Free to play or pay to win? Video inside

Well said, it's a very debated topic and I undestand there are a lot of different opinions about it. Loving the game so far and hoping that serverlag and fps drops soon can be just a bad memory

Joining a good outfit IS ABSOLUTELY necessary.

I like this game. I really do. Even though I haven't paid anything it's still be fun so far. It's not the fact that some things cost money that's the problem. The problem is the pricing. That's what makes it pay to win right now. Sony is greatly undervaluing people's time.

Lets say I average 25 certs an hour. That means it's taking me 40 hours to get 1000 certs, which is what most of the weapon upgrades seem to cost. Even if that same upgrade cost $10 worth of station cash, it would mean SOE was valuing my time at a pathetic 25 cents an hour. Given that most 1000 cert items don't cost that much, that value is actually much lower. If SOE were to reduce the cert cost of such items I think you'd see most of the "pay-to-win" complaints go away.

My guess is that somewhere in SOE there is some moron that thinks people won't pay for convenience and cosmetic items. And so they think they can't make money without selling gameplay impacting stuff. Well the fact is that, convenience and vanity item sales make up a pretty significant portion of the retail economy, so there's absolutely no reason to think you can't fund a game on them. Not to mention the hordes of F2P games in the asian market that rely primarily on convenience and cosmetic items for their revenue. I don't think they should be selling weapon upgrades or side-grades at all.

Edit:
I love how it sometimes censors completely innocuous words and ends up making it look like I actually used a swear word when I didn't. More proof that censorship is stupid.

I can not applaud this video enough.

I am a game developer myself, and my studio is devoted to bringing quality games to the gamers and we release them for "Freemuim".

We depend on the support of the community and the gamers so that we can feed our families. When you spoke of putting food on the table it is LITERALLY that...without the support of our user base, we don't get paid. Does that make us wrong? I don't think so...

The games and in this case (Planetside 2) that are released free is a gift....a MAJOR gift to the community and the devs hope that you enjoy it enough to support them back.

How many AMAZING things do you get for free in this life?

You aren't just playing a game...you are playing a teams passion, a teams vision and a team very hard work requiring time away from their families...so when you complain "OH MY GOSH THEY WANT MONEY THEY ARE EVIL" it just comes out sounding silly to those who really understand the situation.

Also when people just turn around and go "boo this sucks" without taking consideration of everything that went into it, that also is just as silly.

Anyways, great video...you hit the nail on the head.

Can you tell us what game you are developing?Hope you are not PoE's Chris Wilson...

P

Trust me on this: Practice. Practice high in the sky or in the warpgate. You won't die in the warpgate.

Great video, and your right, it is a difference between an upgraded anything and base model. But thats not all pay to win, you can upgrade by just playing the game and earning certifications through gameplay. I know in the past couple of days I have played a grand total of 4 hours and earned around 120 certs. So its not impossible to earn them or all that hard. I kept for a while a 1:1 k/d ratio until I decided to have fun doing stupid things like Spawn a mosquito, go as HIGH as I can go and jump out over an hostile base, and see if I could HALO jump into it as a light assault. Didnt work out so well... but I am sure that NC MAX that I landed next to was QUITE surprised when I splatted into the ground less than 5m from him.

This is something I completely disagree, SONY IS CERTAINLY NOT MAKING A GIFT TO THE COMMUNITY BY RELEASING THE GAME AS A FREE TO PLAY.

Sony estimated that there was more profit to be made than box sales or subscription method. Having peoples try the game for free increase the potential profit and only that. Seriously, that's just stupid.

Because it came from a major company it's not a gift?

Yes their goal is to make money, but does that diminish what they have done? Does that make this FREE game any less special?

No, it doesn't...think of all the routes they could have gone and still made money...

I know we all shutter at this but, they could have locked classes for premium members only, locked certain certs for premiums only (that were game changers) and many more things, but what happend? You got the game free, you can play on the same playing field as those who pay it just takes you a little longer.

Yes they need to make money...why? To make more games like these, to pay their workers and to keep doing great work.

THEY NEED MONEY BECAUSE THEY WANT TO MAKE PROFIT. THEY DON'T CARE ABOUT THEIR WORKERS.

Why do you think they didn't lock certain class or certificate? Because, by looking at other games, they found that it would make more profit. Their workers?

Do you really think they care about that? It's a cost in their book, well the development phase of a game is research and development, but it transfer to cost when the game is released. Hey look! Let's make a game so we can pay our workers and only them!

They care about their shareholders and only them, if the game is not making enough profit, they will terminate a bunch of programmers, and you should be aware of that as a game developper...

And about the playing the same field, if you read my first post here, I said that it is still pay to win, it just depend of how long it take to unlock stuff, but it is certainly not an even field. That may sound really bad, but you should really learn how a corporation work.

Because it came from a company with the intention of making money, it is not a gift. It's no more of a gift than when you get free samples of products in the mail - they aren't gifts, they're intended to make you buy something.

I don't see anyone claiming their intent to make money diminishes their work. People have said that the fact that everything in the game is excessively expensive and requires a huge grind, that detracts from the game. They aren't saying "I hate that SOE is trying to make money", they're saying "I hate that every item requires me to grind for 100+ hours". Any other strawman arguments?

I'm sure they did that out of the goodness of their hearts

Just because those other business models would require players to pay more to play the game, it doesn't mean they would make as much money. Likely a huge number of players would leave, the game would make less overall money (but more per active player) and SOE's reputation would be even further damaged. I'm finding it very hard to believe that you are a dev or have ever even had a job. This is extremely basic business theory we're talking about, here.

And no one here is begrudging them that. However, many are saying the grind sucks. People have a right to not play the game; to leave entirely and never pay. If the grind becomes too much for some people, they will leave. It doesn't matter what the intentions of the devs were or how many starving children they have - people won't pay for the game if they don't even want to play it. People are voicing their feelings on the game.

Right now, I'm not too unhappy with the certs that I will leave, but I can see that in the future I might just get sick of it and leave for good. I see no reason to buy membership when the cert gain rate will still be excruciatingly slow. I could buy weapons, but I will still need to grind for hundreds of hours for the most basic of upgrades.

the idea is to coerce the player base into buying things, not to bludgeon them with a big stick into paying.

although i dont mind them giving special privilages to players who pay, and technically the devs could make more money if they did indeed give combat advantages to those who pay more.

What is wrong with you... You act like the company is the devil, "the man" putting you down. These are human beings, just like you.

**** maybe that proves your point judging how hard you're taking it.

Well, my accounting studies certainly are an influence, maybe I gone to hard, but it's how I feel it is, specially in videogame industry.

And well, he did present himself as a game developer, maybe I assumed to fast.

Who says air is OP.

I Really like the points that you're bringing up. And i can only agree with you.
I purchased the Alpha Squad because i wanted to support this awesome game(it still has some flaws but heh).

But back to the topic of P2W
I'm playing mostly Light assault all the time as NC and i find myself enjoying the Stock Carbine the most. I've got 3 properly upgraded carbines but im still using the Standart one because the others are just sidegrades. I Cant speak for the other classes much though but i think this picture speaks for itself in my case the advantage from being an alpha squad member is that i level faster and have more certs to spend (a normal player would have 1 weapon fully stocked and the suit/jumpjets upgrade + restro kit by now (i've got 1,6k certs after roughly 22hours played so f2p's would have roughly 700 )


So dont get mad about people getting other weapons yelling p2w. You can dominate with every weapon when you manage to master it!

(Vehicle upgrades/AA Lockon rocketlauncer etc are still a huge advantage obviously)

the thing is that they,devs, said that

"This game is not Pay To Win"

Loving all the feedback from you guys, plz keep it constructive =)

So your entire point is "I as an experienced player can kill players with vastly less experience just fine without paying, thus its not P2W".

A game is not P2W when players who don't spend money can't do anything, but when the paying players have a big advantage over non paying players which you actually admit is the case.

Yes, eventually the free players can also have the good stuff, but until then the paying players will have a huge advantage because they spend money. And at that point, new players will have an even greater disadvantage. Its not even that paying players only get better weapons faster, by not spending certs on them they have more certs to spend on upgrades.

Sony of course needs to make money, but they have chosen to make it this way. This does not make the game any less P2W. And about joining an outfit, what do you think happens when an outfit of free players engages an outfit of paying players at the current stage of the game?

I was wondering when someone was going to point out that he actually admits this point which contradicts his entire argument.