If you’ve always wanted to build your own MMORPG, you can do that in a popular game on Steam. The YouTuber “The Spiffing Brit” has taken this to the extreme and designed an online role-playing game that consists entirely of microtransactions.
The cover image is a symbolic image.
Imagine an MMORPG that lures you in with a free-to-play model, but then wants your money for everything imaginable. Hmm, okay, that sounds unfortunately very close to reality. But what if you had to pay for respawns, spawning in the world, dungeon entries, and other standard features?
Exactly such an online role-playing game was created by the YouTuber “The Spiffing Brit” (who has a strong 4.48 million subscribers and almost 800 videos on his channel) recently in MMORPG Tycoon 2 on Steam. You know, that’s the world-building simulation for single players where you can build and monetize your own online role-playing game.
His goal: To make as much money as possible with a free-to-play MMORPG. The title of his project: United Kingdom Hearts. But what will the virtual players of his experiment tolerate? How successful can an MMORPG be that takes monetization to the extreme?
The Early Access trailer of MMORPG Tycoon 2:
Welcome to United Kingdom Hearts!
How is the MMO structured? “The Spiffing Brit” wants to build a modern live service and keep the first hurdle as low as possible through free-to-play access. The game itself offers such a starting point, but warns: Anyone who wants to successfully implement such an MMORPG needs “advanced tactics”.
The financial foundation is laid by “The Spiffing Brit” with the tavern of his first settlement. This is basically the home base for all players, and you can only log out of “United Kingdom Hearts” within the building. To ensure that no one misses this essential place, the first quest giver of the game welcomes all newcomers at the spawn portal and sends them straight to the nearby tavern.
This is the first scam of the game. “The Spiffing Brit” has made access to the tavern cost money. Anyone who wants to enter must pay a few pounds. Later, alternative, particularly exclusive home bases for heavy spenders and whales will follow. But also a paywall dungeon. And respawns, spawning in the game world, and other standard actions can also be monetized.
Additional quests are only there to lead incoming adventurers to the forge and other service providers to buy something there. Everywhere you pay with pounds. Even for potions, which, for example, come into play in PvP between characters. Nevertheless, some of the quests lure with large sums of gold. You might need it later… Hmm, “The Spiffing Brit” loves the smell of pay-to-win in the morning.
Another single-player game where you can expect an MMORPG experience is Erenshor – here is the trailer:
How much is a player worth? MMORPG Tycoon 2 offers a tool that certainly some real MMO operators would love to use: You can view the bank accounts of every player and find out how much financial potential a customer has.
Once such a user is captivated by the experience of “United Kingdom Hearts”, the chances are high that they will invest their entire wealth. A nefarious goal that is unfortunately also accepted by various real service games through the targeted use of gambling-like elements (such as loot boxes).
The plan works. In just a few days, “The Spiffing Brit” can achieve enormous profits in the seven-figure range because he has monetized almost everything in his MMO. In the last step, he subsequently introduces a mandatory subscription. His community is already so addicted to the game that it doesn’t matter.
The almost 30-minute video from “The Spiffing Brit” can be found on YouTube or below:
How does the community react? The video from “The Spiffing Brit” now has over 1.2 million views and over 52,000 thumbs up. His community is celebrating the experiment, and many comparisons are made to real MMO projects and publishers known for their aggressive monetization.
- JustinY writes under the video: “The Spiffing Brit has uncovered the entire business model of Star Citizen – unbelievable.”
- DragonIEye brings another comparison: “I can’t believe EA let you make this documentary about their new MMO.”
- DanceTranced writes: “I love that your game has malware that reads people’s bank balances.”
- dennissmith1072 reminisces: “In the past, there was a quest in Maplestory that required real money to complete. If you play the story character class Mercedes, there is a quest at level 50 to obtain the canonical mount. You can buy it today for 10,000,000 Mesos (basically gold), but originally, you needed an item that you had to buy in the cash shop.”
What do I need to know about MMORPG Tycoon 2? The single-player simulation has been in early access on Steam since January 2020, but the small team behind the project continues to provide regular updates, most recently on August 15, 2026.
With 86 percent positive reviews, MMORPG Tycoon 2 is well received by many hobby developers. However, the just 2,946 reviews also show that the game attracts only a small niche audience over time. If you want to check it out, you currently have to pay just under 21 euros.
Have you played it already? How did you like the simulation? Feel free to let us know in the comments!
In the videos of “The Spiffing Brit”, it’s mostly about finding exploits or glitches in popular games. That’s exactly what the Brit did last year with Stellaris, for example. The result was a universe that ultimately came to a standstill – and that on the highest difficulty level. More about this: “Did my CPU cost a year of life” – YouTuber with over 4 million subscribers breaks Stellaris
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