Firstly... "Scam - victimize: deprive of by deceit"

No, they aren't scams. They are greedy sometimes, but rightly so. The games aren't free to make, or free to run. They have to present some sort of incentive for you to give them money, just to keep the game alive, and I know they want to make something called a 'profit'. They aren't promising false goods or holding a gun against your head forcing you to play or pay. If you want to play for free, know what you are signing up for. If you don't buy the cool looking vanity items, you will never look as cool as other players. If you don't buy EXP potions, you will never level as fast as other players. If you don't buy better gear, you will never be as strong as other players. If you don't buy extra content, you will never see the game like other players. Theres the good and bad, if you don't like the model pay to play your games.

Originally posted by Robokapp

Originally posted by immodium

Anything labelled F2P is not a scam. Why would you think it is?

 there were some sentences under the title...you didn't see them did you?

That drivel he spouted underneath the title had nothing to do with it being a scam. It was more along the lines of him crying because he wasn't getting what he wanted for free.

f2p games are only money scams if you choose, keyword there, choose to buy stuff from their item shops. I play2 f2p games have never bought anything and have fun..keyword number 2, fun.  I don't play games to fall into a time sink

My only issue with F2P games is that the vast majority of them just suck ass.  People complaining about having to pay for special items or features within them is ridiculous, how else are they gonna get paid?  I've never spent a single penny into a F2P, because none of them were any good, and even if they were I still probably wouldn't pay for it unless there was some badass weapon or something that I wanted to play with.  It's only been recently that F2P games have started getting good like Vindictus and a few others out there.

 So in essence, F2P games are getting scammed by the playerbase at large.

 Is that even possible to be achieved? It's impossible to scam a F2P unless we make a commitment to pay for something and then refuse to.

Playing for free in a Free to play game is not a scam by any standards. It's like gatting a refill from a "Free refills" place.

Originally posted by Robokapp

 So in essence, F2P games are getting scammed by the playerbase at large.

 Is that even possible to be achieved? It's impossible to scam a F2P unless we make a commitment to pay for something and then refuse to.

 

Playing for free in a Free to play game is not a scam by any standards. It's like gatting a refill from a "Free refills" place.

Then how can they scam *you* if they don't demand a commitment to pay in the first place, especially when tons of people use their services all the time without EVER contributing to the longevity of the service itself?

Also, you can totally abuse the free refill policy at any fast food joint to the point where they tell you to leave. People even come in with their own cups, yet I'd like to see them scream at the person behind the counter about "scamming them" as they smugly pour mountain dew into their big gulp.

Dare you to make less sense.

How can it be a scam if a person is willing to pay for something he/she wants?

Most F2P I have played allow you to reach the 'end' without putting any money into it. If you choose to pay for any content to make it less grindy/dull you have chosen to. You have not been scammed into it.

Originally posted by rmason

I have never played a game that was released F2P that requires you to purchase content, and I play a TON of f2p games.

The only ones that charge for more content are the failed p2p games that switched to f2p (lotro, potbs,eq2,ddo).

 

Most f2p games only have deco items or items that speed your leveling/whatever up. I have no clue what you are talking about with your post.

If lotro and eq2 are failed P2P, I would love to hear about successful P2P MMOs, WoW and EvE are very successul no doubt about it, but what else? AoC, Warhammer? Nope... Give me an example of a P2P which is doing better than LOTRO and EQ2 and is not EvE or WoW.

To the OP, F2P MMOs suck. There is a saying - I am not rich enough to buy cheap stuff. Same here. Only F2P MMO which is woth even installing, and I am currently playing it, is LOTRO. I am paying 8.99 per month for the sub (same as every other MMO) and not a penny more. So I am not being scammed or anything.

Subbing is the way to go because it is much cheaper. The sooner people let this sink into their thick heads, the better.

Originally posted by bandontcare

If lotro and eq2 are failed P2P, I would love to hear about successful P2P MMOs, WoW and EvE are very successul no doubt about it, but what else? AoC, Warhammer? Nope... Give me an example of a P2P which is doing better than LOTRO and EQ2 and is not EvE or WoW.

To the OP, F2P MMOs suck. There is a saying - I am not rich enough to buy cheap stuff. Same here. Only F2P MMO which is woth even installing, and I am currently playing it, is LOTRO. I am paying 8.99 per month for the sub (same as every other MMO) and not a penny more. So I am not being scammed or anything.

Subbing is the way to go because it is much cheaper. The sooner people let this sink into their thick heads, the better.

Guess how much I pay monthly to play Vindictus. Go on, guess.

On top of that, guess how much I have spent on it so far, and how much I plan to spend on it in the near future.

Answers: 0, 0, maybe 15$

Let me add that I play it almost daily too, whereas I have a hard time seeing myself paying monthly for something I don't force myself to play every day, and all day, just to get my money's worth.

Also: LotRO sucks

Originally posted by GTwander

Dare you to make less sense.

 The further you take my statements out of context, the less sense I'll make. That's why you're not supposed to.

At a fast-food place you can get refills as long as you're still eating your food. In an MMO you can get...<whatever 'refills' stands for> as long a you play the game.

I never played Allods for example. I'll never ask their developers for anything or accuse them of scamming me, because I'm not eating at their fast-food.

That's why this scam is impossible. You can't consume free products without consuming products, and while consuming, you are entitled to the Free-to-play stuff.

We play by their term, but to our maximum advantage. That's not scamming, that's being smart.

There was a promotion last week...buy 10 bottles of Mt Dew, get 11th free. Did i scam the store for getting 11 but only paying for 10? Nope, I shopped withoun thier restrictions but with intent to maximize. Similarly, a F2P gives you most of the game for free and you play most of the game for free. Where's the scam?

Originally posted by Robokapp

Originally posted by GTwander

Dare you to make less sense.

 The further you take my statements out of context, the less sense I'll make. That's why you're not supposed to.

You stopped making sense the moment you tried to relate F2P games to the "free refill". I'd say it's insulting to my intelligence, but it's not, since it only insults yours.

I don't think there is any possible way to take things even more "out of context" than the gibberish following what I just quoted either.

If you want me to battle your nonsense with nonsense though, here goes;

It's relatable to the "free fries day" that burger king and mcdonalds sometimes has, where they offer free fries to anyone that shows up, in the hopes that they will stay and order something else off the menu. Instead, people just go to every possible mcdonalds in the town, or just come back on different shifts in order to maximize the handout they are getting without giving anything back. In essence, they are scamming the good nature behind the event, all the while probably thinking it's justified since the free handout was likely there to "scam them" into buying something else after showing up.

Make sense? No? Well I lost 10 IQ points just conjuring that up, so I hope you're happy.

Think of "free to play" as "unlimited time trial", same concept, but "free to play" is much more of a player-catcher than advertising "unlimited trial", you play for as long as you like, but you are limited to what is available to you as a free player, there's no scam, they just changed the words, except that this time they added microtransactions.

I'm going to start a fast-food chain that advertizes the food as "free to eat" but you still have to buy it.

I wonder how that'll go.

"Free to eat" but not "Free to order", lol

Originally posted by GTwander

Originally posted by Robokapp

Originally posted by GTwander

Dare you to make less sense.

 The further you take my statements out of context, the less sense I'll make. That's why you're not supposed to.

You stopped making sense the moment you tried to relate F2P games to the "free refill". I'd say it's .....[snip]....ce the free handout was likely there to "scam them" into buying something else after showing up.

Make sense? No? Well I lost 10 IQ points just conjuring that up, so I hope you're happy.

I didn't know you could have a negative IQ.

Originally posted by Loktofeit

Originally posted by Pesmergia

And all of you speak as if I have done anything, I haven't and will not pay for crap but to WHOEVER says 99% of the playerbse pays zero cents is crazy.

Spend about 2 hours downloading random F2P games and talk to people, LOL it;'s more along the lines of 75% do pay.

And most of the people who deny paying are just too ashamed to admit what everyone else has the balls to.

1) Who said 99? 85-80% is about the industry average, though. That's not anecdotal, that's a fact directly from the developers.

2) Your ass is not a reliable source of data.

3) So are you saying you really do pay for content ina F2P game?

LOL Pesmergia does NOT know what he is talking about. He pulled the 75% number out of his behind. Here is some REAL research.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/27581/Study_US_Gamers_Spent_38_Billion_On_MMOs_in_2009.php

And I quote "the number of MMO players in the U.S. has reached 46 million, 46 percent (21 million) of which paid to play online games; the rest, around 25 million gamers, play MMOs without spending any money."

25M is clearly a majority over 46M. Since the 21M includes P2P players, the % of players paying in F2P games is even LOWER.

Originally posted by Pesmergia

I'm glad I didn't get hurt by it, but I know people are tossing money around just to unlock the full game and features, and F2P is making a crap ton of money on nothing but ridiculously scamming people.

Really?  You are FORCED to enter your credit card information and then FORCED to hit the submit button?  I don't think so...

I just love how all the F2P rant posts use the word "scam" to describe a different payment option in the MMORPG genre.

Apparently when people look at the term "Free-To-Play" they focus on the first word: "Free", instead of the WHOLE TERM.

That is, F2P is as it says literally: the game itself is "Free-To-Play", i.e. you can just create an account, download the client, and PLAY!  There is no credit card info needed to even start your gaming experience. 

How is that a scam?

Yes, the design for the higher level encourages you to pay to maximize your experience with the game, but other than some that has really bad design and balance with cash shop, most of F2P actually is not as bad as people makes them out to be.  Even if the design may encourage you to pay, it is not forced on you.  You have a choice.  It's only those who are competitive and the min/max type will most likely to pay to maximize their experience.  If you pay for other than outfit related things, you WANTED to compete wtih those at level cap, and you WANTED to min/max your character and maximize your experience, which is all fine.  But how is that a scam?  You are playing for free before this choice, then how can you blame them for your choice?

Most of the casual gamers would not pay, which may hinder them at higher level, but then again, most casual would jump ship to another F2P to play before even reaching the level cap.  This is more or less the consensus on the F2P population that most can agree on, so don't talk as though your selective polling on in-game players means something, as it may only reflect the server, the time frame, and location of which you were on.  It does not necessary reflect the population.

First I will address something.

You start a game.  You have no knowledge of what exactly F2P is, but it sounds appealing.  So this is what happens.

Remember no F2P knowledge.  Even if you have F2P knowledge different F2P games are designed differently so how are you supposed to know if you will be wasting your time if you don't know if it's an Item Mall wall mid-late game?

You get into the game hardcore, you play about 8 hours a day, and when you make VERY considerable progress, about 2 months later, sure you had all that time F2P, now you hit a wall, the whole game design changes from what it was in the beginning.

The mobs you fight are 3x stronger, you cannot afford anything to make yourself even 1/2 competitive, but in the beginning gear/items came with ease, now they are farmed and overpriced, and removed from NPCs.  And the crafts to craft them would take a month just to level up due to the pricing of the mats.

Now 2 months later this imaginary brick wall is here in front of you, and the only way to surpass it, would to item mall a little.

THIS is how F2P is designed, to suck you inside big time, let you play around for a month or 2 and get addicted, then put this brick wall in front of you, which is what that one dude was talking about, F2P being free in the beginning and later end game to be competitive it is not.

What if someone wishes to be competitive?  That is why I play.  So does that pretty much remove F2P from what I am looking for?  I dont want to keep playing different F2P from beginning to mid game and realize owait, another item mall wall, nevermind, cant be competitive here for free, move on to the next.

Anyone that's put in that much time and effort would succumb to the temptation of the item mall to leap over the wall and continue, only to be confronted by 3x the walls, at 3x faster intervals.

2 months of hard work about 5-8 hours a day on average for free of course, you want to be competitive, why use the competitive argument?  THAT is what gaming is about, being the best, being #1 or at least remembered in a positive way because you were skilled.

Then the brick wall appears, sure you want to CONTINUE, because you have put so much time, why throw away that much?

And you seriously call my arguments moot, are you kidding me?

Originally posted by Forcan

I just love how all the F2P rant posts use the word "scam" to describe a different payment option in the MMORPG genre.

Apparently when people look at the term "Free-To-Play" they focus on the first word: "Free", instead of the WHOLE TERM.

That is, F2P is as it says literally: the game itself is "Free-To-Play", i.e. you can just create an account, download the client, and PLAY!  There is no credit card info needed to even start your gaming experience. 

How is that a scam?

Jackie Chan trained a fish to come to him and roll over.

Perhaps it'll one day be possible to ask a troll to use logic. Until then what Forcan said right there debunks any argument that these games are a scam.

Now if they told you to pay 200 dollars and suddenly your gaming experience will upgrade to be real life and magical faries will come to your house daily to dance merrily in your living room.. That'd be a scam.