Here are a couple of articles, from game developers, about F2P vs paid games.
It basically comes down to this: how can the developer force you, or trick you, into spending more money. Take candy crush, a single player game. You add timers, which can be bypassed with money (the game, stopping you from playing the game, unless you pay. Have you heard of this before F2P?). You add levels which are very very difficult to pass without spending real money, and this insidious thing is, the levels before that level could easily be passed without spending real money, so your brain doesn’t process that this is no longer a game of skill, but a paywall.
Pay to win is especially bad in competitive games. Take Magic the Gathering, which is the most obvious example of pay to win. In this game, if you have certain expensive cards, you have a decided advantage over your opponent. You literally “pay to win”. And if you don’t pay as much as your opponent, you start with a handicap. You can easily see why F2P developers think this is a great idea.
I was reading the examples and thinking that I hadn’t actually tried many F2P games, but some later references reminded me of a few, like Kingdom of Loathing and SimCity Social. Neither games is a challenge, unless you accept a challenge like PvP or speedruns or something.
I’d say that my experiences with it are favorable. The ones I tried were better than the average free browser-based game, and were playable without spending anything. The model allowed the KoL guy to keep going with his game long after he would have quit a labor of love.
I don’t understand – this is an actual game that you’ve had problems with and you’re being coy about the name, or you’re just coming up with a hypothetical?
I agree, which is why I commented on solo (i.e. non-competitive) games.
This is a hypothetical, because I don’t play pay-to-win games. I thought it was a pretty clear cut example of how even when playing an MMO “solo”, you are influenced by other players.
You shouldn’t. But you should understand that not everyone feels that “influence” is as benign as you do. Just because you are playing “solo” doesn’t mean that what other people do in the game has no impact on you.
You’ve mentioned MtG a few times now and, whilst you can call it pay to win (although the big tournaments are sealed deck to prevent this very problem, aren’t they?), it’s not free to play.
I’m alright with what amounts to a demo being available, and then the rest of the game unlocked for a fee.
But I cannot stand and will not play any game that requires in app purchases to make it anywhere near possible to win. I don’t play online but if I did a person beating me because they spent more would be the end of it for me.
(Yes, I know you said this a while back. It’s exactly worth responding to.)
Guild Wars 2 is not only my favorite game these days, it’s also perhaps the best MMO ever created, period. It may not be for everyone, but it avoids all the classic traps, neither is nor tries to be another WoW clone, and is simply a purchased product. Technically, it’s not F2P - but unlike any other MMO out there, there’s no ongoing fee or subscription basis even being offered.
The game store is simply for cosmetic gear, but by all accounts it’s profitable enough they’re not only constantly adding new events, but are actually accelerating their pipeline. You can technically trade back and forth between in-game and game store currency, so in theory you can use it to buy better stuff. But as there’s no gear treadmill only a handful of top-level items are worth it… and those items aren’t actually better stat-wise than a good-quality drop you can afford with in-game gold anyhow.
With subscription games, you paid for the month, and were free to play during the month as much as you liked. They didn’t cut you off as soon as the fun was getting good and saying “nuh uh, you gotta pay, or it doesn’t get fun”. And you can pay a LOT more for “F2P” than subscription.
You don’t have to be F2P to be “play to win”, of course. But they tend to go together. The Korean and Chinese MMOs tend to be the biggest offenders, but you wouldn’t hear about those.
Anyway, the illustration was to show people to said that “pay to win” wasn’t a problem - I think it very much is.
I thought I’d mentioned how interesting those links were, TabbyCat, but I see I didn’t. There is a definite money grab noticeable in the casual end of the market, and those links provide some reasons why.
The other interesting aspect of these games is the tendency for them to try and get you to rope friends into playing in lieu of cash payments. I must admit, I avoid those myself.