As it stands, most free MMORPG Game publishers are trying harder and harder to push users to purchase items from their cash shops. This isn’t exactly surprising, considering that every time players buy items in the cash shops, the publisher makes money. What is surprising though is the growing trend of almost requiring players to purchase items from cash shops. Games like Sea fight and Dark Orbit require players to spend real money in their game if they want to get anywhere in the games. For example, weapons available to cash shop users in these games are infinitely superior to non cash shop items, which means that anyone who doesn’t spend money, loses.

Other games like Combat Arms and Maplestory take a much more balanced approach with their cash shops. Weapons purchased through the cash shop in the MMOFPs game Combat Arms are largely similar to their non-cash shop counterparts with a few aesthetic differences. Maplestory on the other hand has a few powerful items, but no actual equipment, so players that purchase cash shop items don’t have material advantages over those that don’t. You could argue that those that purchase Maplestory’s 2x EXP scrolls in the cash shop have an advantage over those that don’t, but this isn’t necessarily true because the game doesn’t even have PvP, so where’s the edge?

So what’s the solution? Simple. Make cash shop items strictly aesthetic or only moderately powerful, because as it stands, far too many games put too much emphasis on cash shop items. Nearly all of IGG Game’s including Tales of Pirates, Godswar Online, Angels Online, Wonderland Online, Voyage Century Online, Zu Online and Myth War 2 have incredibly powerful cash shop items that make the game unfair for non paying users.