[2023] Question for Crema: if you're "supported enough by buying the game and playing it[,] that's why MTX are cosmetic-only" then any aren't the battle passes and store items earnable for free?

So recently Tsukki, the Crema community manager, said this:

We've always said we're supported enough by buying the game and playing it. That's why the MTX are all cosmetic-only, so as not to force anyone to buy it because the game can be equally enjoyed with it. We don't expect anyone to do anything. If people want to only buy the game we're super cool with that, if they want to buy a mount, that's cool too.

If that's the case, then why are these store items all costing between $10-20 USD in novas each? Why is the battle pass an additional $10 you have to pay after buying the game?

It feels like the game's monetization model is a slap in the face to the consumers to be honest. I've spent $50 on the game and if I wanted to buy all the shop's microtransactions, I could easily spend another $500-1000 on the game? Or wait a year for these items to be put into the feather store rotation and hope I get lucky and my favourite item comes up by checking every day for months?

This is the context, where Tsukki explains that the team don't need the money from microtransactions to be able to maintain server costs and costs of a live service game, etc: https://www.reddit.com/r/PlayTemtem/comments/13kttvc/first_look_at_season_3s_ranked_rewards/jkqppcg/

I responded to her comment but it was ignored, so hoping this post would gain some traction in the hopes that Crema can make some positive changes to the game!

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The game running cost are minimal, yes, and the servers could be sustained for years right now thanks to how the game is built and how the team is structured (being a very very small team for what the game is).

I’ve personally always loved battle pass in a lot of games I’ve played, for me they add a lot of value to the game and entices me to keep playing them to earn the cosmetics which I can use in the game, etc. So we wanted that for Temtem. That’s simply why we did a BP.

Also at the last months of Temtem 1.0 development we ran into an “issue” where most of our art team wasn’t occupied and the tech team was, it was still early to start working on something completely, so supporting the battle pass was a good fit.

As for why most of the new cosmetics are paid and not free is simply because otherwise those cosmetics wouldn’t exist. There’s a full team dedicated to creating them and the revenue for the battle passes + store barely covers the development cost on that, so it’s truly something we do because we believe it adds value to the game and it’s longevity for dedicated players. We are not getting rich because of the battle pass and we don’t do the battle pass because we are greedy, we could simply stop doing the battle pass cosmetics and we would be at the same income level we are right now, which we’ll eventually do when it stops to cover the expenses on that part of the team.

I hope that clarifies a bit.

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