The Rise of Pay-To-Play Games

A new game has come out for the IPhone - Game of War. It is a game where you build an empire over months, by saving up resources and researching things that can take up to a year in real time to complete. Check out the guide below, although it is possible to play the game without spending real money, as I do...

Game of War: How to Win Without Spending Real Money

Although I guess that there are people who spend quite a bit.

I play in Dema. Alliance Blue Scorpions has a player Blue8989. He has accounts in other kingdoms. He has spent roughly $400,000. He has 4 accounts all over 100M power and owns 2 wonders. We have many others in Dema that have spent $250,000-$350,000.

People are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on the game, which looks like this:





Don't get me wrong, this is a great game and I am having fun playing for free right now. But the micro-transaction games are growing. Another game that has been out for quite a while that takes a lot of cash to play at a competitive level is the card game Magic: The Gathering. Another is Eve: Online, I suppose that pay-to-play games are not a new phenomenon.

Diablo III, on the other hand, had a real-money auction house that it shut down in favor of not doing micro-transactions! Even when they had their auction house, prices on items were capped at a mere $250 each.

What interests me is the social aspects of games, there is the potential for gamers to be classified by the amount of money in their wallets rather than their intelligence at a growing rate. Imagine if the Internet took the same route - for example, you started with very basic internet and could unlock new tiers with better and more exclusive websites for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Who would be able to stop that kind of move by the elite? Not many people, especially not since the recent advancements of unlimited campaign financing in the political arena (which can be taken advantage of by powerful players on both sides).

reply to post by darkbake


I have to write a game.

It is a new form of payment in games that is true.
But there was a time when we need to pay to play PacMan. If you died pay again and play again.

I really want to get Elder Scrolls Online, but it's this pay to play stuff that's stopping me from buying it.

I break it down like this.

PS4 - $400

PSN subscription - $50 per year

Elder Scrolls disc from Gamestop, Walmart, etc.... - $60

Elder Scrolls monthly subscription to play $15.

Yearly = (12 months x $15 per month) = $180.

I pay $50 a year for PSN, + $60 for the disc itself, + $180 per year for the game subscription........ (not to include the PS4 console cash spent)

Is that game really worth $290? (just for year 1)

reply to post by buni11687


exactly the reason i dont buy it either. Even though I really want to

I hate the pay to play system. Especially if I have to pay for a copy of the game in the first place. Developers have realised there is a sh!t tonne of money to be made after the sales of a game has dried up by charging people to actually play it. I think its ludicrous.

If it were essentially that you only play for the parts of the game you want to play (I.E the way level/mission DLC's work) rather than "pay to win", I wouldn't have so much of a problem with it. But sadly the latter is how it is for most games. Sure, you could get the same rank/level/cash of that guy who spent $500 dollars on extras, but it would take quite some time. The saddest part is that the only way developers would stop doing it is if people stop buying into it like sheep.

Sadly, they won't stop.

Its a modern Bingo.. pay to win. I remember when i was young and had a summer job in a grocery store there were an old woman who spent almost all her money playing bingo and only afforded to buy milk and sour milk like every time she was at the store. Now this isn´t aimed to elders but principles are the same only the victims can be those who has families and responsabilities to their families.. its a very sad concept and lot of people get hurt. Of course gamehouses are not directly guilty of someones game addictions but the concept are their creation and they should take some responsability over them.

It's the way of the world now. I used to play Kingdoms at War and now I play Clash of Clans. Both "100% free games" as they advertise but not really.

It's a great system, give the game away for Free and charge for what players do. I actually like that system a lot better and I know it's going to be the way it all goes.

In a couple of years there are going to be a load of xboxone and ps4 games available for free download.

It gets you hooked on a free game like crack dealers "the first one is free, but don't you want a second hit for only $1.99?"

I was really into a similar iPhone game called clash of clans. People in my clan were spending hundreds per week. While others playing the game were spending thousands per week. I spent about $40 and I finally convinced myself to quit the game before I spent more.

When it comes to PSN. I find I save money by subscribing to playstation plus. The games that I get for $50 a year is worth it. There have been plenty of times I wanted to buy a new game that would have cost me up to $60. But I got on my playstation and downloaded something to play. Resogun on the PS4 is a great game.

Micro-transactions are a great business model for game companies.
It's a brilliant idea and if I ran a game company i would do it.
Sure you can play those games without spending but you wont see the end game nor will you have the best of anything. If you want to pay $2 though then something that normally would take 4 hours in game will be done in 30 secs.
In the end, those companies are not coding games to give people enjoyment but rather to make money.

Dumbass
It is a new form of payment in games that is true.
But there was a time when we need to pay to play PacMan. If you died pay again and play again.

Curse that Street Fighter machine, I still want to play it!

Pay to play games used to be the norm for massive multiplayer games it's only in the past couple of year these "free to play" games have come around that if you actually want to make any headway in them you best bust out your wallet and pay up.Elder Scrolls online is a great game and if you play it on a PC then it's well worth the money to pay the 15 a month for it people are silly to play a game like that on a console. For that 15 a month you get more entertainment for your buck then going to the movies or other such outing that would cost you more then that just to walk in the door and hang out for a couple hours.It's all what your willing to put into it though some people like free to play games but if you want to go anywhere it's going to cost you more then 15 a month that's for sure.

reply to post by darkbake


You don't need real money transactions to play Eve Online dude - you may pay a sub of @£15/month (i don't remember the cost, my sub is on auto pay atm), but instead you could buy a 1 month Pilot-Licence Extension for what, usually about 800 million isk? That ain't much in-game cash once you get going - i'm strictly casual and i made over 150mil isk in an hour and a half doing incursions last night and my account is only about five months old... it was good fun too rather than just grinding.
A bit of market shenanigans and hauling stuff around could turn that 150 mil into 200 without too much effort if i could be bothered, but it ain't really my play-style so far. I do know folk though that make over a billion a month just hauling some goods between hubs and selling for the mark-up, takes maybe an hour a week.

Lots of free to play games have had micro transactions for ages too, I've never found them necessary to be competitive/effective and in my own experiences often fall more in to the "bling" category, or sometimes are even justified payment for extra content. These games are free so it's all good if you ask me - there is plenty of choice out there

I would view that game as more "P2W" (Pay to Win) than anything.

Pay to Play is generally perceived as games where you pay a monthly fee. These are actually perceived by some to be on the decline. Because, really.. who wants to pay full price for a game and then EVERY SINGLE month as a door charge. These games also frequently work in mechanisms to keep you playing for as long as possible. On top of having to pay to play, they tend to also charge for expansions and frequently have an in-game shop.

Free to Play tend to have the core game available for free, and then have a store based on micro-transactions. Some of these allow you to earn currency in-game to buy store items, others dont. Some do not provide a real game advantage for money, others do (p2w). There are tons of different ways to do it, and I think we are only scratching the surface on how successful the model can be.

Buy to play is a game where you buy the initial game, but get access to it for as long as the servers are in existence (for an MMO), or for as long as you can run it. These tend to include various items you can buy as well though, and frequently tend to charge for expansions/DLC.

The rise of microtransactions, when done well, is one of the best things to happen to gaming in my opinion. Specifically when the game gives you the choice to earn it in game reasonably.

reply to post by Serdgiam


That is a good point about it being pay-to-win more than pay-to-play, I am running an alliance right now and having a good time of it without paying anything. And I would say that the prices on items are balanced enough that if you put in a $100, you would see a minor increase in your empire.

The business model does allow for many people to play the game for free, and it is really the outliers who pay upwards of $100,000, and they do help support the game company.

skalla
reply to post by darkbake

 

You don't need real money transactions to play Eve Online dude -

Lots of free to play games have had micro transactions for ages too, I've never found them necessary to be competitive/effective and in my own experiences often fall more in to the "bling" category, or sometimes are even justified payment for extra content. These games are free so it's all good if you ask me - there is plenty of choice out there

You are right about Eve Online! Actually, I heard that in that game you can even use your in-game funds to purchase your subscription. And the bling thing is an important point, I see a lot of people buy that kind of thing that doesn't affect gameplay to help support the company.

greencmp
reply to post by darkbake

 

I have to write a game.

There is a great game developer platform, Unity, that is ironically pay-to-play - in other words, they have a really decent amount of things to use to make your game, but both users and the developer release packages (of sprites, scenery, code) to download for $5.00 each - it is actually a lot cheaper that way because you only pay for what you need for your project.

Unity works for IOS, Windows, even browser games and Xbox Indie Arcade - although you have to pay a few thousand to Xbox for licensing rights to release something on their platform.

reply to post by darkbake


Yep, that's what I meant by buying a pilot-licence extension for about 800million isk - that's a one month sub bought with the in-game currency... lots of folk do that, though I'm not at that level yet - not that it matters as the game represents value for money for me at the moment.

I used to play Guild Wars 1 a lot a few years ago which was free to play once you bought the disc. They started to add a few micro purchases, such as extra character slots (I don't remember how many you got for free, but I had at least 6 characters for free, which was plenty). They added some extra missions after a couple or three years, for about £4-£5 and there was some nice gear you could get from them, it was worth the spend IMO and was the only extra purchase that I made, in fact the only micro purchase I've ever made in an mmo.

I think folk who spend a lot on micro purchases in game have got a screw loose personally, such as the 100's or 1000's of dollars per week or month that you mentioned above, but each to their own i guess. It aint something I'd do though.