Drain wrote:They run stupid cash shops we'd rather not have. They survive by milking whales, who pay more than they should, to cover for people like you, who don't want to pay anything. I loathe this business model because all the stuff you're buying in the cash shop is amputated from the game itself. Rather than obtain stuff IN the game, it's now bought in a real store. There's no immersion in a game when you go to the local blacksmith, don't have enough gold for his weapon, but rather than go work for gold like you should, you get out your real life credit card. In real life, if you can't afford something, you have to go get a job to get the money until you can afford it. You do not buy money with money, thus you should not buy gold with money.
I'm not saying people shouldn't have the option of donating excessive money to a game to support it, but when you start getting amputated content sold back to you; this is shit. Luckily it's only skins in decent games. But in bad games, you actually get gold, boosts, equipment, or worse yet, premium equipment regular suckers can't even acquire. The games you've mentioned are the decent few out of a flooded market of 1,000 other shitty F2P games. Many even sell a box and then run a store afterwards, such as retail WoW, as if the constant boxes and subs weren't enough. They charge for account services too, things that used to be free. When your server was overpopulated or dying back in the day, they'd give free transfers to help population balances. Now they want 25$ per character to do it. They sold out.
I hear what you're saying, but its a matter of perspective and good will. The best model, depending on your definition of best, is crowdfunding to cover server costs and the staff, then dividing the inevitable surplus, instead of trying to make as much profit as possible. That allows people to play the game at minimal cost, with reasonable pay for the staff, along with extra from donations. People donate plenty of money to watch people stream games "because they like them", so its reasonable to assume that donations would exceed the costs of running the game, especially if the company has such a good image from doing that for the community.
"But isn't that the same as a sub?" Depends on how much you pay the staff.
And I know Blizzard is thinking, "dude, $15 a month from 200,000 subscribers is alot of money, can you blame us? Would you accept $10,000 a month instead of $100,000? Yes I would, for the sake of the community and avoiding greed. And those numbers aren't entirely accurate of course, but you get the point. $15 x 200,000 subscribers is about $2 million per month, divided by 20 staff is $100,000 per person. Isn't that bigger than the Nostalrius team anyway? For example. And a dedicated server costs $400 per month at most. Most gaming servers are less.
