" Free to play is an illusion."

Well, for you, yes. For most players it's no illusion. It's entirely real. As you just explained, you are paying for other people to play without having to pay any money at all. If you're good with that then please carry on.

I don't play World of Tanks so you aren't funding my gameplay but someone is paying for me to play in all the many MMORPGs I play every year without spending a single cent. If that's not "free play" for me then I seem to have lost my grasp on language.
 

> "Free to play is an illusion."

No, it's not at all. F2P gaming is real and F2P games are -indeed- free to play for the vast majority of the playerbase. The few whales who feed the company let everyone else play for free.

You may not be a whale but you keep spending money for WoT and you're fine with that. Others don't mind logging in and playing for free in their spare time, instead of paying to get instant benefits.

I like some grinding here and there. If the grinding mechanic becomes annoying I simply stop playing and move to something else, until the game gets updated (new season, new league, patches, whatever). At that point I come back to check the new stuff... Until the grinding becomes annoying (once again). Rinse repeat.

I've never spent money for F2P games unless I felt the desire to acquire some specific cosmetic item (it may have happened once or twice in years). But I've never-ever spent money to get ingame benefits. I find this business model horrible and I don't support it.
 

@Bhagpuss

Tobold's point is that the game - as a whole - is not free to play. It absolutely requires some paying "whales" to function. If the whales go extinct, the game does too.

It's great that you get "free play", from a personal, individual perspective, but you're being allowed to play by Tobold-equivalents in your chosen games, and those games most certainly aren't "free to play".

Perhaps these games should be labelled "Free to play - as long as somebody pays"?

 

> Tobold's point is that the game as a whole
> is not free to play.


Well but that's obvious, isn't it? Gaming companies aren't charities and they need to get some money "somewhere". Whales, ads, microtransctions, whatever. But the core game IS free and you can play for years without spending a cent. Take Path of Exile example (Diablo clone): it came out in 2013 and it's completely free, all of it. You can pay to get cosmetics or more inventory space (if you're a hoarder) and that's it. I've seen people spending thousands of dollars for the pure fun of wearing a shiny armor set.

Would Google services be free without advertising? No. Are Goolge services free? Yes. I've never spent a single cent for Drive, Documents, Gmail, etc. in over a decade.


 

I wouldn't call it "obvious". You can see that in the reaction of players who play for free regarding other players who pay something. Instead of being thankful that the paying players allow the free players to exist, the free players frequently show a lot of disdain for the paying players.
 

> Instead of being thankful that the paying players

I disagree.

The paying players are those who directly support this F2P business model, which I personally consider bad and unhealthy for the gaming industry (this, and lootboxes). On a side note, paying players aren't charities who donate money to make free players happy: they pay to get a direct advantage for themselves (faster progression, loot, etc) or simply because they want a Gucci/Prada equivalent in a virtual world.

I don't really see any reason to say "thank you" to any whale. We should instead promote a healthier/better business model and avoid having only that 1% that feeds the developers.
 

Well, you can't have both. Either you make the game egalitarian, which also means that everybody has to pay the same amount, and there is no free gaming. Or you make a game that can be played for free, in which case you need some other players to pay significantly more than in the egalitarian model, which they will only do if they get some advantages.
 

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> Well, you can't have both. Either you
> make the game egalitarian, which also
> means that everybody has to pay the
> same amount, and there is no free gaming.

My issue isn't with "someone pays, someone not". I'm against the F2P model when in reality it's a P2W masked as (fake) F2P, in which case those who pay AND get ingame advantages are obviously playing on a different field than free players.

Fortnite is a well known example of successful 100% F2P game. Path of Exile too and its business model is based on cosmetics since 2013.

This, or you set a fixed reasonable price for everyone ($10-$20) and offer a full-featured and FINISHED product where everyone gets the same benefits/features/advantages.
 

People only ever pay if they get some advantage out of it. And that advantage can be cosmetic, if looking better gives you greater status. But driving around a "rare" tank, which isn't better than a regular tank, in World of Tanks isn't actually any different than running around in a "rare" skin in Fortnite or Path of Exile. If one could pay to win in World of Tanks, then why do I have a completely average 48.5% win rate?
 

> People only ever pay if they get some
> advantage out of it. And that advantage
> can be cosmetic, if looking better
> gives you greater status.

Which is totally fine because looks don't change the outcome of a battle. This is a business model that I fully support.


> If one could pay to win in World of Tanks
> then why do I have a completely average
> 48.5% win rate?

Paying lets you get advantages over non-paying players but you still need to compete against other whales who -like you- pay to obtain the same advantages. We may say that if you don't pay you would go even lower than 48.5%.

So, at the end of the day, you may be a completely average player just like any random free-player... But you've had to paid for it.