Re: What is pay-to-win?

On 3/29/2024 2:49 AM, JAB wrote:

This video popped up on my feed and I thought I'd take a look as from my time in World of Tanks (WoT) one thing became clear, there really isn't a consensus of what is, and isn't, pay-to-win. The video is a bit long and dry but one of the things that resonated with me is there's pay-to-win and then there's pay-pay-pay-to-win as what money can give you is a sliding scale.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgNT72xzv1Y
 To me it's really can paying give you advantage over an equally skilled player and/or does it effectively stop me enjoying a relatively full game experience. That doesn't mean I think it's instinctually wrong as it depends on the practical reality of that advantage/experince and that's the model you knowingly enter. So I'll use WoT as my example as, well it's the only game I've played that i consider to have pay-to-win elements.
 In the early days the elements were pretty sparse so you had premium tanks which earn more crew exp./credits but that came with the downside that were slightly worse than a fully upgraded normal tank of their tier. Then you had premium consumables (in-game gold only) which were just better than regular ones and the ammo was one that made a particular difference. This didn't bother me as the cost for running it soon added up and the impression I got was because of that is was very rare to encounter a player 'spamming' it. Th big one was premium time that earned you more exp./credits. I didn't have a problem with that as at its core it was about paying for time not in-game advantage.
 Over the years that changed due to premium consumables being available for in-game credits, and what was the best way to generate them - paid premium time/tanks, but the thing that really changed the game was the introduction of premium tanks that were just better than their free equivalents. That was then compounded by bringing out a tank that was clearly over powered and putting it in paid lootboxes.
 Overall it was one of the reasons I got less and less interested in the game and eventual stopped playing it. It was the way that the desire to slowly ramp up the 'encouragement' to spend more and more money* started negatively impact on my game experience. Indeed it got depressing to play certain tiers where the battles were stuffed with the latest and greatest premium tanks.
 I won't cover all the more minor changes they made in-case anyone who's got this far falls asleep!
 So thoughts from anyone else, do you hate pay-to-win, think it's a good thing or is it more a case of it depends?
 *Mind you it worked overall and the amount of money some players admitted spending was eye watering. One of the worst, or most ironic examples, was a player whose garage was stuffed full of premium tanks and had probably spent over £1,000 in about six months. The ironic part is that their win-rate was basically the same as if they entered a battle and then didn't touch the keyboard or mouse.
 

I played WoT a long time ago.  I bought a Churchill after playing quite a bit.  I was at the point I felt like I was both rewarding myself and the company for all the play I'd previously had for free.  The Churchill wasn't really any better, but it was of a tier I didn't have.  I don't regret it, but as I progressed I found that it was more and more obviously not so much pay to win, but pay to progress.  However there was also some pay to win in better ammo IIRC which would get exhorbitant rather quickly.  I also found the more advanced tanks and maps I didn't care for, so the progress was going the wrong way.
Then there's the fact it was a PVP only game, which I'm not fond of. It's hard to separate my feelings about the PtW aspects, but I'm sure they factored into not playing the game anymore.
On the other side there's Warframe.  It's entirely possible to not actually spend any money and be perfectly fine, it'll take a little longer, but everything except some cosmetics is purchasable with money from selling things you grind/farm to other players who at some ultimate point in the chain had bought in game money to skip that grind/farm. The one thing I didn't care for was cost of item storage, which was extremely limited.  I spent $20 to get enough of that to properly progress without losing all the items I earned before I figured out how to get the money in game.  Still considering the total of 9 months of play I enjoyed out of the game $20 is pretty light on the pocket book. the difference is they made an in game economy of the premium money so those who don't have the money can play and progress earning it from others within a reasonable amount of time, among a wide variety of methods that people can decide which they like to do, or which is more efficient.  This is definitely how other games should go about it, but as far as I'm aware, none do.  It's also been an incentive to the company to make new content and improve the game over the last 11 years so they have new things to keep people interested in spending money and/or time in the game.
In general I hate pay to win, but I'm generally against PtW, especially of the kind of games, typically PVP, where it appears ironically the worst place for it.
--
-Justisaur
  ø-ø
(\_/)\
  `-'\ `--.___,
   ¶¬'\( ,_.-'
        \
        ^'