How is that pay to win when everyone is paying the same subscription price and everyone has access to the same content? If a person chooses not to raid or not to PVP, that has absolutely nothing to do with money.
Oh it may very well have a lot to do with money, just not in the directly obvious way. For instance, if you have a job day trading and I'm a waitress at 2 jobs to make ends meet, I'm going to have a lot of trouble raiding that you won't and the cause of it is money. Just, not money paid directly to [company]. Now I think there are ways to alleviate this problem with in-game solutions, but the fact that the problem exists is something often overlooked. Unfortunately, sub games have proven themselves incapable of offering proper content in exchange for the constant money.
My definition of p2w is when something necessary, equivalent, or virtually required isn't available in-game. So like if there's a particular weapon and all the other weapons aren't enough to help you down [boss], only this one weapon will, and it's only on the cash shop...that's p2w. Pretty much anything else isn't. I'm happiest when things can be earned/grinded for/etc, or there are in-game ways -- even if they take a while -- to earn cash shop points.
The example that I replied to in my initial post has nothing to do with money, not directly or indirectly. It simply has to do with time spent in the game. A student or an unemployed person with $0 income can spend just as much time playing a game as a wealthy day trader. Does that mean we'll create a new category of games, called play-many-hours to win? No.
The user and all related content has been deleted.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
The user and all related content has been deleted.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
Originally posted by Battlerock Originally posted by Mtibbs1989 Yeah, I updated my post a bivideo games play a lot of pay to win games. I enjoy having an advantage over those who don't pay because I have the funds to do so. What I didn't add to my previous post is that I play games where there are extremely large level caps. Angels Online, Anarchy Online, Wakfu, and Dofus are a few examples of games where out leveling a player through EXP potions can lead to becoming much stronger than other players.In fact in Anarchy Online simply having an subscription sets players light years ahead of the Freebie player base as the gear and leveling curve is a massive advantage. So you can even say that paying for a subscription for example. Patron status in ArcheAge is "pay to win" as you are getting an advantage over other players who don't pay for that advantage.
I have the funds too, but I am also a tight wad. You will get there someday kid. Things like retirement, healthcare, and taking care of your own family trump spending money on stupid video games.
Firstly, not a kid. Secondly I make a lot of money as a Cisco Network Engineer. Thirdly you don't know my spending habits and finally you don't know my savings.
Your a kid, I remember you talking about your schooling just a couple months back, if you got your ccna or ccnp or better then yes you're rolling in cash, but once you get a wife and kids, your perspective will change, video games won't matter.
The user and all related content has been deleted.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
Everyone in the world has the same amount of time in a day to do whatever they want. How much of it one puts in one place as opposed to another isnt the issue and is not pay to win.
Having the ability to pay to offset this balance or buy items that are not available to a player through NORMAL game play (Not obxiously long tedious BS) is p2W for me.
Think of it like a job. Player x put in 10 hours to accomplish a goal while player Y only needs 1 hour because he paid for an increase in something to allow him to do it in an hour. Why is player X's time nto as valuable as Y's? Again everyone has the smae amount of time available in any given day - where you put that time or how you spend it is up to you but everyone has the same amount.
"Pay to win" is a spectrum to me, not a black and white thing. On one side you have a game like FFXIV which (last time I played it) charges a flat subscription to everyone and everything is earned in game. This is the only type of game that is not pay to win at all. Then you get games that sell cosmetics for real money. They don't bother me because I don't care at all what my toon looks like in MMOs but for people who that is a big deal to those games may seem more P2W. Then there are games that sell levels, XP, gold, gear for real money. That's where the the danger starts that they will start influencing the design of the game to get people to use the cash shop. Even if everything they sell in the shop is still available in the game by other means are they going to make it so hard to obtain that most people just will break down and use the shop? Of course most games do not sell unique most-powerful gear in the cash shop only but that is only the most extreme form of P2W not the only form of it.
Yeah, I updated my post a bivideo games play a lot of pay to win games. I enjoy having an advantage over those who don't pay because I have the funds to do so. What I didn't add to my previous post is that I play games where there are extremely large level caps. Angels Online, Anarchy Online, Wakfu, and Dofus are a few examples of games where out leveling a player through EXP potions can lead to becoming much stronger than other players.
In fact in Anarchy Online simply having an subscription sets players light years ahead of the Freebie player base as the gear and leveling curve is a massive advantage. So you can even say that paying for a subscription for example. Patron status in ArcheAge is "pay to win" as you are getting an advantage over other players who don't pay for that advantage.
I have the funds too, but I am also a tight wad. You will get there someday kid. Things like retirement, healthcare, and taking care of your own family trump spending money on stupid video games.
Firstly, not a kid. Secondly I make a lot of money as a Cisco Network Engineer. Thirdly you don't know my spending habits and finally you don't know my savings.
Your a kid, I remember you talking about your schooling just a couple months back, if you got your ccna or ccnp or better then yes you're rolling in cash, but once you get a wife and kids, your perspective will change, video games won't matter.
mm k, I got my CCNA and CCNP a few months ago so that makes me a kid.. Just please stop talking as you have no idea what you're saying. I'm sorry you think having a Wife is a detriment to the funds you have. Lets pray she doesn't know you said something like that, lol.
That's funny, she actually read this already. To her if I am on this website, I might as well be sitting Indian style in the living room with a coloring book and crayons, she could care less about this.
When you aquire a few more years on your life, (how does that sound by the way? Alot less insulting than "when your grow up or hey kid" right?, at any rate, when you aquire a few more years on your life or somehow manage to get a promotion that requires more attention than you can shake a stick at you will understand someday, and you're going to fire up your pc and be like " Why can't they just give me a max level geared toon so I can do what I want? wait there is this exp potion but they want how much money? WTF? I'm just a cisco networking engineer and I have alot more things I can do with this money, especially now that the kids are in college, oh well I guess I will just go to the mmorpg.com forums and bitch and complain.
Everyone agrees on the "pay" part - means spending money
The debate comes down what *winning* means.
Different games have different variable or avenues for "winning"
Example PvP - If you can beat someone with a weapon (that is 5 times more powrerful than any in-game weapons) that is only sold in a cash shop - clear pay to win.
Pay to progress faster IMO - not pay to win as other free players will get to the same point just later.
Winning is an individual thing. Some play to become wealthy in in-game credits. Some want to be the best in PVP. Some want to gank newbs. Others want to have the strongest and most powerful guild. Some just want to make it to max level. Some want the latest and most powerful gear. Some want to have a full collection of pets. For others, it could be a combination of these things.
I think the developers would say there is no over all winning. There are just events and elements of play.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
The user and all related content has been deleted.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
There is also another factor in P2W that many don't consider. It's called Time. Not in the sense of the absolute. As in "It will take me 5 hrs of game play to reach the next level." But relative time. As in how much time and effort you put into the game compared to someone who uses "convenience" consistently. In games like GW2, it's of little consequence because progression plateaus at a relatively low level. But not most MMOs, there is a much higher plateau for progression. Then time is huge. It means that the slower paced content grinder can never close the gap.....ever. By the time he gets to where the Cash Shop spender is, the cash shop spender will have moved ahead even faster and thus widened the gap. They don't sit still either. And as long as they continue to pay, they will continue to always have an advantage. P2Winners only need to stay ahead of the curve.
A shop sells an item that lets you augment an item once to give you +1 health. It costs 10 cent. Players who support pay2win games will say "that doesn't make any different".
Now I have a duel with another player. We both have 100 life and are equally skilled. Also same level, same equipment and so on. We both deal 1 damage per second. However, I paid 10 cent in the shop to get that item, so I have 101 health. After 100 seconds, my opponent will be dead, I will be alive. I will have won. Because I paid 10 cent in the shop. I paid to win.
In other words: if you can acquire anything in the shop that gives you any kind of advantage in the game, it's a p2w game. It's then not about who is a good player anymore, or who is more dedicated. It's about who paid the most. A guild has slain a dragon. Congratulate them? Well, they probably bought that win by paying for boosts or items. Some guy has a super special mount he could have only crafted himself. Congratulate him? Nah, he probably bought dozens of crafting boosters that helped him amass the materials in 10% of the time other players would need.
The worst thing about pay 2 win however is...
In a subscription game, the developers try to create the best experience their money, skill and time can afford, to keep you playing.
In a game for which you pay only once, the developers try the same, so that the word spreads and more people buy it.
In a pay2win game, the developers try to create a game that at first sucks you in, and then over time becomes barely playable at all. They focus on throwing all kinds of obstacles into your way, that can only be removed by paying money. They don't want to create the best game possible, because then there'd no need for you to pay money. So they want to create a carrot on a stick basically, always giving you the feeling that the game is ok, but much better if you'd pay a little bit more money.
The term is kind of strange, in my mind, when used for MMOs. Can a player actually "win" an MMO?
Assuming that "winning" means getting to the end game, I see pay to win as any time that real cash can shorten that ride, IE: exchanging money for time. Quicker leveling with better gear and XP boost potions are 2 of the top ones in my eyes. Even if items in game can be earned through the game, buying those items saves those players the time and get to "the end" faster. They are "Paying to win."
If a player thinks that one can not "win" an MMO, then the term has little to no meaning.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Originally posted by Vesavius Pay to Win means, to me, simply that a game can ONLY be won by paying money. If it can be won by playing the game, then it is not P2W. AA, for example, has everything in it's cash store available for in game gold (via Apex), including it's sub. So it s not P2W. If you have the knowledge, you can start off easily as a freeb and turn your account into a patron, and buy labour pots, all by just playing. Hence it is not P2W.
This ..
A number of the guildies using the f2p in AA can do more than me or the same (I'm a patron) as they work together with each other or the other patrons amongst us.
They even sub via ingame currency by spending game gold to get apex from others. Everything I can get, they can get ..
The term is kind of strange, in my mind, when used for MMOs. Can a player actually "win" an MMO?
Assuming that "winning" means getting to the end game, I see pay to win as any time that real cash can shorten that ride, IE: exchanging money for time. Quicker leveling with better gear and XP boost potions are 2 of the top ones in my eyes. Even if items in game can be earned through the game, buying those items saves those players the time and get to "the end" faster. They are "Paying to win."
True. Paying for power and/or advantages seems to be a more accurate term of what most people seem to mean by it. Basically these games become far less about the game itself (which the P2W crowd seems totally bored by anyway) and more about spending money to show off virtual possessions. Worst trend in MMO design appealing to some of the ugliest aspects of human nature.
Anything that gives you an advantage over another by opening your wallet, Not playing the game by normal methods by paying for services to get your character to a specific level, paying to complete goals either by ingame currency or real money transaction.
Most free to play games are pay to win, just about every browser game is pay to win.
The term is kind of strange, in my mind, when used for MMOs. Can a player actually "win" an MMO?
Assuming that "winning" means getting to the end game, I see pay to win as any time that real cash can shorten that ride, IE: exchanging money for time. Quicker leveling with better gear and XP boost potions are 2 of the top ones in my eyes. Even if items in game can be earned through the game, buying those items saves those players the time and get to "the end" faster. They are "Paying to win."
True. Paying for power and/or advantages seems to be a more accurate term of what most people seem to mean by it. Basically these games become far less about the game itself (which the P2W crowd seems totally bored by anyway) and more about spending money to show off virtual possessions. Worst trend in MMO design appealing to some of the ugliest aspects of human nature.
It does seem to be more of a clash between greed and jealousy than any actual winning or advantage.
For me Pay 2 win means paying for something that will make your character better than any other characters in the game unless they also spend the same amount of money.
Pay to win has been taking to literally in its definition and those that do pay for services and items try to twist it and defend their reasoning which don't wash with me. If you pay for services where someone plays the game to get your character to a threshold you could not be bothered to do for yourself then the term pay to win defines you as that type of player.
I'm not one one of those people who changes their goalposts every year just to be able to assert that game A or B is not Pay2Win.
Pay2Win always referred to the ability to influence the game in your favor, but some people can't but help to mold it to fit their argument.
Some have even managed to warp into whole new unrelated definitions that suggest that any item present in the world, no matter how rare, negates any argument people use to point out that the cash shop offers power and increases your ability to win a battle. How they manage to do it with a straight face is beyond me.
I don't care what p2w means or is. I can accept 3 payment methods in my mmo's.
1. F2P with cash shop selling everything (no sub option at all) or if cash shop sells only cosmetics then a sub option with ingame currency or real money.
2. B2P with a cash shop selling only cosmetics (no sub option at all).
3. P2P without a cash shop (sub option available also with ingame currency).
All Time Favorites: EQ1, WoW, EvE, GW1 Playing Now: WoW, ESO, GW2
P2W in MMORPGs to me has always meant being able to buy either direct power or accelerated progression. XP boosts for example I deem P2W.
But as Syncaine put it in his blog recently, the term P2W is a little shady. He suggested using P4P, Pay-for-Power instead, and I completely agree with that - in an MMORPG context it usually makes much more sense, seeing as there are no clear winners in these games.
pay to win (and i also like the term pay for power) means for me that you can buy advantages over others for real money. in general there are three diffrent groups of advantages:
1) the less influential goods you can buy in a cashshop are f.e. xp boosts. they only equal the amount of time a player have to spend to get to the max level.
2) the most influential goods are those who gives you an advantage over others through f.e. gems to upgrade your gear. especially concerning when it comes to pvp. but there are a handfull games out there in which you can't even manage the pve content without those goods.
3) this group holds - like i call it - 'the slavery goods". these can range from a little vanity item like a hat to powerful gear up to a monthly subscription that can be sold for ingame money to other players. with real money you can buy the work of others. why i called it 'slavery'? because of the dispropotion between the real money and the hours of ingame work. lets say f.e. to buy a cashshop item with a value of 10 $ from another player you have to spend 10 hours of grinding for ingame currency. i don't know how much you earn per hour, but 1 $ seams pretty less.
gaining an advantage over people who dont pay as much as you do. That can be economical or raw char power.
If you can pay f.e. $100 and gain an advantage over others and/or are able to block/hinder others in their progress to close the gap you created by paying it is imho p2w.
Which doesn't mean that a shop is always bad. If you can buy sub status with ingame currency as f2p it gives the f2p an advantage and the person who sells it. But if the advantage was one sided i.e pay $20 for faster crafting in a craft = best gear game then it is imho something the pub should avoid.
Comments
The example that I replied to in my initial post has nothing to do with money, not directly or indirectly. It simply has to do with time spent in the game. A student or an unemployed person with $0 income can spend just as much time playing a game as a wealthy day trader. Does that mean we'll create a new category of games, called play-many-hours to win? No.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
I have the funds too, but I am also a tight wad. You will get there someday kid. Things like retirement, healthcare, and taking care of your own family trump spending money on stupid video games.
Firstly, not a kid. Secondly I make a lot of money as a Cisco Network Engineer. Thirdly you don't know my spending habits and finally you don't know my savings.
Your a kid, I remember you talking about your schooling just a couple months back, if you got your ccna or ccnp or better then yes you're rolling in cash, but once you get a wife and kids, your perspective will change, video games won't matter.Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
Everyone in the world has the same amount of time in a day to do whatever they want. How much of it one puts in one place as opposed to another isnt the issue and is not pay to win.
Having the ability to pay to offset this balance or buy items that are not available to a player through NORMAL game play (Not obxiously long tedious BS) is p2W for me.
Think of it like a job. Player x put in 10 hours to accomplish a goal while player Y only needs 1 hour because he paid for an increase in something to allow him to do it in an hour. Why is player X's time nto as valuable as Y's? Again everyone has the smae amount of time available in any given day - where you put that time or how you spend it is up to you but everyone has the same amount.
"Pay to win" is a spectrum to me, not a black and white thing. On one side you have a game like FFXIV which (last time I played it) charges a flat subscription to everyone and everything is earned in game. This is the only type of game that is not pay to win at all. Then you get games that sell cosmetics for real money. They don't bother me because I don't care at all what my toon looks like in MMOs but for people who that is a big deal to those games may seem more P2W. Then there are games that sell levels, XP, gold, gear for real money. That's where the the danger starts that they will start influencing the design of the game to get people to use the cash shop. Even if everything they sell in the shop is still available in the game by other means are they going to make it so hard to obtain that most people just will break down and use the shop? Of course most games do not sell unique most-powerful gear in the cash shop only but that is only the most extreme form of P2W not the only form of it.
That's funny, she actually read this already. To her if I am on this website, I might as well be sitting Indian style in the living room with a coloring book and crayons, she could care less about this.
When you aquire a few more years on your life, (how does that sound by the way? Alot less insulting than "when your grow up or hey kid" right?, at any rate, when you aquire a few more years on your life or somehow manage to get a promotion that requires more attention than you can shake a stick at you will understand someday, and you're going to fire up your pc and be like " Why can't they just give me a max level geared toon so I can do what I want? wait there is this exp potion but they want how much money? WTF? I'm just a cisco networking engineer and I have alot more things I can do with this money, especially now that the kids are in college, oh well I guess I will just go to the mmorpg.com forums and bitch and complain.
Winning is an individual thing. Some play to become wealthy in in-game credits. Some want to be the best in PVP. Some want to gank newbs. Others want to have the strongest and most powerful guild. Some just want to make it to max level. Some want the latest and most powerful gear. Some want to have a full collection of pets. For others, it could be a combination of these things.
I think the developers would say there is no over all winning. There are just events and elements of play.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Well.... When.... You get to the stage of life where I'm at....
I thank the Lord... I've got Hung Yung Cock my personal Chinese gold farmer... I pay him 10 bucks a week and he kicks fucking ass....
Pay-2-Win? I say bring it on!
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
There is also another factor in P2W that many don't consider. It's called Time. Not in the sense of the absolute. As in "It will take me 5 hrs of game play to reach the next level." But relative time. As in how much time and effort you put into the game compared to someone who uses "convenience" consistently. In games like GW2, it's of little consequence because progression plateaus at a relatively low level. But not most MMOs, there is a much higher plateau for progression. Then time is huge. It means that the slower paced content grinder can never close the gap.....ever. By the time he gets to where the Cash Shop spender is, the cash shop spender will have moved ahead even faster and thus widened the gap. They don't sit still either. And as long as they continue to pay, they will continue to always have an advantage. P2Winners only need to stay ahead of the curve.
PvP example:
A shop sells an item that lets you augment an item once to give you +1 health. It costs 10 cent. Players who support pay2win games will say "that doesn't make any different".
Now I have a duel with another player. We both have 100 life and are equally skilled. Also same level, same equipment and so on. We both deal 1 damage per second. However, I paid 10 cent in the shop to get that item, so I have 101 health. After 100 seconds, my opponent will be dead, I will be alive. I will have won. Because I paid 10 cent in the shop. I paid to win.
In other words: if you can acquire anything in the shop that gives you any kind of advantage in the game, it's a p2w game. It's then not about who is a good player anymore, or who is more dedicated. It's about who paid the most. A guild has slain a dragon. Congratulate them? Well, they probably bought that win by paying for boosts or items. Some guy has a super special mount he could have only crafted himself. Congratulate him? Nah, he probably bought dozens of crafting boosters that helped him amass the materials in 10% of the time other players would need.
The worst thing about pay 2 win however is...
In a subscription game, the developers try to create the best experience their money, skill and time can afford, to keep you playing.
In a game for which you pay only once, the developers try the same, so that the word spreads and more people buy it.
In a pay2win game, the developers try to create a game that at first sucks you in, and then over time becomes barely playable at all. They focus on throwing all kinds of obstacles into your way, that can only be removed by paying money. They don't want to create the best game possible, because then there'd no need for you to pay money. So they want to create a carrot on a stick basically, always giving you the feeling that the game is ok, but much better if you'd pay a little bit more money.
Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)
Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)
The term is kind of strange, in my mind, when used for MMOs. Can a player actually "win" an MMO?
Assuming that "winning" means getting to the end game, I see pay to win as any time that real cash can shorten that ride, IE: exchanging money for time. Quicker leveling with better gear and XP boost potions are 2 of the top ones in my eyes. Even if items in game can be earned through the game, buying those items saves those players the time and get to "the end" faster. They are "Paying to win."
If a player thinks that one can not "win" an MMO, then the term has little to no meaning.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
This ..
A number of the guildies using the f2p in AA can do more than me or the same (I'm a patron) as they work together with each other or the other patrons amongst us.
They even sub via ingame currency by spending game gold to get apex from others. Everything I can get, they can get ..
True. Paying for power and/or advantages seems to be a more accurate term of what most people seem to mean by it. Basically these games become far less about the game itself (which the P2W crowd seems totally bored by anyway) and more about spending money to show off virtual possessions. Worst trend in MMO design appealing to some of the ugliest aspects of human nature.
Anything that gives you an advantage over another by opening your wallet, Not playing the game by normal methods by paying for services to get your character to a specific level, paying to complete goals either by ingame currency or real money transaction.
Most free to play games are pay to win, just about every browser game is pay to win.
It does seem to be more of a clash between greed and jealousy than any actual winning or advantage.
For me Pay 2 win means paying for something that will make your character better than any other characters in the game unless they also spend the same amount of money.
Any cash shop that has more than cosmetics.
I'm not one one of those people who changes their goalposts every year just to be able to assert that game A or B is not Pay2Win.
Pay2Win always referred to the ability to influence the game in your favor, but some people can't but help to mold it to fit their argument.
Some have even managed to warp into whole new unrelated definitions that suggest that any item present in the world, no matter how rare, negates any argument people use to point out that the cash shop offers power and increases your ability to win a battle. How they manage to do it with a straight face is beyond me.
I don't care what p2w means or is. I can accept 3 payment methods in my mmo's.
1. F2P with cash shop selling everything (no sub option at all) or if cash shop sells only cosmetics then a sub option with ingame currency or real money.
2. B2P with a cash shop selling only cosmetics (no sub option at all).
3. P2P without a cash shop (sub option available also with ingame currency).
All Time Favorites: EQ1, WoW, EvE, GW1
Playing Now: WoW, ESO, GW2
P2W in MMORPGs to me has always meant being able to buy either direct power or accelerated progression. XP boosts for example I deem P2W.
But as Syncaine put it in his blog recently, the term P2W is a little shady. He suggested using P4P, Pay-for-Power instead, and I completely agree with that - in an MMORPG context it usually makes much more sense, seeing as there are no clear winners in these games.
The Weekly Wizardry blog
pay to win (and i also like the term pay for power) means for me that you can buy advantages over others for real money. in general there are three diffrent groups of advantages:
1) the less influential goods you can buy in a cashshop are f.e. xp boosts. they only equal the amount of time a player have to spend to get to the max level.
2) the most influential goods are those who gives you an advantage over others through f.e. gems to upgrade your gear. especially concerning when it comes to pvp. but there are a handfull games out there in which you can't even manage the pve content without those goods.
3) this group holds - like i call it - 'the slavery goods". these can range from a little vanity item like a hat to powerful gear up to a monthly subscription that can be sold for ingame money to other players. with real money you can buy the work of others. why i called it 'slavery'? because of the dispropotion between the real money and the hours of ingame work. lets say f.e. to buy a cashshop item with a value of 10 $ from another player you have to spend 10 hours of grinding for ingame currency. i don't know how much you earn per hour, but 1 $ seams pretty less.
p2w for me means
gaining an advantage over people who dont pay as much as you do. That can be economical or raw char power.
If you can pay f.e. $100 and gain an advantage over others and/or are able to block/hinder others in their progress to close the gap you created by paying it is imho p2w.
Which doesn't mean that a shop is always bad. If you can buy sub status with ingame currency as f2p it gives the f2p an advantage and the person who sells it. But if the advantage was one sided i.e pay $20 for faster crafting in a craft = best gear game then it is imho something the pub should avoid.