Black Desert Online Sparks P2W Controversy with Addition of "Blessing of Kamasylve"

Black Desert Online introduced a new update today which introduced the "Blessing of Kamasylve" item, which increases loot gain by 20%, to the game's cash shop which led to serious accusations of "pay 2 win". Today's development is particularly egregious because in an interview with Docgotgame, Black Desert Online's community manager Jouska, specifically talked about the buy to play NA/EU version of the game REMOVING this item from the cash shop because it was pay 2 win and moving it over to the game's loyalty system. On top of that, players who received the this item would have it bound to them so they couldn't sell it on the marketplace. With today's update the Blessing of Kamaslyve item is available in the cash shop for purchase AND will be sellable in the game's marketplace in the following week.

Here's the full context of the interview with BDO's community manager Jouska when asked about pay 2 win elements:

"Actually, I can give some pretty solid examples of changes we've made to the game [that others who followed the game's development in other regions have seen]. If you look at the cash shop right now, under the loyalty section there's an item called Blessing of Kamasylve which gives you increased energy regeneration and it gives you 20% loot box for 24 hours. This is a market item that is available for purchase in the Korean region. You can buy it, you can sell it on the auction house, it's a pretty significant buff. We're talking 20% loot gain. That's pretty big. Instead of having that available directly via the cash shop where you can spend some money and have that kind of buff, we've moved it over to the loyalty section. And the way loyalty works is that every day you log in you'll receive 100 loyalty points. This means you don't need to pay etcetera to get this item. If you play the game, you'll eventually get the buff and it'll be bound to you. Even at that stage you can't sell it."

The addition of the Sealed book of combat has also raised some eyebrows. A full list of potentially pay 2 win items in Black Desert Online can be found on this reddit post.

Introducing an item like the Blessing of Kamaslyve normally wouldn't raise too many red flags, but given that Black Desert Online is a buy to play title in the West players expected less pay 2 win elements in the game. The introduction of this item is particularly insulting to players because Kakao games communicated that they've made changes to the game and items like Blessing of Kamaslyve won't be available for purchase.