The glossy MOBA Paragon recently allowed its players to draw upgrade cards from real-money loot boxes. This led to a colossal shitstorm in the community and accusations of pay-to-win.
Paragon is a fast-paced MOBA with Unreal Engine quality graphics. New heroes and “cards” for upgrades are usually only available through progress in the game. This was promised among others by long-time former game director Steve Superville, who left Epic Games in spring 2017.
Therefore, there was considerable outrage in the community when suddenly real-money loot boxes appeared that contained cards in addition to skins!
Paragon – Fans do not want monetization like in a mobile game
Fans were outraged multiple times over the loot crates. On one hand, because they offered cards, and on the other hand, because the high RNG factor didn’t even guarantee the best loot. Understandably, the community went completely crazy and flooded Reddit with negative threads. A classic shitstorm!
Many fans already saw the end of Paragon coming, accused the developers of running a pay-to-win model, and demanded: “We do not want monetization like in a mobile game!”
In some places, calls for a boycott of Paragon and Epic Games are already being made. If players didn’t spend money on such pay-to-win nonsense, they argued, Epic Games would see what they would have from it.
Epic Games: Cards in loot crates were only an error
The shitstorm was certainly noticed by Epic Games, and they reacted quickly. A few hours ago, an official statement from the developer appeared on Reddit. They apologized for the confusion. They still adhere to the principle of not selling heroes and cards in packs.
The fact that there were still cards in the loot crates was a mistake. They will remove the cards from the loot boxes as soon as possible. However, those who received cards in this manner may of course keep them.
In the community, the suspicion persists that this was just a trick by Epic to test the situation and see how far they could go. It remains to be seen how the situation will develop.
Also interesting: Paragon is shaking things up again
