The developers of medieval-fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game RuneScape and the government of the small city-state have both managed to thoroughly piss off their respective communities with thinly veiled cash grabs.
Here's a look at what each has done.
Milking whales
The company behind RuneScape, Jagex, introduced microtransactions (MTX) into the game in 2012. Since then, it has ramped up its MTX offerings, much to the annoyance of players.
MTX is a common practice in the gaming industry. If you've ever played a free mobile game, chances are you would have seen an in-app store where you can pay real-world money to get a boost in the virtual one. This is fine because game studios are, after all, businesses whose goal is to make profit.
But there's a right way to implement MTX and a wrong way, and unfortunately Jagex have got it absolutely horribly wrong. First of all, they have piled MTX on top of an existing subscription-based monetisation model in which players have to fork out $11 a month to even play the game in the first place. Other games which have MTX give access to the full game for free. By squeezing players for a recurring monthly payment, and then adding MTX, Jagex seem like they want to have their cake and eat it too.
Jagex have also pushed the boundaries of MTX too far. Players need to cough up money for essential features like bank presets, action bars, and the RuneMetrics activity tracking systems, all of which are integral to the game experience. That's a big no-no because players feel like they're being forced to spend money. Basically Jagex is saying: "If you want to continue enjoying our services, give us more money." What kind of business gets away with such blatant greed?
Responsible MTX should also never include elements of gambling. Sadly, Jagex's primary MTX is Treasure Hunter, which uses the lootbox mechanism, at its core a slot machine simulator. Players buy keys to open chests which contain randomly generated rewards. Most of the time you get complete garbage, but every now and then you get a rare and powerful item accompanied by a burst of animated fireworks and cheerful audio. This preys on exactly the kind of mental circuit that gets people addicted to gambling. So it's unethical that a supposedly above-board company shamelessly uses such tactics to increase its revenue.
It all came to a head recently when Jagex introduced another type of MTX called RunePass, and claimed that they were addressing the players' concerns over the prevalence of MTX. Not only were players angered by the fact that RunePass is a ripoff of the Battle Pass concept from another popular game Fortnite, they also failed to comprehend how putting in a new MTX is supposed to help solve the problem of there being too much MTX in the game.
Things got worse when the lead developer brazenly said in a video about the new MTX that players should "buy them". Ill-advised move certainly, and it only served to reinforce the notion that Jagex is only interested in lining its own pockets.
All the missteps accumulated over the past few years have led to lots of talk about the future of RuneScape. The playerbase is declining at an increasing rate, and there is a small but growing number of people who believe that this is the beginning of the end. With so many other more modern games to choose from, who will stay around to ride this bloated cash cow into the grave?
If Jagex doesn't do something drastic in the next two years to fix the MTX issue, I think we'll see a big exodus as the last few faithful fans finally say "enough is enough" and quit the game for good.
That will be the coup de grace for Jagex, and they will only have themselves to blame.
Paying more for things that fall out of the sky
The Singapore government is no stranger to upsetting the local populace with policies that inflict agonising pain on citizens' wallets.
It has a long history of raising existing taxes, creating new taxes, and jacking up the cost of everyday necessities willy-nilly.
The latest example of this is the 30% increase in water prices, which kicked in on 1 July.
It has had many devastating knock-on economic effects for the man-on-the-street consumer. Virtually everything we use needs water somewhere along the line, from something as simple as brewing a cup of coffee to as complex as the industrial processes involved in plastic manufacturing.
As a result, lots of things have become more expensive to produce, and the cost is often passed on to the consumer. Many drinks stalls have already raised the price of coffee and tea.
The woes of normal Singaporeans, already in a country with one of the highest cost of living in the world, continue.
I have seen plenty of rumblings of discontent online, and some are predicting that the people will soon reach a breaking point.
Perhaps the days of the incumbent government, which has been in power since our independence, are coming to an end, because their moneygrubbing practices have gone too far.
Just like Jagex.
The Malaysians recently kicked out their greedy and corrupt government which had also been in power for over 50 years.
We might be approaching that time when RuneScapers and Singaporeans put their foot down and follow suit, the former by jumping off that sinking ship of a game, and the latter by casting their ballots.
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