In the Free2Play MMORPG Secret World Legends , some games have an aggressive cash shop. The buzzword is “Pay2Win.” With patch 2.0.1., Funcom aims to ease this. Apparently, some criticism regarding the monetization was initially ignored during the beta, and critics were allegedly banned.
Secret World was previously a subscription MMORPG, then switched to a buy2play payment model and has now resurrected as “Secret World Legends” as a Free2Play game five years after the launch.
Secret World Legends offers a free entry and then relies on a cash shop. Many things available in the game can either be ground out or quickly unlocked through spending money.
Criticism of the cash shop was likely raised during beta, but it was ignored
Some players feel that the cash shop is “tuned too harshly,” meaning there is too much incentive to spend money in the game and buy character progress: A video review looks at Secret World Legends in this regard and harshly criticizes the cash shop:
Harsh criticism: Secret World as a prostitute to make money
Criticisms include:
- The “normal inventory” is too small and needs to be expanded at a high cost.
- New weapons cannot simply be unlocked; one must unlock individual pages separately, the weapon itself, and then more.
- Additionally, while players can find “loot boxes,” after a certain amount, they must buy keys to access the loot.
Overall, Secret World Legends is perceived as being set up like the old game solely as a “cash grab” to access players’ money. The video is harsh in its criticism and wording.
The reviewer states: He and many others raised their concerns about the cash shop in the beta forum of Secret World Legends – but they fell on deaf ears. The reviewer was subsequently banned because his comments were deemed unhelpful. One can imagine: He is quite annoyed.
He says: Funcom likely needs money because the old MMORPGs are no longer running and Conan Exiles still needs development time.
So Funcom decided to “prostitute” its beloved Secret World to make money. Ouch.
Changes with patch 2.0.1 make Secret World Legends friendlier
There are certainly counter-arguments to this extreme position, and some find the direction Funcom is taking with Secret World to be good. Some comment under the video that they are having a lot of fun even without spending money.
But the criticism of the cash shop is at least so significant that Funcom is announcing changes. Ironically, almost all points raised by the banned video reviewer in his YouTube video, which now has over 14,000 views, are being addressed:
- Funcom plans to increase the inventory from 25 to 35 slots with the next patch.
- Additionally, the price for sprint 2 and unlocking the first weapons will be lowered. Players should be able to buy both on the first day.
- They will also combine the “active and passive” sides of the weapon. Then both weapon sides can be unlocked for the price that currently costs one side.
Other changes:
- They also want to increase the loot in dungeons and bring numerous other improvements based on player feedback.
- Paying players, the Patrons, will also receive advantages.
- With “Elite Dungeons,” a type of scalable difficulty will be introduced – similar to the torment levels in Diablo 3.
The patch notes for the Secret World Legends patch can be found here.
Regarding the complicated topic of Pay2Win, we have this article:
Pay2Win – the black mark: Why discussions about cash shops are so rare
