The Justice Online Mobile (逆水寒手游) tea has finally been served — and it's piping hot. A grand 'we'll never sell stats' promise from the devs, shattered piece by piece from orange weapons at launch all the way to golden forging materials in guild auctions. This might just be the textbook case of 'building a chastity monument in the front, running a brothel in the back' in Chinese MMO history.
It started simply enough. A player posted on NGA: 'Has nobody shared the gossip about Justice Online officially selling stats?' They attached a screenshot of the in-game shop showing stat-related forging items currently on sale.
To understand why this is such a big deal, you need the original context. One highly-upvoted reply unearthed a legendary moment: 'Justice Online's officials were classic — they said Honor of Kings sells attributes but they'd never do it. They said rich whales tried to throw money at CEO Ding Lei to buy power, and even then Justice Online wouldn't sell. This all came straight from the official team.' That quote aged like milk in the sun.
Another player drew parallels to the Heavenly Sword (天涯明月刀) debacle: 'Back in the day, Heavenly Sword swore up and down they'd never sell stats in the shop. Then the person who said that got fired, and the shop started pumping out stat bundles left and right.' History doesn't repeat, but it sure does rhyme — and this time Justice Online is the main character.
Not everyone was outraged, though. Some took the 'this is normal' stance: 'Selling stats is completely standard for this kind of game. Count every Chinese RPG MMO since 2000 that didn't sell stats at all — you won't find more than ten.' But opponents immediately clapped back: 'The difference is those games never claimed they wouldn't sell stats.' And that's the real crux — the problem was never selling stats, it was the devs building their own virtue-signaling monument and then tearing it down themselves.
The most devastating piece of evidence came from a player who laid out the entire history of Justice Online's stat-selling escalation. Starting from orange weapons at launch (about 5% power boost) to hero skills, internal cultivation, and forging systems — every step widened the gap between spenders and F2P players:
Orange weapon phase: officials said 'whales spending tens of thousands for 5% more stats, what's the big deal?' — sure, 5% is definitely not stats. Hero skills phase: certain classes were objectively behind without pulling; 'but they give one free skill!' they said, except the iteration speed was so fast that by the time you saved enough for one max-rank skill, a new one was already out. Internal cultivation phase: think Genshin's artifact system but with gold-coin stat rolling, and the fastest way to earn gold? Buy it from the auction house from 'other players' (wink wink). Forging phase: the core of the current controversy — enhanced forging requires stones that can be bought from the AH from 'other players,' and everyone who's played knows exactly who those 'other players' are.
To be fair, some players argued the impact on casuals is minimal: 'The golden boss forging is for the ultra-whales to build their ultimate loadout. You can clear dungeons in full purple gear without issue.' But others shot back with the key distinction: 'Those other games never claimed they wouldn't sell stats. You can clear content and still be selling stats — those are two different conversations.' The ability to clear content doesn't retroactively justify broken promises.
Perhaps the most telling detail was the state of the official comment section. A player shared screenshots showing nothing but glowing reviews under the official posts, prompting another to quip: 'Brother, it's NetEase's comment section. Ask Onmyoji players about the time official sock puppets attacked real players — that was the drama of the century.' In the Chinese gaming scene, comment sections managed by community managers (社管) are a known phenomenon where negative feedback gets buried and astroturfed praise takes its place.
One player summed up the absurdity with brutal honesty: 'It's about making money, duh. Promises are just hot air. Players don't even care — it's like a domestic violence situation where both sides are willing.' Another nailed the core contradiction: 'Nobody forced Justice Online to not sell stats — you built that monument yourselves.' Sure, selling stats is practically an industry standard in Chinese MMOs, but proudly declaring you'd never do it and then doing it anyway? That takes a special kind of audacity. When promises become marketing copy and virtue becomes a fig leaf, you have to wonder: what is a player's trust actually worth?
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