When Is An MMORPG Pay To Win - And Is Pay To Win Bad?

When is an MMORPG Pay To Win?
Pay to win in MMORPGs is becoming more and more of an issue, with cash shops, season passes subscriptions and more. Almost every MMO recently is getting called pay to win.

So I wanted to go over some of the more frequent types of monetization in MMORPGs and in my opinion where they fall on being pay to win, pay to convenience or neither. These are all just my opinion, so please let me know where you stand on this and any games you think do this good or bad.

Hope you enjoy the video:

Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
1:40 Pay To Win
4:45 Pay For Convenience
7:20 Not Pay To Win
8:00 Are Cash Shops Bad?

[rossker]

I mean like, the FF stuff is just old event items or mounts that were released exclusively overseas. You can't access the store in game and there really isn't anything in the store that is cooler than what you can get in game.

[sonicroze]

My personal definition of "Pay to Win" is when not going to their cash shop puts you at such a detriment that free players or one time pay is a completely different experience with a vast gulf between them. Like, even if what they are selling is, say, a +3 weapon that technically exists in the game by other means... If those other means require tons of hours, in game money or other resources to achieve, how many people will ever get it without buying it?

I'm not sure how I feel about Early access on games. In most cases it's harmless. It mainly affects "hardcore" gamers that *must* be there the moment a game drops, and if there's a competitive element than yes, it is unfair. You also have people who will be there the first week for hours and then log out and never return, so the person who waited til the official launch or after, might stick around longer. Mileage may vary.

Cosmetics don't typically bother me as Cash shop add-ons, or even mounts for the most part.

I once played a game called "Age of Wushu" and that whole "Pay for Convenience" was definitely on point there. Everything from more bag space to being able to earn and spend more in game credits. Some of the cosmetics were even rentals! Figuring out how the game actually functioned was another story, but dang I missed my sub when the free trial on it ran out.

For live games that are continually updating and adding content, the Cash Shop or subscription is necessary in order to continue that support. However, it can and has been abused as well down to things like making a "reticle" for aiming your gun in an FPS a "cosmetic" add on. Hah! I believe that "Basic functions"/modes should *NOT* be behind a pay wall. It's like having to pay money to Shigeru Miyamoto every time I want to pause a Mario game. No.

[YanaSnw]

There has been this ongoing discussion in FFXI that Multibox (playing more than 1 account) is pay to win and so many people are 6 boxers that don't want to admit it and I'm really not sure if it is or not. 12.95 a month so I guess its not much different than a single box besides the fact you can hyper inflate your main once the alts are geared, but if people would just start making party you would actually achieve more playing 1.

[Person_]

my definition of pay to win is simple.

It's when the cashshop results in significant negative impact to the playing experience of low paying or free players.

if a cashshop exists and even if you can use it to improve your player power directly, but it does not have any major affect on other players. then it's not pay to win. (generally, the less meaningful PvP and player rankings are, then the less likely the game is pay to win)

If a whale needs to spend hundreds and thousands of dollars to get a big competitive advantage over a free player who spent more time playing the game, then it's not pay to win. Because so few people will actually spend the money, so it won't have any major impact on the general player base.

The question now is, how do you define "significant negative impact". You can't. At least not precisely. Different people will have different standards. But that's just the nature of words. Words are made by people so if there is no precise consensus, then there can't exist a precise definition. So the only valid definition for pay to win, is an imprecise one.

Does this have any practical use, heck do I know! peace out.

[sepphero]

I think pay to win is only if something gives you an actual advantage over other players in late game like stat enhancements or day one exp buffs, stuff like catch up gear and story skips don't really count sonce it's nothing to brag about kinda.
Funny thing with FF 14, it kinda has/had an pay2win mount (fenrir skd i think, the motorcycle) since it had let you proceed new zones faster but in squares defense the speed buff was apparently because the animation would otherwise look of and on it's first Release as gift for fan fest visitors it wasn't advertised with that perk so it wasn't created with a moneygrab in mind it seems.
Also there is by now a free accessable mount with said advantage as far as i know

[Sazzolith]

Its sad how corrupted the players can be and act so innocent

[javierkiman]

Whenever you have to pay to play. Paying could be too much, as a fee. Paying to play can be fine, but not too much for grand amount of gaming is better for gaming. Getting much more for your pay to play is best. World of Warcraft is unworthy, but RuneScape is worthy of our time. Get many miniature games in RuneScape and novice towards much more difficulty in quests. So many skills to grow in a few months for any skill with many hours a day. RuneScape is not a broken game, as it's always fixed in time of release or after a very short time on release. it's about 5 dollars for membership for the remaining skills. There are about 30 skills. the levels go to 99 or 120 for the skills as experience is gained.

[Sazzolith]

Majority of games are pay to win because people can get away with alot of things without a ban hammer and sell the creators content on a website and it makes the developers rebel

[Skyztamer]

FF is in a weird place regarding new expansion early access. On that early access release date the X.0 patch goes live; and everyone regardless of what content they own technically has access to new things like reworked job design at lower levels and general QoL stuff. It's really not so different from when someone picks up the game for the first time in the middle of any expansion.

For example, if you didn't pre-order Endwalker when 6.0 went live and played Summoner or Monk, you still lost the job abilities and mechanics from Shadowbringers and they were replaced with the reworked job kit (up to lvl 80). The major reworks were a universal change that wouldn't make sense to lock players out who didn't pre-order Endwalker from playing those jobs or let them keep the old abilities (because they also delete the functionality of old abilities from the game, but their icons on your hotbar are greyed out with a red slash).

All having an expansion pre-order does upon the early access release date does is give you access to the new leveling MSQ on that day. I don't know how soon SE cuts off pre-order dates, but if it weren't for the level scaling earring as a bonus, most people like myself probably wouldn't bother.

[javierkiman]

Only should need a membership for playing an online game, just like RuneScape. It's a great game but even this game is changing and hopefully it will be staying. I would need a stronger computer for RuneScape.

[Sazzolith]

Weither its a cash shop or pay to win models dont matter there is a black market for video games and always will be

[Dharengo]

Pay to win is when you can buy things with money that let you do more in the game, progress through the game faster, and generally just let you do things in a way non-paying player cannot. And it's always bad. It makes games bad. No exceptions. The game will be a massive grindfest if you don't pay up. They can basically deliberately make the game worse so you can pay to not play it.

I don't like selling cosmetics either. People should be paying for the game. Either as a one and done deal, as expansions (actual content expansions, not like cosmetic dlc), or a subscription fee in exchange for regular content updates.

The difference in time spent on progression between a paying player and a non paying player in Lost Ark is night and day.


What people fail to consider is the things you can buy if they didn't spend it all on these worthless microtransactions. Will anyone be telling me that getting a little extra progresss in a videogame is worth _more than a car?_


Oh and good on you for mentioning the stupid FF14 bike. I hate that every streamer I watch has it.

These businesses make _way_ more money than is ever going back into the game. And they frequently fail to fix even the most basic issues so long as they don't affect the paying player.

Like when they removed /spit.

[wondrfulTV]

i really wanted to play lost arc but all the videos i watched said once i get to end game the game will become a job and its p2w and a bunch more negative in the end i never picked it up and now im waiting for diablo 4 and blue protocol

[seniorderpface]

My rough scale
0/10 WoW Classic
1/10 Guild Wars 1
2/10 FFXI
3/10 FFXIV
4/10 ESO
5/10 OSRS
6/10 WoW
7/10 GW2
8/10 Genshin Impact
9/10 Black Desert
10/10 Lost Ark

P2W is simple imo ask yourself what you winning.
FFXIV looking at level skip, story skip and The Bike. All of those are basically getting to the starting line of endgame faster. The worst offender I think is probably the bike saving you a few hours when a expansion releases you can spend getting comfy with the endgame rotation ahead of others I would consider this pay to win in the lightest sense though separate from the shop are retainers which definitely give an advantage to those who can make use of them as you can sell 20 items at a time per retainer as well as story a greater variety of items.

I put FFXIV as P2W 3/10
I give FFXI 2/10 as it's a similar situation with payed monthly character slots functioning like retainers but without a cash shop.

I consider every MMO where you can buy the main currency 5/10+. I think it's fair not to consider shady deals where you trade currency for cosmetic codes or heck maybe other games entirely so wouldn't count that.

The question with Plex/Token systems is what can the main currency buy take WoW it can buy you BoEs which gain you ilvl giving you priority access to a lot of groups, consumables needed for high-end content and direct clears as other players wants the currency to get the former.
I put WoW at 6/10.

Lost Ark I consider a perfect 10/10 it can certainly get worse than it but it's already at a stage where you can pay to gain weeks to months of progress someone who didn't pay would have to grind from dawn to dusk yet never be able to compete with those who pay in any real sense.
Black Desert is also pretty bad I consider it 9 bordering 10.

I don't think pay to win is strictly bad I find anything 5 and above unplayable but that's my preference I enjoy collecting main currency if I didn't focus on that kinda stuff and say I play FF and WoW for the story content alone they would be fairly equal in terms of enjoyment I think.

I would still consider WoW considerably more pay to win but it would bother me less. FFXI I play for the story and community alone while I think it's objectively a 2/10 It might as well be a 0/10 as I experience it personally.

Games that are completed/barely growing can be cut some slack imo such has GW1, FFXI and to a lesser extent OSRS.

However it's all about preference and pay to win don't have to be a factor what you play I prefer FFXIV despite FFXI and WoW Classic being less aggressive with micro transactions and would I prefer Raiding more than lifeskills and grinding perhaps WoW or heck even Lost Ark wouldn't bother me. There is no shame in playing any game as long as you play what you enjoy the most. (Unless it's a Blockchain game then shame on you.)

[Sazzolith]

Wow for example has had its players sell to other players via paypal

[fictitiousnightmares]

8:23 Totally disagree. free-to-play mmos are not a good thing. They are literally set up to steal your cash. It is a scam. Nobody plays these for free in the end. Do you know anyone who ACTUALLY plays the free version of ANY of these? LOL

[Sazzolith]

Sorry just a vent for me😂❤ good content tho