Warhammer: Arcane Magic dev admits the IAPs were 'incredibly wrong,' explains how it's being fixed

Turbo Tape Games has admitted that it was "incredibly wrong" in regards to the in-app purchase system in Warhammer: Arcane Magic.

In the game, players guide a party of wizards across hazardous lands fighting monsters from Warhammer's universe. Battles are frequent and are designed to be tough.

However, if players are struggling, they can heal their wizards by using a Warpstone. If they ran out of Warpstones then they can buy more using the gold they earn in the game. And if they have no gold they can purchase it with real money.

The Warpstone was cheap to buy at 25 of them for 500 gold. However, spending the gold like this meant players weren't able to buy the spells that Turbo Tape intended for them to get.

"When people started making unproportioned purchases of Warpstone for earned gold, they also suffered double from not being able to buy spells," explains Turbo Tape, "which then made the situation take a turn for the worse, since new spells were intended to ease the increasing difficulty.

"This started a vicious cycle that led to more death, the need for more Warpstone, running out of gold -- in effect hitting a completely unintended paywall."

As players found what they perceived to be a paywall in a game that they had already paid £7.99 / $9.99 for upfront there was a lot of backlash.

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Above you can see YouTuber Angry Joe playing the game and showcasing the anger that a lot of the game's players were experiencing.

Turbo Tape acted upon the reactions immediately by locating the problem, understanding it, and then aiming to fix it.

The first fix was to remove the ability to buy Warpstone for gold in the game. Instead, a mechanism was installed that lets players earn Warpstone through battles. And if they need more they can replay levels to get it if need be.

This, of course, introduced other complaints that Turbo Tape is looking to address. Primarily, some of the game's biggest fans thought the changes made the game to easy.

"Among other things, we're making a difficulty system that will either limit the Warpstone amount that can legally be used in a level or that awards a star-based system based on Warpstone use (or not using it)," Turbo Tape said.

Beyond that, Turbo Tape will be looking at how healing works in the game more closely. So, hopefully, Warhammer: Arcane Magic will continue to improve.

You can purchase Warhammer: Arcane Magic for £7.99 / $9.99 on the App Store.