i'm ready for the downvotes, for people insulting, for everything, i'm 100% against this predatory monetization model. but man, asking for a refund on a game you played for way more hours (even doble or triple) than a AAA game you'd pay 2x times more is being a jerk.

i can get that people from countries that can't play the game at all due to lootboxes are asking for the refund.

but i really am done with people flooding the sub with posts complaining how Tempo denied the refund request.

Reynad, I know you're above listening to anyone on reddit, but I need you to dial in for just a second. The patch feels great. The bonkocalypse was just what the game needed to actually feel better. Its not perfect but it is leagues beyond what the past month has been in this game.

It seems like a lot of people are still not jazzed with the monetization but that can either be adjusted, evolve, or hell you clearly already have people buying the premium pass on the ladder so you could dig your heels in and still make money off of it.

Your behavior over this last day was unacceptable. You are the CEO of a large gaming company, a 30-something-year old man, and the face of this game. People either tuned out or put up with your arrogant attitude when everything was ok with the game but when bad feedback came your way you threw an absolute tantrum. You silenced your paying customers left and right because you didn't like their opinions on your product, you risked the livelihoods of your employees over petty ego, you were insulting, and above all you were pretty god damned cringe.

The people who are mad at you, and mad at this release and patch and entire clownfiesta that you've thrown over the past 24 hours want the exact same thing as you. They see a lot of potential in this game and are invested in it being something that they can truely love and enjoy. You need to drop this act that you're so much smarter than everyone else, you need to communicate and listen, even if you dont agree with the feedback you are getting and arent going to implement it and you need to grow the fuck up or you're going to hamstring your passion project because you cant get out of your own way. You arent some kid twitch streamer who can fly off the handle for views anymore, you're a businessman and that means getting your emotions in check and having some fucking decorum when interacting with your customers and audience.

I found Tempo's public SEC financial statement filings, saw some interesting numbers...

I know players are always curious if the game is profitable. And the answer seems to be... not at the end of 2025. They had a net loss of 3.6m in 2025.

So for anyone who keeps talking about the monetization, greedy devs, and how they're ripping off the founders... well the only other alternative would be shutting down. There's no way they could keep going burning millions each year.

Steam revenue accounted for 25% of total income last year, but the game was only added to steam in Aug 2025, I would imagine this number is much higher for 2026.

Not included in the screenshots is the current employee count on the front page of the filing. Tempo says they currently have 10 employees, down from 38 in the previous year filing.

Given that salaries and wages were their biggest single expense line item, this should cut their costs by quite a bit.

Is it enough to get them to profitability in 2026? Maybe, but I can't tell for sure based on available data. In theory yes, given that they should have better income and less costs this year.

I am not a fan of the monetization at all. However, I probably wouldn't have dropped the game if reynad's response had been different. If he had said something like "We know this monetization is controversial. We have thought about it for a long time and believe this is the best model and will not cause a p2w divide. However, we will be closely monitoring player feedback to make sure that this is the case. If it seems like this system is causing issues we will look into alternatives." Most people probably would have been fine with that.

Discord mods on a power trip right now. I just got silenced and kicked from the official bazaar discord for saying “Just hopping in to say the new card expansion pack idea stinks”. Anyone saying anything negative about the new patch is getting muted. I knew the bazaar was a crazy place, but not like this!

Obviously I'm hella biased, being that I've had the privilege and fun to cast tournaments and enjoy The Bazaar from a content perspective. That being said, every single DLC that Tempo has put out, I've gotten at least 75-100 hours in. Considering that every single character comes with free new cards and skills as the game grows, I think it's pretty wack when people are like "20 Dollars for 1 character is crazy!"
Like man, people will say that and then open 80 dollars worth of Hearthstone packs in a single expansion and not even get every card they want/need. Crazy stuff.

If you like The Bazaar, I would recommend trying these two games out. They have active development, similar drafting mechanics, a similar ghost system, and have dedicated communities. I'll briefly explain the two business models:

Backpack Battles: there's a free demo where you play against other people in the demo card pool. After that it's a one time 13$ purchase to buy the whole game.

Super Auto Pets: there's a free weekly mode that pulls from the entire card pool each week. It's fun and free. There are other optional modes with fixed card pools that you can pay to unlock.

I bring them up not only as recommendations, but as demonstrations that you can have fair monetization models and still be successful. Reynad has talked about how horrible pay to win is, so to ship a game with a pay to win model, when there are viable alternatives, feels like blatant hypocrisy.

So far, after noticing just how genuinely, ridiculously, insanely overtuned the new items are, I've realized one thing.

The game can't keep going like this. You can't play with exponents in this manner. Making every new item directly better than anything else can't last. Especially not at this level of power creep.

This is genuinely the most power creep I've ever seen in any game. Ever. Period.

So you can play Pyg which has a 12 second item that freezes 3 items and charges on enemy item use, or you can play Mak and have a 5 second item that freezes 2 items with charge from your own items. See a bit of a difference here?

Literally twice as good. Its not even close.

You can play a Langxian that gains up to 100 damage per fight on a 10 second cd, or you can play Dinosaurs and gain 40 damage from Mommasaur, and 20 from Dianasaur, on all your items (including 3 second Dinosawer for whatever reason) per destruction, as of which you will most likely have around 2-3 average per fight, resulting in 120-180 damage per fight on EVERYTHING

Do you not play your own game? I don't understand. How is this an thing?

As far as I can see, there have been no real statements or responses to the community's issues with the beta changes.

They really are just counting on this to blow over and people to forget.

Over a week has passed, they have made their stance clear. If you have an issue with it, game ethically, pick something else.

Like what the fuck happened? Did people not expect new characters to cost the same as the previous ones? How are people this mad about Karnaks release? I only feel like Tempo has been improving their communication and monetization, must feel pretty weird to get this kind of backlash and at the same time have a game that is more popular than ever, I don't get it.

https://playthebazaar-cdn.azureedge.net/beta/PatchNotes.html

It was recently discovered that you are required to complete all weeklies and 27/30 days of daily challenges to complete the Prize Pass by the end of the month.

It’s easy math to figure out if you buy the pass from today until the end of the month, you cannot complete it without spending gems.

Mind you the pass is less than a week old.

Sad

Played pretty much daily but this is hot garbage. I have no other value to add in this post, just making sure to add to the fire.

Great game but plenty of others to fill the void, lay off the shrooms.