The MMORPG Tarisland has quietly changed its descriptions after facing Pay2Win allegations. Following the official statement from the development team, Asmongold went on a quest for answers and took a look at the case himself. His reaction is available in a YouTube video.
Why were there allegations against Tarisland?
- The MMORPG promised not to have Pay2Win content. It advertised that no items with status values could be purchased in the in-game shop.
- During the current beta test, it became clear that players can directly buy equipment on the marketplace with silver. For real money, players can buy silver, allowing them to indirectly purchase better equipment for real money.
- There are items in the in-game shop that provide players with advantages such as 10% reduced Elan costs.
The development team then released a statement saying they would be more cautious with future descriptions of monetization. They also admitted that their understanding of Pay2Win might differ from that of the players.
There was no direct statement on how to proceed with the items from the in-game shop and whether there will be more such items in the future. Instead, the development team left it at vague wording.
In the following trailer, you can get a picture of Tarisland for yourself:
Asmongold goes on a quest for answers in the YouTube video
The well-known streamer and YouTuber Asmongold is well acquainted with other games in the genre. He is, for example, a veteran in World of Warcraft, which has many parallels to Tarisland.
In his video, he shows that the description of Tarisland has indeed changed. Previously it stated that it was a “non P2W” MMORPG. Now, for example, the Twitter account states that it is a “classic” MMORPG.
You can watch the video from Asmongold here:
However, he admits that it is not a lie that you cannot directly invest real money in the in-game shop for items with advantages. After all, there is still the intermediary step that players must buy crystals for real money.
Asmongold jokes that he wants to invest 1,000 dollars in the game. He wants to test whether there is any truth to the allegations and whether his character will improve as a result. Asmongold is shocked when he actually discovers items in a video that provide advantages such as increased attack power. He realizes that this is indeed Pay2Win.
Another example is the “CBT Benefits Card”. The card gives a player 3,000 gold but costs 4.99 dollars. Asmongold also sees this as Pay2Win.
However, according to Asmongold, this is part of the practice in many video games. There are poor people and rich people. The rich people, also called “whales”, have an advantage in life, just like in Tarisland. The poor people, whom he symbolically refers to as “plankton”, end up getting the short end of the stick.
This phenomenon also exists in games with gacha mechanics like Genshin Impact. Here, whales invest several thousand euros for specific characters. It becomes particularly insidious in games like Tarisland because the whales can participate in PvP and thus take the fun away from other players who do not invest as much money.
It would also be sufficient to be a whale once and invest a lot of money. This would develop into a pyramid scheme that would continuously provide advantages. In the end, he comes to the conclusion that Tarisland could not keep its promise of being P2W-free.
This process also reminds Asmongold of Diablo Immortal: Twitch streamer criticized Pay2Win but spent 320 euros on the first day of Diablo Immortal – Now has a problem
