‘Dark And Darker’ can’t stay running on “game sales alone”

Dark And Darker developer Ironmace has acknowledged that “game sales alone” will not be enough to keep the medieval extraction game’s servers running, but is yet to decide on how it will further monetise the game.

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In a Q&A (via PC Gamer) with Dark And Darker fans, Ironmace fielded several questions from players who wanted to know if there were plans to add in-game purchases.

While the developer said “it’s hard to say right now because we haven’t fully decided either,” it did acknowledge that it couldn’t afford to keep the game running just by selling copies.

“Game sales alone can’t cover the cost of running servers on an ongoing basis,” said Ironmace, which added that it needs “to generate revenue at a level acceptable to our players”.

While it’s “not yet been fully decided” if an in-game cosmetic shop or battle pass system could be introduced, Ironmace stated that there will be “absolutely no [pay to win]” mechanics added.

Although Ironmace didn’t offer specifics on the topic of monetisation, the Q&A did reveal that it plans to add a Bard class to the game, and there are spider and demon monsters that are “likely to be developed” in the future.

There are also plans to introduce more poisons for rogues, additional maps, and extra weapons.

Last month, Ironmace CEO Park Terence Seung-ha refuted claims that Dark And Darker was created with assets stolen from Nexon.

“Our code was built from scratch,” said Seung-ha. “Most of our assets are purchased from the Unreal marketplace. All other assets and all game designs docs were created inhouse. This has already been audited by an outside agency. As far as we know you cannot copyright a game genre.”

In other gaming news, Valve has shared that Steam Deck fans could be waiting years for a “true next-gen” upgrade.

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