Ahead of his new MMO, RuneScape creator says games have gotten too microtransaction-heavy: "Our number one aim is not monetization, it's players"

RuneScape's original creator is sailing to new horizons with his upcoming MMO Brighter Shores, which is "opposed to the onslaught of microtransactions" seen in modern games, particularly free-to-play games and MMOs. 

"There's just way too many microtransactions for my personal liking," director Andrew Gower said in an interview with GamesRadar+. "I like to buy a game, or subscribe to a game or whatever, and then have everything. I don't want to be asked every five seconds or tempted every five seconds to fork over some more money. I just feel it detracts from the game."

Of course, Brighter Shores will offer in-game purchases because the studio wants "to make enough money to keep operating the game, grow the team, and expand the game." But Gower isn't focused on squeezing every possible cent out of each player: "Our number one aim is not monetization, it's players. We want as many people to enjoy this game as possible. And then obviously, monetization will flow from that."

Brighter Shores will instead have a paid premium pass that offers new quests and features, and Gower explains that it's "loosely similar" to RuneScape's membership. "One of the key differences is we're probably not going to do auto-recurring payments," continues Gower. 

"Everyone's got their millions of different streaming service subscriptions," Gower explains. "The Netflix subscriptions, Amazon Prime subscriptions, people are getting a certain degree of subscription fatigue. So we've decided to just make it a non-recurring payment. You can just buy a pass, get the premium, it's not like a commitment that you're then gonna have to pay that forever."

Elsewhere, the developer delved into how Brighter Shores lets players automate grindy activities seen in other MMOs.