Alphasim store?

I'm not certain yet, but my first thought is you might actually earn less money overall. In any case, you gotta earn a buck, so I'm all for monetizing as best you can.

But maybe it ruins the experience some, no?

We all know the cheat option in a video game; it's cool for a week and then quickly makes the game boring, because you're not invested mentally. Maybe this hurts the longterm appeal of the game that you might need to develop a vibrant community. 

The thing that I image most players enjoyed when Alphasim was a thriving community, it's clients earned their experience flexing their brains, bragging rights actually meant something. Like lemmings, we'll take the easy road if you put it right in front of us, but everybody knows it's not about the destination but rather the journey. I think that's what made this game so fun to play.

The store might be counterproductive by not holding the player's interest for so long. So question might be, do you get more income from a client who buys lots of cheats and leaves after a few seasons, or by holding a client's interest for 30 seasons? I'm pretty sure the momentum of having clients around for 30 seasons is what creates that buzzing community, provides the cult atmosphere, the forum buzzing.

I mean damn, after losing me in the platform remake, and apparently everyone else, the only reason I'm back here is because I earned 30 seasons worth of victories and awards with Sea Monster, years of blood sweat n tears, obsessing over tactics and trades. That is ceremonial, ritualistic sh*t. There's high grade pride for the awards and accomplishments, battles of wits amongst peers. If I'd have just bought that team, you'd have lost me long ago. But no, I earned it, and it's hard to let go. Letting go ain't easy.

So, the big question I see is, how best to get your clients invested into the game? Make it easy to understand and make it a battle of wits. If you need more money, maybe in the long run it's a better idea just to steadily/slowly increase the cost of renewals.

But hey, I've only been back a few days, and all of this is just new to me. I'm probably wrong.