You Get My Money if I Think Your Worth It!

For most of my life I have been into the inner "gaming" world. At a young age I was sponsored at a strategy RTS, Real Time Strategy, called "WarCraft 3:The Frozen Throne". From there I was introduced to beta and alpha testing. That then lead me to going to conventions and meeting the Indie Gaming world.

A major turn of events in recent years has come about to the gaming world. There has always been free to play games, like small flash games, but never what has just come. Now full online game have come to this free to play system. You give out your whole game for free, but the catch is that any extra feature you want that isn't mainstream asset you must buy. Also boosts to playing or getting to a higher place in the game faster is available. 

The major thing here is what I call the "virtual currency pit". You don't buy a feature for $2.99, you buy it for 350 player points. How do you get player points? WELL you can get 500 player points for $4.99! OR you can get 1200 for $9.99 etc... So now when you use this new currency you don't read it as using real money and you don't have the same fundamental value. Spending 20 dollars isn't spending 20 gamer points and people lose that connection. 

Now most of these features you buy are completely cosmetic or grind support. Most games that do this successfully make sure to avoid the purchase of things that can make a player at a much higher advantage because they paid more money. So looking further, the successful games at this practice only offer cosmetic purchases, so why buy them? Well I see the four people, that guy, fluff, you, me. That guy is the guy who buys them so he looks like he is more invested and in turn better at the game. Fluff is the person who just likes the background and the story. He also has more of a connection to the art and the easter eggs. You, well you say why buy that? I'll just play for free! Then theres me, who will buy online currency to the factor of how much I like the game and want to invest.

So is it free, yea it i free. Will it ever be free for a grounded user, probably not. Does it have the no initial investment, which draws potential customers in yea! Go business plan!!