You don't have to answer this, this is rhetorical: Haven't you ever seen something that someone else had, and then went out and obtained that thing out of desire to also have it? That could be clothes, cars, a novel skill, a specific knowledge... pretty much anything. That's the human behavior I'm suggesting F2P games try to tap into.
Yes. But that behavior is not universal in all situations. F2P games is tapping into a small percentage of people who would do that, and let others play for free.
Of course not. No behavior is universal in all situations. No one is saying that.
But it sounds like you agree with me that F2P games use tactics to capitalize on that behavior. And linking this tangent back into the OP, once you're commited to trying to keep up with your peers you don't know beforehand how much you'll be spending.
That's the problem, these systems are set up to try to get you to spend more than you would otherwise if it were pay to play, and that root business model affects how the game content is created and how it evolves, often to the detriment of the players.
But it sounds like you agree with me that F2P games use tactics to capitalize on that behavior. And linking this tangent back into the OP, once you're commited to trying to keep up with your peers you don't know beforehand how much you'll be spending.
Yes, i agree that F2P games are using this tactic. However, i am qualifying the statement by adding the point that it works only in a minority of players.
For example, i have played F2P games for quite a while, and i have yet to pay a cent. However, it should not surprised you that this tactics does not work on everyone (and it does not need to work on everyone).
Most games are pretty up front. You can check out the cashshop the moment you first log into the game.
Which is to say, they won't tell you until after you download the game and start playing. And even then, it takes a while to understand just how strong the things in the item mall are or aren't. And even if you know what's in the item mall today, what's there in a month won't necessarily be all that similar--especially if they're relying heavily on random boxes with constantly changing contents.
And I will have downloaded it and been playing it for free all that time.
Having said that, I don't believe I'm entitled to free entertainment, which seems to run counter to a few people who amusingly try to be so melodramatic about spending money on games.
Most games are pretty up front. You can check out the cashshop the moment you first log into the game.
Which is to say, they won't tell you until after you download the game and start playing. And even then, it takes a while to understand just how strong the things in the item mall are or aren't. And even if you know what's in the item mall today, what's there in a month won't necessarily be all that similar--especially if they're relying heavily on random boxes with constantly changing contents.
And I will have downloaded it and been playing it for free all that time.
Having said that, I don't believe I'm entitled to free entertainment, which seems to run counter to a few people who amusingly try to be so melodramatic about spending money on games.
Nor should you feel entitled to entertainment for free. But neither should you be complacent about the utilization of a business model that drives it's sales through obfuscation of the cost. Whether the game is enjoyable or not to any degree is not the argument, nor is it a valid counter to the debate of cash shop vs pay to play.
The business model is the sore issue. The goal of those types of games is to get you to spend as much as possible within as short an amount of time as possible, idealy without you realizing what you're doing. The entire design of the game will then be geared toward that end goal. It's the dishonesty that I think we take umbrage with more than anything else.
What happens when you purchase an item in a cash shop? Do you spend real dollars and get the item? No. You buy the shop currency, and then use the shop currency to buy the item. Why don't they just have a straight cash value? Why is this extra step necessary?
It's because they don't want you to know how much you're really spending on each item. All you know is that you spend 400 points. You'll see a cycle begin of them 'gifting' you with X points, where X is just below what it would cost to buy something neat in the shop. That prompts you to spend real money to cover that next little bit, and their point purchase page shows increasingly better deals for more and more points for each subsequent dollar value. If you're spending money anyway... might as well get a few other things you've been looking at, right?
Yes, many savvy gamers will be able to calculate the real dollar sum for those items. Yes, many gamers have the self control to either not use the points, or not buy the higher tiers of points just for the deal. That's not the point. The point is that the whole design is a scam. Whether you see through it or not is meaningless to the debate.
A lot of people view P2P as dishonest as well though. Where does the money go? I have spent $60 for a box and another $180 on a yearly subscription. That should be four full fledged games worth of content and experiences. At the very least, it should be two full games worth of content.
The money doesn't fully go towards the game you are paying for. It goes towards the next project that they also charge you for. To many, that is a very dishonest way of handling their subscriptions.
The money doesn't fully go towards the game you are paying for. It goes towards the next project that they also charge you for. To many, that is a very dishonest way of handling their subscriptions.
That is ridiculous. Every dollar spent in your entire lifetime will be used to fund a future product.
However, it does seem logical for players to be angry if the current game is taking a huge hit to development because of the funding for new titles, and I believe EVE developers were guilty of doing this at one time. If I am not mistaken this was one of the reasons they were trying to introduce a cash shop to squeeze every dollar possible out of their current player base, and we all know how well that went.
A lot of people view P2P as dishonest as well though. Where does the money go? I have spent $60 for a box and another $180 on a yearly subscription. That should be four full fledged games worth of content and experiences. At the very least, it should be two full games worth of content.
The money doesn't fully go towards the game you are paying for. It goes towards the next project that they also charge you for. To many, that is a very dishonest way of handling their subscriptions.
With pay to play, you know exactly what you'll be paying ahead of time. I'm not worried about where the money is going for either model, as they're likely being spent on the same things: Salaries, Customer Service, Hardware/Bandwidth, Development, Shareholder profits, etc. That's a whole different discussion.
Let's say for a moment that pay to play is dishonest as well, though. Are you suggesting that two wrongs make a right?
The money doesn't fully go towards the game you are paying for. It goes towards the next project that they also charge you for. To many, that is a very dishonest way of handling their subscriptions.
That is ridiculous. Every dollar spent in your entire lifetime will be used to fund a future product.
However, it does seem logical for players to be angry if the current game is taking a huge hit to development because of the funding for new titles, and I believe EVE developers were guilty of doing this at one time. If I am not mistaken this was one of the reasons they were trying to introduce a cash shop to squeeze every dollar possible out of their current player base, and we all know how well that went.
I don't think it's ridiculous. There was a time when many people thought that their subscriptions were going toward paying for the upkeep and development of the game they were playing - not going towards some other title that they may never play or want to play.
Really the point is like you said. What percentage of my WoW subscription is funding Titan? Certainly they haven't brought forward 4 games worth of content over the past year or whatever. So then what tiny percentage have they used on actually making WoW more interesting?
EVE is a good example as well. Obviously the subs are going somewhere, but the vast majority don't appear to be going back into EVE. Seems like a fairly dishonest way to treat customers to me.
Originally posted by Quizzical I prefer to know a game's business model up front before deciding whether to play it. When a company advertises a game as "free to play", they're trying to hide the business model, as they're never going to truly give away everything for free. Do you think "free to play" will eventually become a derogatory term that marketers avoid for that reason?
I don't think of it like that.
If I know it's f2p, I expect I can play a good portion of the game free, however I also expect that the devs will try and get me to pay something. How much I pay is up to me.
Doesn't seem very hidden to me.
I don't think it will be become derogatory. I think it was derogatory and is becoming more accepted, I expect that to continue.
Have to say I fully agree with VengeSunSoar. I guess people complain this way like OP might be very new to these games.
Obviously when I would keep getting pop-up windows to pay for acces for this or that then it becomes anoying but it also will be the moment that I know the game is simply not my type of game. And if the game is entertaining enough and I might be able to get rite of those anoying "goto cashshop" windows by simply putting in a subscription then that's obviously my choice.
A lot of people view P2P as dishonest as well though. Where does the money go? I have spent $60 for a box and another $180 on a yearly subscription. That should be four full fledged games worth of content and experiences. At the very least, it should be two full games worth of content.
The money doesn't fully go towards the game you are paying for. It goes towards the next project that they also charge you for. To many, that is a very dishonest way of handling their subscriptions.
With pay to play, you know exactly what you'll be paying ahead of time. I'm not worried about where the money is going for either model, as they're likely being spent on the same things: Salaries, Customer Service, Hardware/Bandwidth, Development, Shareholder profits, etc. That's a whole different discussion.
Let's say for a moment that pay to play is dishonest as well, though. Are you suggesting that two wrongs make a right?
No. I mean... both models have their pros and cons. But both models can be looked at as both honest and dishonest from different perspectives. I play both types of games myself.
F2P puts all the power into the consumers hands by giving them the ability to choose how they spend their money.
P2P allows people to pay up front and not have to worry about making decisions about what they want or don't want.
F2P tries to sucker people into spending money with devious schemes that some players are incapable of dealing with rationally.
P2P suckers people into believing that they are getting their money's worth while stripping their money away slowly.
No matter HOW MUCH anti-free-to-play people try to hate on the model, it's quite simple.
It puts the risk in a player's mind at ease about the initial investment and time, and puts all monetary cost contol in their hands.
That's pretty much as good as it gets.
What? The monetary cost is never out of our hands. Ever. We always decide what we spend on based on the information we're given regardless what we're talking about. That's a total non-factor in the argument.
Many games have free unlimited trials and demos. Low initial investment and time, all the cost control in the gamers hands. Only with the pay to play model, the moment you open your wallet you know exactly how much will be coming out.
A lot of people view P2P as dishonest as well though. Where does the money go? I have spent $60 for a box and another $180 on a yearly subscription. That should be four full fledged games worth of content and experiences. At the very least, it should be two full games worth of content.
The money doesn't fully go towards the game you are paying for. It goes towards the next project that they also charge you for. To many, that is a very dishonest way of handling their subscriptions.
With pay to play, you know exactly what you'll be paying ahead of time. I'm not worried about where the money is going for either model, as they're likely being spent on the same things: Salaries, Customer Service, Hardware/Bandwidth, Development, Shareholder profits, etc. That's a whole different discussion.
Let's say for a moment that pay to play is dishonest as well, though. Are you suggesting that two wrongs make a right?
But that model doesn't promise that either anymore. I'll give you a example. A new expansion for MMOx is released and everyone who subs goes out and buys it (expansions costs money in most P2P games) than they go out and start to level only to find that there are not enough quests to get to the next max level without grinding unless you buy double XP potions in the cash shop. In this case not only did being monthly sub not promise I wouldn't have to buy new content but it also didn't promise there would be enough of that content to level without using the cash shop.
P2P and B2P are myth's these days. They no longer exist in thier pure form. And while I might agree that a true 100% P2P game has some advantages over a F2P game I don't believe most sub based games with a cash shop do. At the end of the day if you put that $15 a month into the cash shop in many F2P games (Not all) you would end up at the same point.
No matter HOW MUCH anti-free-to-play people try to hate on the model, it's quite simple.
It puts the risk in a player's mind at ease about the initial investment and time, and puts all monetary cost contol in their hands.
That's pretty much as good as it gets.
What? The monetary cost is never out of our hands. Ever. We always decide what we spend on based on the information we're given regardless what we're talking about. That's a total non-factor in the argument.
Many games have free unlimited trials and demos. Low initial investment and time, all the cost control in the gamers hands. Only with the pay to play model, the moment you open your wallet you know exactly how much will be coming out.
With a F2P model, you also know exactly how much will be coming out of your wallet.
Originally posted by Quizzical I prefer to know a game's business model up front before deciding whether to play it. When a company advertises a game as "free to play", they're trying to hide the business model, as they're never going to truly give away everything for free. Do you think "free to play" will eventually become a derogatory term that marketers avoid for that reason?
Wrong, TERA gives normal access to every single piece of content in the game for free and all things in the cash shop are purchasable on the broker with gold.
But that model doesn't promise that either anymore. I'll give you a example. A new expansion for MMOx is released and everyone who subs goes out and buys it (expansions costs money in most P2P games) than they go out and start to level only to find that there are not enough quests to get to the next max level without grinding unless you buy double XP potions in the cash shop. In this case not only did being monthly sub not promise I wouldn't have to buy new content but it also didn't promise there would be enough of that content to level without using the cash shop.
P2P and B2P are myth's these days. They no longer exist in thier pure form. And while I might agree that a true 100% P2P game has some advantages over a F2P game I don't believe most sub based games with a cash shop do. At the end of the day if you put that $15 a month into the cash shop in many of those games (Not all) you would end up at the same point.
You're using a pay to win cash shop in a pay to play game as an example. There aren't a whole lot of those, and they're all scams as well.
The cash shop has mystic points on sale for $5 for 500, $10 for 1100, $20 for 2500, $50 for 7000, and $100 for 15000.
I spend $10 for a balance of 1500 mystic points, and am left with 950 after I buy the potion.
How much real world money did I spend on the potion?
How much money did you spend on the points? $10. That's how much money came out of your wallet that you will never get back.
You're sidestepping the question, because it can't be answered. You can't know what you spent on the item because of the fluctuating value of the currency depending on how much you spend. You know the total what you spent, but not the total value of what you're getting.
The cash shop has mystic points on sale for $5 for 500, $10 for 1100, $20 for 2500, $50 for 7000, and $100 for 15000.
I spend $10 for a balance of 1500 mystic points, and am left with 950 after I buy the potion.
How much real world money did I spend on the potion?
How much money did you spend on the points? $10. That's how much money came out of your wallet that you will never get back.
You're sidestepping the question, because it can't be answered. You can't know what you spent on the item because of the fluctuating value of the currency depending on how much you spend. You know the total what you spent, but not the total value of what you're getting.
It can be answered, I would just have to make a graph. And besides that, just over $5 for someone that buys small amounts of points at a time and just under $4 for someone that buys the largest package. I think that's a reasonable enough answer. Since you decided to buy $10 worth of points, that potion came out to exactly $5 if that was the only time you purchased points.
You spent $10. That is what came out of your wallet and it was completely in your control.
Your whole "play while it's fun" argument is weak. Imagine the movie industry worked that way. You see a movie trailer with epic action, and it is Free to Watch! But after buying popcorn and soda, and watching the movie for an hour, it abruptly stops. Want to see the end? That cost money.
You just described expansion packs in a subscription MMO.
Not quite. Most MMOs allow to continue to play the game even without the expansion.
None of this affects me though as the two MMOs that I play do not charge for expansions.
Yes, you can continue to play just like you can continue to play in F2P, you just can't continue to advance to the new level unless you buy the expansion in most MMO expansions.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
You don't have to answer this, this is rhetorical: Haven't you ever seen something that someone else had, and then went out and obtained that thing out of desire to also have it? That could be clothes, cars, a novel skill, a specific knowledge... pretty much anything. That's the human behavior I'm suggesting F2P games try to tap into.
Yes. But that behavior is not universal in all situations. F2P games is tapping into a small percentage of people who would do that, and let others play for free.
I think it much more common than you think. Why else do you think the server announes everytime someone wins one of thsoe rare items out a random cash shop key box in F2P games? Everytime you see one of those messages there is a precentage of the player base that looks at all those unopened boxes in their inventory and wonders if they bought just a few keys if they to could have what that other person got. It works really well.
It's announcement of someone winning a big jackpot, just like at a casino. Appealling to one's desire to be in on the action is completely different than what rygard is suggesting. The former has a wider appeal and the latter appeals to a much smaller group.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
With a F2P model, you also know exactly how much will be coming out of your wallet.
Okay.
I have 400 mystic points provided as seed currency. A common cash shop tactic.
I want to buy a potion for 550 mystic points.
The cash shop has mystic points on sale for $5 for 500, $10 for 1100, $20 for 2500, $50 for 7000, and $100 for 15000.
I spend $10 for a balance of 1500 mystic points, and am left with 950 after I buy the potion.
How much real world money did I spend on the potion?
Edit to clarify where the original 400 came from.
You spend $10 on points, and a fraction of that on the potion.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
But that model doesn't promise that either anymore. I'll give you a example. A new expansion for MMOx is released and everyone who subs goes out and buys it (expansions costs money in most P2P games) than they go out and start to level only to find that there are not enough quests to get to the next max level without grinding unless you buy double XP potions in the cash shop. In this case not only did being monthly sub not promise I wouldn't have to buy new content but it also didn't promise there would be enough of that content to level without using the cash shop.
P2P and B2P are myth's these days. They no longer exist in thier pure form. And while I might agree that a true 100% P2P game has some advantages over a F2P game I don't believe most sub based games with a cash shop do. At the end of the day if you put that $15 a month into the cash shop in many of those games (Not all) you would end up at the same point.
You're using a pay to win cash shop in a pay to play game as an example. There aren't a whole lot of those, and they're all scams as well.
There is only two P2P games I can think of that don't have XP potions for sale in them are because they are time based advancement games instead of XP based.
Almost all sub based games on the market today have large cash shops. Most have converted to a combined P2P plus cash shop model.
TSW's model is my favorite by far. Buy the game once than use the cash shop as you want. You can play that game forever and spend very little other than the upfront cost. GW2's is ok but has a few items in the cash shop that I don't like.
And BTW I don't think most people would consider XP potions as P2W. I certainly don't. Not that I like the habit of devleopers releasing content that encourages you to use them in sub games but regradless they are not P2W any more than a mount is.
Comments
Of course not. No behavior is universal in all situations. No one is saying that.
But it sounds like you agree with me that F2P games use tactics to capitalize on that behavior. And linking this tangent back into the OP, once you're commited to trying to keep up with your peers you don't know beforehand how much you'll be spending.
That's the problem, these systems are set up to try to get you to spend more than you would otherwise if it were pay to play, and that root business model affects how the game content is created and how it evolves, often to the detriment of the players.
Yes, i agree that F2P games are using this tactic. However, i am qualifying the statement by adding the point that it works only in a minority of players.
For example, i have played F2P games for quite a while, and i have yet to pay a cent. However, it should not surprised you that this tactics does not work on everyone (and it does not need to work on everyone).
And I will have downloaded it and been playing it for free all that time.
Having said that, I don't believe I'm entitled to free entertainment, which seems to run counter to a few people who amusingly try to be so melodramatic about spending money on games.
Hell hath no fury like an MMORPG player scorned.
Nor should you feel entitled to entertainment for free. But neither should you be complacent about the utilization of a business model that drives it's sales through obfuscation of the cost. Whether the game is enjoyable or not to any degree is not the argument, nor is it a valid counter to the debate of cash shop vs pay to play.
The business model is the sore issue. The goal of those types of games is to get you to spend as much as possible within as short an amount of time as possible, idealy without you realizing what you're doing. The entire design of the game will then be geared toward that end goal. It's the dishonesty that I think we take umbrage with more than anything else.
What happens when you purchase an item in a cash shop? Do you spend real dollars and get the item? No. You buy the shop currency, and then use the shop currency to buy the item. Why don't they just have a straight cash value? Why is this extra step necessary?
It's because they don't want you to know how much you're really spending on each item. All you know is that you spend 400 points. You'll see a cycle begin of them 'gifting' you with X points, where X is just below what it would cost to buy something neat in the shop. That prompts you to spend real money to cover that next little bit, and their point purchase page shows increasingly better deals for more and more points for each subsequent dollar value. If you're spending money anyway... might as well get a few other things you've been looking at, right?
Yes, many savvy gamers will be able to calculate the real dollar sum for those items. Yes, many gamers have the self control to either not use the points, or not buy the higher tiers of points just for the deal. That's not the point. The point is that the whole design is a scam. Whether you see through it or not is meaningless to the debate.
A lot of people view P2P as dishonest as well though. Where does the money go? I have spent $60 for a box and another $180 on a yearly subscription. That should be four full fledged games worth of content and experiences. At the very least, it should be two full games worth of content.
The money doesn't fully go towards the game you are paying for. It goes towards the next project that they also charge you for. To many, that is a very dishonest way of handling their subscriptions.
That is ridiculous. Every dollar spent in your entire lifetime will be used to fund a future product.
However, it does seem logical for players to be angry if the current game is taking a huge hit to development because of the funding for new titles, and I believe EVE developers were guilty of doing this at one time. If I am not mistaken this was one of the reasons they were trying to introduce a cash shop to squeeze every dollar possible out of their current player base, and we all know how well that went.
With pay to play, you know exactly what you'll be paying ahead of time. I'm not worried about where the money is going for either model, as they're likely being spent on the same things: Salaries, Customer Service, Hardware/Bandwidth, Development, Shareholder profits, etc. That's a whole different discussion.
Let's say for a moment that pay to play is dishonest as well, though. Are you suggesting that two wrongs make a right?
No matter HOW MUCH anti-free-to-play people try to hate on the model, it's quite simple.
It puts the risk in a player's mind at ease about the initial investment and time, and puts all monetary cost contol in their hands.
That's pretty much as good as it gets.
BOYCOTTING EA / ORIGIN going forward.
I don't think it's ridiculous. There was a time when many people thought that their subscriptions were going toward paying for the upkeep and development of the game they were playing - not going towards some other title that they may never play or want to play.
Really the point is like you said. What percentage of my WoW subscription is funding Titan? Certainly they haven't brought forward 4 games worth of content over the past year or whatever. So then what tiny percentage have they used on actually making WoW more interesting?
EVE is a good example as well. Obviously the subs are going somewhere, but the vast majority don't appear to be going back into EVE. Seems like a fairly dishonest way to treat customers to me.
Have to say I fully agree with VengeSunSoar. I guess people complain this way like OP might be very new to these games.
Obviously when I would keep getting pop-up windows to pay for acces for this or that then it becomes anoying but it also will be the moment that I know the game is simply not my type of game. And if the game is entertaining enough and I might be able to get rite of those anoying "goto cashshop" windows by simply putting in a subscription then that's obviously my choice.
No. I mean... both models have their pros and cons. But both models can be looked at as both honest and dishonest from different perspectives. I play both types of games myself.
F2P puts all the power into the consumers hands by giving them the ability to choose how they spend their money.
P2P allows people to pay up front and not have to worry about making decisions about what they want or don't want.
F2P tries to sucker people into spending money with devious schemes that some players are incapable of dealing with rationally.
P2P suckers people into believing that they are getting their money's worth while stripping their money away slowly.
What? The monetary cost is never out of our hands. Ever. We always decide what we spend on based on the information we're given regardless what we're talking about. That's a total non-factor in the argument.
Many games have free unlimited trials and demos. Low initial investment and time, all the cost control in the gamers hands. Only with the pay to play model, the moment you open your wallet you know exactly how much will be coming out.But that model doesn't promise that either anymore. I'll give you a example. A new expansion for MMOx is released and everyone who subs goes out and buys it (expansions costs money in most P2P games) than they go out and start to level only to find that there are not enough quests to get to the next max level without grinding unless you buy double XP potions in the cash shop. In this case not only did being monthly sub not promise I wouldn't have to buy new content but it also didn't promise there would be enough of that content to level without using the cash shop.
P2P and B2P are myth's these days. They no longer exist in thier pure form. And while I might agree that a true 100% P2P game has some advantages over a F2P game I don't believe most sub based games with a cash shop do. At the end of the day if you put that $15 a month into the cash shop in many F2P games (Not all) you would end up at the same point.
With a F2P model, you also know exactly how much will be coming out of your wallet.
Wrong, TERA gives normal access to every single piece of content in the game for free and all things in the cash shop are purchasable on the broker with gold.
You're using a pay to win cash shop in a pay to play game as an example. There aren't a whole lot of those, and they're all scams as well.
Free to play: The game is provided free of cost.
Free to play with cash shop: The game is provided free of cost but we put so many restrictions that you have to buy stuff to actually enjoy it.
The problem is not the term "Free to play", the problem is how much of a sucker you are.
Here are other examples:
Glue:
Marketter: This glue bonds everything together
Reality: This glue bonds everything together but the second you pull on it or lift it the bond breaks
Weight Loss:
Marketter: Lose 10 pounds in one week!
Reality: Suffer from dehydration, your body intakes less minerals and makes you sick.
Education:
Marketter: Get a great education to have a well-paying job.
Reality: Accumulate debt.
Babies:
Marketter (moms): I hope your kid is a monster just like you were!
Reality: Take care of the child, have no problems!
Boycotting EA. Why? They suck, even moreso since 2008.
Okay.
I have 400 mystic points provided as seed currency. A common cash shop tactic.
I want to buy a potion for 550 mystic points.
The cash shop has mystic points on sale for $5 for 500, $10 for 1100, $20 for 2500, $50 for 7000, and $100 for 15000.
I spend $10 for a balance of 1500 mystic points, and am left with 950 after I buy the potion.
How much real world money did I spend on the potion?
Edit to clarify where the original 400 came from.
How much money did you spend on the points? $10. That's how much money came out of your wallet that you will never get back.
You're sidestepping the question, because it can't be answered. You can't know what you spent on the item because of the fluctuating value of the currency depending on how much you spend. You know the total what you spent, but not the total value of what you're getting.
It can be answered, I would just have to make a graph. And besides that, just over $5 for someone that buys small amounts of points at a time and just under $4 for someone that buys the largest package. I think that's a reasonable enough answer. Since you decided to buy $10 worth of points, that potion came out to exactly $5 if that was the only time you purchased points.
You spent $10. That is what came out of your wallet and it was completely in your control.
Yes, you can continue to play just like you can continue to play in F2P, you just can't continue to advance to the new level unless you buy the expansion in most MMO expansions.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
It's announcement of someone winning a big jackpot, just like at a casino. Appealling to one's desire to be in on the action is completely different than what rygard is suggesting. The former has a wider appeal and the latter appeals to a much smaller group.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
You spend $10 on points, and a fraction of that on the potion.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
There is only two P2P games I can think of that don't have XP potions for sale in them are because they are time based advancement games instead of XP based.
Almost all sub based games on the market today have large cash shops. Most have converted to a combined P2P plus cash shop model.
TSW's model is my favorite by far. Buy the game once than use the cash shop as you want. You can play that game forever and spend very little other than the upfront cost. GW2's is ok but has a few items in the cash shop that I don't like.
And BTW I don't think most people would consider XP potions as P2W. I certainly don't. Not that I like the habit of devleopers releasing content that encourages you to use them in sub games but regradless they are not P2W any more than a mount is.