Quote Originally Posted by Epix View Post
After seeing a thread about a truly free game, I remembered when I first played Maplestory, maybe 5 or 6 years ago. It was basically my first true MMORPG, and back then I had no idea what micro transactions were. The first items were simply cosmetic, and I remember thinking, "why would anyone even spend 5 dollars to buy virtual sunglasses?" Now it seems like the norm for all f2p mmos. So now i'm wondering how Maplestory survived in its first years of launch without an actual cash shop. What i'm also wondering is which MMO was the first to implement a "cash shop", and when did they become the standard for all f2p mmos to come?
Little bit of information for those who don't know too much about MMOs or atleast haven't been playing them as long as most have. Maplestory really paved the way for alot of newer ones, both shitty and new with the massive success it was and was what really bought Nexon NA to the spotlight. I had been playing MS since it was first started and can safely say for the longest time I had really really enjoyed all the time I played it. Even with it's CS being purely cosmetic barely anyone actally bought any of it, in fact it was almost like a taboo to do anything with the CS.

tl;dr It's not necessarily that there was a first mmo to have a cash shop, almost all mmos with the exception of b2p and p2p have always had a cash shop, it's just that many of the older ones made theirs almost nonexistant and would gain revenue through other means.