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Is "Pay for convenience" the new pay to win?
TheScavenger
Member EpicPosts: 3,321
As title says. Is pay for convenience the new pay to win? Many MMOs are offering advantages to skipping content, easier leveling, access to endgame year, great items/vehicles/ships/mounts etc.
In many ways, paying for convenience is worse than blatant pay to win. At least pay to win is very obvious and you know up front that the game is pay to win. In paying for convenience models, its a lot more underhanded, secretive and at first its fine till you reach endgame and find the game is designed around these "products"...the developers make the items VERY hard to get, sell overpowered products or products that...again...would be very hard to attain otherwise. The developers can design gameplay in a way where you almost NEED to buy pets...but pretend you don't really have to buy pets or any of the products because "you can get it all in-game" (which is often far harder and far more time consuming than just paying for it).
But players think its okay, because "you can get it all in-game". Another reason its worse, because its such an underhanded term that is seen as acceptable to most because all/most/some of the items can be got in-game. But, to name one MMO...I spent days trying to get a pet off the market in black desert online...literally days and so many hours.
Not once did I get one. Sure RNG...but that is what I mean. The MMO in question is designed to make you buy a pet or waste time getting one. And the MMO is also designed in a way that pets are almost needed...but not quite...all makes it a very shady design decision...and many MMOs are just like that.
Now developers know players hate pay to win games...now they moved onto a far more shady and underhanded scheme..."pay for convenience" and design the game in a way that makes it so you "need" the product...but not quite...and make it VERY hard to earn in-game.
what are your guys's thoughts?
In many ways, paying for convenience is worse than blatant pay to win. At least pay to win is very obvious and you know up front that the game is pay to win. In paying for convenience models, its a lot more underhanded, secretive and at first its fine till you reach endgame and find the game is designed around these "products"...the developers make the items VERY hard to get, sell overpowered products or products that...again...would be very hard to attain otherwise. The developers can design gameplay in a way where you almost NEED to buy pets...but pretend you don't really have to buy pets or any of the products because "you can get it all in-game" (which is often far harder and far more time consuming than just paying for it).
But players think its okay, because "you can get it all in-game". Another reason its worse, because its such an underhanded term that is seen as acceptable to most because all/most/some of the items can be got in-game. But, to name one MMO...I spent days trying to get a pet off the market in black desert online...literally days and so many hours.
Not once did I get one. Sure RNG...but that is what I mean. The MMO in question is designed to make you buy a pet or waste time getting one. And the MMO is also designed in a way that pets are almost needed...but not quite...all makes it a very shady design decision...and many MMOs are just like that.
Now developers know players hate pay to win games...now they moved onto a far more shady and underhanded scheme..."pay for convenience" and design the game in a way that makes it so you "need" the product...but not quite...and make it VERY hard to earn in-game.
what are your guys's thoughts?
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Comments
There's always different degrees of "win" to each and every thing sold.
But it's all advantage in one form or another.
Even selling art only is "win" for the player who buys it, compared to the player who can't have it because he didn't buy it. And that includes items given as rewards for early support.
Once upon a time....
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Sometimes it comes down to the lesser of two evils.
That said I don't want OP items popped into existence in a cash shop. It's one thing to understand the resource of time and to market to it. It's another to sabotage your in game economy and competetive environment by selling items that no person spent the time to obtain.
There was always a negative connotation with P2W, the game got a reputation, the studio got a reputation and the players that bought stuff to "win" were viewed in much the same vein as cheaters.
Now that is all up in the air and you can bet it has been done on purpose, whales and wallet warriors run with it because it sounds so much more benign. I think it is shady as hell because it is really manipulative marketing design. It's much more persuasive because it you can argue time vs money so easily and in an MMO it's less about the winning in the first place, doesn't make it right though.
Why should we allow or accept this sort of monetisation in our games? Why should we make excuses for it?
The people who are guilty for this, the ones that are enabling it are the ones who feel they deserve what everyone else has despite not having the time to play anymore, that's pretty selfish if you ask me. If you can't earn your shit legitimately in game suck it up instead of encouraging studios to monetise things and ruin it for everybody else...
Skipping content by jumping ahead (I keep raising voice against that since almost 8 years when it appeared in the west), artificial grind just to boost sales... those are not convenience, those are just stupid (allow content skip) or shady/greedy (when adding extra grind) developer decisions.
The real convenience purchases, personally I like those. As t0nyd said above, inventory for example. And don't mix it with the f2p restriction version, where you barely have any and you almost have to buy more... More like the LotRO version for example as a former sub (where the game was "designed" with 5 bags in mind, so that is enough, but I still have I think 9 now, because I'm a hoarder and having all the bag space possible is convenient for me
Or (also LotRO) wardrobe slots. The default 2 is more than enough to even roleplayers, but a handful of people like to have more for experimenting with outfit combinations, without "taking off" all pieces from an outfit, and after the tries putting back the original outfit on that slot. No win there either, just convenience.
Or the pocket trader/banker in several games. It might be even immersion-breaking, I don't use it much either, but occasionally I'm lazy enough to jog back to the nearest settlement. No "win" either, hell, Wildstar even has a Path skill for that, putting down stations onto the field for everyone.
Pay for convenience is just what it means, paying for convenience, not for advantage or a mythical "win". What you're looking for, was even mentioned in your own post, the rng. The "new" pay to win is the pay to gamble, a.k.a. pay for the chance of win. (i.e. lockboxes)
edit: just a sidenote, but the green vs blue is not the most fitting example Kano, since in several languages the blue is actually the green too
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distinguishing_blue_from_green_in_language
If you want to stay competitive you hit the game with your wallet and if you have to pay money to stay competitive the game is pay 2 win.
BDO the MMO the OP mentioned has limited P2W. Nearly every MMO has that or worse.
Look at it this way: if you found out there was an illegal arms smuggler operating somewhere in your town (but you don't know where exactly), would you prefer that the police start investigating and trying to find those responsible, or would you prefer that the government starts selling arms to gangs and cartels to drive the illegal smuggler out of business by offering legitimacy?
The end result of the developers turning a blind eye to RWT and the developers actively engaging in RWT is the same: RWT happens on as large scale. The only thing that stops or diminishes RWT (notice that I'm not saying illegal or unsanctioned RWT, as they are just distinctions without a real difference created by greedy developers/publishers) is the developers cracking down on it.
The problem I see with this genre is the focus on "The Whales". If I got a 30 day double exp bonus for $15, it would be justified as helping to pay to keep the servers maintained and the staff employed, like subscription costs of yore. If I have to pay for 30 day double exp bonus for 1500 diamonds, increased chances at rare loot drops for another 1500, and unique costumes that add stats that are unobtainable from farming for 1000 diamonds/box, then that is a game I know I won't be spending much time or money on.
But that wasn't really the OPs point, he was bemoaning the point devs have largely shifted to designing inconvenience into their games, and then selling players the means to mitigate some of it.
BDO was a great example, many will tell you having 3 or 4 pets makes looting far more efficient.
While I've read posts on how its possible to obtain some pets in game, more often I've seen people say you really need to sink about $125 or so at the start for pets, extra bag space and maybe even a costume or two.
None of those are P2W, but again, that really wasn't the point of the OP. They are items sold by the devs to overcome intentional design "irritants" and encourage player spending beyond the initial $10 (ITS A TRAP!) purchase price.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
IMO the new star war or what ever are pay for convenience , and what happen ? :"D
Today people wouldn't care because if you're not fully decked out, they don't want you on their team. They shun the player who played by the rules and accept the player that doesn't.
The genre as a whole isn't the same anymore. I don't care if you have 1000 hours of free time or only a microsecond... that argument is moot. Back in vanilla there were players with 1000 hours of free time and players with only a microsecond. You may not have been time strapped but plenty of others were. And yet, the game happened anyways.
Now you're the one without the time and all the kiddies are making you look like a newb. So instead of sucking it up like the poor souls back in vanilla WoW without any free time, you go out and buy a toon so that you can be on top with all the kiddies instead of drudging away slowly to the top.
MMOs will never be like the old days. The kids have no patience. The adults have no patience. The only constant now is a revolving credit line. There is no game anymore. It's all a microtransaction. Buy the best hardware. Buy the best internet speed. Buy the best gear. Yada yada yada. Imagine If you could merely pay the guy at the video arcade to keep your initials in the number one spot without having ever spent a minute playing the game. That's today's world. The achievement isn't in earning it, the achievement is in acquisition. There is a distinction, but no one cares anymore.
So whether it's pay for convenience or pay to win, it's pay someone else to play the game for you in the end.
But in all other points the OP states i would say no. But thats just my opinion and im a good grinder so i am in no rush to get sad item. Because i know i will get it eventually. The hard rewarding way.
I am also fine with xp pots. if people want to use them to lvl faster be my guest. Ill not touch them tough
Have not yet though. Maybe there is hope?
Nah there is really none for me or the human race.
Still those games with inventory item shops are the few f2p games I ever touch, but that is because those games are usually based on inventory space as the only mandatory thing and therefore it is simle to judge the real cost of the game.
As soon as games start to get complicated when it comes to figuring out what the real cost is, or it is obvious that the cost keeps scaling with progression, or I just get a feeling that I am being manipulated (which is a tuned sense for me), I switch polarity completely and will never touch that game even how good it may be.
So yeah monetization model/details is by far the biggest decider for me these days.
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Other forms of what some call "pay for convenience" are not acceptable to me so I stay away from those games. Many of them I would call pay to win.
Hypothetically, if I play an MMO for 20hrs a week and I barely get through the mandatory storyline quests, reach level cap, get a decent set of dungeon gear, and am not able to obtain raid gear or customize my character further through vanity items and pets, because new content has already been added with a higher level cap, or higher item levels, or newer/cooler must-have vanity items, I would be put-out. Usually hardcore players outpace the creation of content and sit at the finish line twiddling their thumbs waiting for the next content drop, but when average players can't even get to the finish line before it moves on them, for them pay-for-convenience feels less optional.
Another question might be - Is staying on the most current content winning? It does when new content makes old content trivial because of the decreased difficulty or no longer sought after rewards. Paying for the convenience to skip the more mundane bits like questing/leveling or farming rare drops etc. could have one of two effects. If the player dropping the cash does really have limited play time this might seen like a great equalizer, but if the player dropping the cash still plays as much or more than the ones not spending real money, there is certainly an inherent advantage. On the PvE side they would get to raid sooner, which means more raid attempts overall, more chances for clears, more chances for equipment drops. On the PvP side that means more time to put in to getting equipped, practicing different builds, generally just honing their skills. Raw player skill will always play a huge part in how far players go in both PvE and PvP but having time to practice makes a big difference, and paying for convenience gives you more time practicing at the endgame level.
My yardstick is very simple. If the game is fun when i am playing for free (i.e. combat is fun, and i don't mind the grind), i will play a bit.
If not, the world is full of other entertainment choices and i will go somewhere else.
It really depend on the games. But if that is your argument most korean game isn't pay to win, because most made their cash shop item tradeable. You can essentially get everything the whales have by sinking enough time.
And most games don't even have kill-stealing anymore, so even if he shows up, what can he do except to help me kill stuff?
They already have harsh punishments for it, in most games it's an instant ban, I don't know what you'd expect them to do, cut a hand off or what, but that's pretty much the extent of what they can actually do. It just isn't practical to 'enforce' it. If you just happen to catch someone doing it, or if they're dumb and get themselves caught, great. But developers can't really afford to spend money on staff to regularly check for this kind of thing, you have to rely on some sort of detection system and hope for the best. But regardless, it's not sufficient enough to deter the practice.
As for your analogy, that doesn't really work, on any level. Both of those things already do happen lol. The government already does sell arms to terrorist groups and cartels, at least in America they do. And there are plenty of illegal arms dealers that do the same thing. A better analogy would be the war on drugs. Hell yeah I'd rather the government control the drug trade and regulate it rather than encouraging murderous illegal immigrants to come into my country and set up shop and make bank off people's misery like sociopathic vampire pirates. Absolutely. There are thousands of reasons why this would be a preferable evil to what we currently have. And I'm generally a small government guy, but there some things that are so dangerous to the general populace that there is just no other clear answer.
Pay2win is a very different matter, it destroy the enjoyment of the game for me. And things they sell that affect the games balance is pay2win, not convineience.