haters gonna hate

Valve' position obviously gives it an edge at generating a strong user base, but the fact remains that their f2p model is extremely profitable. Tf2 is more profitable now that it ever was before it went f2p. And these aren't the only examples. Most successful F2P games avoid P2W in favour of other methods that don't divide the player base or cause animosity. Look at hearthstone or league of legends (IIRC, I'll admit I haven't played league or know the specifics of its business model) for other examples (though I still prefer the DOTA 2 method over all else).

No, you had to sign a NDA for the engine too, but yes, the translators were in real beta.
I think I know what I'm talking about .. Check the about panel of MtoA, you will see my name...

tired of these arguments.

one or two games doesn't exempt the whole lot.
plus in the case of DOTA2 you can also buy your victory just the same as LoL and TF2 has the store to keep it up and running.

Planetside two is an okayish example but really the whole point is the degenerate functioning of F2P games. They always have to get their money from somewhere and the people secretly defending their sacred garden of paid victories aren't helping anyone. not even themselves on the long run.

You saying about most popular F2P games in the world as example, but forgot there was thousands other games that failed.

Most of games not magically become profitable right after initial release, but developers need to eat something and pay bills all the time. Money it's one of reasons Uber sell their unfinished game and for F2P title it's obviously will turn in cripple expirience of non-paid customers.

Planetside 2 might be fine in general, but paying players still have advantage over you and unfortunately I'm one of people who can't accept that. I'm fine with buying games or pay for subscription and I can accept economy like Eve Online have fine, but not such imparity.

Thank you! yea me neiher

and I have thesis-worthy material on the explanation of how LoL is pay to win too!

All F2P games inevitably follow that path to make money.

I never played LoL so I'm have no idea what they make money on, but Planetside 2 still have boosters that give advantage for paying players.

they sell champion early access
on day one and two they are imba then they patch them down. under the pretense that they "didn't know" even though it's the 300th time.

I figure you backed it during the Kickstarter? That is a different thing in my book - you are not buying a product but rather investing in it. You made an investment and have been promised a return in relation to how much money you were willing to part with. Plus the opportunity to influence the shaping of the product.
Paid early access on the other hand is just buying an incomplete product. And any product that is offered for money is fair game in terms of critique. If the product is not ready to be critiqued, it shouldn't be made publicly available, much less for amounts of money suggesting it might be in a finished state.
PA being available via Kickstarter and Early Access does make for some blurry lines, though.

It both amounts to "pay now get completed product hopefully later". Paying for the early access to an already existing beta is actually a more "save" thing to do, so it's the more rational thing to do. In the end you basically pay for having something really early. Having something earlier is a good reason to pay imho. Yes it is unfinished, but you know it is. There are disclaimers all over the place. Also constructive critique is obviously very welcome. What's pointless and just troll-level flaming is to compare an early access game that had not even 2 years of development yet with other games that have been more or less completed years ago. Especially comparing prices of such 2 products is comparing apples to oranges. PA will probably be just as cheap in 5 years after all.

One or two games don't exempt the lot? These are the most popular ones for a reason. I also wasn't aware that you could "buy victory" in DOTA2, I was under the impression it was cosmetics they profited from. How do you "buy" victory in it.
And as for the TF2 store, which is a very strong example and I don't have a clue why you would bring it up as a counter example: cosmetics are how it earns cash. Sure, you can buy weapons too, but they drop constantly for free and can be traded for at a value of under 2 cents each. They might as well not be for sale at all.
The money makers are the cosmetics, kill tracking weapons, keys and tickets that give players a chance at rare cosmetic items that don't effect gameplay in the slightest. There is no pay to win in TF2. It's proven to work if you have the right kind of game, and it can work very well.

(And that's my last post on this topic, since it's totally off topic, even if it is in a bit of a flame-bait-ish thread).

If you backed at kickstarter, which I did, I think it was pretty much the cheapest price you have ever been able to buy PA for (was it $25?). And you also got early access, forum rights and an exclusive commander skin. Worth every penny.
I can understand some people begrudge risking paying money for a product that isn't finished, but come on, PA is turning out almost exactly how Uber stated in their original Kickstarter video. Meh, people will whinge about anything, gamers are entitled, humanity is doomed etc. #firstworldproblems.

No it's not different, it's exactly the same. Thats where you arn't understanding. Just because the option to back PA became available on steam changes nothing. Weather you backed through Uber's site, or through steam, buying the game early is "Backing" the game. Thats what you pay extra for, and it includes early access. It's not for early access...

well no, because without kickstarter the game would never have existed. With early access, the game is still being made, you are just helping it by funding it and giving feedback. The Kickstarter was WAY more fundamental in Uber being able to realise their vision.

See, this is Traditional thinking getting caught in a new form of build as we go development thinking. Honestly its a rather new system that I think has kind of uprooted it self from the independent game scene as well as the crowd-funding investments have finally taken a foothold in the market.

The whole concept of paying for early access is entirely new for me since i've been invited to betas compared to paying for them. (SC2 had invites, but just started giving them away when you bought the game). You can say there is a definite Shift in a market's want for new products and that people who are willing to pay for them will do it earlier rather then later if the interest is high enough. It may seem a little money grabbing from the people creating these systems, but in the end you are supporting a game you either wanted to buy or have a strong interest in supporting it, regardless if there was some fuzzyness to it. It can feel unfair and unreasonable to a select few but there is plenty of traditional games out there being made where people can sign up for free beta testing or they can try these in-development games and pay straight away.

I do feel this thread should get locked or moved to Off-topic.

I bought on Uber's site after the kickstarter finished but before Alpha and WAY before steam access. What does that make me? Uber stated several times that the Kickstarter value was nowhere near the cost of what is required to develop the game, just what they needed in addition to their resources to make it happen. As they push the release back to add quality for us it adds cost. Thats how the additional backers over time continue to help. They continue to fund the game as it is being made for lesser and lesser rewards the longer they wait.

It makes you an interested individual who wanted to help Uber create the game they wanted, in return for said game when finished. Not sure what you are trying to say, as there is nothing wrong with that statement? anyway, agreed, this thread is kind of unnecessary and going a bit awry. Relax everyone, just enjoy the development process and the reward for your investment of time and money.

Might be that this bothers me because of many early access games being advertised on primarily sales platforms instead of, well, not-sales platforms? Whatever the case, it seems it is mainly me being hung up on semantics then so I concede my point.

I have no problem with people being annoyed at being missold something, if that is the case. What bothers me is people saying that early access/kickstarter is a bad thing. How do they think these sorts of unique, "unpublishable" games with a larger scope than indie games are going to be made otherwise?
I mean, there is presumably a way of financing a personal project, but surely only through highly risky banks loans etc. Kickstarter and early access means the developers get to make the game they really want to make, and peopl want to play, to a higher standard than possible through personal financing, and with more of the original vision, undiluted by publisher demands. WIN.

This is the problem with steam early access. Steam by default lists and sells early access games alongside released ones, and because of the way the system handles it, the price point of early access games are judged by those browsing the store relative to completed ones. It might say somewhere in small text that the game is priced for backers, but the big button near the top says "buy". Does it make sense? Not really, but when a game goes on steam, even on early access, steam advertises it as "this game is for sale for this price", not as "back this game". If you aren't "selling" the game for that price, putting it on steam that way is going to cause a lot of issues, and it did.