I found that microtransaction games are "pay to cheat", allowing the paying players to buy godlike powers over the non-payers, constantly farming them. I believe that such model doesn't support long-time playing as one can get bored with being unstoppable soon. Also, such games don't allow the forming of a competitive community as wins are determined by paying and not being good.
However EVE Online exists and thrives for years despite having a powerful item in the shop: PLEX. It means "pilot license extension". If you use a PLEX, you get 30 days of play time. It costs more than having a month of subscription, so why bother? Because you can sell it for ingame currency. In EVE you can buy all items with the currency, so if you buy enough PLEX in the item shop, you can buy the biggest spaceship ever built, equipped with the biggest guns available. Yet the game is stable and you don't see random morons massacring players with their money-bought power.
I look forward Diablo III too, and it will have a similar feature: real money AH, allowing players to buy gear and all other items from each other. One can gear his first character into the most powerful gear available if he pays enough. Yet I think the game will be huge success.
Isn't the fact that you can buy power from money makes these game pay-to-cheat? No, because the amount of items doesn't change! The item was there before the transaction, just in the hand of another player. If your gear was in top 10%, it will still be top 10%, even if more than 10% of players make purchase in the item shop as they could only buy the existing items, and yours is top 10% of the items.
Actually the existence of such transfer makes those relatively stronger who don't participate, because the powerful item moves from the hand of a skilled player to the bad one. Which is more threat? A top level battleship in the hands of a 3 years veteran Goon, or the same ship in the hands of Arthasdkol who just stole daddy's credit card?
Also, such system is self-correcting. Since the supply of items depend on good players, if lot of bad players start to buy PLEX or gear from the RMAH, the price of the game items goes up (the price of the PLEX go down), making the purchase more and more wasteful.
So, the transaction make those who don't participate a bit stronger, the buyer much stronger and the seller weaker (but he can afford it, that's why he sold it). This system also lets good players (who are often builders of the community) to play for free, so staying in easier/longer.
PS: the new Diablo III change that allows only 10 auctions on RMAH and also 10 on gold AH may make serious AH trading impossible and allow only trading of powerful gear between players. This is annoying to us, but doesn't affect the above.
However EVE Online exists and thrives for years despite having a powerful item in the shop: PLEX. It means "pilot license extension". If you use a PLEX, you get 30 days of play time. It costs more than having a month of subscription, so why bother? Because you can sell it for ingame currency. In EVE you can buy all items with the currency, so if you buy enough PLEX in the item shop, you can buy the biggest spaceship ever built, equipped with the biggest guns available. Yet the game is stable and you don't see random morons massacring players with their money-bought power.
I look forward Diablo III too, and it will have a similar feature: real money AH, allowing players to buy gear and all other items from each other. One can gear his first character into the most powerful gear available if he pays enough. Yet I think the game will be huge success.
Isn't the fact that you can buy power from money makes these game pay-to-cheat? No, because the amount of items doesn't change! The item was there before the transaction, just in the hand of another player. If your gear was in top 10%, it will still be top 10%, even if more than 10% of players make purchase in the item shop as they could only buy the existing items, and yours is top 10% of the items.
Actually the existence of such transfer makes those relatively stronger who don't participate, because the powerful item moves from the hand of a skilled player to the bad one. Which is more threat? A top level battleship in the hands of a 3 years veteran Goon, or the same ship in the hands of Arthasdkol who just stole daddy's credit card?
Also, such system is self-correcting. Since the supply of items depend on good players, if lot of bad players start to buy PLEX or gear from the RMAH, the price of the game items goes up (the price of the PLEX go down), making the purchase more and more wasteful.
So, the transaction make those who don't participate a bit stronger, the buyer much stronger and the seller weaker (but he can afford it, that's why he sold it). This system also lets good players (who are often builders of the community) to play for free, so staying in easier/longer.
PS: the new Diablo III change that allows only 10 auctions on RMAH and also 10 on gold AH may make serious AH trading impossible and allow only trading of powerful gear between players. This is annoying to us, but doesn't affect the above.
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