I've dropped the ball on this one few comments back, and explained why.
First, p2w means paying money for an unfair advantage over other players. It does not mean paying to see everything available in the game. If the developers add a fancy hat and charge people a dollar for it, those people aren't "paying to win". They're paying for additional content.
Which leads me to my second point. Developers release a game and charge whatever they feel is fair for it. If they then create additional content to be added to the game, they are not required to give it to you for free. This is additional work added after the fact (oftentimes YEARS after the initial release). They can and should charge a fair amount for that as well.
You can't approach this with vague terms like "play the game properly". What does that even mean? Do you NEED that fancy hat to play the game "properly"? Honestly, you just come off as spoiled, ungrateful, and self-righteous.
ALL of that to explain how the hats(cosmetic items) arent p2w. Ok.. I dont want to live on this planet anymore xD
There has been 9 pages of comments trying to explain this to you.
Lookie here, and i dont want to insult you, but you should read what you write, maybe than you will reconsider since the meaning of your comment is just plain dumb, now that i see you werent kidding.
I'm pretty confident that most of players and people on this forum know that p2w represent several things:
-items which have additional stats that make you more powerfull -gearwise- not just looks, and can only be purchased via Cash Shop (Costumes in many games) >Costumes should be costumes, purely cosmetical
-endgame items available in for example Rift, you can simply buy your mid-tier Endgame gear in that game. >This is pay to progress faster, since the same gear you can obrain in few months ingame, dont mind that
-Add-ons which contain content that allows players who buy them to unlock and obtain much more powerfull gear.(Publishers release a B2P game, than to stay competetive, you must not only buy the game ,but are forced to buy add-on as well, now thats dull.)
-Exclusive Consumables in Cash shops ,like in Archeage and few other games, that allow you to upgrade your gear and grant you much more power than other players.Which proved in some titles that paying players compete by spending money, than quit due to frustration, non-paying players arent even in the equasion.
All of this creates almost unbearable enviroment for friendly gameplay in Mmorpg's and could be avoided by making better payment models, and there are examples, take GW2,Tera, arpg PoE, as best, with many others following close.
You cant ever convince me that all this p2w cant be avoided, nor that is beneficial for the community. It is only beneficial for capitalists, for true developers would find a way like many others to not make a monstrosity of their game, but create something successfull.
So your comment and i quote:
"Do you NEED that fancy hat to play the game "properly"? Honestly, you just come off as spoiled, ungrateful, and self-righteous."
Saying that could only mean you either genuinely didnt play any p2w games at all, which i could understand, but than you shoulnt be here at all, or you are exactly what you wrote in the comment, yourself and worse. Which i understand as well, since there are worse trolls and people on the internet than you.
Anyway, insults over the internet are futile to begin at all, keyboard ,caps-lock warriors, strong only virtually.
Focus on the subject please.
The subject is how would constructively game be designed to make profit for the developer/publisher, and still be highly balanced and fair towards its players. As well as, prevent many money frauds going about related to online gaming refunds.
All of this creates almost unbearable enviroment for friendly gameplay in Mmorpg's and could be avoided by making better payment models, and there are examples, take GW2,Tera, arpg PoE, as best, with many others following close.
You cant ever convince me that all this p2w cant be avoided, nor that is beneficial for the community.
"unbearable" is subjective. If i play solo, p2w does not affect me a single bit, and it is pretty bearable for me.
Sure, it can't be avoided (i take it you mean for the devs) but it is their game. If they want to put p2w into their games, it is their freedom. We, on the other hand, don't have to play.
I do agree games like Marvel Heroes and PoE are better f2p games ... but it is not just about p2w, but also the design of the game.
Aa there is the core of the problem, you see ,p2w creates elitism ,and what i said is
"unbearable enviroment for friendly gameplay" emphasis on Friendly, since if everyones rushing their own way to get gear fast as they can to keep up with p2w players, they stomp others ignoring to help when they could had made a friend ,just so they would have time to grind and it all,
p2w models create this of mmorpg's:
you are rushed to endgame only to later realise endgame are either grind-based, or costume/skin based
Aand it could be this>
what Mmorpg's can be ,and what some time ago, were:
games way back were hard, and i mean really hard, grinding solo wouldn't be effective, and most challenges were impossible to conquer solo, but no one suggested you should party, people just did
have that teamwork for common goals experience and gear alike working as a team ,gearing together
time to simply enjoy and appreciate the virtual world ,the road, not the goal,
Someone worked really hard to make all that beautifull virtual world, gameplay, that might not have to be ruined by bad payment model.
Great games dont ask for your money, when something is trully good, you rub cash in their face for the little things, they make you happy, and they grow on you, and strive with proper guidance.
Its lack of ideas and originality that forced this blight on online community, and will only be lifted by innovation.
The subject is how would constructively game be designed to make profit for the developer/publisher, and still be highly balanced and fair towards its players. As well as, prevent many money frauds going about related to online gaming refunds.
It's not our job, as consumers, to do so... it's the developers job. We may want to armchair design a game that we know little to nothing about, have zero real money invested in, or time committed with, but we're talking the entertainment side of things, not the financial side of things. We, as consumers, don't care about whether game developers make a profit, we only care that they make an entertaining game... PERIOD.
The game wasn't as advertised (as you chose to read it)... I want a refund. The game doesn't play well on my rig (you overlooked the system requirements)... I want a refund. I don't like the game (you bought the game)... I want a refund.
Hindsight is 20/20 but it doesn't mean you get a free do-over. You're supposed to learn from the experience and do things differently the next time around. That's what that massive little organ in your head is designed to do and it rarely gets tapped to any where near it's true potential.
In a nutshell, as adults we are given free choice to make decisions, for good or bad... we are also held accountable for those decisions, for good or bad. Most of the decisions people make online are very poor ones... but unlike the real world where you have to stand in line at the checkout counter to contemplate your decisions, on the internet, you can make an impulsive decision and regret it within an instant.
Start tapping into that noggin' a little... it's not their for decoration.
The subject is how would constructively game be designed to make profit for the developer/publisher, and still be highly balanced and fair towards its players. As well as, prevent many money frauds going about related to online gaming refunds.
It's not our job, as consumers, to do so... it's the developers job. We may want to armchair design a game that we know little to nothing about, have zero real money invested in, or time committed with, but we're talking the entertainment side of things, not the financial side of things. We, as consumers, don't care about whether game developers make a profit, we only care that they make an entertaining game... PERIOD.
The game wasn't as advertised (as you chose to read it)... I want a refund. The game doesn't play well on my rig (you overlooked the system requirements)... I want a refund. I don't like the game (you bought the game)... I want a refund.
Hindsight is 20/20 but it doesn't mean you get a free do-over. You're supposed to learn from the experience and do things differently the next time around. That's what that massive little organ in your head is designed to do and it rarely gets tapped to any where near it's true potential.
In a nutshell, as adults we are given free choice to make decisions, for good or bad... we are also held accountable for those decisions, for good or bad. Most of the decisions people make online are very poor ones... but unlike the real world where you have to stand in line at the checkout counter to contemplate your decisions, on the internet, you can make an impulsive decision and regret it within an instant.
Start tapping into that noggin' a little... it's not their for decoration.
Some developers or related staff are actually monitoring reddit and forums like this one, that much i know ,to actually listen what players expect, want in games, its kind of related to their job.
Entertaining game is tightly related to payment model, someone said this: "If i cant see or understand right away how game is going to make profit, i dont play it."
Anyway, take Tera for example, it is fuuun, pretty, entertaining, untill you reach end-game, which happens rather fast, to realise what words like "Liberation" and "Awakening" mean in competetive pvp.
You missed the point, but i understand what you are trying to say and to some point agree. The subject is mostly about what happens when devs ,with all their given right, change something that wasnt announced ,and either force you to quit from that moment due to balance issues, or pay in cash in ways of new content/gear for which wasnt any mention before they released it.
Hundreds of people who see the Post, rush to scorn others which either posted or said something different from the general oppinion, thinking they are original, but greatest mistake people make is not reading what was previous already said and solved.
I've dropped the ball on this one few comments back, and explained why.
Too bad rarely who got the point of what i wanted to say, that changing conditions and make of product after recieving the money for original one is wrong. Compare it to paying repairs for your car, only to later find out some other parts are missing, and than they ask you to pay extra so that those parts are restored.
As menioned on start, publishers do announce titles will be "One time payment", but than release paid add-ons which contain content necessary for the game to be played properly, same as with payment models, some B2P games tend to have cash shop with p2w items implemented out of the blue, after release and i guess you can figure other similar examples.
Most of all i wanted to speak of the issue, post it ,see reactions on this new p2w online gaming wave, but some thought of me in ways of lifting a revolution and making new laws etc, so chill out, im not gonna change your world, nor impact on anything significant really, it is all out of reach and laughably costly to imagine.
So you think once you pay a mechanic once to fix your car you are entitled to have all future work done for free?
This is why I support crowdfunding because I don't want what AAA game developers are offering. I'm still not happy with F2P or cash shop games, but sometimes I don't have a choice in the matter. I have to play something, so I simply choose the lesser of two evils.
You have to play something? You sound like MMOs are the only choices out there. There are plenty of good single player AAA games. Beyond that, there are movies, tv, novels, anime ... the list goes on and on.
Personally i will never support "crowdfunding" .. aka ... buying wishful thinking. If they end up developing a good game, i may buy at the end. But i highly doubt my $100 (or whatever amount i spend on games) will change marketing directions.
When you purchase/install games, you are given an on-screen legal document first thing (pages and pages which nobody reads) that you must sign to even install the game.
The game developers/publishers are way ahead of you. So, no, you have no 'rights' because of what you sign digitally from the initial installation.
I've dropped the ball on this one few comments back, and explained why.
Too bad rarely who got the point of what i wanted to say, that changing conditions and make of product after recieving the money for original one is wrong. Compare it to paying repairs for your car, only to later find out some other parts are missing, and than they ask you to pay extra so that those parts are restored.
So you think once you pay a mechanic once to fix your car you are entitled to have all future work done for free?
I knew that car parts thief would turn up somewhere, didnt think he plays mmo's as well ! Gotcha!
in short there isnt any legal method to prevent these practices, your only option is to become a vocal presence, boycott, petition and rally behind such things, however you will never get anything completely free, everything will have a price the fact is most companies are thriving using the B2W cash shops because some people are so sad that losing is there natural state and a means of posing as a "winner" is worth the money they spend.
No one tell you to play pay 2 win games in the first place.
I think the issue is many f2p games start out ok, but gradually become more and more aggressive in it's cash shop.
In that case, you should just avoid cash shop game in the first place.
Or just play free until you hit a play wall (or as you put it, the game becomes aggressive in its cash shop), quit, and move on to the next game.
Since there are so many f2p games, there are tons of free entertainment, if that is what you are looking for.
I don't see a point to avoid cash shop games. Any interesting one is at least warrant 5 min to see if the free part is worth playing. Cash shop can be ignored.
This mentality seriously bothers me and is a microcosm of society at large. Its basically the complete and utter lack of personal responsibility. It's never anyone's fault, they're always "preyed upon" by the big evil businesses.
How about use the squishy piece of grey matter between your ears and actually make some sound decisions. These games don't hide this stuff, its there in plain sight. Just because people are too dumb or willfully ignoring their base desires and practicing absolutely ZERO restraint doesn't make any of what these companies are doing illegal.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
No one tell you to play pay 2 win games in the first place.
I think the issue is many f2p games start out ok, but gradually become more and more aggressive in it's cash shop.
In that case, you should just avoid cash shop game in the first place.
Or just play free until you hit a play wall (or as you put it, the game becomes aggressive in its cash shop), quit, and move on to the next game.
Since there are so many f2p games, there are tons of free entertainment, if that is what you are looking for.
I don't see a point to avoid cash shop games. Any interesting one is at least warrant 5 min to see if the free part is worth playing. Cash shop can be ignored.
I'm not here to tell you how to you should play video game.
But many people wont' do that, because they hope they can find a mmorpg and just stick it for a very long time.
I went round and round about this months ago. Some people, because of brain chemistry, just have a more difficult time saying "no". Some other people consult psychological studies how best to exploit that aspect of manipulable people.
If one could somehow prove that tactics are being employed to exploit the psychological weaknesses of people, there would be a point, but we can't. No one is going to go through the motions of this, far preferring, once the understanding is made, to get on board as one of the opportunists. In a capitalistic society, it's particularly "against the grain" to research ways to protect people from predatory purveyors.
Where does the line get crossed? Gambling? Luxury goods? Plastic surgery? We've all seen unreasonable excesses of these, and yet in the end, the extreme examples are the folly of the participant. There might not be, any time soon, examination of the possibility that it's targeted victimization of specific weakness.
How about people recognize they have an addictive personality and stop playing the victim card and take control of their own life. People who go through drug addiction therapy and alcoholism recovery, etc learn this very soon in the recovery process. YOU are responsible for your own actions. Society can't just outlaw every questionable behavior because a minority of a population suffers from it. The onus is on the person to know who they are and not to engage or put themselves in a position where they can engage in that kind of activity. If you have a gambling addiction, you don't go to casinos. If you are an alcoholic, you don't go to clubs and bars and such.
Should we outlaw all cars because some people drive them recklessly and kill themselves or others? What about the massive majority that use them responsibly? They have to suffer because of the actions of a few?
A small, less serious example. I don't buy potato chips or snack crackers because I have time and time again proven myself incapable of not over eating them. So, rather than continuously tempt fate and my health, I simply don't keep them in the house.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
If the government ever decides that item mall contents are intrinsically valuable enough for random boxes to be regulated as gambling, they'll probably also decide that everything else in the game is valuable enough to be taxed. Go on a raid, get some epic drop, pass on it because you don't want to pay the tax bill.
The subject is how would constructively game be designed to make profit for the developer/publisher, and still be highly balanced and fair towards its players. As well as, prevent many money frauds going about related to online gaming refunds.
So far you've not brought up an example of fraud. You've moralized some things...
There is nothing wrong with pay 2 win games. You can just not play it. Yet people keep complaining.
Also anytime you see cash shop, you pretty much should be aware it being pay 2 win.
I went round and round about this months ago. Some people, because of brain chemistry, just have a more difficult time saying "no". Some other people consult psychological studies how best to exploit that aspect of manipulable people.
If one could somehow prove that tactics are being employed to exploit the psychological weaknesses of people, there would be a point, but we can't. No one is going to go through the motions of this, far preferring, once the understanding is made, to get on board as one of the opportunists. In a capitalistic society, it's particularly "against the grain" to research ways to protect people from predatory purveyors.
Where does the line get crossed? Gambling? Luxury goods? Plastic surgery? We've all seen unreasonable excesses of these, and yet in the end, the extreme examples are the folly of the participant. There might not be, any time soon, examination of the possibility that it's targeted victimization of specific weakness.
How about people recognize they have an addictive personality and stop playing the victim card and take control of their own life. People who go through drug addiction therapy and alcoholism recovery, etc learn this very soon in the recovery process. YOU are responsible for your own actions. Society can't just outlaw every questionable behavior because a minority of a population suffers from it. The onus is on the person to know who they are and not to engage or put themselves in a position where they can engage in that kind of activity. If you have a gambling addiction, you don't go to casinos. If you are an alcoholic, you don't go to clubs and bars and such.
Should we outlaw all cars because some people drive them recklessly and kill themselves or others? What about the massive majority that use them responsibly? They have to suffer because of the actions of a few?
A small, less serious example. I don't buy potato chips or snack crackers because I have time and time again proven myself incapable of not over eating them. So, rather than continuously tempt fate and my health, I simply don't keep them in the house.
You are responsible for your own actions, but does this give game publishers the right to promote their games as free? Would you be fine with cocaine being free to try and advertised everywhere?
Oh thats even remotely in the same vein. One is a chemically addictive substance that literally ANYONE can very easily get addicted by using, the other is basic common sense that people choose not to employ. They advertise the game correctly. It's free to play. Its not free to win, not free to kick ass. Its free to PLAY.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
Best thing just Vote with your wallet, If we start doing a law sue to f2p will leak out to all type of model or games.
Look at me I start wow when first came out was on the wall in text paladin was mostly a support class not a pure healer that was push in by the dev they lied about it and took them 6 years for fix it. That was not part what I payed for even changing it around befor lunch but if people can use the law on them back then wow would not been made or be alive and or any other mmo. As be to risking to make a mmo just to drop so much money if people don't agree what they did with the game. That games would be stuck of moving the wrong way with out the law behind them all the time.
I don't agree with p2w as 99% of games out there you can win with money or time still money even way. But if people vote with there wallet and yell and kick and scream to any mmo with a shady system from f2p, b2p or sub they would stop doing it.
Winning and all the other things sold in cash shops are integral to the playing experience.
hmm .. how do you win if you are playing solo?
So things are integral to the playing experiences? If I can enjoy the game without buying, then whatever in the cash shop is not "integral" to anything.
You are responsible for your own actions, but does this give game publishers the right to promote their games as free?
Yes. Playing the game is free. Winning is not.
It seems free-to-play is a pretty accurate description.
Winning and all the other things sold in cash shops are integral to the playing experience. You can't say a movie is free to watch then try to charge people for audio since you technically said "watch", or people should rightfully question your honesty. If you want examples with the word "play", noone would call it Barcelona "playing" Real Madrid if the referees were known to favor Real Madrid, or if Real Madrid players had special shoes that made then twice as fast.
There is no playing for free in these games, you are just laboring to make the game more appealing to spenders.
Can't forget movies push so many ads on you to buy stuff in a movie theater or even in DVD or Buy-R alot of them add like 30 mins of stuff sometimes don't want to see and can't skip just to get to the menu.
These games don't hide this stuff, its there in plain sight.
Seriously, how do any of us know that what they tell us is what they say it is? The problem isn't that these games aren't legit. They might be, but there's no way to tell a legit game from a rigged game other than take it on faith.
The most important things that determine the value of the MMORPGs aren't in plain sight, after all...things like the algorithm that determines what a player ends up getting when they open a lockbox. Things like the cancellation date. Those are things that aren't independently verifiable, but have a huge impact on the value of the items available for purchase.
If you were confident that a service would be running for, say, five years, you make different investments into the service than if it was only up for another six weeks. Knowing this, publishers not only keep their decisions to terminate a secret, they outright lie to players to keep them paying into games that they know are going to fail (Example, NcSoft saying that they are committed to Tabula Rasa long term, two months before they cancelled it).
And as far as odds are concerned, you make different choices when the odds of getting what you want are 1 in 10, than when they are 1 in 100. Understanding this, don't you think that it is in the publisher's interest to post the odds of getting the ideal outcome (say an exclusive pet) as rather attainable, while making the actual odds rather long? There's too much precedent here in casino gaming and sweepstakes to think that MMORPGs with similar lottery mechanics wouldn't be tempted to do the same thing.
Again, this isn't to imply that most of these games aren't legit. Perhaps most of them are. But at least you know that, in a casino, when a slot claims a payout percentage of 85%, it can only claim that because a state gaming board has verified it. But where is the verification that when the developer says the thing you want drops from a lockbox 5% of the time that it actually drops 5% of the time? If you buy 100 lockboxes, at $1.00 each, and don't get it, how do you know it was simple bad luck, and not a rigged game? There's no way to tell.
__________________________ "Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it." --Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints." --Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls." --Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
Comments
I'm pretty confident that most of players and people on this forum know that p2w represent several things:
-items which have additional stats that make you more powerfull -gearwise- not just looks, and can only be purchased via Cash Shop (Costumes in many games)
>Costumes should be costumes, purely cosmetical
-endgame items available in for example Rift, you can simply buy your mid-tier Endgame gear in that game.
>This is pay to progress faster, since the same gear you can obrain in few months ingame, dont mind that
-Add-ons which contain content that allows players who buy them to unlock and obtain much more powerfull gear.(Publishers release a B2P game, than to stay competetive, you must not only buy the game ,but are forced to buy add-on as well, now thats dull.)
-Exclusive Consumables in Cash shops ,like in Archeage and few other games, that allow you to upgrade your gear and grant you much more power than other players.Which proved in some titles that paying players compete by spending money, than quit due to frustration, non-paying players arent even in the equasion.
All of this creates almost unbearable enviroment for friendly gameplay in Mmorpg's and could be avoided by making better payment models, and there are examples, take GW2,Tera, arpg PoE, as best, with many others following close.
You cant ever convince me that all this p2w cant be avoided, nor that is beneficial for the community.
It is only beneficial for capitalists, for true developers would find a way like many others to not make a monstrosity of their game, but create something successfull.
So your comment and i quote:
"Do you NEED that fancy hat to play the game "properly"? Honestly, you just come off as spoiled, ungrateful, and self-righteous."
Saying that could only mean you either genuinely didnt play any p2w games at all, which i could understand, but than you shoulnt be here at all, or you are exactly what you wrote in the comment, yourself and worse.
Which i understand as well, since there are worse trolls and people on the internet than you.
Anyway, insults over the internet are futile to begin at all, keyboard ,caps-lock warriors, strong only virtually.
Focus on the subject please.
The subject is how would constructively game be designed to make profit for the developer/publisher, and still be highly balanced and fair towards its players.
As well as, prevent many money frauds going about related to online gaming refunds.
Sure, it can't be avoided (i take it you mean for the devs) but it is their game. If they want to put p2w into their games, it is their freedom. We, on the other hand, don't have to play.
I do agree games like Marvel Heroes and PoE are better f2p games ... but it is not just about p2w, but also the design of the game.
Aa there is the core of the problem, you see ,p2w creates elitism ,and what i said is
"unbearable enviroment for friendly gameplay" emphasis on Friendly, since if everyones rushing their own way to get gear fast as they can to keep up with p2w players, they stomp others ignoring to help when they could had made a friend ,just so they would have time to grind and it all,
p2w models create this of mmorpg's:
you are rushed to endgame only to later realise endgame are either grind-based, or costume/skin based
Aand it could be this>
what Mmorpg's can be ,and what some time ago, were:
games way back were hard, and i mean really hard, grinding solo wouldn't be effective, and most challenges were impossible to conquer solo, but no one suggested you should party, people just did
have that teamwork for common goals experience and gear alike working as a team ,gearing together
time to simply enjoy and appreciate the virtual world ,the road, not the goal,
Someone worked really hard to make all that beautifull virtual world, gameplay, that might not have to be ruined by bad payment model.
Great games dont ask for your money, when something is trully good, you rub cash in their face for the little things, they make you happy, and they grow on you, and strive with proper guidance.
Its lack of ideas and originality that forced this blight on online community, and will only be lifted by innovation.
The game wasn't as advertised (as you chose to read it)... I want a refund.
The game doesn't play well on my rig (you overlooked the system requirements)... I want a refund.
I don't like the game (you bought the game)... I want a refund.
Hindsight is 20/20 but it doesn't mean you get a free do-over. You're supposed to learn from the experience and do things differently the next time around. That's what that massive little organ in your head is designed to do and it rarely gets tapped to any where near it's true potential.
In a nutshell, as adults we are given free choice to make decisions, for good or bad... we are also held accountable for those decisions, for good or bad. Most of the decisions people make online are very poor ones... but unlike the real world where you have to stand in line at the checkout counter to contemplate your decisions, on the internet, you can make an impulsive decision and regret it within an instant.
Start tapping into that noggin' a little... it's not their for decoration.
Entertaining game is tightly related to payment model, someone said this:
"If i cant see or understand right away how game is going to make profit, i dont play it."
Anyway, take Tera for example, it is fuuun, pretty, entertaining, untill you reach end-game, which happens rather fast, to realise what words like "Liberation" and "Awakening" mean in competetive pvp.
You missed the point, but i understand what you are trying to say and to some point agree.
The subject is mostly about what happens when devs ,with all their given right, change something that wasnt announced ,and either force you to quit from that moment due to balance issues, or pay in cash in ways of new content/gear for which wasnt any mention before they released it.
Hundreds of people who see the Post, rush to scorn others which either posted or said something different from the general oppinion, thinking they are original, but greatest mistake people make is not reading what was previous already said and solved.
So you think once you pay a mechanic once to fix your car you are entitled to have all future work done for free?
Personally i will never support "crowdfunding" .. aka ... buying wishful thinking. If they end up developing a good game, i may buy at the end. But i highly doubt my $100 (or whatever amount i spend on games) will change marketing directions.
The game developers/publishers are way ahead of you. So, no, you have no 'rights' because of what you sign digitally from the initial installation.
Gotcha!
I think the issue is many f2p games start out ok, but gradually become more and more aggressive in it's cash shop.
In that case, you should just avoid cash shop game in the first place.
Since there are so many f2p games, there are tons of free entertainment, if that is what you are looking for.
I don't see a point to avoid cash shop games. Any interesting one is at least warrant 5 min to see if the free part is worth playing. Cash shop can be ignored.
This mentality seriously bothers me and is a microcosm of society at large. Its basically the complete and utter lack of personal responsibility. It's never anyone's fault, they're always "preyed upon" by the big evil businesses.
How about use the squishy piece of grey matter between your ears and actually make some sound decisions. These games don't hide this stuff, its there in plain sight. Just because people are too dumb or willfully ignoring their base desires and practicing absolutely ZERO restraint doesn't make any of what these companies are doing illegal.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
But many people wont' do that, because they hope they can find a mmorpg and just stick it for a very long time.
At least that's how I treat mmorpg.
How about people recognize they have an addictive personality and stop playing the victim card and take control of their own life. People who go through drug addiction therapy and alcoholism recovery, etc learn this very soon in the recovery process. YOU are responsible for your own actions. Society can't just outlaw every questionable behavior because a minority of a population suffers from it. The onus is on the person to know who they are and not to engage or put themselves in a position where they can engage in that kind of activity. If you have a gambling addiction, you don't go to casinos. If you are an alcoholic, you don't go to clubs and bars and such.
Should we outlaw all cars because some people drive them recklessly and kill themselves or others? What about the massive majority that use them responsibly? They have to suffer because of the actions of a few?
A small, less serious example. I don't buy potato chips or snack crackers because I have time and time again proven myself incapable of not over eating them. So, rather than continuously tempt fate and my health, I simply don't keep them in the house.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
There is nothing wrong with pay 2 win games. You can just not play it. Yet people keep complaining.
Also anytime you see cash shop, you pretty much should be aware it being pay 2 win.
Oh thats even remotely in the same vein. One is a chemically addictive substance that literally ANYONE can very easily get addicted by using, the other is basic common sense that people choose not to employ. They advertise the game correctly. It's free to play. Its not free to win, not free to kick ass. Its free to PLAY.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Look at me I start wow when first came out was on the wall in text paladin was mostly a support class not a pure healer that was push in by the dev they lied about it and took them 6 years for fix it. That was not part what I payed for even changing it around befor lunch but if people can use the law on them back then wow would not been made or be alive and or any other mmo. As be to risking to make a mmo just to drop so much money if people don't agree what they did with the game. That games would be stuck of moving the wrong way with out the law behind them all the time.
I don't agree with p2w as 99% of games out there you can win with money or time still money even way. But if people vote with there wallet and yell and kick and scream to any mmo with a shady system from f2p, b2p or sub they would stop doing it.
It seems free-to-play is a pretty accurate description.
So things are integral to the playing experiences? If I can enjoy the game without buying, then whatever in the cash shop is not "integral" to anything.
The most important things that determine the value of the MMORPGs aren't in plain sight, after all...things like the algorithm that determines what a player ends up getting when they open a lockbox. Things like the cancellation date. Those are things that aren't independently verifiable, but have a huge impact on the value of the items available for purchase.
If you were confident that a service would be running for, say, five years, you make different investments into the service than if it was only up for another six weeks. Knowing this, publishers not only keep their decisions to terminate a secret, they outright lie to players to keep them paying into games that they know are going to fail (Example, NcSoft saying that they are committed to Tabula Rasa long term, two months before they cancelled it).
And as far as odds are concerned, you make different choices when the odds of getting what you want are 1 in 10, than when they are 1 in 100. Understanding this, don't you think that it is in the publisher's interest to post the odds of getting the ideal outcome (say an exclusive pet) as rather attainable, while making the actual odds rather long? There's too much precedent here in casino gaming and sweepstakes to think that MMORPGs with similar lottery mechanics wouldn't be tempted to do the same thing.
Again, this isn't to imply that most of these games aren't legit. Perhaps most of them are. But at least you know that, in a casino, when a slot claims a payout percentage of 85%, it can only claim that because a state gaming board has verified it. But where is the verification that when the developer says the thing you want drops from a lockbox 5% of the time that it actually drops 5% of the time? If you buy 100 lockboxes, at $1.00 each, and don't get it, how do you know it was simple bad luck, and not a rigged game? There's no way to tell.
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"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE