Thread: Why do so many people hate free2play games?

The player usually found in f2p games are not the nicest to be around,generally it attracts ultra competitive egos with big wallets who will pay through the nose to steamroll anyone below them.I may have been one of those in quite a few games to my shame(although never as bad as some of the truly horrendous people i've come across)

The business model in the majority of the f2p games and the devs mistreatment of its playerbase(bad support,no communication,constant money grabs etc)also goes a long way to making the community resentfull and intolerant of each other...this does confuse me though,you would think a"us against them mentality"would come out of this,but usually it isn't the case in my experience,it just becomes everyone against everyone.

Just 2 reasons i hated the f2p games,but in my(admittedly short)experience with lotr,this game at least seems to have got it right.It feels much different here.

Originally Posted by TheREALify

There's no denying it: it's simply more expensive to play a F2P game when considered in aggregate. Players, on average, spend more monthly through various microtransactions than they would if they had been paying a monthly subscription rate.

People will spend money more easily if it's in small amounts - they don't see it adding up. It's the same reason you see stuff listed for $1.99 instead of $2.00. It's a psychological game they play with you. And it works!

One month the fans were paying X amount of dollars to play LotRO. Then someone flipped a switch and the next month fans were paying 3X amount of dollars to play the very same game. That just seems dishonest to me - hang a sign over the door that says "FREE" and rake in triple the profits?

Of course, your individual experience may vary - you may be saving a bundle on F2P. But understand this: you're the exception. If you weren't the exception, if all players actually got a better deal and spent less, there would be no F2P. The business model would implode.

I think the problem is that many many people can't handle money. In subscription based games players can only spent 10 or 20 Bucks a month, the subscription fee. Even if they want to, they can't spent more money on the game. In free2play there is no limit, you can spent hundreds of dollars in one day if you want to. From my perspective, some players are protected by subscription models from themselves. Really, I believe that only due to that fact that so many people having problems on managing their budgets, free2play games are so successful.

I like the F2P model like this. I personally can't do the subscription--I have no way to actually pay for it, and no real need for it anyway.

What I can do, is save up a few dollars here and there and nab the expansions when they come around. With the work I've done, I can do essentially anything except pvmp--which I never had much of an interest in anyway (cept maybe a warg for RP purposes...).

There's no real "You hafta pay NAO or no game for you" constraints. Don't have the funds now, s cool, maybe later bro.

Originally Posted by MaxDetroit

Really, I believe that only due to that fact that so many people having problems on managing their budgets, free2play games are so successful.

Yes. Addicts have all types of problems. Thats why they should get help to not get into the fangs of F2P companys.

Originally Posted by BigBeard

The player usually found in f2p games are not the nicest to be around,generally it attracts ultra competitive egos with big wallets who will pay through the nose to steamroll anyone below them.I may have been one of those in quite a few games to my shame(although never as bad as some of the truly horrendous people i've come across)

The business model in the majority of the f2p games and the devs mistreatment of its playerbase(bad support,no communication,constant money grabs etc)also goes a long way to making the community resentfull and intolerant of each other...this does confuse me though,you would think a"us against them mentality"would come out of this,but usually it isn't the case in my experience,it just becomes everyone against everyone.

Just 2 reasons i hated the f2p games,but in my(admittedly short)experience with lotr,this game at least seems to have got it right.It feels much different here.

Not in this game. Most of the f2p players have no money tospend and openly admit it.

I like lotro's f2p model, for the most part, with the exception of the store armours which are a lazy cash grabby way of sorting stats of lower level items following the RoI revamp.

It's far more forgiving to the players that occaisionally subscribe, other games would take back things like the free bag unlocks you get for subbing yet lotro doesn't currently do that.

Yes as f2p you have to open the wallet for questpacks if you dont have time to grind TP's. Although the game is getting to a phase where the ingame generation capability is being overtaken by the spending requirement. However once bought it's unlocked for life, and with sales on packs and the various steam/mithril editions you can fill gaps relatively easily.

So far there's no sign that turbine are going to start up a TP exchange that other f2p models follow. An exchange that can easily be manipulated by those with the real world money to burn or by the company offering up choice p2w items in their store.

The store itself isnt too bad with regular sales and offers so you can more easily wait for the one you want to roll around. Per character mounts are a bit overpriced so thats obviously where the money making is although I kind of hope there's something more on the horizon after the class based ones are all out. But you dont need to have a class mount so they're not vital p2w stuff, in fact very little of the store stuff goes beyond convenience to the average player.

As someone that does sub but not all the time my one complaint with f2p games is that a lot of the time those that subbed or are lifers don't seem to get very much to make their sub worth it at face value. Lotro mainly has the stipend and freepside with the content updates being free to them as and when those come along, so basically if you have no interest in pvmp as a freep there's not much call to sub as long as you have the TP's for the rest of the content you want/need.