While Lost Ark has been out for less than a month, Michael “shroud” Grzesiek has already spent an astronomical amount on microtransactions, and he recently revealed the exact amount during a livestream.
Between Shroud and Lost Ark, it’s mad love. While at the game’s launch he claimed it was the most boring game he’d ever played, he quickly flip-flopped a week later, admitting he had finally become totally addicted to the game. Game.
Since then, he’s defended himself against people claiming it’s a ‘pay-to-win’ game, insisting that all MMORPGs are ‘pay-to-win’ to some degree. telling them to “get over it”.
And recently, during a livestream in which he was obviously playing Lost Ark, the former Counter-Strike pro player revealed the insane amount he spent on microtransactions in just a few weeks.
Like Shroud, many players quickly became addicted to Lost Ark.
The topic came up when the streamer looked at his purchase history on Steam. “You can see my purchases in 2008 and 2009“, did he declare. “I bought three things in one year, for a total of 100 dollars. That’s pretty much how it’s been every year.”
Then things ramped up in 2013 and 2014. He was surprised to learn that he had made “hundreds of purchases” over those years, describing it as “madness”. And finally he took the leap and realized how much he spent in Lost Ark.
“And then Lost Ark happened” he said, showing all the $100 transactions in his account.
After counting them, he arrived at a rough estimate. “There must be over $2,000 spent on Lost Ark. It is obligatory.”
Even beyond the money the streamer has spent on the MMORPG, stats site SullyGnome reveals that Shroud has already streamed the game for over 100 hours, amassing an average of 19,000 viewers per stream.
So, even though he spent a lot of money, this experience was enriched for him as well as for his spectators.