That TERA has seen a great influx since its release on Steam has already been mentioned. However, an interesting side story illustrates how essential individual items in the cash shops of free-to-play games often are. And how could it be different in a game with a lot of bare skin? Of course, it’s about swimsuits.
Japan’s Influence in the Ingame Shop
The former producer of Bluehole Studios, Kim Nak Heong, has revealed a bit about TERA’s past. Originally, the intention was to present the Castanic as a “beautiful” race to appeal to a broad audience in many countries. For this reason, the horned women are also in the spotlight of most trailers. The developers were relatively surprised that the Elin prevailed as the most popular race, which is also reflected in the sales of swimsuits in the ingame shop: The revenue from Elin swimsuits is greater than that of all other races combined. Curiously: Only a few months before release the Elin were not even planned as a separate race.
In fact, Elins weren’t supposed to be its own separate race. It was just a female Popori. We only changed it two months before the release of the game. When we received feedback from those in North America, they were asking “How do these guys reproduce?” They didn’t really understand how animal-like Popori and human-like Elins could mate. We didn’t really think this through either. So ultimately, we decided to separate Elins from Poporis in the race selection screen. Even the name “Elin” was decided during that time. They were just going to be female Poporis.
Other outfits, whose design motivations often came from Japan, are said to be responsible for TERA’s persistence. In particular, the typical maid outfits have been a big bestseller and have ensured that TERA could easily transition from a subscription model to a free-to-play model.
Who would have thought that a race originally designed as a filler race would one day save an entire game? So that is the story behind why the action MMO is in such good shape today, regularly receiving large content updates, and ranks among the most successful MMORPGs worldwide. By the way, the game is doing particularly well in the West. So well, in fact, that it is performing better in NA/EU than in Asia.
If we didn’t bother with Elin school swimsuits because Tera was unpopular in Japan back then, Tera right now would be in a completely different state.
