I am not trying to separate Games that are pay to win from transactions that are pay to win. I am saying, have been saying all along that micro-transactions are micro-transactions. Period. I am not sure why YOU are trying to separate one type of micro-transaction from another.
Because they have different effects on the game. That is the topic of this thread after all. Games, and whether we prefer a game that is free to play or a game that is pay to play. Because pay to win games almost always fall within the free to play category, it is nearly impossible to discuss how you feel about free to play games without differentiating between games that are truly free to play versus those that are just pay to win games disguised as free to play.
Whether you respect the differentiation or not, the fact is that there is very much a divide between how most people feel about cash shops that sell vanity goods and those that sell 'power'. I'm not trying to say you have to feel the same way - if you want to despise any type of micro-transaction system regardless of its content, thats fine. But there IS a distinction, and its one that has a significant effect on how people feel about the free to play model, or about any game in particular.
That is why I'm separating one type of micro-transaction from another.
Other than the fact that you seem to regard all micro-transactions as the same (I'm assuming you dislike them all, maybe I'm wrong though) - why do you think it is important to NOT distinguish between them?
In game there “May” be a difference. From a banking perspective, from a game design perspective, from a consumer perspective and from a practical perspective, there is no difference. None.
The bolded part is critical here. Maybe you've forgotten, but this is a thread about GAMES and how the payment model affects how you feel about them. This is not an economics discussion.
As for game design, consumer perspective, and practical perspective, I'll have to disagree. Myself and others have already stated in this very thread that we don't like pay to win games, while games that sell cosmetic items are more acceptable. You'll find the same sentiments in many other forums, news sites, blogs, etc. So from a consumer perspective and a practical perspective there is a huge difference - it makes a difference to me, and many others. You are one of the few I've ever seen try to claim otherwise.
Game design is whole other monster and I don't really feel like getting in to it in detail. I will say though, with absolute certainty, that pay to win has a much larger affect on game design than a vanity shop. Many pay to win games are
designed to restrict your ability to progress to the point where you must either give up or pay up. Games that sell strictly vanity items aren't built like that - you can't force someone to buy a vanity item in order to keep playing or to remain competitive with the rest of the player base. It isn't really a vanity item at that point.
If I were to get a cosmetic enhancement to my avatar in X-game wherein my Avatar becomes 10X as large as the average avatar, this might indeed cause other players to assume that part of the enhancement means 10X the damage, 10X the range and 10X the hit points even if the actuality is something other than that. In that it might very well cause someone to back down from a fight, thus making it a win for my Avatar.
This only works under the assumption that the other players don't know about the items in the cash shop. I give you points for creativity, but I don't see how this could be considered an advantage over everyone who doesn't pay. You did not actually obtain any real power in the game. The knowledge of this enhancement would be widespread throughout the community anyways. And nobody is forced to respond to your 'giant enhancement' to continue playing the game uninterrupted. They can simply kill you the same as they could before, or ignore you since you don't actually pose any threat.
In another scenario, if a skin made a character look like Iron Man (as for example) and a group of Iron Man fans were to see that enhancement and think it cool, they may very well decide to group with that Avatar where they may not otherwise have done so. The added group might make the character more effective in game for the simple reason that they have more party members, which wouldn’t be there if the Avatar didn’t look so cool.
This doesn't even fit the scenario I asked for, but I'll respond anyways. Finding people to group with is not hard. An item is not considered pay to win if it is simply providing something that can already be accomplished in game with little to no effort. The Iron Man suit in this scenario is not giving you the ability to do something that can't be done with it, it is not impeding anyone elses ability to group up. It's existence does not directly or indirectly force any one else to buy it in order to access the content in the base game or remain competitive with you or anyone else.
That’s an extremely narrow view point. After all, it is a game. Therefore everything in the game is superficial and has absolutely zero impact on the outside world. However, even in game, prove to me that any enhancement, cosmetic or otherwise is definitionally and universally superior to any another enhancement. You can’t, because different people play the game to achieve different things. A win for one type of player may mean nothing to another type of player.
What does superiority have to do with anything? This isn't a discussion about superiority, its not even relevant. And don't ask me to prove one fictional items superiority over another fictional items superiority without even giving the criteria on which they are to be rated. Its absurd, not to mention impossible.
But the real thing at the end of the day is that every player that takes part in either purchasing a skin or purchasing an in game mechanical enhancement, they all have participated in Micro-transactions. They are all the same on that level. You can’t change that fact.
Yes, no matter what type of micro-transaction you purchase, you have still participated in the purchase of a micro-transaction. That has never been up for dispute here, and I'm not sure what point you are trying to make by this statement.
Ok, so let’s take a step back on this one. You claimed that my argument was illogical because cosmetic enhancements don’t make you win. Let’s examine this fully. The statement is “Pay to win”, which literally means that regardless of your circumstances, if you pay money you are guaranteed to win. Hence the Logical statement “Pay to Win” or Payment equals winning. Only what YOU mean by “Pay to win” is actually “Pay to advantage”. I was attempting to explain that cosmetic enhancements are advantages of a kind. Therefore my statement was a whole lot more logical than yours. And since they are both Micro-transactions, they are more similar than different.
Pay to win does not literally mean, regardless of any other circumstances, that you are guaranteed to win. I certainly never claimed as much. I don't believe that anyone else ever has either. Please provide a reference to someone making this claim in this thread.
If I didn't claim this, and nobody else did, where did it come from? Do you really believe that the phrase 'pay to win' inherently implies a guarantee of winning? Lets examine your post history.
"Pay to win" is a generic term meant for any content that you need to spend real money to unlock. Usually this content is in some way superior to the baseline content so as to entice players to want to spend money on it. Just because a given sword or set of armor (or whatever) isn't game winning, doesn't mean that it isn't a micro-transaction intent on charging you money to enhance your game experience.
You don't seem to believe that pay to win implies a guarantee of victory here.
Well the real difference is that my definition of "Pay to win" is "Any micro-transaction that unlocks content that consumers are incentivized to pay for (read 'adds perceived value')". That could include item/ability upgrades, but it could equally include skins and the like that don't increase playability but is still a value add to some players. I don't discount the coolness factor as a way for the company to make money from consumers who have more cash than sense.
Hmm, 'guarantee a win' is not part of your definition here either.
My point before it got muddled was that every free to play game I have gotten involved in relies on either excessive adds cluttering up my gaming experience or the model of micro-transactions to unlock additional content. This latter strategy to me is the same thing as pay to win. Not because the added content always allows you to "win" but because the business model is such that they are planning on consumers to pay what ends up in the long run to be more than the $60 up front price of similar games that are Pay to play.
Strange, I don't see any indication here either that you believe the phrase 'pay to win' inherently implies a guarantee that you will win.
So why have you created this premise of 'pay to win means you are guaranteed to win if you pay', and then tried to discredit my definition of pay to win by claiming it is not aligned with this premise - when your own definition does not fit it either? If you actually believe that you my definition of pay to win is illogical because the phrase 'pay to win' implies a guarantee of winning, then your definition is also. If you don't believe that the phrase 'pay to win' implies a guarantee of winning, then you are simply making things up out of thin air in dishonesty. Please stop.
Nor is there evidence to the contrary.
Fair enough.
I made no such claim. I claimed that people were making a DIFFERENTIATION between cosmetic micro-transactions and those which give mechanical advantage were different because they wanted to use one while making fun of the other. A justification of sorts on their part so that they could do what they wanted and still feel good about laughing at others. When in fact they are both Micro-transactions.
Fair enough, I misunderstood what you said originally. But my confusion about that statement is not lessened, because the differentiation is made for the opposite reason. The differentiation between pay to win shops and vanity shops is made because people want to AVOID pay to win games, NOT so people can justify buying their way to victory while making fun of people who use vanity shops.
Wait, what? Who said that gaining popularity was only achieved through skins? I certainly never said anything of the like. I said that it is A way to gain a certain amount of popularity, but the two are in no way similar or equivalent.
I did not attribute the claim that gaining popularity is only achieved through skins to you.
You said a cosmetic add on might increase a persons popularity, allowing them to 'win' the game indirectly through influencing others.
I countered by saying that gaining popularity through cosmetic add ons does not fall under the umbrella of pay to win because it does not provide anything unique - meaning that there are other ways to gain popularity and make friends.
This is not an attempt to attribute this claim to you. The point this makes is that
even if cosmetic skins boosted ones popularity (a point that I'm not conceding), they are not required to boost ones popularity. There are other ways to gain popularity and makes friends. Furthermore, they are not the fastest or most effective way to gain popularity or make friends. It doesn't make sense to call something pay to win if the thing you are paying for is both freely available within the game, and less effective than the free in-game option for obtaining the thing that it provides.
Starting off with ‘advantage’ meaning “any state, circumstance, opportunity, or means speciallyfavorable to success, interest, or any desired end: theadvantage of a good education. (according to Websters.com), looking cool is an advantage and, by your own admission above it can cause popularity increase. Hence cosmetic enhancements easily meet your criteria.
For the record, I don't believe cosmetic items increase a persons popularity in any meaningful way. I entertained the idea in an attempt to show you why it doesn't matter even if they do. At best though, I believe they might spark up a conversation very rarely, and generally be of no use to you whatsoever except the pleasure you get from looking at your fancy outfits as you run around the game world.
Anyways, you are deliberately playing word games again, and I am tiring of it. I said
'advantage over others'. I have stated clearly on multiple occasions why 'looking cool' does not meet the criteria of having an advantage OVER ANOTHER PERSON, and I will not spell it out for you again.
I never claimed that. You wanted to turn what I said into that. I only ever said that cosmetic enhancements can engender some level of popularity. There is a HUGE difference.
I never said you claimed it, I was asking you if you believed it and would openly declare your support for it. If you read my responses to the last few quotes it should become apparent why.
Your definition is widely accepted by people whom you know and are not willing to point out the flaw to you. That in no way means that it is “Widely accepted” in the conventional meaning. Even your paragraph above has qualifications and exceptions. I did above restate my position that my main complaint was with Micro-transactions rather than just Pay to win, but now that we are into it, there are HUGE flaws in your logic on the definition of Pay to win. In short even if you do pay, you don’t win every time even using your loose and spurious definition of ‘win’. Therefore, NO. your definition is in no way definitive.
My definition is more widely accepted than yours, lets put it that way. I'm not going to bother arguing more than that, because I don't feel like polling the entire internet to prove my point. You can choose to believe it or not, but maybe you should just take a look at this thread for a small sample. I count the number of people who agree with you at zero currently, and I don't think you are going to find many more anywhere else.
There are no holes in my logic, and every attempt you have made to point one out has depended on dishonest semantics games, literally making things up that are not true, or intentionally misrepresenting my position.
You can win a popularity contest?
I've never heard of a game in which popularity contests were an advertised feature. Or a feature at all. We're still talking about MMO's here right?
Fair enough. Up until this post, you hadn’t made that clear. Yet still I will point out that merely paying money won’t guarantee you a ‘win’ in any of the scenarios you indicate. Therefore ‘Pay to win’ is at minimum a misnomer.
I've already touched on the 'pay to win doesn't guarantee a win' absurdity and won't repeat those points here.
I will however point out that 'pay to win' is not in any way a misnomer. The same way that 'pay to play' is not a misnomer. Just because you buy Guild Wars does NOT guarantee you the
ability to play it. If you don't have a computer, you can't play. If you don't have an internet connection, you can't play. If your monitor has a bullet hole in it, you (probably) can't play. There is no inherent guarantee of winning implied by the phrase 'pay to win', that is something you literally made up out of thin air. A blatant lie that even you don't agree with.
It’s a game. If you don’t call having fun a win, you really REALLY need to get a life.
You post the dictionary definition of 'win', while subsequently claiming elsewhere that you consider having fun to be a 'win'. I point out that the dictionary does not include 'having fun' within the definition. And now I apparently am a loser who needs to get a life. Huh.
Anyways, your sentence above is misleading and dishonest. I consider it fun to have fun. Having fun is, to me, fun. I have fun when I have fun. I like to have fun, it is fun to me to have fun.
Do you see what I'm getting at? I can have fun, and be happy, without calling it a win. Its not that I don't have fun (I have tons of fun!), its that I choose to call it fun, instead of 'a win'. That you would insult me because I choose not to include 'having fun' in my definition of 'win' is pretty despicable.
So in other words, it isn’t “Pay to win” it is “Pay to advantage” and any “Logical” arguments that you say refute my claims are not based on logic because the statement itself is inaccurate? Got it.
I don't even know what you are saying here. I think this is another reference to this bogus lie you created about how pay to win is illogical because it doesn't guarantee you a win. If so, its already been covered.
I suppose 'pay to advantage' is pretty accurate as well. You can try to start using it, but I doubt it will catch on.
Facebook
Twitter