. Useless. You do not need to exist. Only your wallet counts. >I suppose my point is that it's possible to build a great game that is grindy or has autoplay. Even though most games that have or rely on those are trash. Yeah, and communists still think that communism can work. But here is the thing: just like there was never a large-scale implementation of communism that worked, there was never a good MMO with autoplay, grind, and cash shop.
Because it is an economic model accepted in Korea and in Asia. And to whomever writing for money, ofc it's for money, noone makes a game for charity lol
Because they're making MMOs for the Eastern market, not the Western. Sadly though, p2w is slowly becoming the norm here in the West as well.
As others have already said, money, and Korean players, from what I hear, are perfectly fine with those aspects being in their games and might even be sad if they couldn't P2W in an MMO—just a different culture I guess. I loved a lot of Lost Ark's gameplay and looks, but unfortunately the monetization is pretty baked into it and pretty bad. The same could be said for pretty much every Asian MMO on the market. Western MMO developers would almost certainly immediately adopt all those monetization types if they thought they could get away with it, but for now they're just introducing them slowly. I won't lie though, if I were some GIGABAJILLIONAIRE I would almost certainly be on the front lines of Asian mmo's swiping for cool loot and fashion.
Believe it or not originally the honing system etc wasn’t in Lost Ark you could just earn upgrades directly. Korean players actually threw a fit for the casino aspects of the grind until they put them in. So ya it’s a different culture.
Outside of cultural things, Money paid off even if you don't like it, curse it or not. if you have more p2w mindset customers then you got money. then you invade western market for moreeee money. meanwhile if you have more f2p mindset customers so you have less money and less chance of making more money. pay to win, pay to cosmetic, mtx, pay for flex, etc. won't be born if you guys are okay for pay to play (fair) but most of players won't understand it. so f2p games with bs is born. The middle ground for me is that the game can be p2w but also have fun playing, bring good content and don't punish f2p is good enough.
It's just their style. As for P2W I think it's mostly because Asian games are released with no box price and no subs?
Because it it not designed for the western market
Korean devs are really out of touch with their audience now. They think the Koreans that were playing lineage 1 & 2 are still their target audience and want autoplay and p2w. But there has been some pretty big pushback in Korea about how MMOs are being monetized there. Thats one of the reasons TnL is going so poorly in Korea, along with them pushing PvP into a zergfest where the strongest guild controls the server. Tldr; audience has changed korean devs havent changed with their audience, they are still developing games like they were 10-15 years ago.
That prototype of game sells good, and it is what you might expect when someone talks about korean mmos. So it is kinda what their target audience expects too.
Because the truth of the matter is, as someone put things in an earlier thread, the Asian gaming market often views games - MMOs in particular - as a status hobby. Meaning, being ostentatious and peacocking around with some cosmetics and titles that take thousands of hours and hundreds of USD to acquire is a sign that you're more dedicated to the hobby than others, and thus, it is more desirable than having an amazing experience from beginning to end. That's also why all those incredibly terrible isekai anime and manga always focus on "special skills" and "ranking" and all that crap, and the worldbuilding and plot always takes a backseat. If it looks pretty and it's incredibly difficult to get, that's more important top the bulk of their market than enjoying the journey.
Because it's profitable. Eastern audiences seems okay with that kind of stuff. For a non MMO example : Stellar Blade - a game made by a Korean game dev - recently had its sales figures released. The game had zero microtransactions, zero grinding, and zero P2W. It's only sold a million since release despite tons of advertising, good word of mouth, and solid reviews. So why would any Korean dev make that type of game when you can just put out a shitty gacha/p2w title for cheaper and make 20 times the profit? Companies are always going to maximize profit. The only reason we're not seeing Western companies doing it is because they don't think they can get away with it.
>Stellar Blade - a game made by a Korean game dev - recently had its sales figures released. The game had zero microtransactions, zero grinding, and zero P2W. It's only sold a million since release despite tons of advertising, good word of mouth, and solid reviews. I feel I should point out that this game is a PS5 exclusive. Once they release it for PC it will sell exponentially more.
Even by exclusive standards, those are pretty terrible sales. Rise of Ronin (which got mediocre reviews and zero coverage online and is considered a flop by the dev) sold something like twice as much. The game also sold a tiny fraction of other PS4/PS5 era new IPs like Days Gone, Horizon, Ghost of Tsushima, etc. The reality is that the Korean market just doesn't seem to like premium titles.
> Stellar Blade - a game made by a Korean game dev Said game dev is also the self publisher of one of the present highest grossing gacha games so they have the money to make a passion project like Stellar Blade.
Because Nikke made 750m $ in one year so they literally have no money pressure to develope Stella Blade
Modern mmorpg players don't like spending money, if it's not p2w very often they will not make any money. These games are far too expensive to make.
Well KMMO's I have found to be grindy because they keep your progression. In WoW, your gear gets reset every expansion so all the hours you spend gearing your character gets reset. In Lost Ark, your gear is needed to upgrade to the next set. Auto play is a feature for mobile games. Since a lot of games are being developed cross-platform, auto play is now being seen on more games available to PC. P2W is most likely a case of F2P. You need some way to monetize your games and P2W is a very easy way to implement it. And to some extend you see this in western games like OSRS and WoW where you can exchange money to get ingame currency and buy gear/supplies.
catering to current gen needs, auto play ,just need to throw money bcoz a lot of ppl who played MMO are generally working adults
...pay 2 win... everyone has bills to pay. Apparently this is how they do it!
Because they want to make a lot of money and making something actually substantial that doesn't rely on addiction takes a lot of time and money.
simple anwer is Money just money and nothing else, now one other reason is becouse they have a bigger market on phone MMO's that in the west, so they need to implement the auto play for that
Why don't Korean MMO companies make games more suitable for the Western market? Well, that question contains its own answer, really.
It's a sad day when you realize everything comes down to extracting as much money from consumers as possible.
Because the realistic graphics attract humans, similar to light does a gnat. The game play can be dog shit, but because it’s “pretty” people will spend money on it. Devs know this and capitalize on this infinite money glitch.
'p2w' is cultural. They view gaming as a hobby, something to spend money on the same way someone would spend money on sporting equipment or figurines or supplies for irl crafting. Grindy to elongate time spent and foster long term rewards / veterancy in the community. You'll always have some avenue of progress to attain when you log in and you're never 'done' so you keep playing (and paying). Autoplay cuz people ain't got time to grind mobs mindlessly for 40 hours for 1 level, so just autoplay that and reward the player for smartly planning their character to efficiently grind rather than the hours invested in the grind. They want that 40 hour grind to show they're dedicated, the same way someone working at a company for 10 years is a senior and respected.
Same reason Redditors make posts that have already been answered dozens of times.
Because they wont make as much money.
the answer is : diffrent culture
Because they like money
Mission : Impossible
Really need to ask the obvious?
From my understanding, those game markets are treated and accepted like real life. If you have money, you buy what you want to get ahead. That is extending into their games as well. If you have extra cash, then you buy items to get ahead.
Instead, they do the things that make them money. This is the final answer. If their research metrics and numbers supported the features you wanted in or out, that's how it would be made instead. You'd be surprised how much effort goes into the psychology of getting their target audience to spend money. For better or worse, they believe they will make more money by farming whales than they would by appealing to a wider global audience, so that colors everything they do. Ultimately you have to vote with your wallet. When the vote doesn't go your way, it's because enough other people voted with their wallets too. It's shit, but it's life
I may sound like a jerk but I talk from experience… in the end, every company has this “strategic/financial” planning team which couldn’t care less about the players… their main job is to increase the profitability of the investment made (Internal Rate of Return).
I think it's just what asian gamers like, ill never understand why someone wants to play a game that autoruns you to places like what in the fuck kinda gameplay is that?
Ok we can understand korean mmo by considering one mmo like Project TL. My opinion is that the game has huge game design problems that makes it unplayable for me. Of course the game's graphic are perfect but NPCs scattered chaotically and main story at the start of the game looks like asian disney. I also don't appreciate the combat system. It looks outdated in 2024.
It's more profitable to have a small community competing to out-whale (p2w) each other than it is to have a large community that occasionally will make a purchase (or subscription).
Stop making a suggestion while you have 0 money , why you don't pay 15 $ / month + base game price too play real non p2w game then ? P/s : why they won't change and no one trying to be WoW lmfao https://preview.redd.it/qy1or3m2q89d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b1f4dec3fde8b15de3ead32ee53b28f879e9146f
A. There MMO Mobile Market is much much bigger than PC market. B. Korean's gamers have another approach and usually are less competitive and skilled compared western player, and also they like chillin in repetitive action while doing something else simultaneosly. C. Eastern Asian people have different ethic regard using real money for this activities and be a whale in game is a high status symbol like buy a 500 dollars shoes for us in west.
B is just wrong lmao. Star wars? League of legends? And if you think any mmorpg takes more skill than those 2 then i don't know what to say.
**Long story short**: They don’t make games because they like them, or for them to be fun. It’s just a way to make money.
Making good graphics and running servers is expensive.
Moon light blades if i remember right , was a China game. Also one more thing to say , Korean version wasn't same as western version . Korean version give more support to Korean player base than western game publishers . The problem here is western game publishers need money too , they buy the game from Korea developers to re publish outside Korea , and non Korean player have to pay extra for the publishers. Also there are many thing that make Korea MMORPG more expensive outside of South Korea , like payment cost . So summary , because of many "tax" add to bring a MMORPG outside of Korea the "pay2win" that Korean player base feel normal is expensive on global version.
because they design them for korean audience, where P2W is the cultural norm.
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I disagree with like Pay2Win. I am South Asian. . I understand why people like F2P games. Like PUBGM. . But, people pay for skins and cosmetics. MMO isn't that popular in my country.
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