The Daily Quest - How Do You Define Pay to Win?

It's a touchy subject, but spurred on by the recent discussion regarding Skyforge's monetization model I figure now is a good a time as any. Let's do this: how do you, the player, define Pay to Win (P2W) in your games?

 

For me, it's simple: anything someone can pay for that gives a player an upper-hand, while a non-paying player cannot earn the same thing in game: that's pay to win.  I can go deeper to talk about the kinds of items I like seeing (cosmetic, convenience, XP boosters, bag slots, character slots, etc) and the things I loathe seeing (weapons, gear, etc.).  But really, it boils down to the simple rule: let all players, paying and free be on equal ground competitively.

 

Do I care of Joe Money can buy his way to the level cap before me? Nah. Do I care if he has a glowing horse? Nope. But I do care if he can straight up by the best gear in the game while I have to work hard for the mediocre sort.

 

An let's be fair... subscription based games solve this issue, but we all see how they survive these days so we might as well come up with a simple description for Pay to Win so we can all keep each other informed.

 

To recap: Pay to Win = the ability to pay real money for in-game competitive edge.  In PVE, I don't really care. PVP is the thing that should be held sacred away from Whales.