The relaunch of this defunct medieval survival MMO is met with 95 cry-laugh emojis, 74 poops, 62 clowns, 42 letters spelling S-C-A-M, and 35 optimistic thumbs up

pcgamer.com:

It's always a bummer when an MMO, or any multiplayer game, gets shut down and goes forever dark. That was the fate of medieval survival sandbox Life is Feudal: MMO, which entered early access in 2018 but closed its doors barely three years later, apparently due to financial issues and disagreements between developer Bitbox and its publisher, Xsolla.

So you'd expect hardcore fans of the realistic medieval MMO to react with joy and excitement upon hearing Life is Feudal has a new publisher that's bringing the game back. Right?

Not quite. In the official Discord, the May 30 announcement of Life of Feudal's rebirth was met with 95 cry-laugh emojis, 74 poops, 62 clowns, and a group effort to spell out the word S-C-A-M in emoji letters. To be fair, there were also 35 thumbs-ups, which I attribute to people being genuinely happy (but also maybe a few of them not reading the announcement all that closely).

So, what's the problem? Why aren't fans happy the MMO is being given new life?

First off, there's the price. Life Is Feudal's new publisher, Long Tale Games, is currently running a playtest that costs $20 to join. That doesn't feel completely out of line until you realize that's not the cost of the game, but the cost of a monthly subscription.

That's $20 per month, which is more expensive than an MMO like World of Warcraft, or Eve Online, or PC Game Pass, or any other gaming subscription around. And what you get for that price is access to a playtest. The monthly subscription is required even for people who flat-out bought the game back when it was for sale on Steam and cost anywhere between $30 and $100, depending on the version.

It isn't particularly clear what the subscriptions gives you, either. «With your subscription,