If you are even the tiniest bit of a gamer today, you should know that one of the biggest things that has taken the gaming world by storm is the fee to play model. Not only limited to just mobile games, the free to play model has become a staple for PC gaming and even console gaming with the addition of digital stores. Many may look and say “ooh its free” , but breaking it down is it really free and I want to talk about why I actually prefer paying for a game.
Most of the games that market themselves have to pay for the costs somewhere and that usually comes with some sort of in game currency which you can use for cosmetic items, boosters or just to make your life easier to play the game. You wouldn’t expect this model to drive a load of sales, but actually statistics shows that people who play free to play games end up spending more than if they would have just flat out purchased the game to begin with. This is why successful free to play games like Clash of Clans don’t even offer the full game paid for up front.
Most of the time these games are just using tactics that addict the player compared to games that try to have the player enjoy their time playing. Notorious games like Farmville did this, where players were required to come back ever few hours or so to collect and plant new crops. You create a habit this way and soon checking your crops is as normal as checking your text messages. Then on top of that they will sell you crops that boast to be limited edition and you can never get again, but its all just shit you are buying.
There is never and end and even if you were to pay 20,000 USD there would still be more to do, and there are cases of children buying that much with their parent’s credit card. This is the main reason that I refuse to play free to play games because there is always something left you need to buy to be the best. I am a big player of MMOs and the free to play genre has taken over that genre by a storm. Probably for every actual pay to play game, there are 10 free to play games. That is not even a joke, as there are entire companies that do nothing but pump and localize crap games from other parts of the world.
For a while I played a few but ultimately I realized there was no way to even compete if I wasn’t willing to spend mountains of money, and I wasn’t. Even games that were pay to buy and then had no subscription fee I stayed away from and there is one main reason. If I want the best content, frequent updates, bug fixes ect. I want to make sure a developer team is incentivized to do their best work month after month and have a steady income stream to develop a good game. In my opinion the vast majority of free to play games are a scam and I would stay far away from them.