BitCraft’s Upcoming Empire System Is An Interesting Form Of Monetization

Today, Clockworks Labs shared details about the empire system the dev team will be bringing to their sandbox MMORPG BitCraft. This system is designed to encourage players to work together and leave their own mark on the game. It is, however, less tied to function and more “vanity-driven”. It’s intended to bring players together under a cause and spread their empire as far as possible.

The empire system is a mix of strategy and diplomacy, allowing a player to found an empire using a claim – which becomes the capital. From there, they create a new large item known as Hexite Capsules which is the empire’s primary resource. These capsules are used to maintain empires and expand them. Once an empire is big enough, it can wage economic warfare against other empires and take control of their territory.

While growing your empire is the goal, it is important to note that the bigger the empire is, the more difficult it will be to maintain. A larger empire means more nodes, and that means more players will be needed to keep things under control. Players can swear allegiance to an empire and the emperor can promote them into position to help with their duties.

Empires also play into Clockworks Labs’ plans for monetization, in that someone has to spend some money to operate an empire. The Hexite Capsules mentioned before are made from Hexite Shards, which are purchased from the game’s store using real money. Not everyone is required to purchase the shards, nor is the emperor required to either, but SOMEONE has to buy the shards. The idea seems to be that anyone who is part of the empire can purchase the needed shards and donate them, or the empire can organize a few people to do the buying.

It’ll be interesting to see how this monetization system works out for the developers. On the player end, it seems like the better option would be to organize who will be buying the shards, rather than relying on members to just donate on their own. Players who choose to do that may decide to keep their empires smaller and more tight-knit in order to not feel they’re being taken advantage of when it comes to spending cash.

The only way this can really work out is if enough people are donating and the players just accept they will need more than just the players throwing in real-world cash to run everything.