Black Desert Online is one of many MMOs from Korean makers that has been trying to extend their audience to the West. For some time there’s been concerns among the western players though about the game being “pay 2 win” – a concern that does have some evidence given that the premium items from the in-game store you use real money within do actually come with in-game benefits.

A few days ago the developers Daum decided that those items should now be available to all, but by making them sellable for the in-game currency silver they’ve just caused new problems. Fans are concerned that this change will encourage people to spend more money to get the items to then sell so they can build up their silver amounts, to the point where a number of groups actually had in-game protests with picket signs and everything.

Others took to the forums to outline why they had a problem with the changes, with one such user actually making a long and detailed post about p2w vs non-p2w games and how generally those who chose to make their MMOs non-p2w stayed in business a lot longer. Others talked about making chargebacks to get refunds, fed up with the way that the game was. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like they’re being listened to. In fact, judging by the evidence the posts are being removed and the users receiving warnings and even bans.

Most of the details of various people getting warnings and bans can be found on this post on the PCGaming Reddit (screencap here in case topic is removed), but the author of the long and details post contrasting p2w and non-p2w games made their own post on their WordPress blog in which they express disappointment and even some foreknowledge that they might get into trouble for making their forum topic in the first place.

While throwing around the word ‘censorship’ is generally not something you should do haphazardly (it’s quite the accusation after all), if Daum is removing most or even all of the negative feedback they are getting for their change it’s not reflecting well upon them. However one of the things we can notice from all the screencaps provided is it seems like the chief forum mod handing out these bans is just the one person: CM_Aethon. From the WordPress blog it does sound like Aethon has a history of being difficult to deal with among the forum users.

While we can only go on the evidence we have right now, which is all from the side of the users, it does sound like this isn’t the end of the matter. If Daum makes a public response we will cover that and then we can see how the story develops.