"Black Markets" are one of the main reasons behind the microtransaction shift.

Companies would rather make the money selling the items themselves rather than allowing players to sell their items/cash to each other outside the game's control. It makes sense, but only in a Soviet Russia kind of way.


I really don't care how someone else got what they have. It's not my concern. A level playing field, where the contents of my wallet has no standing, is what I enjoy. If I pay a monthly fee, I expect to have access to everything the game has to offer.

I think the soviet union way is probably to try to centrally plan the economy of the game. Deciding how much items are worth based on an arbitrary builder's "cost" value on the item, rather than how much people are willing to pay, is one example. But another great example is soulbound items. It's a mechanic to make valuable items become worthless artificially. And it works…kinda. There's plenty of people paying huge resources on games like WoW to have top players run them through raids/dungeons/whatever and pass them soulbound items. These artificial mechanics almost always have weird consequences. The main concern there was that players could farm out top items and trade them to other players who weren't involved in the farming process. Or maybe alts. To me this is the reek of another design problem. Equipment being too important, never deteriorating or really being damaged, and all being carbon-copies.

Anyways, I generally agree with the sentiment, but most games don't have a good model for free market trade of goods and services. It would be much better if games allowed real world trading through their official website and auction system. Then they could take a cut, without themselves ever providing items for sale. Only what the market provides with items obtained through real time and effort. It doesn't prevent players from taking real world coin and getting good items in game, but what it does provide is a way for other players to convert items into real world coin…and vice versa. That does seem to level the playing field if there's enough demand for crafting, unique, vanity, etc items.

It makes perfect sense in a we're-trying-to-earn-our-living kind of way. It's funny that you're calling what is basically pure capitalism a form of Soviet Communism…

Not really. You pay a subscription, and you're a regular player. But only regular players with wallets in-hand are able to use the item shop and get special stuff noone else gets. Sounds like communism in practice to me: Everyone's equal, but people with money are more equal than those without.

That sounds almost exactly like capitalism to me, but ok. :wink:

I would even say, pretty much any system using money. Not even limited to capitalism.
I have a very good solution with those game: not playing them.

I don't mind DLC to the extent DH described; getting the same value of goods just split into smaller pieces. I'm even ok with pay-for-perks; but only if they're vanity only (TF2 hats anybody?) or the game is very upfront about being a "freemium" game where "Yes, it's free to play, but if you wish to be competitive you WILL have to buy perks."

It feels very deceptive to me to be told that a game is free, and yes you can buy perks, but that you don't have to only to discover that as soon as you leave the newbie zone/early levels things become so exponentially scaled and difficult without paying that you would have to play an inordinate amount of time to accomplish anything fun.

While I agree about it being shady to label games as free to play which are not, it's very difficult to justify not marketing your product in that way if indeed it is technically free to play.

Technically, you can have a bicycle without tires or brakes too, but it's not very useful.

The same argument could be made about being competitive in games where advantage is overwhelming to older players. "Disclaimer: To be competitive you need to circumvent causality and the arrow of time." Point is, it's not a function of being able to play for free… competitiveness, that is. More factors are weighed out than just money, but sometimes money is one of those factors.

The bicycle analogy is very flawed – without tires or brakes, your bike simply won't function.

A much better analogy is that if you pay $50 you get a bike, but if you pay $50 and add on a $10 widget and a $25 gizmo, you'll have a bike that goes twice as fast.

I dunno, it just seems to me that if you don't like such an environment, don't play there. It's kind of like going to a high-stakes poker game and complaining that you can't afford the antes and therefore aren't competitive in the game…

Not so much complaining as stating a preference. Mobile games seem to be the most frequent offender of games that while "free", nearly require payment to be played functionally. I've pretty much given up even trying a mobile game if I read the description and find any inkling of paid perks as I don't want to invest time into a game, find myself enjoying it, and then realize I've quickly hit a brick wall unless I pay for something.

If you're going to segregate your users into paid tiers, at least be up front about it, similar to the current DC Universe offerings. I don't play it (doesn't appeal to me), but I do like how they handle their tiered structure – providing an up-front comparison of how crippled or not your account will be at various payment levels (including free). They advertise the game as free but also make it easy to look about the website and ascertain exactly what "free" is.

I can agree with that. The problem with Bribing Your Way to Victory systems is when there's no real limit to how much you can spend - the more you pay, the bigger your advantage. And even if you do win fair and square, other people will just accuse you of buying your victory.


I think a big part of the problem lies in context and expectations. If you were used to playing the big graphical muds like Ultima Online and EverQuest, where you were required to pay a monthly subscription fee, then you might view the phrase "free to play" as synonymous with "payment is optional"; you don't have to pay a monthly subscription just to play the game, but it's still very clearly a commercial product.

On the other hand the majority of muds really are free, developed and operated as hobbies, so when some of the pay-for-perks muds started advertising themselves on mud sites as "free to play" (or in some cases just "free"), many players took that claim at face value. And even if they decided to have a look at the website, they might not have thought to click on the final section labelled "credits".


Indeed. Allegedly Free Game: "A game that you can play for free, for varying definitions of "game" and the terms "play", "free", and "can"."


Like the Penny Arcade strip "Disparities"? Yes, if they're up front then at least you know what you're dealing with. Most pay-for-perks muds seem to be deliberately vague though, which isn't really surprising when you see the figures that some of their veteran players discuss, and how much of an impact those perks really have.

I discussed my payment preferences on TMS a few years ago, and they've not really changed since then.

WARNING: Do not click on KaVir's links … if you have anything else to do today.

It's interesting revisiting that post of yours, KaVir. It's also interesting to note how many of those are covered by today's MMOs. It's almost prophetic.

Yes, I agree with this completely. It's irritating to only find out later – after you've invested time and energy – that "free" means "hobbled".

They certainly should tell you definitively what requires it and how much up front.

I'm not against spending limits in games, either. It's not great for business to turn away money…but then again, neither is a 1500 chargeback. Most gaming (as in gambling) sites do enforce limits. There's no way to spend 500 dollars in a short period of time on WoW except through non-blackmarket means. And it's not out of the kindness of their hearts. In the case of pay-to-perk games, I think it could have a duel purpose. Like a "subscribe if you want to" model. Where monthly payers get perks of their choosing through virtual currency. Non-players can subscribe or not, maintaining all of their accumulated perks from the past without requiring more payment. Players would feel much better about a game clearly labeled as optional subscription. Especially since in other games, if you don't pay your subscription your account is totally deactivated.

Pay for perks doesn't bug me, even in the case where it provides an advantage, if the perk can be had by non-paid means. Time is money, after all. It's exactly the same thing for a working adult to put in 8 hours of game time for an item, and for that same adult paying for that item with 8 hours of wages.

What gets me is that when the prices of digital items are too much for what they do. Not to pick on IRE, but their artifact prices are crazy, to the tune of $100 for some items, and the in game time it would take to get those items are even crazier. I just don't feel like I'm at the point where I can drop $100 for a single item in a game, and since there's a lot of items that are pretty much mandatory to compete (not to mention skills, which are nearly impossible to level without paying), and it's not very fun to grind, I just don't play.

It's not the same thing at all. In one case you take money you must have earned somehow and you give it to this company for a product or service. In the other you give them nothing and enjoy their product and service without them receiving anything from you. 8 hours of it, no less. It's not like IRE, or whatever company, is hiring you to play their game and thus owe you money to enjoy yourself.

Well, that's part of my issue. Many of the perks cannot be obtained by in-game means. My example of Everquest 2's furniture crafting is one such data point. The "best", most detailed, models are only available on items purchased via their station cash system. No crafter can produce them through any amount of effort, and there are no equivalent-detail models available without paying.