More often than not, when games with microtransactions feature a new item or system that requires a ton of grinding for the player, it ends up being dubbed a cash-grab. People argue that the developer will have made that feature so difficult or time-consuming so that people will have to pay for it.

In this vein, "grindy" features plus impatience equals profit, right? Wrong, according to Warframe developer Digital Extremes, which suggests grind-heavy items sometimes even make less money than those that aren't.

This much was discussed at GDC last week. The Digital Extremes Live Ops and Community Director Rebecca Ford said that Warframe certainly doesn't profit from more grind.

"There's often a point from the community where they'll say something like 'you guys must be raking in the Platinum [Warframe's premium currency] because you made this so hard to get', and that's actually not true. A lot of the data that we've looked into for this says if you look at something that has a high grind cost, it doesn't actually sell any better than the things that are easier to make. So we're not really benefiting from them at all."

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Ford went on after the panel to discuss some of Warframe's biggest "hit" and "miss" moments over its five-year history. She elaborated on one specific weapon that she felt was possibly the best example of the lack of a grind-for-profit system in the game: the Hema.

The Hema has a "very notoriously grindy acquisition" that leads players to think the developers don't change because it makes them money. However, when Ford went back to look at the data, the weapon actually sold less than the more easily acquired items that were released at the same time. Therefore, she argues, there is no correlation between grind and greater profits for Warframe.

This comes as a somewhat counter-intuitive discovery. One possible explanation is that players are driven by the challenge to earn items such as the Hema because they can be seen as a sort of badge of honor to be armed with such weapons. There is even a subreddit dedicated to this very purpose. Or it could just be that "grindy" weapons like the Hema just aren't appealing to players for some reason.

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There are, of course, some exceptions to this rule, but Ford generally only looks into things that may be an issue for the game and its players. She says that claims of "grindiness" being added to increase Platinum sales are usually taken as a sign that the community isn't happy with the balance of something, and Digital Extremes will then typically strive to fix those issues.

Microtransactions have proven to be a touchy subject for gamers recently and Warframe had its own unique experience with this just last week. A microtransaction was actually removed from the game because it was too successful. This event reshaped Digital Extreme's philosophy and made it realize that this kind of player behavior wasn't what it wanted for its game.

It would seem that whatever the developer is doing is working. After all, Warframe just hit 38 million registered players just in time for its fifth anniversary this month.

Warframe is free to play and is available now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

Source: IGN