Opinion – MMORPG Pay to Win Scale
Many Free to Play MMORPGs are swift to get labeled as “pay to win”. For some this is a valid criticism, but for others the actual facts put this term in a far more gray territory. Many of these games are careful to avoid allowing a player to obtain best in slot or gain a competitive end-game edge by paying money, but these get lumped in with the worst offenders that requires hundreds or thousands to even be competitive at any aspect of the game. This is to say nothing about pay for convenience, or even cosmetic-only stores. Some players have even gone far enough to state that paid-for expansion packs are pay to win, since you cannot access the end game without them.
This conversation comes up time and time again with every new MMO release. So, to help players start talking about the actual nuances and severity of in-game stores, I am going to propose the creation of a pay to win hierarchy. This is intended to capture the nuances of the situation, and allow us to explain when a game is truly predatory or when it’s working on a more ethical and respectful business model.
To describe this, I will be proposing 5 Tiers. Tier 1 being the least offensive, and Tier 5 being the absolute worst case game stores. Please note this has everything to do with what is offered in the store, and not on how the store is presented or pushed on players. That is a separate topic, and is also relevant.
This is open to discussion, and is by no means perfect. Hopefully though it is better and more useful than calling everything with a store selling power “pay to win” without understanding the severity.
Tier 1 – “Inoffensive” – unlock content/power caps via expansions and DLC. Cosmetic only offerings.
This tier is a simple business model. You pay for expansions to unlock content, and everyone must do it. Same for unique cosmetics and for a subscription. For many years, this was the de-facto standard for MMORPGs in the west until free to play games started gaining prevalence.
This tier asks the question “Do players need to pay to access content?”.
Examples: Final Fantasy 11, Rift Prime (RIP)
Tier 2 – “Convenience” – xp/currency bonus boosts, mount speed/features, level boosts to enter a recently released expansion. Ultimately, a slight reduction in grind at low cost.
This tier is still fairly inoffensive, but may give an advantage to things like leveling or quickly gearing up new characters. This advantage can be seen as winning by some, but it shouldn’t give an actual end-game advantage. Often stores on this tier will provide alternative means of obtaining/purchasing these items to help level the playing field.
This tier asks the question “Do players have the option to pay for speed?”
Examples: Final Fantasy 14, World of Warcraft
Tier 3 – “Quick power” – low-quality gear, max level boosts, new classes that are tuned higher than f2p options.
This tier is where things start turning gray fairly quickly. Here, the stores are offering ways to get your character into end-game content immediately through a price, or are providing a PvP or PvE progression edge either by making alt creation super fast by paying money or by requiring paid-for content to achieve any sort of efficiency. The crucial thing left out of stores at this tier is the ability to purchase end-game gear.
This tier asks the question “Does the endgame benefit from paying?”
Examples: Rift, Neverwinter, Everquest 2
Tier 4 – “Remove RNG/Top quality power” – you can bypass RNG mechanics that block/heavily delay f2p players by paying, or you can purchase top-tier end-game or BiS gear for money.
Here is where things are starting to become legitimately pay to win. Some games have a random element for enhancing gear (think of Materia in FF14, or Manastones in Aion). Beyond a certain point in applying these to your gear, the chance for a successful application goes down. In some games, this can go down to incredibly low odds, and is required to optimize your power to clear content. There are even some games where an upgrade failure destroys that piece of equipment, meaning you must now start from scratch. Combine this with odds in the house’s favor, and you have a bad system.
Stores at this tier will sell you the means to bypass these random failure mechanics, and will likely ask you to do so constantly in order to maintain your best in slot stats and/or equipment. Even at this tier, however, it is still theoretically possible to obtain this just by playing, even if the playtime required would be equivalent to a full time job with overtime.
This tier has a lot of variance to it, as some games the grind is short or at least can be reasonably completed before a new set of top-tier upgrades or gear is released. In others, it is not reasonable to meet the grind criteria before a new tier of content. The time that the gear using these upgrade features is relevant is important to determining how egregious this tier offends, and how truly pay to win it happens to be.
Ultimately, this tier asks the question “Do endgame players have to keep paying to bypass RNG mechanics and/or to remain competitive?”
Examples: Aion, Lost Ark
Tier 5 – “True pay to win” – the ability to complete relevant end-game content is solely dependent on you spending money in order to be able to do so.
So here is true pay to win. This is a store where the ONLY way to be able to clear end game content is to pay money. Sure, you may be able to attempt it, join it, and participate in that content, but if you want to have the means to meet any sort of gating mechanism check (damage, resistances, health, etc.) you MUST pay to get the power necessary for that check. You must also pay for it repeatedly, and constantly. Here at this level, only those who are able to continually spend money on the game can actually clear the available content it has to offer.
This tier asks “Is it required that players pay money in order to complete content?”. Note this is different than accessing content, which is Tier 1.
Examples: I swear they’re out there, but I don’t know any by name. Let me know if you find any and I’ll fill in this space!
So there you have it. 5 Tiers, and some nuance to be used in the conversation. I’ll leave it to the reader for now to figure out how to assign their game of choice to each Tier. Could be a good conversation starter. I’m sure there could be more nuance than this, but this is at least a start.
