Images courtesy of The Bazaar
The Bazaar, the highly-anticipated autobattler hero-builder game from Tempo, has finally released in Open Beta. However, the community response wasn’t what we expected it to be – people are angry, and for the right reasons.
Think of Riot Games’ Teamfight Tactics, a game very close to my heart, and Blizzard’s Hearthstone Battlegrounds – that’s the premise of The Bazaar. We’re buying and selling items to create a loadout which can take down the opposing player before they can defeat us during asynchronous and fully-automated Player vs Player (PvP) rounds.
The Bazaar‘s Game Mechanics
The Bazaar‘s core gameplay is split into days, and each day has hours, which represent the various rounds per day.
Each hour, players may enter shops to buy and sell cards (called “items”), go on missions at the Docks, Jungle, or other places to gain more coin, reap rewards from other NPCs, participate in other random events, or go into battles against the CPU, or against the ghosts (a snapshot of their builds during the same time) of real-world players. We build our own hero by placing items on our board, which begins at four small spaces, and expands to ten spaces at Level 4.
The gameplay is deep and engaging, with each card possessing different sizes (and occupying different spaces) and traits, plus various effects which synergize with each other through positioning on the board.
For instance, Silencer boosts the Weapon to its left by 10 damage at Bronze tier, while it also reduces the cooldown of the Weapon if we only play one. This is great in solo-Weapon builds such as Double Barrel in Vanessa, one of the game’s Heroes, as we can just keep on reusing the gun to carry us to victory.
Getting Stronger in The Bazaar
The game also has an upgrade path, where buying or discovering the same card of the same tier will upgrade the card to the next, ranging among Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Diamond, with stronger effects and scaling per enhancement.
Getting stronger is dependent on game mechanics such as economy management, leveling up through random events, or winning fights against other players. By leveling up, we gain access to better upgrades and a bigger board to place more cards.
Knowledge is Everything
Knowledge also plays a huge part in the game. Knowing which builds or lines can be played given certain skills (which can be randomly granted during events or dropped after Player vs Environment or PvE rounds), is a huge skill to be mastered. Also having knowledge of specific cards being available at certain vendors (such as knowing we don’t need to visit small and medium shops if we just need the large item Crow’s Nest), is also key.
Even knowing PvE fights, where each CPU has a preset board (and their own drop table), means we can deterministically gauge if we can take on tougher CPUs for better rewards, or just settle for the Bronze-level fights for some guaranteed loot.
The game is amazing on surface level, the game mechanics are neat, and there is definitely depth and mastery for players who want skill expression to play a huge part of their games.
6 Reasons for Bazaar Community Unrest
However, the community is in an uproar; and it doesn’t seem to be dying down anytime soon. Here are some reasons why.
1. Tempo Broke the Promises of Early Supporters
The Bazaar promised that the game will be completely free-to-play, with no microtransactions needed to acquire new cards. This statement rang true even until February 28, 2025, when the devs responded to community feedback as the game neared Open Beta launch. All players will have access to all the same cards, with no discrepancies between any player. We were supposed to be drafting from the same card pool.
But upon the launch of Open Beta, the game has shifted to a Battle Pass (called Prize Pass) model. This is neat and all if the game only rewarded cosmetics. Unfortunately, The Bazaar has gated new cards behind the Battle Pass, even for Closed Beta supporters.
2. Card Acquisition Is Horrible
With this new Battle Pass model, new cards for Vanessa and Pygmalien are locked behind a purchase, which can only be bought with cold hard cash. The in-game currency, which early backers have thousands of, and can be earned by F2P players through the now-limited Ranked Chests, can’t even be used to unlock these game pieces yet. While Vanessa unlocks new cards at the first level of the paid pass, Pyg’s additional ones are gated behind level 25.
3. New Bazaar Sets Will Follow the Same Release Plan
While these new cards will eventually become available to all players for purchase with the in-game currency crystals, supposedly after the season and the end of the pass, there will also be another Battle Pass with new cards, yet again. And the cycle just begins anew with the card acquisition.
4. Autobattlers Should Not Have Different Pools
Imagine if you and your friend were playing a sealed format, except they’re drafting from a wider card pool with more powerful cards, while you’re getting slim pickings from a core set.
Fundamentally, autobattlers are based on the precedent that you and other players are all playing with the same cards or units, where there is a unified metagame shared across all players. But in The Bazaar, players with just the base card pool can and will go up against players with the Battle Pass cards, which makes for some lopsided matches, as the free-to-play players just do not have access to the same cards.
Worst of all, these players cannot replicate the builds that beat them in their past games. While it can be argued that the pass cards do not give an inherent advantage due to the dillution of the pool, this still means two different players cannot be offered the same fair choices due to discrepancies.
As a point of comparison, Teamfight Tactics, the most popular and successful autobattler, releases new sets or expansions roughly every three to four months, which introduces a fresh set of units for all players to draft from and rehauls the game’s unique, season-wide mechanic. There are no additional units locked behind a paywall. Players are presented with the same meta-wide choices every game.
5. The Additional Sets Can Be Toggled on and Off
The Bazaar has a bizarre (or bazaar) approach to these expansions: players can choose to turn them on and off. Thus, if this trend of set releases continues, players can just choose to turn off certain card pools which have nerfed cards and opt to play with card pools with just the most busted cards. And who’s to say the devs won’t just nerf the previous Battle Pass cards once they’re available to be purchased by players for in-game crystals? Marvel Snap, which uses a similar monetization model, is notorious for this trend that players pretty much expect nerfs to drop the week after the season pass ends.
Super Auto Pets, yet another autobattler, also has expansions. But players have the option to only play against other players who own the same sets.
6. Tempo’s Response Is Disappointing
Most of all, as a potential customer, seeing the developers and team respond to the community outcry left a bad taste in my mouth. And most redditors also agree.
Reynad, CEO and Founder of Tempo, has gone on record to even shame players for feeling disappointed about the sudden shift in monetization – with no advice of this change ahead of time, even for early backers. The hostile reaction of the team to any and all criticism doesn’t help either; they definitely need some PR training.
So what’s next? Between a fantastic game yet surprising decisions where the game is headed in Open Beta, players have begun quitting, uninstalling, filing for chargebacks, or rallying to vote with their wallets or time. NorthernLion, one of the largest streamers who has covered The Bazaar, has also gone on stream to say that he won’t be buying the card packs until Tempo listens to some pushback.
Meanwhile, some players have begun looking at Backpack Battles or Super Auto Pets to get their asynchronous autobattler fix. Others have chosen to keep on playing, but have vowed to never spend a single dime again.
Looking forward to the future, I’m definitely hoping Tempo reconsiders their monetization plan, as it definitely ruins what could have otherwise been the hit indie game of 2025. And even then, it might already be too late.
Want more digital deckbuilding content? Check out our feature on everything we know so far about Slay the Spire 2.
