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Subscription only MMOs are pay to win and its good they mostly died out
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Also, I’m pretty sure we will have this same P2P = P2W topic in a few months.
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It's gotten really bad the last few years where even things like cosmetics have been called P2W by some outraged gamers... it's really gotten sad.
The funny part of all this, is that if look at the counter arguments on this topic, you will see a common trend where people will say that P2W always and only meant that it was paying for an advantage.
Like more character power, or better gear or some such other miniscule boon that someone would pay money to get.
Now, don't be fooled, this is a bare faced lie. The reality is, if there was any truth to their point odr stand than Expansions would have been the iconic example of what paying for advantage is all about, as they always offered more power, better gear to those that bought them, giving them a direct and some some cases overwhelming advantage over those that didn't buy the expansion, and since they could both inhabit the same game world, this was in in every way, direct and absolute advantage given to the player that paid for the expansion over those that didn't.
So, why didn't anyone call these Expansions P2W way back something like 17 years ago when EQ was pumping out a new expansion a year that cost the full box set of the game, pretty much forcing players to pay box game costs + sub annually to stay current?
Well, there are two very good reasons why Expansions were never called P2W back then.
The first, is despite the bullshit of some other posters here, the term was not in popular use back then, and reserved for only legit cases of P2W.
The Second is that P2W, again despite the bullshit of other posters here, didn't mean something as benign as "Paying for Advantage"
So there you have it.. that is the little history lesson.. and why things are where they are.
Expansions aren't called pay to win because they are extensions of the game that must be played. The advantage of playing new content is playing new content. You don't pay for the new content then you don't play the new content. New gameplay will never been considered P2W except by true nutballs.
When you are talking P2W. You are talking going to buy things in cash shop that give an advantage you can't get in gameplay or hindered to push you buy it from the cash shop by extreme time. It is always about an advantage.
However, in subscription games, logically, the developers are enticed to introduce more time-gated content to a) Keep old players playing the game and b) Not allow newbies reach endgame quickly. Especially in the case of WoW - rolling out the expansion over months at a time. So what do we have here? iirc WoW had basegame price + expansion price + subscription price. And once the expansion came, it was split in campaigns that were dropped every 2-3 months (correct me if I'm wrong). I'm sorry but I just don't see how that's not a shady business practice. I didn't play WoW, I was more of a Lineage 2 type. It was a subscription MMO. It took you a month to level up, grinding every day for hours on end. And when you died in PVP you lost experience. So technically you could calculate a lot of money.
Many of you will disagree that P2P is paying for an advantage, but in those types of games, the way they are developed - TIME is the advantage you get. The more time you play the stronger you become. In Lineage 2 my buddy and I bitchslapped some noobs 2v12. If that's balanced, go drink your kool-aid
OP mentions Gw2 and I tend to agree that out of all games it has the fairest model. It basically is up to you how good you become. No RNG bullshit, no P2W bullshit, no subscription bullshit. You buy the box and you forget. If you want a Legendary weapon, you know what to do.
I do understand that developers need to make a living, after all but I for one am glad the subscription model died out (for the most part), though I am unhappy with the state of the MMO genre and most games in it. Cheap, limited with draconian loot box systems that make a subscription based model look cool, which it isn't. Sad that more games can't implement Guild Wars 2's model. I think it is the best model for a game.
But it doesn't matter. Big AAA developers moved away from MMOs and into "game as a service" with tons of online features so they feel like MMOs. Possibly the next Assassin's Creed game will be a better MMO than WoW. Assassin's Creed Odyssey is almost as MMOesque as WoW, they just need to add some co-op and it's a MMO for all intends and purposes.
^ And the consumer wins here too. With always-on games developers are not forced to implement crap like Denuvo DRM to protect their games.
Games like Overwatch are completely handled by their publishers and they host millions of players at all time. You fire up servers, games, lobbies at 0 additional cost. And as a bonus there's no bullshit DRM in them. I think that's fantastic. Also there's continuous development.
And don't forget MMO black markets. With cash shops at least now the developers get the money. Back in the day, I was buying and selling raid jewels off of eBay.
Edit: Nevermind, The answer is obviously Yes.
At least then you do know how much the game is going to cost you. Expansions and main game is fine to buy. They do need money to keep servers running, the more players, playing the more income you get. If populations decline as had with alot of other games inc what used to be subscription based and Buy 2 Play models that have gone free to play now but are very heavy with the in game purchase item shops.
Instead of cutting teh sub from £10 a month to £5 (yep i know its a big drop) but how many peeps would buy a 3, 6 or even 12 month sub, meaning its available for a while, even if you play another game (right now alot play 1 and then play something else 1-2 mths later, go back to game 1 3 mths later and just switch between them when they fancy playing, but only ever have the 1 game subscribed to.
In game item shops are a demonic shambles in the gaming world, peeps can get hooked and spend alot more than they realize that they have done. I know 3 peeps who did this and were all adamant that in game item shops were way better than a monthly sub because it only cost £3-6, so i asked them to tally up what they spent in a month and it came to £50+ a month over the timeframe as opposed to £8.99 (what the monthly sub was back then).
So anyone who is in favour of these Item Shops and Loot Crate/Box's are fooling themselves and easily manipulated.