Embers Adrift Announces Pricing Changes And Outlines 2023 Roadmap
There aren’t many games that are buy-to-play and require a monthly subscription simply because it tends to be a big barrier to entry. While bigger games from well-funded studios may be able to get away with it, it’s a lot harder to convince players to fork up cash for an indie game like Embers Adrift. That being said, the game’s developer, Stormhaven Studios, felt that it was the best way to ensure that they won’t ever need to introduce microtransactions and pay-to-win items.
Unfortunately, it looks like the upfront fee and monthly subs have proven to be a bigger barrier for players than they thought. Starting today, the studio will be dropping the monthly subscription fee to just $9.99 a month and slashing 25% off the game’s price until further notice.
“Embers Adrift has only one monetization model - a one-time purchase, which includes a month of game time followed by the subscription,” explained Stormhaven. “The Studio is supported by players' subscriptions so we can in turn focus on giving our players more of the content they love instead of running a digital storefront.”
“We know players have a lot of choices in the MMO landscape, and because of that we've decided to lower the subscription price of Embers Adrift to $9.99/mo. while continuing to avoid other forms of monetization in our game,” the studio added. “We will also be adding the ability for players to purchase game time for others, as well as dropping the upfront price for the game with an extended discount of $29.99 until further notice.”
Meanwhile, the dev team has been busy pushing out new features and content for the PvE sandbox MMORPG while building on and polishing existing game systems since it officially launched back in October. In the past four months alone, the team has added several new zones, monsters, and quests, with more coming at the end of the month.
The next major update arrives on February 28th, bringing with it the new Level 30 Grimstone Canyon zone, eight new questlines, new monster species, increased personal and bank storage, expanded chat functionality, and dice dueling.
Players can also expect updates to the Alchemy system throughout the year, along with the opening of a new high-level multi-zone dungeon, two new mid to high-level zones, epic-tier quests, Ember-mutated creatures, and more story content, as revealed in the Embers Adrift 2023 content roadmap.
