Is The Bazaar pay to win? Players complain about monetization

After 5 years of development, a Kickstarter campaign, and a paid closed beta, The Bazaar is finally free-to-play for everyone. However, it is not a finished product, as it has only just entered the open beta stage allowing more fans to test this title. Alongside the patch enabling the wider audience to experience the production, a monetization model has been implemented, and let’s just say that the players are less than happy about the solution proposed by Reynad. Currently, the game’s official Discord server as well as its subreddit are on fire, blaming the creators for pay-to-win practices, that they swore to avoid. Is it really P2W? What is the current situation and is there a chance that it will change in the future? Let’s find out.

• Is The Bazaar P2W?
• The Bazaar’s broken promises and controversies

Is The Bazaar P2W?

The main reason why Reynad decided to abandon his career as a professional Hearthstone player were his accusations of Blizzard implementing more and more P2W practices in their card game. Being tired of it, he ventured out to create his own ideal game free of such a monetization model, where everyone, regardless of whether someone pays for content or not, has an equal chance of winning. Fast forward 5 years and the history seems to be repeating itself, as after 4 months of successful closed beta period, The Bazaar fans are blaming Tempo Storm for the same or worse approach that Blizzard came up with.

Related:Almost 1,500 players banned for 10 years, and that's just a fraction of punished. Delta Force devs don't patience with cheaters

It is very hard to provide a definite answer whether Reynad’s creation has become pay-to-win, as the open beta has just launched and we need some more time to coldly assess the facts and get used to all the new cards, balance changes, and so on. What we can say for certain, though, is:

1. The monetization model implemented in the game fosters buying the paid track of battlepass (or “Prize Pass” as it’s called in The Bazaar) by faster acquisition of new items for heroes, which can definitely alter the way the matches are played.
2. The items included in the Prize Pass will become available for everyone only after the season rotates out. After that happens, they will be buyable for 999 gems, which is the in-game currency. This is the equivalent of around 10 US dollars.
3. There are numerous posts on the aforementioned subreddit, where more experienced players are sharing their perfect (lossless) runs or defeating one of the hardest monsters in the game easily, with builds including the new items hidden behiind temporary Prize Pass paywall. However, this is not something that we should make our judgement on right now, as this can be the case similar to many new expansions and patches that just went live without being properly balanced. We can expect more adjustments soon.

The matter of monetization of free-to-play titles is often controversial and varies from person to person, so we encourage that you make your own mind. The best thing to do right now is to wait and see how the situation unfolds in the following days. Although, as of now, the future does not look so bright…

The Bazaar’s broken promises and controversies

What hurts even more than the monetization system proposed by Tempo Storm, is that it all appears to defeat the values that they stood for, for so long. On the game’s official Discord server, as well as on its subreddit, there are dozens upon dozens of players quoting Reynad’s statements over various medias, where he solemnly claimed that The Bazaar won’t ever be P2W.

What is more, there are users who managed to screenshot one of his tweets, where he promised that the title won’t ever have cards that will need to be collected. To be fair, the production does not have cards, but items; and the tweet itself is not the most recent, yet it still shows the path which was lost somewhere along the way.

That’s sadly not everything, as Reynad’s response to fans’ critique is less than ideal and diplomatic. He doubles down on the proposed solution and rejects all the concerns voiced by players about it. That does not bode well for the future of the title and its development.

While dismissing all the written feedback about the monetization, he encouraged fans to vote with their wallets. Some of the Reddit users took it very seriously, asking their credit card issuers to return money they have paid for Closed Beta access, claiming that “the product they received does not match the description.”. Sadly, the post has been removed by moderators without giving a reason why but, we have taken a screenshot of it before that happened:

Post informing how to make a charge back of closed beta purchase, Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/PlayTheBazaar/comments/1j4mh96/mr_raynad_said_vote_with_our_wallet_here_you_go/

All of this is very sad and concerning, as otherwise Tempo Storm has developed an interesting and fun game that can still be a great success if managed properly. Let’s hope that after the backlash that they have received, the changes will be reconsidered, and a more favorable solution will be introduced.

• free-to-play
• indie games
• beta-tests
• card games
• PvP
• collecting
• auto battler / Dota Auto Chess
• PC