Stocking the Item Shop

MMORPG.com Free Zone columnist Richard Aihoshi speaks this week with Mytheon's Chris Rubyor about the different kinds of items put into the game's item shop, and why.

Take all the best pieces of gear that are available. Boost their stats to make them even better.

If you assign credibility to a certain school of opinion, the one saying it's impossible to "compete" in a free to play game without spending copious amounts of money in its item shop, you might come to the conclusion that the methodology for deciding what to sell involves nothing more than these two steps.

In reality, of course, it's nowhere near so simple. From myriad discussions with developers over the years, I'm aware that studios seldom, if ever, approach this undertaking in exactly the same way, which is certainly understandable since both defining the major consideration factors and assigning weights to them can involve fair degrees of judgment and subjectivity. That said, I was still pleased when Petroglyph's Chris Rubyor agreed to let us in on the approach he and his team have taken for this task in Mytheon.

Read Stocking the Item Shop.