Pay to Win or Not?
I was browsing Ghost Recon Online website the other day, reading about the Summer Sale Ubisoft had launched last week. Some of the comments under this particular post made me start thinking about micro-transactions and monetization systems in MMOs today. In 2011 I did my research on micro-transactions and had sat down with some developers to understand how they felt about it. The changes to the industry in the last two years, and the increasing number of free-to-play MMOs make it more important for MMO publishers and developers to come up with microtransaction solutions that please both the game publisher and gamers. It must be a nightmare for a developer to create a fantastic game but then ruin it with a poor micro-transaction system in place. Gamers don't hesitate calling a game "pay to win" whenever they feel they have a reason to. Even if it's just a tiny one...
How fair is pay to win?
Let me begin by saying that I disagree that Ghost Recon Online is pay to win. I am not writing this article based on Ghost Recon Online, I wouldn't. It's one of my favorite shooters and you can read our comments in our Ghost Recon Online review. Browsing the Ghost Recon Online website was what made start thinking about this topic again. I just happened to read the summer sale post and the comments under that post. So, Ubisoft is offering some premium items with a discount this summer and this started a conversation between a group of players. One of them ruled out the game as a pay-to-win title while the others disagreed. Sure there are some powerful items for sale, but it doesn't mean that you become invincible once you spend a hundred bucks.
World of Tanks has been another game accused of being pay-to-win
I have noticed that each year there is a new discussion. in 2011 and 2012, it was "Will this X MMO be free to play soon, how soon will they ditch the subscriptions?". This year it's more about a reaction towards free-to-play titles becoming overly aggressive with microtransactions.
If it's free, I'll take it!
As gamers, it's natural for us to not want to pay for that shiny item in our favorite MMO. That's understandable. But it's also understandable that developers need to monetize their free-to-play games through micro-transactions. While some of the games out there has been able to keep a balance, some other games exaggerate it and sadly turn their games into the so called pay to win games.
Once a player thinks of a game as "pay to win", there is no turning back. He is not going to change his mind. Let's think about it.
What makes an MMO game a Pay to Win game?
It's not as difficult as it may sound. In a pay to win game, you see new players becoming ridiculously strong in no time, through purchasing items, like those premium tanks in World of Tanks (which Wargaming has promised to change in the coming months) or buying experience points (like in many browser based MMOs), boosting their levels quickly. It's all about how much players (tho want to pay and win) are willing to pay. So we can't deny the existence of such a group that prefers to look down upon other players, using the power of their credit cards.
Guild Wars 2 is buy to play, that's a business model widely appreciated
While "pay to win elements" are believed to be a common problem with many MMOs, I have to disagree. Developers are not stupid. This has been discussed for quite a long time, and I am positive that most, if not all developers know that it's critical to keep a balance between micro-transactions and the fairness and competitiveness of a game. If you have a free-to-play title, the last thing you'd want is to push f2p gamers away. You need to populate your servers before anyone starts buying in game items, right?
It's important to repeat the importance of a healthy monetization system in MMOs. One has the right to ask; If you know this is important, and if most developers know that pay-to-win doesn't work, then who are making these pay-to-win games? That's a fair question. I think most of those -pay2win- games are developed by companies that don't really have long term goals for a game. They are making games with short life-spans and they know that the game wouldn't last more than a year or so. How many times have you seen almost identical games in 2012? I am referring to some cheap browser based games that look almost like any other browser game. We have even seen the same game getting published under 3 different names by 5-10 different publishers. I am not going to name names here but I am sure you get the idea.
Many of our readers complained about Thirst of Night's micro-transactions system.
How to elude pay to win MMO games
So what does a gamer do? Stay away from these cheap titles. It doesn't take a lot of experience or fortune-telling skills to guess which game is going to be there for years. If you respect the developer, respect the title, you know it's going to be there for years. At least that's what the developer is striving for. Once a developer/publisher has long term plans for an MMO game, they have to make sure it's not a pay to win game. If I was a developer I would definitely make sure of that.
To conclude, don't worry about pay to win games. The solution is simple. You don't have to play every game you see, and you don't have to play any game you don't like. If you feel like your favorite game is a pay to win, you are either mistaken (and it's not really pay-to-win) or it's time for you to start making better choices.