Most f2p games (Korea-China-Japan) are really freemium games aka p2w. If you don't pay, you are subjected to mediocre gear/items and excluded from everything game has to offer due to RNG and gear restrictions imposed onto players that do not pay. Many f2p games create incentives enticing you to pay and it is deceitful. The main issue however is that even the cash shop items have an insidious amount of RNG involved hence why dude was able to spend $7000. Everyone agrees to some extent that it is not fair. I have paid to play DCUO (well it isn't f2p why do they still advertise as such) and some Nexon games.
Anyway the problem is that the business model used in these games are predatory and exploitative.
Its a big deal that is often overlooked due to lobbyist. Ultimately nothing major happens to leave a lasting impact. They just do workarounds or find loopholes. In all, I have self control though. Spent little under $200 on f2p games over the last 6 years I started playing them. However this doesn't make the business model used in f2p games right and it's highly unregulated.
For example, at one point in Vindictus:
- The drop rate for a vital gear piece in order to progress in the game for some classes was 0.002% or 1/442 (well denominator was over 400).
- Weapon +10 enhance was minimum including having a full armor set in order to join pug endgame raids
- +10 required cash shop runes- avg. people spent on weapon to +10 was $20 else risk breaking and farming same raids/dungeons to craft weapon again
- People who enjoyed the game or never paid before were all of a sudden FORCED to pay in order to progress in a timely manner
- It took many casuals a YEAR just to get competent gear and many players were not allowed into endgame raids till patches reworked gear progression
Throughout that dark period in the game, Vindictus hosted numerous events that enticed whales to keep buying and convinced casuals to purchase cash shop items only to be turned away due to the RNG involved with cash items. For example, an enchant rune cost $10 each and had a success rate of 40%. Meanwhile, they were the select few due to RNG whom were able to get BiS gear without paying a dime RNGeeesus.
In a nutshell, that's how majority of those so called f2p games work including the popular Tera hence the revolving door community it has.
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