Jack Emmert to speak on free-to-play vs. pay-to-win

[Peregrine Falcon]

Massively: Jack Emmert to speak on free-to-play vs. pay-to-win

"Emmert will be delivering a talk during a session titled How to Avoid Pay-to-Win with F2P."

Frankly this whole situation just makes me laugh.

While it's true that both STO and NW have more than just a bit of P2W in them, it's hard to actually blame Jack Emmert for this. After all, Perfect World Entertainment bought Cryptic Studios from Atari for $49.8 million US dollars back in 2011, and the F2P/P2W business model that was added to STO, and later NW, was pretty much the same as in all of their other games. So it's pretty likely that he has little to no say in what happens with Cryptic's games, at least as far as the cash shop is concerned.

So while I do find the comments section amusing, as always, blaming Jack for the P2W parts of STO & NW is akin to blaming the janitor for a game company's horrible business model or DRM.

[General Idiot]

It's also worth noting that in STO at least, the stuff you get out of the lockboxes isn't hugely better than anything you can get normally. Some of it is better, yes, but not by such a huge margin that you're gimped if you don't have it. Which is what people usually mean when they refer to pay to win.

CO I'm not so sure about. Freeform characters are certainly a lot more versatile than archetypes but I'm not sure that necessarily makes them better, as such. And again, most of the stuff from lockboxes and such are only very slightly better than normal stuff, plus it's possible to get keys without paying anyway via the questionite exchange or ingame auction house.

[JaguarX]

yeah.


 pay to win
luck to win
grind to win
 reflex skill to win


All the same. Some people will love it, especially if they gain great advantage, money or have the skill, luck, time for that system or hate it because they lack money, skill, luck, time for the system.

[General Idiot]

In all of Cryptic's games though, it's pay OR grind to win. Which is slightly more acceptable, maybe.

[Peregrine Falcon]

It's also worth noting that in STO at least, the stuff you get out of the lockboxes isn't hugely better than anything you can get normally.

The ships that buy in the in-game store are more powerful that any ship you can earn in game. The devs themselves referred to them as "plus one ships." And Al 'CaptainGeko' Rivera said 'of course they're better, you're paying real money for them.' I'm paraphrasing from memory.

Also, the many of the ships that you get from the lockboxes, particularly the Jem'Hadar bug ship, are considerably more powerful than any ship that you can acquire for free in game.

So when you can BUY gear (ships) that's considerably more powerful than stuff that you can get for free in game then how is that game NOT pay-to-win?

[dwturducken]

While I see your point, I would not spend real money on a ship if all it had was a cooler look than one I had for free. Maybe my philosophy has changed, since I did buy a couple of the Booster Packs just for the costume set.

In the end, though, it's not pay-to-win, at least in the Cryptic games. It's pay-for-QoL. You can buy better gear, but it's not critical to the success of a mission.

[Codewalker]

The idea of getting a starship out of a lockbox seems completely comical to me and prevents me from taking the game seriously.

I know it's a "requisition pack" or whatever, but I still can't get the image out of my head of somebody opening a box and a huge ship popping out of it.

[dwturducken]

I have that problem with all of the Cryptic games. I haven't played any of the Perfect World games outside of the Cryptic stable to know if that's a construct that they originated, but it is pretty clumsy from a narrative standpoint. Also, "zen" as a currency...

[srmalloy]

The idea of getting a starship out of a lockbox seems completely comical to me and prevents me from taking the game seriously.

You'd laugh at the delivery system when you open packs from the Cartel Market in SWTOR, then... the packages get 'delivered' like an orbital bombardment -- a delivery crate falls out of the sky and crashes to ground in front of you in a little crater. This is fine when you're out on a planet somewhere, but the disbelief stretches when you're inside a building... or on one of the fleet space stations... or on your personal starship. The contents-to-volume issue isn't as bad as getting a starship out of a lockbox, but getting a delivery crate that comes up to your knee that contains a twelve-foot-long speeder bike is a little giggleworthy.

[AlabasterKnight]

The idea of getting a starship out of a lockbox seems completely comical to me and prevents me from taking the game seriously.

I know it's a "requisition pack" or whatever, but I still can't get the image out of my head of somebody opening a box and a huge ship popping out of it.

Even it was purchased on Christmas or something?
(Truly, I have the same image. You'd think that there would be an instance where you go to a space dock and get handed orders and shown your beautiful new ship or something....)

[General Idiot]

The ships that buy in the in-game store are more powerful that any ship you can earn in game. The devs themselves referred to them as "plus one ships." And Al 'CaptainGeko' Rivera said 'of course they're better, you're paying real money for them.' I'm paraphrasing from memory.

Also, the many of the ships that you get from the lockboxes, particularly the Jem'Hadar bug ship, are considerably more powerful than any ship that you can acquire for free in game.

So when you can BUY gear (ships) that's considerably more powerful than stuff that you can get for free in game then how is that game NOT pay-to-win?

They are better, yes. I never said they weren't, I'm simply saying they're not the massive jump in power that people usually associate with the concept of pay to win. They're the slightly more acceptable form of pay to win where it's only a very slight advantage at best.

As for the lockbox ships, you can get those pretty easily without paying a cent. Well, you might have to by the energy credit cap increase to be able to hold enough to buy one of those ships off the market but the ships themselves you can get with a little effort. Either manipulating the market, or converting dilithium to zen and buying something which you can then sell. Or buying keys directly through the same method, again without paying anything.

[JWBullfrog]

I absolutely love lockboxes in PWE games...
 
They drop all the time and they're worth a few coppers every time. It's a steady source of income.
 
If I remember correctly, our own City had it's share of people shouting that it was 'Pay to Win.' Over the seven years I had in game, I could never see it. My game was never effected by whether or not somebody else decided to pay real money.
 
PWG games (which I do play regularly) are not all that different. It is entirely possible to ignore lockboxes and still have a satisfying game play experience using only the items that can be found in game.
 
In fact, I consider it a challenge.
 
Anyone, no matter how horrible a player they are, can beat a game by spending money. This is a lesson I learned playing M:TG may years ago. But, like in that game, I thought it was more fun to use whatever fell into my hands and figure out a way to win.
 
 

[dwturducken]

I'm pretty sure you can't sell lock boxes in the Cryptic games. "Fortunately," they stack to 99 or 100 or something.

[JWBullfrog]

I'm pretty sure you can't sell lock boxes in the Cryptic games. "Fortunately," they stack to 99 or 100 or something.

Actually, you can. They go for pennies in STO and Neverwinter, but they can be sold to any in game shop.

[General Idiot]

In STO and Neverwinter you can vendor them, in CO you can't. I think.

[Sleepy Wonder]

49 million? That seems a little low considering it's an entire studio (the very studio that created CoH which was valued by NCSoft @ 80 ~ million)

[Golden Girl]

Lockboxes are pretty unethical and don't really have anything to do with gaming.

[Minotaur]

Lockboxes are pretty unethical and don't really have anything to do with gaming.

Well other than putting money into the game to keep it going, but I agree I dislike them.

I wouldn't mind so much if you could earn even one key per month by means other than cash.

[General Idiot]

In all three of Cryptic's games, you can. STO especially where it's trivially easy to hit the dilithium cap every day, you can earn a key every couple of days if you want.

[Remaugen]

I wouldn't mind putting up with an occasional in game advert if it meant keeping things F2P. Passive ads like background billboards would be perfectly acceptable, as would a five or ten second start up clip. I could even put up with "This mission brought to you by XYZ".

I had two paid accounts for the last several years but I am unlikely to pay for two if the game should ever return, but I would be happy to pay for one and live with ads on the second. . .