Temtem CEO says the MMO's audience expects "infinite content" even though "it is not feasible to continue" big updates at all, so the dev's making a new game instead

gamesradar.com:

The developer of Temtem, that Pokemon-like MMO from a few years back, is now working on a co-op roguelike featuring its collection of creatures, and the news has been divisive. Roguelike fans and some Temtem enthusiasts seem intrigued by the idea, but a vocal part of the Temtem community is upset to see developer Crema seemingly move away from the core MMO. A statement from CEO Enrique Paños – or Kikill0, one of the devs in the Temtem Discord – has fanned the flames by telling disappointed players that they can't expect "infinite content" when putting out major updates is "not feasible" to begin with.

In a lengthy Discord message later posted to Reddit, Kikill0 waded into some of the backlash to Temtem: Swarm's reveal and the state of Temtem itself. 

"The community expects to add infinite content, which is costly in terms of time and money, and just because it carries the MMO label, but MMO doesn't mean infinite," he writes. "It's compared to other MMOs, even though Crema has clarified since 2018 that it wouldn't be like those MMOs. But when comparing it to other MMOs, the small detail is forgotten that those MMOs have a subscription model or are free but with pay-to-win practices. They are sustainable in that way." He adds that, "when we tried to introduce purely cosmetic microtransactions as a way to support us and extend the life of the game, we also received many negative criticisms."

The thrust of the argument seems to be that Temtem shouldn't be treated like a normal MMO, but rather more like a standard single-player game that you can also enjoy in a massively multiplayer space. Putting a point on it, Kikill0 describes Temtem as: "A game that gives you a minimum of 50 hours of adventure, and another 50 hours of side quests and different features that are not part of the adventure. In total, around 100 hours of gameplay just for a complete game that is not in Early Access, and there are things still being added to it." 

Temtem's Early Access development showed