Asmongold fears there’s “no escape” from pay-to-win games in the future, claiming it will become the norm while games that aren’t pay-to-win will become “fewer and farther between.”
Asmon has been at the forefront of the pay-to-win debate since Lost Ark’s launch in February. Not only did he claim the game would lose players for having pay-to-win raids, but he also threatened to expose the full extent of it.
Shortly after, he even beckoned MMO players to band together to stop pay-to-win microtransactions from ruining games, although he admitted it felt like a “losing battle.” During a stream on April 13, he explained why.
“I think pay-to-win games are the future,” he said. “I think more games will become pay-to-win. This is just what’s going to happen. Will there always be games like Elden Ring? Yes. But it’s like entropy. It will become fewer and farther between.”
Asmon also predicted attitudes toward it would flip. “People will get looked down on and considered socially inferior for not interfacing with the pay-to-win systems. Social pressures will begin to exist in games to interface with these pay-to-win features.”
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Then, when a fan said he’d quit gaming if that happened, he said: “What are you going to do instead of online gaming? Go back to real life, where it’s even more pay-to-win? There’s no escape! There’s no escape from this.”
Pay-to-win features have been subject to criticism across the board. Players have found things they believe fall into the category in everything from Call of Duty to Fortnite and even Valorant, and they’re not happy about it.
However, pay-to-win features have been a prominent thing in the industry for several years now, and although some might say they’re not the ‘norm’ yet, Asmon insists it’s only a matter of time before they are.
