"Big di*k question here": Asmongold discusses monetization strategy for Riot's upcoming MMO

In his most recent stream, Zack "Asmongold" weighed in on Riot's new MMO while reacting to statements about the monetization strategy from VP Greg "Ghostcrawler." The latter delivered these revelations on a recent podcast with MMO enthusiast Kanon. The game has been in the making for a long time, and fans have been waiting for any and all information about it.

As a veteran MMO content creator and streamer, Zack is a pillar of the community and was quite impressed when Kanon asked Greg whether a purely cosmetic monetization strategy was enough to sustain the game. He stated:

"This is a very good question. By the way, big di*k question by Kanon here. Straight up, 'Be real with me man, is it actually gonna be enough?' Yeah, this is a big di*k question."

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Asmongold thinks Riot has the experience to make a free-to-play MMO with premium cosmetic for monetization

The Texan streamer is somewhat of an authority when it comes to Massively Multiplayer Online games and has been streaming related titles such as World of Warcraft, Lost Ark and Final Fantasy XIV Online for thousands of hours in his career.

Known for his outspoken criticisms against developers he finds lacking, Asmongold has been following most of the developments around Riot's upcoming game. He was quite impressed with Kanon's question about cosmetics and the free-to-play nature of the game, as described by Ghostcrawler, the VP of the project.

This was Kanon's question:

"Is it feasible for a large scale MMO, like a big budget MMO to sustain with a free-to-play model that just monetizes off of cosmetics?"

Ghostcrawler responded that while games such as these are quite expensive to make, having run the necessary numbers and market research, it would be fine.

Asmongold wholeheartedly agreed with this statement and gave the example of two of Riot's free games which are highly popular and make them quite a lot of money. He stated:

"I think that Ghostcrawler is saying that, I feel like they have clearly done the math because they have two of the biggest examples in the world with League of Legends and Valorant. It's not like this is, 'Oh, we're gonna and try this cool new thing and we don't really know what we're doing. They've already done this before."

Timestamp 3:17:38

A few seconds later, Asmongold cautioned his audience not to celebrate early after Ghostcrawler reiterated that Riot hasn't finalized the monetization strategy and pay-to-win might still be on the table. He warned:

"It's important to keep in mind that he said that they're not set in stone with this. So that doesn't mean they have ruled out pay to win and that doesn't mean they haven't ruled out subscriptions. It seems like that's not what they're gonna do and I think the best guess would be that it would be free to play with lot of skins."

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Fan reactions to the clip

Comments under the YouTube clip (Image via Asmongold Clips/YouTube)

Comments under the YouTube clip (Image via Asmongold Clips/YouTube)

Many in Asmongold's audience agreed with his analysis that Riot would be able to sustain such a cosmetic monetization strategy. The OTK founder recently took to streaming on his alternate channel called Zackrawrr, where fans can catch him regularly playing Overwatch and World of Warcraft.