I was wondering how everyone feels about free to play/pay to win games. I personally like them,but I so hate the constant begging or tempting of buy this item or ability and dominate the game. If they are balanced well,like in Forge Of Empires,then it works well. You do not need to buy your strength if you plan well and join a great guild. But games like DCUO,just suck the fun out of it and make the really great powers like the Lanterns pay to unlock.

I would give a link to FOE,but that might be a bannable offense.

I feel the same way. I've also been in some games where you played at a completely different league when going free than going Pay Per Play. One of those, however, got rid of it to a degree (you can now safely play without spending any money, but of course it will take you an awful lot of time to be on par with the players that pay real money).

While I admit there must be some incentive for the people to spend money on the game, it must be balanced, like you said. There's those Facebook games like Criminal Case, where spending real money saves up tenths or even hundreds of hours of gaming per case (and there are +100 cases), but if you're not in any hurry to complete the game you have absolutely no need of spending any money on it. Sure, it can take you weeks or even months to finish a case for free, depending on your free time, but it can be done in less than a day spending money.

I don't know if this thread was also intended for this, but a similar rule applies for DLC content. Whatever the situation, it must be worth the pay and be balanced for those who cannot/don't want to pay, and more often than not it's not like this.

I like them, but I just don't like the ads. I'm okay of a game is pay to win, but not if they are also showing ads at the same time, I'd be much happier if they do just one or the other, but not both at the same time because that just ruins everything. Other than that, I love free to play games, which there are a lot of great ones.

Thank you for the replies. I agree the ads can be super annoying but we get it,they are trying to generate revenue. Now in games like DCUO,it is very unbalanced and you need to pay to actually have a good character. DLC is similar to pay to play as in new characters and levels and weapons that are on the blasted game.

I have no idea how the whole "free-to-play" model became so popular. Sure, it seems attractive at first, since it's free, but 99% of these games suffer from two different problems. Either the paywalls are so frequent and so frustrating that you just quit instead of paying more, or it's way more fun to see how far you can get WITHOUT spending a single cent.

The thing I hate the most is how developers completely destroy the balance of their game for the sake of making a quick buck. Imagine if you were playing League of Legends, but you couldn't possibly win against your opponent because they spent their paycheck on power-ups? It's the most frustrating part about games like these. If even the world's best player can be easily defeated by some kid who spent their allowance on overpowered gear, then there's no point to even playing it.

I agree that is often the case in many free to play models. Although I would hate to be the guy that blows his paycheck on a game afterwards. Forge Of Empires is not bad in terms of needing to buy stuff,it is nice to have,but is not essential to victory. Most of the games are designed to be quick little time wasters.

I despise them most of the time it makes the game not fun to play if you have to pay actual cash to get anywhere and I absolutely hate that Nintendo is now making FtP games I'd rather buy a full game that might just need a couple DLCs than play a FtP game where I have to pay money to have fun

These days, a lot of the "free to play" mobile games can be pretty cool. For example, Madden Online is great. I don't mind them at all as long as they actually let you progress in the game when playing the "freemium" version.

What I hate is games that force you to pay just to advance in the game. I won't really play those.

I don't play many games at all.  However, my best response to this question probably involves Facebook games.  There were a few that I used to enjoy... and although you COULD pay to advance in the game, that isn't what annoyed me.  I think I'm far, FAR more annoyed by games that FORCE you to 'friend' other players in order to advance. I've never been very social, and 'friending' people just for a game is something I don't want to do.  For that reason, I haven't played Facebook games in years.  I remember giving it an effort at first, but once I realized the futility of it... and how I could never, ever add enough friends to keep playing, I decided they weren't worth my time.

Good point,Singelli,a lot of games depend on friending a ton of people,but that can be a blessing and a curse. It is good if you have a solid guild that looks out for each other,but bad if you have to rely on "friends" to advance or do anything in the game. They need a single player mode in some of them,course that would be blocked by a pay wall.

I'm developing a growing distaste for freemium games, which is more or less all free to play games. Mainly talking about MMOs the only exceptions would be those few games where the only thing you get from spending money is increased customizability or possibly in PVE type games where paying only gives you a shortcut to something you can get through regular gameplay. Most of the time that isn't the case though, there are so many examples of games where by paying money you'll be completely superior to anyone. I'd rather just pay an initial cost to play a game or even a membership fee in stead of spending hundreds of dollars on a game and not getting any actual new content. Considering many games are PVP games it completely breaks the game to begin with, winf4 there is no real point trying to develop the best strategy when just spending enough money makes that not matter.

Pay to win gaming really is one of the things I hate about gaming today, but at the same time you can't completely blame the game companies either since it's something people are buying into. A large reason I pretty much stay away from the google play store considering 99% of free mobile games are blatant freemium/p2w games.

Zlinqx : So kind of like CSGO style purchases are the stuff you are ok with? Well, yeah the game itself isn't free but you can buy all those various skins which literally offer nothing to your skills.

If you're basically forced to pay at one point in order to continue, that's what I hate.

zanderlex : Something along those lines, or say how League of Legends handle it is pretty alright with me as well. I understand they need to do something to make money but becoming skilled at a game should not revolve around who spends the most money

Honestly as long as the game is up front about essentially not being f2p but more like an unlimited free trial and it isn't a p2w game otherwise I wouldn't mind paying a one time fee to continue playing or some sort of monthly membership fee if I enjoy it..

Zlinqx : I only played LoL like once, threw up, and then never played it again.

The game I play now Summoners War basically has this thing where you pay to buy in game currency, and you can spend that currency on summoning more powerful monsters than what you can get normally by playing. However, it's entirely random, you can't choose the monster you get, so you either get a very good one that would help you, or you can get one that you could normally get other ways.

I like that format, because you aren't paying to get a strong monster, you're paying for a random one that could potentially be very strong.

zanderlex : I'm not a big League of Legends or MOBA fan either just used their model to illustrate an example.

I honestly don't like the sound of that system either, maybe if I really enjoyed the game and it was just giving you monsters you can get anyway I could maybe let it slide, but since it still offers the chance of giving you monsters that you can't normally get it's still being unfair. It's the same as any p2w game, it just means you'll likely have to pay more money since it's randomized.

Zlinqx : Well, there are these things called Legenaries that you can't buy and they give the monsters that you can get from the paid ones as well as even stronger ones, but those are incredibly hard to get, probably a whole month of playing just to get one.


Smite is the only MOBA I like really, after throwing up for that one too I started playing all the time.

zanderlex : That would be somewhat crossing the limit for me, I mean I understand the reasoning of giving a small advantage to those who pay by giving them a shortcut since you want them to spend money after all but selling something that would take that long of actively playing the game seems a bit too much for me, kind of ruins any sense of achievement when you work so hard to get say a monster and then see several people who just bought it with real money in stead.

I haven't tried Smite but it's kind of an odd one out as far as MOBAs goes. I like how the characters are based on ancient gods though. The only game I really enjoyed was AirMech but that was more a mix of a MOBA and an RTS game.

Zlinqx : I'm trying myself to get the legendary monster, and I've got 25% of all the stuff that I need for it yet I've been actively trying to get it for weeks now, so it's tough.

I was into Hearthstone for a little while there which is free to play.

Well, after spending about $200, it wasn't really worth it to me anymore.

Good for Blizzard though on duping me. 

My personal opinion about them is that I don't like them. Mainly because they make some stages where you have to do everything literally perfect or else you fail or if you spend "$5 on this powerup" you can have assistance and it makes it a lot easier.
I think it would be better if they stayed with just the paid game way and make better games and make innovations towards those instead putting "effort" towards those mostly copy pasted style games.