I am just wondering if any Dopers here do use the cash shop of those social games on Facebook, such as City of Wonders, Farmville and etc.
(PS. I settle for 10 USD as a threshold because pay to play MMO are around those price for per-month subscription, I think).
I have used money in Castle Age (on Facebook) in order to buy the latest General of the month, but the average comes out to less than $10 a month. I have never used money in any other game even though I play Mafia Wars every day.
I have never heard of those games, but I voted I don’t play because I would never play a game where you could pay RL money to get an advantage over other players. That’s just stupid on both sides - it sucks to get dominated by someone with deeper pockets and it would make victory hollow if you only won because you spent more money.
If it’s just aesthetics (like TF2 hats) or single player games then I’d play but I certainly would not pay any money for it.
I waste plenty of time on those games, but I’d never pay money for their premium currency. Whenever I look at the prices, they seem ridiculous to me. Ten bucks for a minor benefit in a browser game is not a good value for my gaming dollar when you consider the deals you can get on Steam. Ten dollars gets you checks just over two-thirds of the Farmville cash I’d need to build a bakery (in addition to my winery). Ten dollars also gets you (during a sale) the first Assassin’s Creed game in its entirety; or Mass Effect, or Morrowind, or Dark Messiah, or Bioshock. Over the holidays I got the Overlord bundle (both Overlord games and an expansion pack for the first) for three dollars.