How Greed And Microtransactions Destroyed Tanki Online

The newer generation of gamers enjoys FPS shooters and games with tons of action, but in olden times we didn’t have all of that flare. rather we had Flash Games, and my older audiences who enjoyed and bathed in the glory of these Flash Games, are sure to remember a very popular title known as Tanki Online.

Made by Alternativa Games back in 2009, the game was made on a pay-to-win monopoly. if a model like this was released today, it would probably get nuked by most of the community, but this was a time when EA didn’t bombard their titles with microtransactions, so the community was much more lenient with it.

The game was extremely popular as it was free and accessible on the web almost instantly. This was also coupled with free servers and a living and breathing community which made every match fun and enticing. This was only the rise of the game, and how far it would go.

The Rise of Tanki Online

For starters, the game had a ton of tanks and guns that you could toy around with it. Most of these guns are extremely fun and the fact that they are unrealistic makes it all the more chaotic. The railgun especially was a blast to use, even if purchasing it was more or less a dream.

Tanki online also had a great physics engine which accounted for much of its popularity. Considering every weapon had a recoil specific to itself made every gun a joy to explore. In 2010, the game started its rise and started dethroning other games in the process.

During this time the player base was always rising and was extremely healthy. Patches and updates were frequent and added new items for the players. They also kept an anti-cheat model active to deny many cheaters from surviving too long in its games.

But unfortunately, after almost 5 years of a happy community and bearable microtransactions, the developers wanted more money for their efforts, and that was the first of many decisions that started the decline of Tanki online

The Fall Of Tanki Online

The earliest traces of bad decisions start from one decision, more microtransactions. The game went from ok grind for a week for one weapon to one month. They also added a system that allowed you to get extra XP by paying on a weekly basis.

Another major downfall of the game was the powerups. Theoretically, if you kept buying these powerups you could be basically immortal, and that’s why money is power, something Blizzard might say.

At one point, they also ended the lobby system and replaced it with an online matchmaking one we see nowadays. This forced players to unnecessarily wait until they got the map they wanted. This caused much hate from the community, and with no occurring fixes, the hate turned into a fierce flame that started to rage on.

Around mid-2016, the game had lost a significant piece of its population, and with this, the developers decided to take one last stand, and… it was to make an unneeded sequel of the game. I think we all know how this story goes.

This was their solution, a brand new title that would build what Tanki online did and go beyond that, unfortunately, it didn’t go as planned. They decided to follow recent gaming trends, and in conclusion, they got front-row seats to their game’s death.

After the game was released, people just didn’t care enough to play it, and finally after many years, somewhere around 2020 the player base fell to its lowest ever, and at that point, the game could be deemed dead by almost any player.

At this point, even the developers knew that Tanki had reached its peak long ago, and trying to revive it would come to no avail. Hence the state of the game today.

This is a story of greed, how one team wanted more and more, but gave less, and how they were destroyed by their own decisions. In today’s gaming world, this is a recurring story, and unfortunately one we will see returning every few months.