Jagex Wants Players To Vote On the Future Of RuneScape's Microtransactions

Micrortransactions in live service games continue to be a point of contention among players – particularly microtransactions that offer players of MMORPG’s like RuneScape options for progressing through the game in ways that were not originally intended. As the life of an MMORPG goes on and more and more content is added (and the developer is looking for more ways to monetize the game) these kinds of things get introduced. Some players love them because it allows them to more easily fit the game into their lives. Other players aren’t fans because they feel it detracts from what the game is intended to be.

Developers are aware of this. And in cases, like that of Jagex with RuneScape, they acknowledge that such monetization strays from the original design of the game. And if they feel things have strayed too far off course, they will make adjustments. This may be the first time, however, that I’ve seen a game developer ask players to vote on their microtransaction system.

Today, Jagex announced that they are offering players a chance to vote on the fate of Treasure Hunter microtransactions. If enough people vote to do so – more than 100,000 – Jagex will remove the microstransaction layer from RuneScape. That includes the more than 220 gameplay-benefiting items on sale, such as XP Lamps, Proteans, Dummies, and the like.

To vote, players need to go to the RuneScape site and log in on one of their characters. There’s only an option to vote “yes”, so if you don’t want them to remove Treasure Hunter, just don’t go vote. Currently the votes stand at a little over 44.5k and rising. So, based on that alone, it seems they’ll be hitting the 100k mark.