To me the definition of "Pay-to-Win" has always been something in an MMO that let you gain an in-game advantage. In almost all F2P/B2P MMOs you can get some of the best gear in the game with real life money, usually by converting real life money to game currency and buying epics. For example, I can gear my character in GW2 or Neverwinter in full "epics" with real life money.
I keep hearing players and developers now say that if you can get this gear in game with game currency, it isn't "Pay-to-Win". When did this become the definition become the norm?
If I can get the best gear in the game with real life money, and I can get it with in-game currency. It is still "Pay-to-Win". Because usually you can buy in-game currency with real life money.
Star Citizen and Chris Roberts recently took this approach. In Star Citizen you can buy all the ships with real life money. When people said it was "Pay-to-Win", RSI said it isn't "Pay-to-Win" because you can buy the ships in game.
So am I wrong? What is the definition of "Pay-to-Win"?
Sorry, late to the dance. From what I've seen and understood "Pay 2 Win" as is this... you can buy advantages with real life cash that you cannot get in game (or it's so exceedingly hard as to be unlikely). One example was a space type game where you could buy a cash shop only ammo that was markedly better than the best you could get in game. Without it you basically would lose to someone with it. Period.
Now, you mention GW2 oddly, which goes as far from P2W as any game out there with a cash shop. Sure, you could buy gems, convert them to gold and buy the easy to get exotic tier of gear. However, you can get the same stats from drops, dungeons, crafting, etc. In a game where gear has such a nominal effect it's not even remotely P2W. If, however, you could buy some form of weapon that was better than anything anyone could get without spending cash, then that would be a P2W element.
Problem is what you are doing is resorting to arguement by false-authority. While I wouldn't be surprised if the statement was factualy accurate, the evidence provided is pretty weak at best....
No. What i am doing is resorting to argument by REAL-authority.
A market research firm that sells analysis and data to game devs is real authority to me (at least better than any random dude on the internet). You can stick your head in the sand but numbers are numbers.
And you know this by some other method then the companies claim of it's own expertiese? Do you actualy even know if any of the organizations it lists as customers actualy even PAID for any of it's services?
That's what I mean by false-authority. Facts are facts but simply CLAIMING you are authority, even have someone else accept that you are an authority means that you are one, anymore then a Papal Decree means the Earth is flat. You have to have something which you have some means of independantly verifying outside of the authority's own claims of it's expertiese.
I'm all for quality market research......my company has even used it....but I also know from proffesional experience in my industry that there are a TON of companies out there willing to sell you expertiese they really don't have and data that can't be reliable....and there are certainly people willing to buy that.
In order for market research to be reliable with any degree of confidence you need to think about the scope of the question being asked and what methodology is availble for collecting the data.
I'll tell you right now that NO ONE can tell you how many individuals total in the US are playing MMO's nor even the total revenue generated with ANY degree of confidence.
That's not sticking my head in the sand.... it's being realistic about what would actualy be required to collect that data.
Think about it for a moment... In order to do that you'd need to be able to tie individuals to accounts. Even non F2P games can't do that if they accept game cards as payment. Then you need to cross tabulate that information (which could only be supplied in agregate form anyway) across every single MMO that has US players...even the ones operating outside the US.
For revenue, which is actualy slightly more possible, you need to get every single MMO Publisher, including those which are not publicaly traded on a US exchange to reveal it's earnings from each MMO it operates to you. Then you'd have to figure out a way to seperate the earnings from US players from non-US Players. Something that not even a Publishers internal accounting Dept is capable of doing if they accept anything other then Credit Cards as a payment method.
Can one make an educated guess whether F2P is prooving more profitable then P2P? Alot of Dev's seem to be making that guess....so sure it's a reasonable conclusion....although that in itself is another arguement by false-authority....but at least you have some information about who those Dev's, what they've done and thier level of experience. Can one make a claim with the level of specificity in the source cited? You'd have better accuracy in calculating the number of grains of sand in all the beaches in the world.
Problem is what you are doing is resorting to arguement by false-authority. While I wouldn't be surprised if the statement was factualy accurate, the evidence provided is pretty weak at best....
No. What i am doing is resorting to argument by REAL-authority.
A market research firm that sells analysis and data to game devs is real authority to me (at least better than any random dude on the internet). You can stick your head in the sand but numbers are numbers.
This is one of the biggest hurdles to any type of meaningful discussion here. This is data that companies pay tens of thousands of dollars for. It sells for that kind of money because companies find the data accurate enough and valuable enough to pay that much. There is no logical reason to believe SuperDataResearch, NewZoo or any of the other major sources are trying to be misleading or dealing with made up numbers. To put "but I believe" as a higher level of credibility over reliable industry data is absurd, yet it's done here all the time. Cite Bartle on MUDs and you get in reply "Who is he to decide that's right?" Cite Quarterly/Annual Shareholder Reports and you get in reply that they're hiding something or the numbers are fudged. Cite a developer on their ARPU/ARPPU and you get in reply that they're not going to give the real numbers or that it is marketing spin.
GM2, that you would call a thoroughly researched industry report "weak" or claim "false authority" to counter information from professionals in the industry is a bit ...odd, no?
A claim to false authority is any based on X is considered an "expert" when there is no way to independantly verify the conclusion X has reached because they haven't provided the methodology and data for independant verification.
We don't really know if thier report has been "thoroughly" researched outside thier own claim that it is. Frankly we don't even know much about the organization publishing said report aside from thier own claims of who they are. Do you even know who thier customers actualy are, aside from thier own claims of who they are?..... or if any of those customers actualy paid for those reports or were provided them gratis?
Look I'm not trying to disagree with a report simply because I don't like what it says....I would be making the same arguement if the reports conclusions where the opposite. The real issue is the specificity with the values reported and the capacity for collecting the data that would be needed to generate those numbers with any accuracy. It's essentialy claiming that it's 93.753 degrees F. out when you don't have a thermomenter and the only thing you can measure is the lake you see over there isn't frozen and it isn't boiling either.
I accept these are regarded by the industry as experts, and that gives them credence. But that makes them questionable, being regarded as an expert in anything which can have an impact raises issues of reliability.
Need I remind you of the recent mortgage scam sanctioned by Credit Rating agencies, the Libor rate scandal and so on. I have no reason to think this MMO data experts are massaging the figures, but the idea that the industry regards them as experts so they must be fine is shaky ground.
It has been said that MMO companies sell their data to these expert sites, what all of them? I assume this is just population figures as well? The idea any company would sell its profit figures on to anyone is extremely unlikely. If you are sending your population figures to a site would you not think a bit of inflation is in order? And we come back to F2P MMO's having greater populations because they are free, that does not mean more profit.
Finally if your definition of P2P is that it has a subscription that you must have to play, what about B2P MMO's? What we may be seeing here is the effect of all the B2P MMO's being lumped in with F2P MMO's. You have to pay for the box, how are B2P MMO's free?
Nobody should be fooled by anything a game delivers to us and i don't think many are.The term free is simply the ONLY option some people have,so they might come off as defending it,but i think they probably know better.If you have been an active person in the community "real life"you would have already realized that nothing comes for free ,everything is at a cost.
The incredible way our economies have strangled our money flows has perhaps been the reason for the huge gaming craze.people have tied up all their resources in homes,cars,kids,furniture ect ect,they really have little money left to even think about getting out of the house.
Point is,if everyone had tons of money to toss around,i think f2p would be as it was 7+ years ago,an option nobody cared about and would turn a cheek at it.Since money and the economy are not going to improve anytime in my life time,we can bet more and more gamer's will adhere to the f2p monicker as you can also bet more and more will be unhappy with those products.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
That's not sticking my head in the sand.... it's being realistic about what would actualy be required to collect that data.
Think about it for a moment... In order to do that you'd need to be able to tie individuals to accounts. Even non F2P games can't do that if they accept game cards as payment. Then you need to cross tabulate that information (which could only be supplied in agregate form anyway) across every single MMO that has US players...even the ones operating outside the US.
You are sticking your head in the sand. Ignoring evidence is the definition of that.
There are many marketing research methods to get that data. One very common one is to track a random-sample panel and use statistical extrapolation. Another is what you describe. We have computers to do those things now.
It has been said that MMO companies sell their data to these expert sites, what all of them? I assume this is just population figures as well? The idea any company would sell its profit figures on to anyone is extremely unlikely. If you are sending your population figures to a site would you not think a bit of inflation is in order? And we come back to F2P MMO's having greater populations because they are free, that does not mean more profit.
Finally if your definition of P2P is that it has a subscription that you must have to play, what about B2P MMO's? What we may be seeing here is the effect of all the B2P MMO's being lumped in with F2P MMO's. You have to pay for the box, how are B2P MMO's free?
Ever heard of NPD? Ever heard of nielsen ratings? These kind of research is done everyday.
And latest data does show that F2P makes more money. Igoring the evidence won't make it go away.
And what about B2P? It is clear that P2P is in decline. That statement says nothing about B2P.
That's not sticking my head in the sand.... it's being realistic about what would actualy be required to collect that data.
Think about it for a moment... In order to do that you'd need to be able to tie individuals to accounts. Even non F2P games can't do that if they accept game cards as payment. Then you need to cross tabulate that information (which could only be supplied in agregate form anyway) across every single MMO that has US players...even the ones operating outside the US.
You are sticking your head in the sand. Ignoring evidence is the definition of that.
There are many marketing research methods to get that data. One very common one is to track a random-sample panel and use statistical extrapolation. Another is what you describe. We have computers to do those things now.
No, what I'm doing specificaly is questioning HERESAY.....evidence has the requirement of being EXAMINABLE.
Even the organizations that do big political polls publish thier sampling methodology and weighting along with thier results so that it can be examined for bias or flaws.
Having computers is irrelevent....you have to be able to get the data from somewhere. If you are doing random sampling/polling then you have to make sure there is no statistical bias in your sample group nor in the format of your poll.
"Because we say so" isn't very strong evidence even when presented by someone who is supposed to be an expert....that is exactly what an arguement from false authority is all about. That's especialy true when you are unable to independantly verify the "experts" credentials or understand if they would (as many "experts" do because they also sell consulting services in addition to reports) motivation for bias in reporting.
You are only all fired up about this because you like what the report has to say. If it said the opposite you'd be ignoring it yourself. I just happen to be a bit more realistic about the reliability of reports published by market research firms from direct experience in my own industry.....especialy when you consider what data would need to be collected in order to answer with the specificity they do. I also happen to have a little direct insight on what counting "Users" actualy means when dealing with web applications.
You can ACCOUNTS logged in over a specific time period. You can count time those accounts were logged in if you are using a session based application. If you set your application up to do it you can even count with relative accuracy where those users are coming from using geolocation off the IP address. What you absolutely can NOT do with any accuracy is determine the number of individuals those accounts represent without a means of tying them to a real world ID.
Even the organizations that do big political polls publish thier sampling methodology and weighting along with thier results so that it can be examined for bias or flaws.
You are only all fired up about this because you like what the report has to say. If it said the opposite you'd be ignoring it yourself. I just happen to be a bit more realistic about the reliability of reports published by market research firms from direct experience in my own industry.....especialy when you consider what data would need to be collected in order to answer with the specificity they do. I also happen to have a little direct insight on what counting "Users" actualy means when dealing with web applications.
Their methodology and data are all available on their website. They are selling it.
You only question it because you don't like the conclusion.
Do you question NPD report, nielsen report too? Do you run down their methodology everytime NPD is saying the video game industry is declining by x%?
I think you are just questioning this particular result (and not even do some research on their website) because you don't like what the data says.
I don't consider the ability to buy gear with real-world cash to be pay-to-win if the same gear can be obtained in-game. At best you're buying a temporary advantage, and in the long run you're paying to not have the mechanical experience of the players that worked for their gear - giving the advantage to the person that worked for their gear. If you want to buy a full set of epics with real-world cash, you're only giving yourself a disadvantage in the long run.
Problem is what you are doing is resorting to arguement by false-authority. While I wouldn't be surprised if the statement was factualy accurate, the evidence provided is pretty weak at best....
No. What i am doing is resorting to argument by REAL-authority.
A market research firm that sells analysis and data to game devs is real authority to me (at least better than any random dude on the internet). You can stick your head in the sand but numbers are numbers.
This is one of the biggest hurdles to any type of meaningful discussion here. This is data that companies pay tens of thousands of dollars for. It sells for that kind of money because companies find the data accurate enough and valuable enough to pay that much. There is no logical reason to believe SuperDataResearch, NewZoo or any of the other major sources are trying to be misleading or dealing with made up numbers. To put "but I believe" as a higher level of credibility over reliable industry data is absurd, yet it's done here all the time. Cite Bartle on MUDs and you get in reply "Who is he to decide that's right?" Cite Quarterly/Annual Shareholder Reports and you get in reply that they're hiding something or the numbers are fudged. Cite a developer on their ARPU/ARPPU and you get in reply that they're not going to give the real numbers or that it is marketing spin.
GM2, that you would call a thoroughly researched industry report "weak" or claim "false authority" to counter information from professionals in the industry is a bit ...odd, no?
A claim to false authority is any based on X is considered an "expert" when there is no way to independantly verify the conclusion X has reached because they haven't provided the methodology and data for independant verification.
We don't really know if thier report has been "thoroughly" researched outside thier own claim that it is. Frankly we don't even know much about the organization publishing said report aside from thier own claims of who they are. Do you even know who thier customers actualy are, aside from thier own claims of who they are?..... or if any of those customers actualy paid for those reports or were provided them gratis?
While I have the sinking feeling this will still be dismissed with "but do we REALLY know it's accurate? do we REALLY know anything about them?" below are some links for you.
I really do want to point out that it's ridiculous to have to Google this for you. Also, don't say "we don't know." YOU don't know. Your lack of familiarity with the subject matter you chose to discuss - and, yes, if you're going to talk microtransactions, you should at least be somewhat familiar with the data and their sources - and unwillingness to do simple research shouldn't be our problem. They've been supplying data that investors and financial companies have been using for four years now. It's not like they're a pack of nobodies that crawled out of the woodwork yesterday.
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
Even the organizations that do big political polls publish thier sampling methodology and weighting along with thier results so that it can be examined for bias or flaws.
You are only all fired up about this because you like what the report has to say. If it said the opposite you'd be ignoring it yourself. I just happen to be a bit more realistic about the reliability of reports published by market research firms from direct experience in my own industry.....especialy when you consider what data would need to be collected in order to answer with the specificity they do. I also happen to have a little direct insight on what counting "Users" actualy means when dealing with web applications.
Their methodology and data are all available on their website. They are selling it.
You only question it because you don't like the conclusion.
Do you question NPD report, nielsen report too? Do you run down their methodology everytime NPD is saying the video game industry is declining by x%?
I think you are just questioning this particular result (and not even do some research on their website) because you don't like what the data says.
Nari,
I don't care what the data says. Data is data, it has no direct effect on me. Heck I hardly play MMO's anymore anyway....and the one I'm somewhat interested in is getting published and fully realizes it will be a niche product (and depending upon how you count it's payment model could even be considered "F2P" since it's pay for training time)...so again no direct effect on me.
What I care about is people putting so much stock in published market research reports that often are very skewed and impercise measurement tools.
I do stand corrected on one thing....they have published thier basic methodology.....http://www.superdataresearch.com/methodology/. Looking at that you can understand a couple things....
- They can't tell the number of INDIVIDUALS playing MMO's....only the agregate number of accounts logged in accross thier sample base over a monthly period and extrapolating for thier. So they 50 million doesn't represent PEOPLE only accounts.... they really have no idea if accounts per person is weighted disproportionately accross thier sample base.
- They'd also have to engage in some weighting since they are only handling 50 publishers accross all genre's of online games (not just MMO's).....and we don't know how accurate thier weighting of all MMO's is based on thier sample base.
- They also,. of course, rely on voluntary aggregate reporting from thier individual publishers. Which makes it difficult to determine if there is accidental or intentional bias in the reporting.
- They also provide no information on how they actualy go about categorizing MMO's into different classifications. For example is "hybrid" classified as F2P, P2P? Is it split accross categories based upon whether the revenue was from the subscription portion of the game or the RMT portion? This would make a difference in the final tabulation.
I'm going to have to stand by what I said before....better then some random dude on the internet but still pretty weak evidence.
Problem is what you are doing is resorting to arguement by false-authority. While I wouldn't be surprised if the statement was factualy accurate, the evidence provided is pretty weak at best....
No. What i am doing is resorting to argument by REAL-authority.
A market research firm that sells analysis and data to game devs is real authority to me (at least better than any random dude on the internet). You can stick your head in the sand but numbers are numbers.
This is one of the biggest hurdles to any type of meaningful discussion here. This is data that companies pay tens of thousands of dollars for. It sells for that kind of money because companies find the data accurate enough and valuable enough to pay that much. There is no logical reason to believe SuperDataResearch, NewZoo or any of the other major sources are trying to be misleading or dealing with made up numbers. To put "but I believe" as a higher level of credibility over reliable industry data is absurd, yet it's done here all the time. Cite Bartle on MUDs and you get in reply "Who is he to decide that's right?" Cite Quarterly/Annual Shareholder Reports and you get in reply that they're hiding something or the numbers are fudged. Cite a developer on their ARPU/ARPPU and you get in reply that they're not going to give the real numbers or that it is marketing spin.
GM2, that you would call a thoroughly researched industry report "weak" or claim "false authority" to counter information from professionals in the industry is a bit ...odd, no?
A claim to false authority is any based on X is considered an "expert" when there is no way to independantly verify the conclusion X has reached because they haven't provided the methodology and data for independant verification.
We don't really know if thier report has been "thoroughly" researched outside thier own claim that it is. Frankly we don't even know much about the organization publishing said report aside from thier own claims of who they are. Do you even know who thier customers actualy are, aside from thier own claims of who they are?..... or if any of those customers actualy paid for those reports or were provided them gratis?
While I have the sinking feeling this will still be dismissed with "but do we REALLY know it's accurate? do we REALLY know anything about them?" below are some links for you.
I really do want to point out that it's ridiculous to have to Google this for you. Also, don't say "we don't know." YOU don't know. Your lack of familiarity with the subject matter you chose to discuss - and, yes, if you're going to talk microtransactions, you should at least be somewhat familiar with the data and their sources - and unwillingness to do simple research shouldn't be our problem. They've been supplying data that investors and financial companies have been using for four years now. It's not like they're a pack of nobodies that crawled out of the woodwork yesterday.
Loktofeit, the onus is ALWAYS on the individual making the claim or citing a source to provide evidence of the credability of the source.... rules of debate.....but thank you for that.
Originally posted by jalexbrown I don't consider the ability to buy gear with real-world cash to be pay-to-win if the same gear can be obtained in-game. At best you're buying a temporary advantage, and in the long run you're paying to not have the mechanical experience of the players that worked for their gear - giving the advantage to the person that worked for their gear. If you want to buy a full set of epics with real-world cash, you're only giving yourself a disadvantage in the long run.
Time is money.
Everything your experience is temporary .. including your life.
Originally posted by jalexbrown I don't consider the ability to buy gear with real-world cash to be pay-to-win if the same gear can be obtained in-game. At best you're buying a temporary advantage, and in the long run you're paying to not have the mechanical experience of the players that worked for their gear - giving the advantage to the person that worked for their gear. If you want to buy a full set of epics with real-world cash, you're only giving yourself a disadvantage in the long run.
Time is money.
Everything your experience is temporary .. including your life.
If you want to spend cash on an advantage that might last a month or two at best and then be at a disadvantage once the rest of players catch up, then be my guest. I'll gladly enjoy my game for free, and you'd be one of the suckers that would be funding it.
Originally posted by jalexbrown I don't consider the ability to buy gear with real-world cash to be pay-to-win if the same gear can be obtained in-game. At best you're buying a temporary advantage, and in the long run you're paying to not have the mechanical experience of the players that worked for their gear - giving the advantage to the person that worked for their gear. If you want to buy a full set of epics with real-world cash, you're only giving yourself a disadvantage in the long run.
Time is money.
Everything your experience is temporary .. including your life.
If you want to spend cash on an advantage that might last a month or two at best and then be at a disadvantage once the rest of players catch up, then be my guest. I'll gladly enjoy my game for free, and you'd be one of the suckers that would be funding it.
Oh .. i never pay for a F2P game. I am, like you, one of the freeloaders.
However, the point still stands. Everything is temporary.
Originally posted by jalexbrown I don't consider the ability to buy gear with real-world cash to be pay-to-win if the same gear can be obtained in-game. At best you're buying a temporary advantage, and in the long run you're paying to not have the mechanical experience of the players that worked for their gear - giving the advantage to the person that worked for their gear. If you want to buy a full set of epics with real-world cash, you're only giving yourself a disadvantage in the long run.
Time is money.
Everything your experience is temporary .. including your life.
If you want to spend cash on an advantage that might last a month or two at best and then be at a disadvantage once the rest of players catch up, then be my guest. I'll gladly enjoy my game for free, and you'd be one of the suckers that would be funding it.
Oh .. i never pay for a F2P game. I am, like you, one of the freeloaders.
However, the point still stands. Everything is temporary.
I'll derail the thread for this one...time itself isn't temporary. If time itself was temporary, there would nothing to measure it's temporality.
Problem is what you are doing is resorting to arguement by false-authority. While I wouldn't be surprised if the statement was factualy accurate, the evidence provided is pretty weak at best....
No. What i am doing is resorting to argument by REAL-authority.
A market research firm that sells analysis and data to game devs is real authority to me (at least better than any random dude on the internet). You can stick your head in the sand but numbers are numbers.
This is one of the biggest hurdles to any type of meaningful discussion here. This is data that companies pay tens of thousands of dollars for. It sells for that kind of money because companies find the data accurate enough and valuable enough to pay that much. There is no logical reason to believe SuperDataResearch, NewZoo or any of the other major sources are trying to be misleading or dealing with made up numbers. To put "but I believe" as a higher level of credibility over reliable industry data is absurd, yet it's done here all the time. Cite Bartle on MUDs and you get in reply "Who is he to decide that's right?" Cite Quarterly/Annual Shareholder Reports and you get in reply that they're hiding something or the numbers are fudged. Cite a developer on their ARPU/ARPPU and you get in reply that they're not going to give the real numbers or that it is marketing spin.
GM2, that you would call a thoroughly researched industry report "weak" or claim "false authority" to counter information from professionals in the industry is a bit ...odd, no?
A claim to false authority is any based on X is considered an "expert" when there is no way to independantly verify the conclusion X has reached because they haven't provided the methodology and data for independant verification.
We don't really know if thier report has been "thoroughly" researched outside thier own claim that it is. Frankly we don't even know much about the organization publishing said report aside from thier own claims of who they are. Do you even know who thier customers actualy are, aside from thier own claims of who they are?..... or if any of those customers actualy paid for those reports or were provided them gratis?
While I have the sinking feeling this will still be dismissed with "but do we REALLY know it's accurate? do we REALLY know anything about them?" below are some links for you.
I really do want to point out that it's ridiculous to have to Google this for you. Also, don't say "we don't know." YOU don't know. Your lack of familiarity with the subject matter you chose to discuss - and, yes, if you're going to talk microtransactions, you should at least be somewhat familiar with the data and their sources - and unwillingness to do simple research shouldn't be our problem. They've been supplying data that investors and financial companies have been using for four years now. It's not like they're a pack of nobodies that crawled out of the woodwork yesterday.
Loktofeit, the onus is ALWAYS on the individual making the claim or citing a source to provide evidence of the credability of the source.... rules of debate.....but thank you for that.
I work with this stuff all day, so I made the false assumption that more of it was common knowledge than evidently actually is. My bad, man.
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
Pay-to-Win is when you pay money to get an advantage in-game. Eg. paying $5 to get a better piece of gear or to increase your XP gains for a while.
Doesn't matter if you can get the stuff by playing longer. A player not paying has to beat the boss to win his loot. The player who pays wins without facing that challenge.
What Pay-To-Win is not, is paying money to get purely cosmetic things such as a different skin on your character.
Pay-to-Win is when you pay money to get an advantage in-game. Eg. paying $5 to get a better piece of gear or to increase your XP gains for a while.
Doesn't matter if you can get the stuff by playing longer. A player not paying has to beat the boss to win his loot. The player who pays wins without facing that challenge.
What Pay-To-Win is not, is paying money to get purely cosmetic things such as a different skin on your character.
But if I beat the boss and get the same thing you got with your cash, I think I got the winning experience. How did you win, exactly? I got the more enjoyable experience, and I will naturally be more skilled at the game than you since I had to learn and apply skills to beat the boss you bypassed with cash. Again, how did you win?
You're not wrong when it comes to games like GW2 because Anet actively destroyed all chances of getting open world loot solo in that game and had a single currency for getting gear or crafting items for gear. They implemented DR just after launch saying they've been going after the bots. It's almost a year later and there hasnt been any bots for months now that actually farm enemies yet they hold onto this fail system which is harming the playerbase (bots have switched to farming nodes only not mobs). They also actively nerfed the acquisition of karma, the in game currency. And when they added RNG boxes to the Laurel vendor they didn't retro the laurels (another currency to offset the complaints about their loot issues) to allow people who had already completed achievements like crazy to be compensated for their time. Overall their economy is the worst I've ever seen in any game. It's currently 400% inflated since November. It should never cost that much to get upgrades or to get enchantments (runes/sigils) for your alts. EVER. Their single currency system basically forces new players to have to buy things with gold (especially the runes) because there are no other options that don't take months of grinding.
NWO is still in it's infancy as far as gear goes. And since I've not rushed to the end game I cannot comment on how this will look in the future. If in fact they don't limit farming for in game currency then this game, just like STO, will have a very balanced economy in the long run. There's nothing you absolutely have to have using AD from my game experience with this title. I have never run out of ID scrolls or potions so I don't see that as a problem and dungeons as far as I can see aren't geared towards needing a rez scroll every minute like in GW2 where people have to release/run to finish dungeons or only play 1 dungeon path over and over again because it's the only one tolerable by most of the population.
There's also another game you left out. D3. They pulled the same loot snafoo on their players as GW2 has. They made the chances of getting loot so incredibly low in some cases that people were getting nothing all the time. The result of this was a 60% loss of their playerbase all at once. It was the Blizzards form of Diminishing Returns similar to what happened in GW2. Blizzard did this so that people would be forced to use the RMAH in the game for end game gear and thus they'd make a higher profit.
So you're right in some cases, it can be troublesome if there's no way to get gear in game, especially for new players, the only option left is to spend real money.
Pay-to-Win is when you pay money to get an advantage in-game. Eg. paying $5 to get a better piece of gear or to increase your XP gains for a while.
Doesn't matter if you can get the stuff by playing longer. A player not paying has to beat the boss to win his loot. The player who pays wins without facing that challenge.
What Pay-To-Win is not, is paying money to get purely cosmetic things such as a different skin on your character.
But if I beat the boss and get the same thing you got with your cash, I think I got the winning experience. How did you win, exactly? I got the more enjoyable experience, and I will naturally be more skilled at the game than you since I had to learn and apply skills to beat the boss you bypassed with cash. Again, how did you win?
One has to define what it means to "win" in a specific MMO as clearly it can mean different things to different people.
To give a less ambigous example.....We are playing World of Tanks. Your side is down to only you. My side is down to only me. You bought Gold Ammo which does 5 extra damage and that is enough to destroy my tank before I can fire the shot which destroys your tank. Did you not just pay to "Win" ?
Pay-to-Win is when you pay money to get an advantage in-game. Eg. paying $5 to get a better piece of gear or to increase your XP gains for a while.
Doesn't matter if you can get the stuff by playing longer. A player not paying has to beat the boss to win his loot. The player who pays wins without facing that challenge.
What Pay-To-Win is not, is paying money to get purely cosmetic things such as a different skin on your character.
But if I beat the boss and get the same thing you got with your cash, I think I got the winning experience. How did you win, exactly? I got the more enjoyable experience, and I will naturally be more skilled at the game than you since I had to learn and apply skills to beat the boss you bypassed with cash. Again, how did you win?
I personally agree that the game is much more fun if you actually play it, rather than pay money to skip past it to the end. And that would be my preferred road. Doesn't change the fact that the other guy gets the reward from the game without having to put in any effort for it. You (and me) play to win. That other guy pays to win.
Pay-to-win: Paying for an item, that gives an advantage and which is unobtainable without spending money.
What if the item is obtainable without spending money, but you win because you bought one over guys who don't have it because they didn't? Pay to win. Don't pretend it's anything less.
Comments
Sorry, late to the dance. From what I've seen and understood "Pay 2 Win" as is this... you can buy advantages with real life cash that you cannot get in game (or it's so exceedingly hard as to be unlikely). One example was a space type game where you could buy a cash shop only ammo that was markedly better than the best you could get in game. Without it you basically would lose to someone with it. Period.
Now, you mention GW2 oddly, which goes as far from P2W as any game out there with a cash shop. Sure, you could buy gems, convert them to gold and buy the easy to get exotic tier of gear. However, you can get the same stats from drops, dungeons, crafting, etc. In a game where gear has such a nominal effect it's not even remotely P2W. If, however, you could buy some form of weapon that was better than anything anyone could get without spending cash, then that would be a P2W element.
Oderint, dum metuant.
And you know this by some other method then the companies claim of it's own expertiese? Do you actualy even know if any of the organizations it lists as customers actualy even PAID for any of it's services?
That's what I mean by false-authority. Facts are facts but simply CLAIMING you are authority, even have someone else accept that you are an authority means that you are one, anymore then a Papal Decree means the Earth is flat. You have to have something which you have some means of independantly verifying outside of the authority's own claims of it's expertiese.
I'm all for quality market research......my company has even used it....but I also know from proffesional experience in my industry that there are a TON of companies out there willing to sell you expertiese they really don't have and data that can't be reliable....and there are certainly people willing to buy that.
In order for market research to be reliable with any degree of confidence you need to think about the scope of the question being asked and what methodology is availble for collecting the data.
I'll tell you right now that NO ONE can tell you how many individuals total in the US are playing MMO's nor even the total revenue generated with ANY degree of confidence.
That's not sticking my head in the sand.... it's being realistic about what would actualy be required to collect that data.
Think about it for a moment... In order to do that you'd need to be able to tie individuals to accounts. Even non F2P games can't do that if they accept game cards as payment. Then you need to cross tabulate that information (which could only be supplied in agregate form anyway) across every single MMO that has US players...even the ones operating outside the US.
For revenue, which is actualy slightly more possible, you need to get every single MMO Publisher, including those which are not publicaly traded on a US exchange to reveal it's earnings from each MMO it operates to you. Then you'd have to figure out a way to seperate the earnings from US players from non-US Players. Something that not even a Publishers internal accounting Dept is capable of doing if they accept anything other then Credit Cards as a payment method.
Can one make an educated guess whether F2P is prooving more profitable then P2P? Alot of Dev's seem to be making that guess....so sure it's a reasonable conclusion....although that in itself is another arguement by false-authority....but at least you have some information about who those Dev's, what they've done and thier level of experience. Can one make a claim with the level of specificity in the source cited? You'd have better accuracy in calculating the number of grains of sand in all the beaches in the world.
A claim to false authority is any based on X is considered an "expert" when there is no way to independantly verify the conclusion X has reached because they haven't provided the methodology and data for independant verification.
We don't really know if thier report has been "thoroughly" researched outside thier own claim that it is. Frankly we don't even know much about the organization publishing said report aside from thier own claims of who they are. Do you even know who thier customers actualy are, aside from thier own claims of who they are?..... or if any of those customers actualy paid for those reports or were provided them gratis?
Look I'm not trying to disagree with a report simply because I don't like what it says....I would be making the same arguement if the reports conclusions where the opposite. The real issue is the specificity with the values reported and the capacity for collecting the data that would be needed to generate those numbers with any accuracy. It's essentialy claiming that it's 93.753 degrees F. out when you don't have a thermomenter and the only thing you can measure is the lake you see over there isn't frozen and it isn't boiling either.
I accept these are regarded by the industry as experts, and that gives them credence. But that makes them questionable, being regarded as an expert in anything which can have an impact raises issues of reliability.
Need I remind you of the recent mortgage scam sanctioned by Credit Rating agencies, the Libor rate scandal and so on. I have no reason to think this MMO data experts are massaging the figures, but the idea that the industry regards them as experts so they must be fine is shaky ground.
It has been said that MMO companies sell their data to these expert sites, what all of them? I assume this is just population figures as well? The idea any company would sell its profit figures on to anyone is extremely unlikely. If you are sending your population figures to a site would you not think a bit of inflation is in order? And we come back to F2P MMO's having greater populations because they are free, that does not mean more profit.
Finally if your definition of P2P is that it has a subscription that you must have to play, what about B2P MMO's? What we may be seeing here is the effect of all the B2P MMO's being lumped in with F2P MMO's. You have to pay for the box, how are B2P MMO's free?
Nobody should be fooled by anything a game delivers to us and i don't think many are.The term free is simply the ONLY option some people have,so they might come off as defending it,but i think they probably know better.If you have been an active person in the community "real life"you would have already realized that nothing comes for free ,everything is at a cost.
The incredible way our economies have strangled our money flows has perhaps been the reason for the huge gaming craze.people have tied up all their resources in homes,cars,kids,furniture ect ect,they really have little money left to even think about getting out of the house.
Point is,if everyone had tons of money to toss around,i think f2p would be as it was 7+ years ago,an option nobody cared about and would turn a cheek at it.Since money and the economy are not going to improve anytime in my life time,we can bet more and more gamer's will adhere to the f2p monicker as you can also bet more and more will be unhappy with those products.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
You are sticking your head in the sand. Ignoring evidence is the definition of that.
There are many marketing research methods to get that data. One very common one is to track a random-sample panel and use statistical extrapolation. Another is what you describe. We have computers to do those things now.
Ever heard of NPD? Ever heard of nielsen ratings? These kind of research is done everyday.
And latest data does show that F2P makes more money. Igoring the evidence won't make it go away.
And what about B2P? It is clear that P2P is in decline. That statement says nothing about B2P.
No, what I'm doing specificaly is questioning HERESAY.....evidence has the requirement of being EXAMINABLE.
Even the organizations that do big political polls publish thier sampling methodology and weighting along with thier results so that it can be examined for bias or flaws.
Having computers is irrelevent....you have to be able to get the data from somewhere. If you are doing random sampling/polling then you have to make sure there is no statistical bias in your sample group nor in the format of your poll.
"Because we say so" isn't very strong evidence even when presented by someone who is supposed to be an expert....that is exactly what an arguement from false authority is all about. That's especialy true when you are unable to independantly verify the "experts" credentials or understand if they would (as many "experts" do because they also sell consulting services in addition to reports) motivation for bias in reporting.
You are only all fired up about this because you like what the report has to say. If it said the opposite you'd be ignoring it yourself. I just happen to be a bit more realistic about the reliability of reports published by market research firms from direct experience in my own industry.....especialy when you consider what data would need to be collected in order to answer with the specificity they do. I also happen to have a little direct insight on what counting "Users" actualy means when dealing with web applications.
You can ACCOUNTS logged in over a specific time period. You can count time those accounts were logged in if you are using a session based application. If you set your application up to do it you can even count with relative accuracy where those users are coming from using geolocation off the IP address. What you absolutely can NOT do with any accuracy is determine the number of individuals those accounts represent without a means of tying them to a real world ID.
While I have the sinking feeling this will still be dismissed with "but do we REALLY know it's accurate? do we REALLY know anything about them?" below are some links for you.
I really do want to point out that it's ridiculous to have to Google this for you. Also, don't say "we don't know." YOU don't know. Your lack of familiarity with the subject matter you chose to discuss - and, yes, if you're going to talk microtransactions, you should at least be somewhat familiar with the data and their sources - and unwillingness to do simple research shouldn't be our problem. They've been supplying data that investors and financial companies have been using for four years now. It's not like they're a pack of nobodies that crawled out of the woodwork yesterday.
http://www.superdataresearch.com/methodology/
http://www.superdataresearch.com/about/
Their data and credentials are good enough for WSJ, GiGSE, NYTimes, PlaySpan and VISA, so they're good enough for me.
You're also free to contact them with any questions you have: http://www.superdataresearch.com/contact/
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
Nari,
I don't care what the data says. Data is data, it has no direct effect on me. Heck I hardly play MMO's anymore anyway....and the one I'm somewhat interested in is getting published and fully realizes it will be a niche product (and depending upon how you count it's payment model could even be considered "F2P" since it's pay for training time)...so again no direct effect on me.
What I care about is people putting so much stock in published market research reports that often are very skewed and impercise measurement tools.
I do stand corrected on one thing....they have published thier basic methodology.....http://www.superdataresearch.com/methodology/. Looking at that you can understand a couple things....
- They can't tell the number of INDIVIDUALS playing MMO's....only the agregate number of accounts logged in accross thier sample base over a monthly period and extrapolating for thier. So they 50 million doesn't represent PEOPLE only accounts.... they really have no idea if accounts per person is weighted disproportionately accross thier sample base.
- They'd also have to engage in some weighting since they are only handling 50 publishers accross all genre's of online games (not just MMO's).....and we don't know how accurate thier weighting of all MMO's is based on thier sample base.
- They also,. of course, rely on voluntary aggregate reporting from thier individual publishers. Which makes it difficult to determine if there is accidental or intentional bias in the reporting.
- They also provide no information on how they actualy go about categorizing MMO's into different classifications. For example is "hybrid" classified as F2P, P2P? Is it split accross categories based upon whether the revenue was from the subscription portion of the game or the RMT portion? This would make a difference in the final tabulation.
I'm going to have to stand by what I said before....better then some random dude on the internet but still pretty weak evidence.
Loktofeit, the onus is ALWAYS on the individual making the claim or citing a source to provide evidence of the credability of the source.... rules of debate.....but thank you for that.
Time is money.
Everything your experience is temporary .. including your life.
If you want to spend cash on an advantage that might last a month or two at best and then be at a disadvantage once the rest of players catch up, then be my guest. I'll gladly enjoy my game for free, and you'd be one of the suckers that would be funding it.
Oh .. i never pay for a F2P game. I am, like you, one of the freeloaders.
However, the point still stands. Everything is temporary.
I'll derail the thread for this one...time itself isn't temporary. If time itself was temporary, there would nothing to measure it's temporality.
I work with this stuff all day, so I made the false assumption that more of it was common knowledge than evidently actually is. My bad, man.
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
Pay-to-Win is when you pay money to get an advantage in-game. Eg. paying $5 to get a better piece of gear or to increase your XP gains for a while.
Doesn't matter if you can get the stuff by playing longer. A player not paying has to beat the boss to win his loot. The player who pays wins without facing that challenge.
What Pay-To-Win is not, is paying money to get purely cosmetic things such as a different skin on your character.
But if I beat the boss and get the same thing you got with your cash, I think I got the winning experience. How did you win, exactly? I got the more enjoyable experience, and I will naturally be more skilled at the game than you since I had to learn and apply skills to beat the boss you bypassed with cash. Again, how did you win?
You're not wrong when it comes to games like GW2 because Anet actively destroyed all chances of getting open world loot solo in that game and had a single currency for getting gear or crafting items for gear. They implemented DR just after launch saying they've been going after the bots. It's almost a year later and there hasnt been any bots for months now that actually farm enemies yet they hold onto this fail system which is harming the playerbase (bots have switched to farming nodes only not mobs). They also actively nerfed the acquisition of karma, the in game currency. And when they added RNG boxes to the Laurel vendor they didn't retro the laurels (another currency to offset the complaints about their loot issues) to allow people who had already completed achievements like crazy to be compensated for their time. Overall their economy is the worst I've ever seen in any game. It's currently 400% inflated since November. It should never cost that much to get upgrades or to get enchantments (runes/sigils) for your alts. EVER. Their single currency system basically forces new players to have to buy things with gold (especially the runes) because there are no other options that don't take months of grinding.
NWO is still in it's infancy as far as gear goes. And since I've not rushed to the end game I cannot comment on how this will look in the future. If in fact they don't limit farming for in game currency then this game, just like STO, will have a very balanced economy in the long run. There's nothing you absolutely have to have using AD from my game experience with this title. I have never run out of ID scrolls or potions so I don't see that as a problem and dungeons as far as I can see aren't geared towards needing a rez scroll every minute like in GW2 where people have to release/run to finish dungeons or only play 1 dungeon path over and over again because it's the only one tolerable by most of the population.
There's also another game you left out. D3. They pulled the same loot snafoo on their players as GW2 has. They made the chances of getting loot so incredibly low in some cases that people were getting nothing all the time. The result of this was a 60% loss of their playerbase all at once. It was the Blizzards form of Diminishing Returns similar to what happened in GW2. Blizzard did this so that people would be forced to use the RMAH in the game for end game gear and thus they'd make a higher profit.
So you're right in some cases, it can be troublesome if there's no way to get gear in game, especially for new players, the only option left is to spend real money.
Pay-to-win: Paying for an item, that gives an advantage and which is unobtainable without spending money.
One has to define what it means to "win" in a specific MMO as clearly it can mean different things to different people.
To give a less ambigous example.....We are playing World of Tanks. Your side is down to only you. My side is down to only me. You bought Gold Ammo which does 5 extra damage and that is enough to destroy my tank before I can fire the shot which destroys your tank. Did you not just pay to "Win" ?
I personally agree that the game is much more fun if you actually play it, rather than pay money to skip past it to the end. And that would be my preferred road. Doesn't change the fact that the other guy gets the reward from the game without having to put in any effort for it. You (and me) play to win. That other guy pays to win.
What if the item is obtainable without spending money, but you win because you bought one over guys who don't have it because they didn't? Pay to win. Don't pretend it's anything less.