KurtzPel Faces Cash Shop Controversy, Developers Vow To Make Changes

Recently launched anime MMO KurtzPel already has some issues with its monetization. That's not a critique coming from us, but from the developers, who penned a letter to fans over the weekend titled "Addressing Current Issues and a Letter from the Dev Team" to "apologize for the trouble and controversy caused regarding certain game design decisions that were implemented early on."

The primary issue, it would appear, is that some karmas -- KurtzPel's version of classes -- were placed in the cash shop, for $15 each. Two other karmas were available in-game, but having two in the cash shop struck some players as pay-to-win.

KurtzPel was originally designed as a buy-to-play game, which could mean that the cash shop karmas were originally intended to be part of the base game price, perhaps for $30, and were instead split into two packages, each at half the price, to make up the difference in the F2P version of the game. According to the developers:

"However, the realization that this would be perceived (understandably) as pay-to-win didn’t dawn on us until it was way too late. We were still stuck in the Buy-To-Play design mode, and this was something we should have seen."

As such, the DLC packages for the two karmas will be removed from the shop and they will be attainable in the game as "completely F2P, core content."

Another paid feature include the ability to buy a ticket to redistribute statistics; this, too, will become available via in-game currency. The two types of Supply Boxes will also be purchasable via in-game currency, which was always the plan, but the developers thought now was a good time to re-iterate that intention. Finally, the European servers will be coming online on June 5, with the Asian servers to follow on July 3.