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[Shadowlord]

I know what you're thinking: "No Homebrew, actually I wouldn't be that guy." Yes you would. Want proof? These companies are filthy ****ing rich.

That's not proof. I've never spent any real money on any free-to-play games.

[PrimusRibbus]

After over 10 years of game devs selling $50-$60 retail boxes of unfinished MMOs, then jumping ship a couple months later, it's no wonder F2P has become a popular alternative for a stagnent genre.

There are a lot of places doing F2P wrong, but for MMOs I'll still take the F2P model over the old "pay off a ton of gaming news outlets, make your money on sucker early adopters, and bail" model. Now, other genres using F2P is a whole different ballgame.

[Knight of Fools]

A fantastic rant I found on why F2P sucks.   

As someone who's played a number of F2P games and only dropped money on one of them (And it's not even an eighth as much as I paid for WoW when I played that), he's just making sweeping generalizations and preemptively "disproving" anyone who disagrees with him by calling them morons. It's like saying everyone in prison is a psychopathic murderer, so if you've gone to prison you're obviously bloodthirsty and any argument you present is automatically wrong.

Sure, there are people who get drawn in and pay way more than they should, but saying that everyone who pays a penny on a F2P game is an illiterate moron is overstepping, and, quite frankly, stupid. If you disagree with a business model, at least disagree with it with a degree of tact and intelligence.

[gimlet]

That rant made me lol - " I'd rather hang out with people who've read a book than those of you that still don't know the ****ing difference between "you're" and "your" and you're pushing 30 years old" from the guy who talks about the "tenants of psychology", yeeeesh....

[Neonivek]

He needed to hit a few better notes

Especially since the Free to Play games I think of often starve you if you don't spend money.

[freeze]

Part of my argument vs a f2p TF2 is that it's change for the sake of change or in this case for balance and revenue. Sure, it (arguably) adds to the depth of the game and keeps things fresh for long time and veteran players, but at the same time it's long since past the point where time spent playing the metagame offers more absolute benefit (choice of style/approach and easymode counters to name a couple) than working to keep gameplay skills sharp. TF2 is particularly heinous in this regard because its evolution has so balanced the game skill ceilings are practically waist-high compared to TFC, and the baseline was lower to begin with.

Do these things add to the gameplay in a meaningful sense? Not according to my definition. I don't believe some notional ivory tower TF2 designer would add them on their own merits. Perhaps it's not a realistic perspective but it's just as valid as anyone else's argument in their favor. "They couldn't even maintain it without revenue!" falls flat for me since the current model has no upside for me and furthermore I would be content with a reasonably prices subscription model.

[alexandertnt]

A fantastic rant I found on why F2P sucks.   

All he did was punch and kick around stawmen for several paragraphs - what he said has little meaning beyond telling me (in an offensive manner) that he does not like F2P games (He should have just written "I strongly dislike F2P games" and saved people some time and it would have been just as informative).

His rant is almost devoid of actual meaning, all it does is basically get anyone who agrees that F2P games suck emotionally worked up over how much they hate F2P games. (Note: I am not disagreeing with the notion that F2P games are bad per se, I am just saying that that argument is terrable and childish).

Whether you like it or not, and this is not my opinion - though I totally agree with it - freeloaders are not known for their exemplary academic, financial, or moral achievements.

If its not your opinion then surely you can provide some actual (non-anecdotal) evidence to back your argument up? No? then its just an assertion.

Plus then he implies the existance of "freeloaders" that are quite competant with their finances:

I've met people with a lot of money who are worse than a homeless guy with a sign that reads "cant afford mmo sub. 85 paladin 'bout to get deleted. wtb handouts."

That kid typically has to ask his parents, and if they hate him as much as I do, they'll say no. Note: they usually hate him more than I do.

If I had kids that wanted money for an online MMO, I most certainly would not hate them and I don't think any reasonable parent would ever do such a thing. This seems pretty low...

[Levi]

Heh, I think I offended some people. 

Maybe this one will cheer you up!  I guess adding Microtransactions to Deadspace must have been pretty successful, because EA is now apparently planning to add them to pretty much every game they make. 

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/02/27/in-the-grim-darkness-of-eas-future-there-are-only-iaps/

[Knight of Fools]

Woah, hold on there. You're completely misinterpreting and misrepresenting our arguments. We're certainly not tauting the glories of micro-transactions, and if you've paid half of a mind to the discussion in this thread, you'd know that micro-transactions in non-F2P games are generally seen as bad. What we are doing is point out that the "argument" presented in the link you posted was 1) Without any substance and 2) That it was intentionally insulting and grossly misrepresented the F2P scene. It's beginning to make me wonder if you're "offending" people intentionally.

So, instead of misrepresenting and posting links to whatever article tickles your fancy, how about listening to other people's arguments and discussing them?

[Levi]

Sorry, I didn't mean to link the second link to the first.  I mean them as a separate conversation.

I don't think the first link was misrepresenting the F2P scene at all.  F2P games are meant to take advantage of gullible people.  Its how they make money.  Its also fairly successful at it because these companies know how to get people hooked on these things.

I'll totally admit some F2P games are way more insidious at manipulation than others, and a few(very few) aren't so bad.  In general the first link was abrasive but still mostly correct.

Edit:

Even people who are selling these games think their audience is mentally ill.

"We like to think that the ones spending vast sums on these games are sons of Dubai oligarchs, but we have the data to prove that they're not, and that they probably can't afford to spend what they're spending. We're saying our market is suckers - we're going to cast a net that catches as many mentally ill people as we can!"

[umiman]

That guy might be more right than he thinks. Lots of Chinese p2w games are funded by rich twenty-somethings who have no desire to do anything but game their way to the top with money. No job, no hobbies, that kind of thing. Just lots of parents money.

Similarly you have people who quit their jobs and their lives just to play these kind of games. It's a pretty big social pandemic here in Asia.

[timferius]

On EAs statements of micro-transactions in $60 games. Does anyone remeber cheat codes? When they were a thing? And not this "unlock cheats in the cheat menu through gameplay achievments" but straight out of the box, find it in a gamepro magazine, and jsut godmode around for fun. Stuck on a level? "enter level skip"

[Neonivek]

On EAs statements of micro-transactions in $60 games. Does anyone remeber cheat codes? When they were a thing? And not this "unlock cheats in the cheat menu through gameplay achievments" but straight out of the box, find it in a gamepro magazine, and jsut godmode around for fun. Stuck on a level? "enter level skip"

I know that some games have been offering the equivilant of cheats for MONEY!

Soul Calibur 4 for example has several DLCs to unlock in game content.

Worse yet is that a lot of them arn't even particularly hard unlocks and it isn't really all that cheap.

[timferius]

On EAs statements of micro-transactions in $60 games. Does anyone remeber cheat codes? When they were a thing? And not this "unlock cheats in the cheat menu through gameplay achievments" but straight out of the box, find it in a gamepro magazine, and jsut godmode around for fun. Stuck on a level? "enter level skip"

I know that some games have been offering the equivilant of cheats for MONEY!

Soul Calibur 4 for example has several DLCs to unlock in game content.

Worse yet is that a lot of them arn't even particularly hard unlocks and it isn't really all that cheap.

That's like buying a textbook, then saying "Hey, wanna read chapter five without reading one through four? Well, for 20 bucks, you can skip RIGHT THERE!" Or, "Hey, wanna skip this boring scene, in the movie? Only 10 bucks". It's just, now that the game industry is really latching to this "you buy the licence not the game" thing, they're acting like they're constantly providing you a service for however long you own the game, even if it's just a singleplayer release with no servers or followup requried.

[miauw62]

"F2P games are ment to make money from gullible people".

Well, thank you for your creative insult. I really apreciate it.
Not all F2P games are good, but that homebrew guy is a huge moron and just makes random assumptions. I enjoy TF2. "The skill level is low!" is a typical "I'M A VETERAN, I AM BETTER THAN ALL OF YOU BECAUSE I PLAYED THIS LONGER!" argument.

I don't get the hate against F2P. If it's a good game and I can enjoy it, I MAY drop a few bucks on it after playing it for a few weeks. I guess some people don't. There are lots of fun F2P games. Some are more p2w than others, such is life. F2P is a valid bussiness model in my eyes, and if the bussiness model gets in the way of the fun of the game, it's not a good game.

Also, fuck subscription models. I don't want to pay a monthly fee for games.