Snail Games is best known in this hemisphere for publishing Age of Wushu, but the company is well-versed in the free to play MMO and browser-based game market in China. The publisher is trying something a little different with its approach to free to play with microtransactions in the upcoming action MMORPG Black Gold Online, and it may just surprise you.
What we know and have dealt with in terms of the free to play marketplace so far primarily entails with cash shop transactions and “pay to hurry X” mechanics. Black Gold Online is changing things up by having players pay to receive their loot in lieu of a standard cash shop.
With the game in closed beta in China, it is hard to gauge whether or not this is a reasonable monetization system. The video below demonstrations how it is supposed to work. It is entirely in Chinese, but it is fairly easy to understand nonetheless.
One has to wonder whether this will fly outside of China, considering the backlash that often comes with bizarre or seemingly predatory microtransaction systems. Whether or not this could be considered as such has yet to be seen; it’s not exactly possible to judge something like this without knowing the costs involved.
Would you be willing to pay for your loot in an MMO? If a game is stellar enough to warrant wanting to pay for it, I would maybe consider it; but I’m not sure if Black Gold Online is going to be good enough to validate that type of purchase. It’s difficult to trust a company who implemented Age of Wushu‘s Jianghu VIP system to gimp F2P players while charging so much for temporary cosmetic items. We’ll just have to wait and see how it plays out for Black Gold Online as it nears its open beta phase in China later this year.
