Here's my interview with Shop Titans Game Designer Jeremie Desrosiers on the 5th Anniversary of the game.
The ultimate RPG Shopkeeper simulation game from developer Kabam, Shop Titans, is celebrating its 5th anniversary this month. In the wake of that, I was given the opportunity to talk with Jeremie Desrosiers, Senior Game Designer at Kabam, about the game's journey, new content, the future of Shop Titans, and much more.
Hritwik: This is a big milestone moment for Shop Titans. How has the journey been over its first five years as far as how far it has come since its original release?
Jeremie: I’m personally very humbled. A million thanks to our passionate players who have made the continued development of this game a possibility!
It’s hard to imagine what Shop Titans looked like at launch because we’ve come such a long way. We’ve added six tiers of items to craft and sell, enchantments for your shop items, the Collection Book, Fusion, and plenty of events! We’ve come a long way!
Players have been busy, too. During these five years, they’ve crafted over 23 billion items and generated over 13 quadrillion gold. Those numbers are hard to imagine but such a testament to the game
Hritwik: For those that may be new to the game, how would you summarize the Shop Titans experience?
Jeremie: Shop Titans is a game about sword-wielding heroes saving the world. But you’re no hero... you’re a shopkeeper! You start the game by inheriting a tiny shop, crafting dinky daggers for aspiring adventurers. As your wealth and fame grow, you’ll be crafting and selling Excaliburs by the dozen!
As for the truly exceptional items you craft, you can equip them on your very own Heroes, which can be sent on expeditions to defeat monsters and gather valuable components.
Hritwik: And for those veteran players celebrating the 5th Anniversary, what kind of content and festivities does Kabam have on the agenda for Shop Titans?
This may be our biggest update yet, so I couldn’t possibly list everything but in brief, you can look forward to the all-new powerful Artifact Blueprints, a new tier of Enchantments, fine-tuning for the shop yard and Level Loops for super players who make it to level 100! We’ll also be running giveaways daily starting on June 12th, so don’t miss it!
Hritwik: What are Artifacts and how do they compare to other blueprints in the game?
Jeremie: Artifact Blueprints are more rare and difficult to craft than your average blueprint, but they’re well worth the effort. On top of being more valuable and powerful than your average blueprint, each one has a special effect that is completely unique.
The Armor of Invincibility, for example, is the only item in the game that cannot be broken.
Hritwik: Players can now build out their Shop Space by adding Yard Space. Can you share what was behind the decision to add this? Any tips for players who may be looking to deck out their outdoors?
Jeremie: Over the course of the game, players get to expand their shop to fill up a large 3x3 space. Up until that point though, players had the freedom to choose the shape of their shop as they expanded, leading to very unique-looking shops! By the endgame, everyone ends up with a blocky 3x3 shop.
With this new feature, we give extra control to the player in how their shop looks, allowing them instead to transform their space into a backyard. This allows for more space for decorations, and more funky shapes, all without giving up any of the benefits of a large shop!
Hritwik: With Shop Titans celebrating its 5th Anniversary this month, as well as Marvel Contest of Champions celebrating its 10th Anniversary later this year, are there any key principles or philosophies that the Kabam team lives by to help ensure longevity for a game and its player community?
We strongly believe in making games that we’d want to play ourselves, and then actually playing them. That means finding a balance between fun, casual gameplay, and surprising depth that lets a wide variety of players find something to love and stick around for.
We keep a close eye on how the community reacts to our updates, and I personally stay pretty involved with our players on Discord. Whenever we can, we'll take requests from our players and find a way to add them to the game. Our players have been with us for a long time, and a lot of good ideas have come from them in one way or another.
Hritwik: What are some of your favorite moments throughout the history of Shop Titans? Are there any special community moments, specific content, or game/content development memories you hold in high regard?
Jeremie: Personally, I had a great time working on the Avatar: The Last Airbender collaboration. Integrating another universe into Shop Titan is a lot of work, but it’s a very exciting process and I think we delivered!
I also have good memories of our first April Fools event, where we replaced every customer with Tamas, the weirdo NPC. Ever since that day, every April Fools has been Tamas Day, and players even dress up as Tamas in-game for the occasion.
We’ve also had our fair share of silly bugs. One of which involved us accidentally restarting a King’s Caprice event, completely wiping out everyone’s progress!
In the end, our best option was to simply make this one event very, very easy, allowing everyone to claim all the rewards in short order. Some players refer to this event as the Cursed Caprice today.
Hritwik: How has Kabam continued to balance the tycoon simulation that’s at the game’s heart with its lighter RPG elements? Have you found the right mix or formula that has kept the community coming back for new updates?
Jeremie: Shop Titans consists of three core gameplay mechanics; Crafting, Selling, and Questing. All three are technically required to keep your shop running, but players generally favor one or two over the others.
Over time though, we’ve sneakily allowed players to focus their efforts on the aspects they liked more.
If you only care about selling, you can still make a big profit from simply finding good deals on the player-driven market and reselling them at a markup, either in your shop or back on the market!
If you care a lot about questing, strong Heroes can gather valuable items that can be resold without the need to craft them.
The Talent Tree update in particular reinforced this, allowing players to unlock special bonuses for their preferred playstyles.
Hritwik: What does the future hold for Shop Titans? Can we expect more ongoing game updates or community events going forward?
Jeremie: I would dare say we’re barely getting started! We have an ongoing log of cool things we want to do, so long as players keep supporting us, we’ll keep delivering! From the Shop Titans team and Kabam Montreal, thank you all for your support!
Since we’re on the topic of community events, we’re currently looking into testing a quick “world event”, where all players contribute toward the same goal. If the reception is positive, we’d be happy to do something bigger!
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