Pay to Play Games VS Free to Play Games

[Celestial Wish 349]

So, I've played MMO(s) for a pretty long time. I've played both PTP (Pay to Play) and FTP (Free to Play).

 

I was on Elder Scrolls Online the other day and this HUGE controversial debate about PTP games are better than FTP games and which makes the most profit.

 

From what I gathered, FTP games actually acquire higher profit than PTP due to micro transactions. I guess psychologically, a $5 EXP buff looks a lot better than a monthly $14.99 subscription fee. If you buy more than one, maybe three or four... you've already passed the limit of a monthly transaction for a PTP game. 

 

There was another topic that PTP games have better customer service than FTP due to who is getting paid more, I honestly don't know if that is true or not...

 

Quite frankly, I'm never a person who let's big-time review companies (IGN, GameSpot, etc...) ruin a game's image for me. 

 

The only thing that truly ruins a game for me is the community. I use to think that FTP games attracted crap communities (meaning a community full of elitist trolls that enjoy picking on lowbies or less experienced players) more so than PTP. But hooo-boy was I wrong when I saw how people trash talked about which is better.

 

Quite honestly, I love games like Guild Wars 2, Aion, TERA, Star Wars: The Old Republic just as much as Elder Scrolls, World of Warcraft, and Realm Reborn.

 

Is there truly a better side than the other?

 

Any thoughts?

 

 

 

[Celtore 2,770]

The trouble with free to play is that you need to get the micro transaction system just right. There's a certain point wherethe quality of the items sold for real money could become greater than a majority of the items you can get in game. Its very tempting as that would REALLY boost sales, but its bad longterm. It especially won't help if the other items with comparable stats and effects take hours or days to get.

 

F2P games also have their crappy communities as well. I've frequently seen people who post a genuine complaint or recommendation get immediately attacked by numerous fanboys that believe since the game is f2p, we have no right to criticize it. You can't escape these jerks in p2p or f2p...

 

I don't really mind either model so long as they're implemented well. Meaning: no pay to win. If I like a game, I'd gladly spend a little money every month to keep the servers humming.

Edited April 13, 2014 by Celtore

[~Silver Essence~ 2,625]

I don't enjoy both ways to be honest.

 

For starters, pay to play and free to play, while ironic, require a lot of the old "pay to win" tradition.

 

Pay to play is alright, and a bit better than free to play, as with paid, you have all thr standards you need at little to small costs every now and then when necessary.

 

Free to plau often requires the opposite of what it is, and you'll be spending money after money trying to upgrade, het new content, become the best, and overall, beat the game.

 

If I had to choose just one, pay to play, at least it's not as demanding or constant compared to free to play.

[Malinter 3,064]

i think both have merits F2P is great if you can' afford a subcription and play a game casually. P2P is good if you play game alot, especially if the games have good admin support if you have any issues.

[Shimmer Down 668]

F2P games have been done really poorly in the past, and thanks to corporate greed, Pay-to-wait games or pay-to-win games still run rampant. However, it's comforting to see good F2P titles with a fair business model are starting to pop up.

 

Example: I play Dota 2 instead of League of Legends because all the characters are available from the start. In fact, nothing that costs money is directly related to gameplay. Everything that you can purchase from the Dota 2 storefront is a vanity item for characters or game audio.

 

I personally also believe that Hearthstone has a great F2P model that rewards regular play, though since they capped the gold you can earn in a single day through wins, I've been a bit more disappointed by it.

 

I've heard that Loadout is a solid F2P experience but I haven't gotten much play time in.

[Dddrgn 450]

It's a VERY fine line. Most F2P games don't meet up to the quality of P2P, but there are exceptions. Team fortress 2 has the most ingenious F2P model I have ever seen - have the community develop all the new items, then pick which ones to implement in game, then split the profit. People make items in order to earn money, and valve gets money from the sales because the items are actually things that the community wants. Then there's tons of random drops and trading, as well as in the market, this gives valve money even when the payment is directly to another player because they get a small sum of what's payed. This is win-win for everyone.

 

League of legends is also great, since you only have to spend money on aesthetics - which are unimportant. Yes, you can spend money on champions, but you can also buy them with earned in game points that you earn quickly enough for it not to really matter. Buying with real money is simply there to entice lazy or impatient people into buying the champion instead, which still doesn't give them a pay to win advantage.

 

P2P games for sure have better customer service, but it's because they have a more solid start, and the gamers that tend to play P2P games are more dedicated, since they are paying money monthly. People who play free to play often won't spend any money at all, or forget about the game, but that doesn't happen with P2P games.

[FractalMoon 378]

My problem with ESO isn't that it's pay to play, I'm a huge fan of EVE, and their market scheme is both inventive abd efficient, my problem with ESO is that I have to drop 75+ dollars (assuming I reach the end-game content in a single month) to find out whether it's a game for me or not.

F2P games have been done really poorly in the past, and thanks to corporate greed, Pay-to-wait games or pay-to-win games still run rampant. However, it's comforting to see good F2P titles with a fair business model are starting to pop up.

Example: I play Dota 2 instead of League of Legends because all the characters are available from the start. In fact, nothing that costs money is directly related to gameplay. Everything that you can purchase from the Dota 2 storefront is a vanity item for characters or game audio.

I personally also believe that Hearthstone has a great F2P model that rewards regular play, though since they capped the gold you can earn in a single day through wins, I've been a bit more disappointed by it.

I've heard that Loadout is a solid F2P experience but I haven't gotten much play time in.

Isn't hearthstone's model the same as League's? What's the difference that makes you dislike one and like the other?

[Shimmer Down 668]

My problem with ESO isn't that it's pay to play, I'm a huge fan of EVE, and their market scheme is both inventive abd efficient, my problem with ESO is that I have to drop 75+ dollars (assuming I reach the end-game content in a single month) to find out whether it's a game for me or not.

Isn't hearthstone's model the same as League's? What's the difference that makes you dislike one and like the other?

It's because the classes aren't locked behind a paywall, and the time spent unlocking all the classes and their basic cards can't actually be done any other way. Beyond that, it's a collectable card game. I might be biased, because I've played physical CCG's, and if the model works in the real world, I can't really knock it digitally.

 

When I criticize LoL, it's because DotA All-Stars (its predecessor from the WarCraft III days) was a free mod that didn't have anything locked based on time or money spent. It couldn't. So when LoL tried to monetize it, I felt insulted that Riot would lock away game content and say that you couldn't have it until you'd spent money or an absurd amount of time that correlated to less than slave wages unlocking it. That's just rude.

 

I understand that Riot, through dirty and underhanded means, has cultivated a competitive and vastly popular game and business model, but I don't think it's a right and fair one to the end user.

[Katana 298]

A lot of people have some very negative experiences with F2P games, but you shouldn't summarize all of them, collectively, in just a few sentences. The truth is, there are some very, very GOOD F2P games, and a hundred times more very, very BAD F2P games.

 

In fact, in any of the F2P games I've seen and played for more than an hour, paying for items doesn't make you in any way "better" than most other players. TF2 has "side-grade" weapons that are usually easy to overestimate. Some games offer EXP bonuses that just mean you grind for less time. in some F2P shooters, an upgraded assault rifle gives you 45 bullets instead of 30; but, it takes 10 bullets to kill someone, and all fights are over by the time you've used 30. So, even when you do get a "straight upgrade", it usually doesn't give you an edge that'll significantly increase your kills.

 

As for P2P: I was surprised at ESO's decision to do that. It could come from the fact that their design team couldn't, or didn't want to, design the game around monetization. It *can* be done without pissing players off, and can in fact make a lot of people happy. But I don't think a lot of people are going to stick around for the long haul of it; World of Warcraft may be the last surviving game to use that subscription basis.

[Courageous Thunder Dash 7,824]

FTPs range in difficulty. I'm not fond of PTPs because of the large monthly subscriptions. The problem with FTPs is the overuse of the secondary currency, which is how these companies are able to achieve big bucks. This can be found in the MLP game for android and iphone. The problem is that most of the really awesome stuff is the secondary currency, and this currency is super difficult to get for free, which sort of "forces" you to pay anyway, unless you're gonna take a few years to try to accumulate that much of the secondary currency.  

[Blaze Bronson 343]

I find micro-transactions to be the best payment method. If done correctly of course. No pay-to-win.

 

Then I can try out many different games, and don't pay anything if it's not my type of game.

And if there is a game I really enjoy, I can support the game, and get more content by paying money.

 

So... less money for bad games, and more money for good games.

 

For example I played  Guild Wars 2 a while ago, and I liked it. So I spent money on the in-game shop, getting basically useless items. But I found them enjoyable, and I liked the game.

I probably spent more money than if there was a pay plan, but I willingly spent it certain that it would be worth it. Instead of being forced to pay.

[FractalMoon 378]

It's because the classes aren't locked behind a paywall, and the time spent unlocking all the classes and their basic cards can't actually be done any other way. Beyond that, it's a collectable card game. I might be biased, because I've played physical CCG's, and if the model works in the real world, I can't really knock it digitally.

 

When I criticize LoL, it's because DotA All-Stars (its predecessor from the WarCraft III days) was a free mod that didn't have anything locked based on time or money spent. It couldn't. So when LoL tried to monetize it, I felt insulted that Riot would lock away game content and say that you couldn't have it until you'd spent money or an absurd amount of time that correlated to less than slave wages unlocking it. That's just rude.

 

I understand that Riot, through dirty and underhanded means, has cultivated a competitive and vastly popular game and business model, but I don't think it's a right and fair one to the end user.

I understand that Valve has, through no fault of their own, inherited the most toxic and hateful player base on planet earth (In no other game will your teammates tell you to kill yourself over a game.) And this has likely tainted my perception of the game, but in addition I personally prefer a more refined and clean game with a bit of grinding to one that has several engine bugs as 'features' and again, the most vitrolic and caustic playerbase ever, putting even EVE, Call of Duty, and League of Legends to shame.

[BreakingJesse 111]

Pay to Play is always better. ALWAYS. A slight exception.

 

TF2, U3MP FTP and DOTA2 are the only exception. Every other stupid FTP game ends up having some big limitation, like only certain amounts of gameplay every something hours. PTP doesn't do that.

 

Like DOA5. Only four characters are available and two that constantly change over and over.

 

TEKKEN REVOLUTION is worse. You only have four arcade tokens which is a whole arcade session and you have to wait a few hours to get more. Same for online. Something like that.

 

PTP games give you it all. Because you are paying.

 

[MLP_Stardust 5]

I will say Free2Play is better because of many reasons for example they are free, they get updates more faster than triple A titles, and they usually have strong supporting communities. 

A good example of this is War Thunder

[justice4243 2]

They both have their pros and cons, but personally I rather pay a lot of money upfront for a game I can reasonably expect to enjoy and have fun at without paying more money (except for expansions, which are just nice bonuses) then have to continually shell out money just to make a game enjoyable at a certain point (I'm looking at you, Gameloft!)

[Scootalove 10,689]

Both of them have their problems, but I think that Pay to Play games are better.