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How long will MMOs hide P2W behind the veil of FTP?
Arclan
Member UncommonPosts: 1,550
MMO companies are taking a huge gamble; and enduring significant losses. All in the hopes that P2W becomes increasingly accepted every day. MMO companies don't mind losing a generation (the anti-P2W crowd of UO, EQ, etc) as long as the incoming generation accepts P2W as the norm. The result is you will be paying a lot more for less entertainment.
MMOs are engineered, it seems, to last a few months. They want you to spend as much P2W money as possible in that time frame.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
Comments
You'll spend as much as you choose to, nothing or lots. It's your choice.
More choices re good.
More choices re good.
Except when those choices provide a rift based on economic situations. If player A only has $15 a month to spare for his gaming hobby, but player B has $115 to spare, why should player A be "punished" cause he can't spend more in the cash shop?
Pretty much as above - when people stop supporting games like that. When MMO's go P2W, it's a sign of bad things to come, up to, and including the game shutting down. MMO's need lots of customers and P2W is a sure way to alienate non P2W supporters, causing the game to eventually implode. I suppose I could also say that those who support their favorite game by making P2W successful are also destroying the game they love.
Not to be confused with simple multiplayer games (or also single player "online" games), who use P2W with much less publicity, since their games revolve around box sales + whatever else they can grab before their time is over.
Or at least thats how I see it ..
Want a nice understanding of life? Try Spirit Science: "The Human History"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8NNHmV3QPw&feature=plcp
Recognize the voice? Yep sounds like Penny Arcade's Extra Credits.
UO has had an item mall for over a decade now.
That aside, if your argument is that companies want you to spend as much money as possible, then the answer is that they will keep doing it until players no longer enjoy it.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Drug addicts don't stop using because they can't afford to buy drugs... so long as there are games, there will be gamers.
Besides they aren't hiding anything... it's all out in plain sight. Do they have cash shops? Encourage you to purchase anything? Plain sight. Some GM isn't whispering you in game offering you a perk for your credit card information.
There is no punishment. Choosing to play the game is a choice. Choices have results/consequences.
1. He is choosing to play the game.
2. He chooses and controls how he feels about the game.
3. He can chooose to spend money on it or not.
4. He chooses and controls how he feels about his decision to spend money on it or not.
The game is providing a way for that person to play it for free. If he chooses to spend money thats his call.
edit - if he chooses to play a game where there is such a rift, and then chooses not to pay anything for it. Well that was his call and he is to blame for his decisions.
Posts like Blasphim's lead me to believe it's an entitlement thing for some people.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
this is the only true answer. When people stop paying or even playing pay to win games, only then will greedy devs realise that either they arent capable of honestly making profit in gaming without disrespecting the players and their own game or actually make an honest cash shop not p2w.
How is he punished? Player B pays for his game. He is subsidized. He should be grateful to the whale and be happy.
Thats right and considering f2p MMO's with cashs shops have been around since before UO I would say there really is no generation that didn't accept them in some way.
That's the heart of a problem.
In Alcoholic's Anonymous you are taught that when you are addicted you are powerless. For this reason you cannot choose to quit being an alcoholic but instead you have to let another aid you with controlling this problem.
A person who has an addiction to a video game is going to uncontrollably pay out. It will not be their choice it will be an addiction based behavior. The fact that it is not made to feel like money only encourages this addiction.
Website: http://www.thegameguru.me / YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/users/thetroublmaker
Why is that the result? The result is the there will be more F2P games, and more whales to subsidize your gaming. A win-win.
No .. they don't want everyone to spend as much money as possible in that time frame. They want the whales to do so .. and free players to be content for the whales.
Most players don't pay.
Those games arent simply hobby, they are competition. If some have advantage simply because they can put more money in it, it becomes a problem. What's stopping the dev to put in an I Win button that make you invulnerable and insta kill anyone else for 5000$.
I am not against micro transaction for cosmetic stuff. Or even bonus to leveling but anything that cannot be obtained by everyone that plays the game is game breaking for me.
I will never play a P2W game.
Lets not start discussing addictions. There is a huge difference between an actual addication that involves a disregulated receptor and the locus of control is external to you, and an abuse, even extreme abuse with no receptor problems where the locus of control is internal to you.
The terms that most people know of addiction are being phased out, gaming will never be considered an addiction. Gambling is no longer considered an addiction, but an extreme abuse. The two can involve different treatment, although the 12 step program is extremely effective for both.
LOLwut. What f2p existed before UO? Since many pin UO for inadvertantly creating the f2p model in the first place.
Also, what exactly are you calling p2w? I see that term get thrown around a lot when its not in the slightest.
I did battle with ignorance today, and ignorance won.
To exercise power costs effort and demands courage. That is why so many fail to assert rights to which they are perfectly entitled - because a right is a kind of power but they are too lazy or too cowardly to exercise it. The virtues which cloak these faults are called patience and forbearance.
How long will MMO players allow MMO companies to call Freemium, F2P?
How long will MMO players continue to defend a game 100% of the time no matter the topic or how bad whatever the issue actually is just because they like the rest of the game?
As for the UO, EQ generation...huh? I am part of that generation and so is a good portion of my guild and we have been in the F2P field for 4 years and find it no different than the subscription field. Its all in your head.
I hope we shall crush...in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country." ~Thomes Jefferson
"Whoah whoah whoah...sorry bud. You are funding me way too much of your money"
- Says no one
Furcadia 1996
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-to-play
Why is that a problem, unless it is pvp? If i group, why is it a problem if the other guy bought a shield + 5 and can tank better?
What is stopping dev to put in an "I win" button .. is that it makes the game no fun, and everyone will leave. You want to give SOME advantage but not to much to make the game trivial.
People don't want to be invulnerable, they just want to have a better chance beating the challenge. You let them pay for what they want.
not really. a good example of a hobby that involves money is Tennis. I grew up playing tennis for free all my life back in my country. Our trainer was part of our own team so he made profits off tournaments and teaching others outside our group, not our actual group. Here in the US you wont find free trainers and the people i have played with here that payed a trainer many years play as good as i did for free and some of them lose fairly quick too. So i guess not all hobbies are pay to win ;D
But gaming is different, pay to win games should not be accepted.
you realise P2W and F2P are 2 different things