5 ms·

League of Legends, TF2, Minecraft, Dota 2, Hearthstone, World of Tanks (etc) are all wildly successful F2P PC titles.

by Steko 12y ago

Mithaldu 12y ago
How is minecraft free2play or free2pay? Also, afaik LOL, TF2 and Dota2 sell content as micro transactions, not consumable cheats. I don't know if the same is true for Hearthstone, and i know this is true for WoT, but its lunch is being eaten by War Thunder, which also only sells content.
- Steko 12y ago
  I'd love to hear the substantial difference between Clash of Clans selling you gems that make your building finish faster and LOL selling you XP boosts?
  - Mithaldu 12y ago
    Gladly. First off, i need to clarify how the two work, since they work substantially different to one another: LOL boosts come in two variants, but the net effect is the same: XP income per time unit played is doubled. You can spend more money to have them apply to more time units played, but you can't increase the effects of the boosts. They do nothing else. (I assume rising in level also pushes one into higher level matches against stronger players.) Meanwhile CoC gems do a multitude of things: They permit access to items that are otherwise inaccessible and increase competitiveness. They are very powerful multiplicators in allowing constructions times (that i assume to span days in the extreme) to be entirely removed. Lastly, they allow the player to ... play more by restoring heroes. So, the practical effects are: LOL XP boosts do not increase competetiveness of the player. In fact, they can detrimentally affect it by pushing a player into high level matches before they themselves earned the necessary experience to function well in them. Further, players are discouraged actively from spending too much on them, since they may be stockpiled, but not increased in power and past a certain amount of stockpiling it's senseless to buy more. CoC gems increase competitiveness fo players massively, in some cases (build times) applying literally infinitely large multipliers compared to the x2 multiplied of LoL xp. Further they also serve lock the player out of playing the game unless the player spends real money to buy and spend them on healing their hero. TL;DR: LoL xp boosts are fixed subscription fees with a maximum cap. CoC gems are literally consumable cheat codes designed to encourage unlimited spending.
    - Steko 12y ago
      That sure is a lot of words trying to disguise the fundamental truth that there is basically no difference between the effects of LoL boosts and gems. Both advance your summoner/base in exchange for money. They are both time "cheats"that you pay for to avoid a grind in each game. You say flatly that 'LOL boosts do not increase competitiveness' but this is frankly completely false. An identical clone of myself playing on an account after $300 worth of xp and IP boosts will simply be much stronger than I am with f2p account. Eventually I may catch up but 'eventually' happens in clash of clans too.
      - Mithaldu 12y ago
        I may be wrong in stating that XP boosts do not affect competitiveness, but the main point still stands: You only get to advance twice as fast with your 300$ in LoL compared to CoC where you can just blow all of your 300$ in a single day, hour even. There are several orders of magnitude between the two "eventuals" here. Additionally, not having XP boosts in LoL does not block you from playing, which CoC does. And lastly, not buying boosts does not lock any content away from you. Then again, you haven't discussed in good faith from the get go (which is funny, since I primarily game on pc), so I expect you don't actually want to grok these differences.
      - malka 12y ago
        LoL is capped at lvl 30. With boost, it will take you 1 week instead of 2 to reach lvl30. It does have any in game effect. Furthermore, they are not an item that you are trained to use as a currency. The South Park episode about freemium game is very good at explaining how the freemium market model is based on addiction.
        Steko 12y ago
        > It does have any in game effect. Right, xp/ip boosts are just hats. New characters you buy are just hats. No in game effect, LoL.
        malka 12y ago
  - Lawtonfogle 12y ago
    I have fun with low XP (the game I'm playing is still there to play). I don't have fun watching buildings build themselves.
- broodbucket 12y ago
  Hearthstone doesn't sell anything that you can't get by playing the game longer. It's a card game, they sell card packs. You can earn them without spending but it takes a while, and your ability to do that is dependent on how good you are. I wouldn't say it's pay-to-win, but players aren't on equal footing from day 1 like in Dota2.
miah_ 12y ago
The difference here is f2p vs p2w. p2w mean Pay to Win. There are many P2W FPS type games where you can buy weapons that give you an edge over those without those weapons. In some cases, you can 'unlock' these weapons by earning in game credits, but often the amount of grinding required to get there equates to months of game time. In DOTA2, LOL, and TF2 the micro-transactions are generally restricted to cosmetic / vanity items. These items offer zero competitive advantage.

League of Legends, TF2, Minecraft, Dota 2, Hearthstone, World of Tanks (etc) are all wildly successful F2P PC titles.

by Steko 12y ago

League of Legends, TF2, Minecraft, Dota 2, Hearthstone, World of Tanks (etc) are all wildly successful F2P PC titles.

How is minecraft free2play or free2pay? Also, afaik LOL, TF2 and Dota2 sell content as micro transactions, not consumable cheats. I don't know if the same is true for Hearthstone, and i know this is true for WoT, but its lunch is being eaten by War Thunder, which also only sells content.

Steko 12y ago
I'd love to hear the substantial difference between Clash of Clans selling you gems that make your building finish faster and LOL selling you XP boosts?
- Mithaldu 12y ago
  Gladly. First off, i need to clarify how the two work, since they work substantially different to one another: LOL boosts come in two variants, but the net effect is the same: XP income per time unit played is doubled. You can spend more money to have them apply to more time units played, but you can't increase the effects of the boosts. They do nothing else. (I assume rising in level also pushes one into higher level matches against stronger players.) Meanwhile CoC gems do a multitude of things: They permit access to items that are otherwise inaccessible and increase competitiveness. They are very powerful multiplicators in allowing constructions times (that i assume to span days in the extreme) to be entirely removed. Lastly, they allow the player to ... play more by restoring heroes. So, the practical effects are: LOL XP boosts do not increase competetiveness of the player. In fact, they can detrimentally affect it by pushing a player into high level matches before they themselves earned the necessary experience to function well in them. Further, players are discouraged actively from spending too much on them, since they may be stockpiled, but not increased in power and past a certain amount of stockpiling it's senseless to buy more. CoC gems increase competitiveness fo players massively, in some cases (build times) applying literally infinitely large multipliers compared to the x2 multiplied of LoL xp. Further they also serve lock the player out of playing the game unless the player spends real money to buy and spend them on healing their hero. TL;DR: LoL xp boosts are fixed subscription fees with a maximum cap. CoC gems are literally consumable cheat codes designed to encourage unlimited spending.
  - Steko 12y ago
    That sure is a lot of words trying to disguise the fundamental truth that there is basically no difference between the effects of LoL boosts and gems. Both advance your summoner/base in exchange for money. They are both time "cheats"that you pay for to avoid a grind in each game. You say flatly that 'LOL boosts do not increase competitiveness' but this is frankly completely false. An identical clone of myself playing on an account after $300 worth of xp and IP boosts will simply be much stronger than I am with f2p account. Eventually I may catch up but 'eventually' happens in clash of clans too.
    - Mithaldu 12y ago
      I may be wrong in stating that XP boosts do not affect competitiveness, but the main point still stands: You only get to advance twice as fast with your 300$ in LoL compared to CoC where you can just blow all of your 300$ in a single day, hour even. There are several orders of magnitude between the two "eventuals" here. Additionally, not having XP boosts in LoL does not block you from playing, which CoC does. And lastly, not buying boosts does not lock any content away from you. Then again, you haven't discussed in good faith from the get go (which is funny, since I primarily game on pc), so I expect you don't actually want to grok these differences.
    - malka 12y ago
      LoL is capped at lvl 30. With boost, it will take you 1 week instead of 2 to reach lvl30. It does have any in game effect. Furthermore, they are not an item that you are trained to use as a currency. The South Park episode about freemium game is very good at explaining how the freemium market model is based on addiction.
      - Steko 12y ago
        > It does have any in game effect. Right, xp/ip boosts are just hats. New characters you buy are just hats. No in game effect, LoL.
        malka 12y ago
- Lawtonfogle 12y ago
  I have fun with low XP (the game I'm playing is still there to play). I don't have fun watching buildings build themselves.
broodbucket 12y ago
Hearthstone doesn't sell anything that you can't get by playing the game longer. It's a card game, they sell card packs. You can earn them without spending but it takes a while, and your ability to do that is dependent on how good you are. I wouldn't say it's pay-to-win, but players aren't on equal footing from day 1 like in Dota2.

miah_ 12y ago

The difference here is f2p vs p2w. p2w mean Pay to Win. There are many P2W FPS type games where you can buy weapons that give you an edge over those without those weapons. In some cases, you can 'unlock' these weapons by earning in game credits, but often the amount of grinding required to get there equates to months of game time. In DOTA2, LOL, and TF2 the micro-transactions are generally restricted to cosmetic / vanity items. These items offer zero competitive advantage.