As a former whale during my time with many MMORPGs and mobile gacha games, I’ve come to hate the idea that money can be used in lieu of time. One of the biggest ‘pro’ arguments for pay-to-win mechanics being acceptable in online games is that many people simply don’t have the time to play and spending money for power or advancement equals the playing field between those who have time versus those who have money.
There have been multiple periods in my life where I’ve only had time, only had money, and a few where I’ve had a surplus of both. The mental gymnastics that companies use to suggest that it can be fair for money to substitute time in an online interactive game, especially a competitive one, is complete bullshit. Instead of creating a balanced system where those with time become more skilled, or can explore more content, and those with money can skip ahead or outright buy gear to keep up, this simply creates a new precedent where both types of players can be taken advantage of.
Infinite Gains
Depending on the game, here are often two fundamental flaws with this reasoning. The first is that there is often no cap on the potential for those who spend money, or if there is a cap the potential is absurdly high. Gacha game mechanics have started to spill over to MMOs, and the lines have become blurred with cross-platform gameplay, such as with Genshin Impact or Wuthering Waves.
Both of these games have absurdly low drop rates and players could easily spend thousands of dollars collecting every character or weapon, but there are far worse gacha systems out there where players need multiple duplicates of the same character, weapon, and other random items in order to maximum their teams. It’s not uncommon for whales to drop thousands of dollar per event banner, and it’s been suggested that some have dropped hundreds of thousand throughout the life of a game.
Unfortunately, this type of egregious spending is encouraged in different ways for many traditional MMORPGs. Power is purchased indirectly in games like Lineage or Black Desert Online, where players can essentially pay to help enhance their gear. Looking over my purchase history in Black Desert Online is a little embarrassing…to say the least.
For most of my time with the MMO, I refused to enhance unless I had a huge surplus of Artisan Memories, which increases the durability repaired from Memory Fragments by five times. While having to spend less materials to repair doesn’t guarantee successful enhancement, it can save billions of silver in the process. Furthermore, Black Desert Online also sells Cron stones directly, which can prevent weapons or armor from decreasing a level if failed or it can prevent an accessory from breaking. Not having to worry about enhancement fails is a huge advantage in Black Desert Online. This simply puts those with unlimited disposable income on a separate tier than any other players.
The other MMORPG where I have spent a significant amount of time lately is Albion Online. In Albion, you can buy gold directly with money and exchange that gold for silver on the marketplace based on the current exchange rate. This requires other players to buy that gold, which is often then used to pay for the premium membership, which has quite a bit of benefits.
While there is technically a limit on how much gold could be exchanged for silver, there is currently enough demand on the Albion Online West server that someone with enough money could buy the best gear in the game along with the skill books to maximize specialization levels as well. There’s an argument that this is balanced by the fact that Albion has a hardcore death mechanic, but simply not having to worry about silver or spend time leveling is a huge advantage, regardless.
The Third Player
While having a nearly unlimited spending cap is problematic on its own, the second flaw is that in nearly every major game, there are a handful of ‘elite’ players with both a significant amount of free time and money. These players have the time to become profoundly familiar with the game mechanics, are highly skilled, and are knowledgeable about the best or most efficient ways to play any game. Furthermore, they also don’t have to worry about any paywall barriers the game puts in place that free players have to worry about.
These will be the people at the top of the leaderboards in essentially everything, or you’ll know when they’re in a zone ganking as their victims cry in General Chat. There is often a massive gear difference between even the best non-paying players, and a skill gap between standard credit card warriors. You’ll meet them in a Diablo Immortal PvP match and not understand why you couldn’t land a single kill, or they’ll be flying the fanciest ship with the best officer mods in EVE Online and don’t even blink when it gets blown up.
It’s these types of players who completely break the argument of time vs money because some people have both, and when a game caters to both it allows for these types of individuals to upend the balance that developers say they’re trying to put in place. When a game claims to be friendly to both free and paying players, it’s important to realize that only those players with both will ever be at the time. Others will be simply playing a completely different version of the game altogether, or worse yet the entire game becomes a plaything for these ‘uber whales’.
It Never Pays to Whale
The unfortunate truth is that when a game implements pay-to-win elements as a catch-up mechanic it rarely does so in a fair manner. There’s always a bigger whale out there, or new ways will eventually be added to squeeze money out of the player base, knowing that those who previously paid will fall prey to the sunk cost fallacy. Instead of becoming a win-win situation between those with time and those who win money, it’s often a lose-lose, and free players can rarely keep up in general despite their skill or how much time they have, and paying players have to compete with each other or those with both time and money.
It’s often not the players’ fault either for spending ridiculous amounts of money on a single game. A lot of times, it happens in small increments through manipulation. A few $20 transactions here, $50 there, and over the course of a couple years it really adds up to an insane amount. There’s also the ‘justification’ that some people make more money in real life than grinding. If you can buy 10x what you could grind in an hour with what you make at your job, it can be hard not to feel tempted. However, it’s still just fake money, in a fake world, with a price decided by a company that just wants your money.
As for myself, I’ve retired from whaling. More often than not, it turns into an endless pit of spending with no real way to come out on top. If I feel that a free-to-play game has earned its value, I’ll throw a few dollars at a fancy skin or costume, but paying for power is an illusion.
