Shroud Defending Lost Ark

In the midst of a widespread ‘pay-to-win’ dispute among its player base, Michael ‘shroud’ Grzesiek has defended Lost Ark, arguing that every MMORPG is pay-to-win and advising haters to “get over it.”

Shroud’s love-hate connection with Lost Ark has shifted from one extreme to the other since its release. He stated it was the most “boring” game he’d ever played at first, only to backtrack a week later. In the next chapter of the story, he defended the game for having a pay-to-win mechanism, which many people regard to be unethical. Shroud even argued that every MMORPG is, to some level, pay-to-win, and explained why this isn’t always a terrible thing.

Shroud said as he read out a query from a viewer; “Do I care to share my stance on the pay-to-win argument? I mean, it’s simple. There’s no argument there. Every MMORPG is pay-to-win. Get the f**k over it. There’s always going to be cheaters. So, if there’s always going to be cheaters, you might as well have the cheating system built into the game.”

He believes there are two advantages to doing it this way. “One, the game developers can profit, and two, the community isn’t as pissed. It’s that easy.” 

That being said, he admitted it can be expensive and isn’t worth it.  “I think the system that they have can be expensive. It’s definitely not worth it. But it’s making them a lot of money. That’s great. It’s making some rich schmucks spend thousands of dollars to get a little bit ahead.”

Some may be ruffled by Shroud’s stance on the pay-to-win controversy. Third-party services that allow MMORPG players to buy gold and other enhancements, on the other hand, have been a long-standing issue. This, he feels, is one solution. Even yet, it hasn’t stopped scammers from attempting to promote similar services in Lost Ark’s chat feeds. As a result, players have begun reporting and disabling these accounts, as well as encouraging others to do so.