On February 18th, a notice related to “additional option” was posted on the website of Maple Story, a game that everyone might have played at least once. In this game, additional option means an option that is added randomly on items which mostly have default options. Depending on this additional option, the value of the item varies greatly. The notice said that the probability of additional option attached to the item would be changed in all equally, which meant that the previous probability was not equal. Since users naturally have considered “randomness” to be “each option is given with the same probability,” users have begun to strongly oppose the notice. In addition, things went more seriously after suspicions arose that there was a similar manipulation on the “ability,” which set character’s ability randomly.
On February 19th, Kang Won-gi, the director of Maple Story, eventually acknowledged all problems related to additional option and ability and posted an apology. In that apology, they explained that the expression of “randomness” or “optionality” means “determining the result by generating random numbers according to the specified conditions.” They also said that they will provide compensation, revealing the structure of the previous additional option. Other than these, previously, Maple Story did not disclose any probability of charged item such as Cube, which is necessary for strengthening equipment item.
After that, a shocking compensation plan was made on February 24th. They said that they would compensate only one-tenth of the items which was used by users to change additional options and ability. Even, they only compensated for the number of two-year usage among eight-year usage. At that time, many users were put off by the game. They once again uploaded an apology on March 1st, revealing the probability of the cube and absurd reason for the compensation. Many other rewards have been also made, but most of them were in favor of newbies who have just started this game. In fact, however, the biggest victims of this incident were long-standing users who paid a lot of money for additional options. Many said that Maple Story did not properly consider these users to see the compensation.
I am really sorry for the current situation as a user who has put a lot of affection into this game. The game that I enjoyed so much is branded as a probability manipulation game in an instant, and when my friends tell me, “Why are you still playing that game,” I really lose my affection for it. I think image is very important for popular games such as Maple Story. Moreover, Maple Story is a game where a large number of people are introduced during the vacation period and only a few users remain after the break is over. Therefore, if the game image is not good, the number of incoming users who want to play for a while is likely to decrease significantly. It is clear that the game company will be aware of this, so I sincerely hope that both the users and the company will compromise well and make fun games without seeing the users as a means of making money anymore.