Whose Fault Are The Freeloaders?

I don't mind subscription games or games where you buy to play but games where they push micro currency or costume shops on you push it for me because instead of trying to expand the playerbase and get more players they are only focusing on the money.

The problem they face is mostly that they have a set number of players and they want to push the % of profit up instead of enlarging the player base (mostly because maintenance), so odd things start to happen to the game midway. Instead, new games should look up ways to go around that issue straight off the bat (warframe for example does it but still those connections are heavy with issues). I believe future F2P games need to take this heavily into consideration because that margin of profit is really hard to push up and instead you need to enlarge the popularity of your game thus enhancing your profit margin and the amount you get at the end. The bigger the player base the better it is for a random player (paying or not) to just come in and check on his game (given he has stuff to do in-game) and thus he himself dispite being a "freeloader" or not is helping inside the game (queues, parties and raids become an issue once the player base starts trickling down and this also affects "whales"). There are ALOT of things a player might contribute to the game's "health" besides paying a monthly fee. One example is, if the player has extra time instead of a working an 8h shift to pay for your game (being him at school, under age, rich or poor) he can, and mostly surely will, engage in forum activities by posting feedback and ideas on the things he like and does not like (most companies see this as a "free to develop" mode nowadays and they dont actually pay for that service anymore, now who's the "moocher"?). In the end the "health" of the game you're doing is always the main concern (that profit margin) now if you're achieving this with 10 players great, just dont expect to do 20 men raids with that!

So true.

The free loaders are primarily to be blamed on developers themselves. You see certain companies having massive success selling little more than cosmetics and a few convenience items- Nexon has made massive amounts of money almost entirely off of cosmetics and the way I see it is that there are a few things that appeal to me that likely appeal to most other gamers as well. I don't mind spending money on a cash shop at all but there are certain criteria that need to be met before I will do it. First, the cosmetic items should be highly stylized to stand out from other games i've played. Second they'd have to be limited time items with no chance of being resold since the whole point is for my character to stand out in a crowd. Third, and most importantly if the game sells over powered items in the cash shop I won't spend a dime on it. I will play a pay to win game if it is good enough but will never spend money on one since I am opposed to cheating in any game and selling power to players rates up there with using a trainer to get powerful equipment or boost your stats in a game like dark souls in my opinion so I won't support a company that encourages that sort of thing out of greed. As for freeloaders they will be there no matter what but the things i mentioned would make a lot of companies more money if they do it right. The whole appeal of free to play games is so players who can't pay a monthly fee can get online and play a game with their friends even if the friends can afford the fee. So if developers invested as much money in hiring good artists as they waste trying to promote pay to win cash grab titles and stuck with a single mmo to put their efforts into instead of slinging a hundred of them at the wall and washing them away if they don't immediately see success on the scale of games like wow they'd get a lot further.
These companies throw out one game after another thinking it's going to be possible to have the success that blizzard had with world of warcraft over night and shut them down left and right wasting company assets instead of using sense. Blizzard did several things right and planned a ton more than people seem to think. First they took years developing the game to fine tune it. They didn't focus everything into making it realistic and instead focused on artistic flair to meet lower end system requirements. They plugged people into short term betas while constantly generating hype leading up to the open beta. They baited time to wait for a time when no other major mmos were scheduled to launch. They also assessed their competition at the time by waiting for beta testing access for press to have opinions let out to determine weather they needed to wait to release the game(At the time the biggest competition, at least in hype were Everquest II and Star Wars Galaxies and we all know how those were at launch). So it wasn't just random success even though it did coincide with a large upsurge in the popularity of online gaming but for the most part they planned things out and didn't force the game out too soon. Recently we've seen similar success with league of legends and dota2 is pretty competitive with that now. So it is possible to have that level of success with free to play titles if the developer listens to what players want and plan things out instead of just slinging shit at a wall and hoping something will stick.
The companies not seeing success only have themselves to blame for sinking their efforts into the wrong places and not appealing to what drives gamers, weather it's to be better than your friend or to just look unique in a group most gamers want to stand out when they play a game online so games either need to adapt challenging gameplay or have good artists if they can't cover both and being over the top funny or charming can go a long way too. Again, I want to ragdoll myself off a skyscraper into a crowd of fifty gamers. And I want to be wearing a metal sombraro with animated mini chainsaws dangling from the brim when i do it.

In most game forums I visited, the community tends to always bash, flame, and troll "Free Players" when Free Players are discussing "balance issues"

Where as the Cashers always say "what can't spend a few dollar to support the game?"

Quite sad these days that 70~90% of any game dislike Free Players when Free Players are the ones that's actually supporting the games.

Think of it, what happens if all Free Players leave?
How many cashers would be left to play the game? 100 ppls? LOL

Note to author: next time save it for April Fools.

Yes because most of these free to play companies totally don't get their content from another company over seas. They totally don't just translate it then push it out, doing very little work of their own.

I personally wont pay for a game unless I play it for a while. You wont know if a game is good or not until you play for countless hours waging its pros and cons, ant then u got the end game content that your trying to see if its gonna be worth that $15 a month or yet see how grindy the game is. If the game is good then ill pay. I spent over $400 dollars on league of legends and had a blast but see you don't know this until you play it. personally, I don't want to pay $15 a month for a freaking game I bought for $60 dollars just to play it online. Now, if more games came out with the purchase then play for free model then i'd be looking at buying them. The reason why console games sell more is bc of this model. once you buy a game you shouldn't have to pay for online, that's how I feel

Wow just wow.I read the article and then read the comments.And first let me say Jason the article was good,I really liked the satirical nature of the beginning.Very funny stuff there sir.Second to those commentators that are flipping out over the satirical part of the article.Really?Really?How do you see what is obvious satire and think to yourselves the writer is trying to insult me? It's like when Taco Bell had those commercials with the chihuahua.And some people got angry.Just like there was people dumb enough to see a talking dog in a commercial and said to themselves that's me.There are some people reading satire and their first thought is he's talking about me.He's not he was talking about how the companies go out of their way promoting the game as free then act shocked that not everyone is paying them money.

Jason keep up the good work.And to those stupid people out there I'm gonna leave you with some words of wisdom my grandfather told me once.It's better to be thought a fool,then to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

Oh you people... always talking about money. How sad :/ you poor poor and ignorant people

Firstly I just want to address that, yes, Mr. Winter, I did catch that the entire article was satirical--something that 95% of these apes in the comments seem to miss.

With that said I very much loved the "In three months of a new game P2P subscription game, you’d be expected to pay around $100 total. Even if you need to buy a few XP boosters or the like, you’re unlikely to spend that much in three months of playing any F2P game" bit you threw in there. It made me chortle like the mad hatter.

I always did wonder why cheapskates say P2P are expensive when in three months I only pay ~$45 dollars. In those three months I easily get a couple hundred hours of entertainment..but I suppose dropping ~$20 or so at a cheap fast food joint on a meal that lasts 15 minutes is so much more worth it to folks.

People, right? Thanks for the article Jason.

Wow. What a dbag. It's Free-to-play. why should we pay for something that is...FREE?! It's free-to-play for a reason. To get the gaming population on it so they can see all the goodies in the market that they can buy to make them a 'better' player. Pay-to-win. Ever heard of it? On paper, they could make more money off selling virtual items for real cash than they would making it a paid game. That or a more steady income. If they don't want 'freeloaders' than they wouldn't release it as a free game. Simple as that. So, sorry for taking advantage of something that is free to consumer. It is people like the artist here that make the coming generations worse than the previous one. Oh, and because I work hard to make sure that there's food on your table, and building material to build your house with etc, I'm going to start charging you a $100 fee every time you go to a store as a 'maintenance' fee'.

Everyone that is attacking Jason and this article, needs to take a chill pill...
You're all acting like a bunch of pissed off toddlers, and you need to just.... relax.
Take some deep breathes.
If you don't agree with what someone says (either in the comments or the article itself) there isn't a need to go nuts.
There is a difference between telling someone politely, "I'm going to have to disagree" and "You're a dumb ass etc etc etc."
If some of you didn't notice... he isn't actually attacking F2P players.... at all.
This is satire...

His words right here;

"Warning, incoming satire"

If you don't know what the meaning of satire is, I'll even include it in this comment just for YOU!



sat·ire [sat-ahyuhr]
noun
1.
the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly, etc.
2.
a literary composition, in verse or prose, in which human folly and vice are held up to scorn, derision, or ridicule.
3.
a literary genre comprising such compositions.

this article is a joke "whose fault are all the freeloaders?" if the game is free, what do you expect? most free to play games are absolute trash

Hm, as you can see from the comments.

Free 2 Play is a hotly debated topic that will go on forever down into the depths of page 10 forum trolling if you let it.

I believe the POINT of the article was to say developers focus too much on the word "FREE" when they should be focusing on..."Oh hey we have an awesome gameplay experience here."

We all have the right to try out any game when its labeled "Free" so theres nothing wrong with it, if the game developers managed to convince a player to pay money for something they love then good for them, if they can't then they just fail. I play a lot F2P titles just to try them out for a good long while before i decide to use my money if its worth it and many games are not worth spending money in ever sometimes.

Children most likely won't have a credit card to pay for the games
Adults won't even bother to play most of these **** games "oh boi look at this just another f2p Korean MMORPG same as the 10000000000000000000000 other ones I should definitely play this and support this by pouring money"

Most single player games are more fun than average f2p MMORPG

If the game meets certain requirements. I have no problem spending money on it. Example. World of tanks. When I was playing it and I had a problem I took it to support had a response in a few hours, after that dropped about 200 on new tanks and premium. Anything ever put out by Nexon...never got a response and thus never spent a dime. Hearthstone cbt. Had an issue was able to resolve in it in 15 minutes dropped some cash.

The problem with many developers and their f2p model is they treat it as a turn key enterprise like a self service car wash. Problem is they forget to restock the DAMN SOAP or every answer their phones. Many of these companies have the worst security which allows hackers to just run wild and rather then improve their security to start ban waves which do catch many hackers sweep up the innocent as well and offer no resolution process or recuperation for lost time and money spent. When companies show that level of apathy to customer care then why should any one pay then anything.

I don't pay because I simply... can't, yes, $5 seems cheap, but here $5 is R$10 and I don't have that much money to spend on games, I'm not even buying games at all for a while now

this mean that I don't ever spend money on f2p? no... I do, but since I can't spend all the time, I only do on games I'm certain that I'm going to play for quite some time, like I did with ragnarök, perfect world, ether saga and few others

I made a vlog about this right when wildstars payment model came out -.-

Bloody free players, increasing the game population and creating a community !!! Damn them all for coming to play a game, that we gladly put out for free, for free.

Jason Winter has completely missed the mark with this article. Free players are not moochers, or cheapskates or any other derogatory term that Jason can come up with. Free players build up the base of the game population, and make the game worth playing. Think about it, if EVERYONE bought XP boosters there would be absolutely no point in buying them. Paying players pay to get an advantage, and without free players there is no advantage to be gained. Add to this the publicity (word of mouth) that free players will give a game they enjoy playing for free. This publicity then attracts more players (who might pay).

If F2P game studios were shutting down left right and center, then I could kind of see your point Jason. As it is though, most are highly profitable ventures that:

1. Make the Devs and Publisher money
2. Allow paying players to feel advantaged
3. Allow free players to play a game for free by bringing A LOT of benefits to the game

Yeah, well, I don't know about you, but I play *FREE* to play games, because they are *FREE*. Why the frick would I spend money for a *FREE* game, when I have the option not to? If you don't like it, you might as well just rename the model from *FREE* to Play to "We Want You to Buy Sh*t". When I have the option to play a FREE to PLAY game for *FREE*, I usually choose to continue doing so. If I wanted to pay for a game, I wouldn't install this *FREE* game in the first place.

I want to remind to Mr. Jason Winter that he's writing an article for a web page called mmobomb.com and if you read the subtitle of this web page says clearly "explosive FREE mmo games". So the question is.. what does FREE mean?

I have no problem with this article, but you should consider "age", we "kids" don't have jobs, and mostly not every kids gets money from their parants or if they are.... not everyone is "allowed to buy through online or buy at all" because most parents don't like it, because of security issues as a example. And yes.... we are playing free to play games for a reason... no money, no game. ( one of the reasons why thepiratebay is so popular.

I put money into games when I can afford to. Unfortunately, I might have other monetary obligations to take care of and buying from in-game stores aren't always top of the list.

Why would Freeloaders be a fault in the first place?

Step 1 - Try to rip-off people with a promise you won't keep
Step 2 - Blame them for not paying and appeal to their conscience
Step 3 - Capitalism

Always interesting topic.

You are offending people from low income family and country's with economic issueds, you should be ashamed!

@Jason,

It sucks but it seems you've gone over the head of most of the bigots who feel compelled to post and chastise. I'd advise that next time you structure it a bit better so it is clear which angle you are coming from, who is at the heart of your arguments, who you are defending and what you position is so no one can misconstrue what you are saying.

"Whose Fault Are The Freeloaders? " Its the countrys fault, because not everyone has a job or earns enough money to pay for mmo's.

If you dont have money for a game for whatever reason, that is your problem now really... isn't it?
Lets be real here, games are made so the developers would get paid for their work, if we all freeload and dont even dish out some form of money for them the game will just plain wither and die.
Not to mention it is a real slap in the face to people who were already subscribed and paying for the game because some of the things they were paying for are no longer there and free, which raises the question as to what are you even paying for?
Let me give you an example, Star wars the old republic.
Decent game, limited as F2P but you can get to the end game, you can buy a one time item to enable rare equipment and other things including but not limited to Character slots, Inventory Slots, Bank Slots, Joining a Guild, Whispering and that pointless stuff(Trust me you are lucky to not be a part of the horrific chat), 3 or something flashpoints a week.
*Not much but once you have played all of them once you realize they are really bleak, boring and horrific to be put on repeat.
So Subscribers get what? You already unlocked the gear(Plus color unification), Character slots, Bank slots, Inventory Slots obviously auction house slots or not(Auction house is horrific because everyone will try to undercut you 50% of the time.) Unlimited money(Only useful thing really) Unlimited amount of flashpoints but you can do them once a week anyway and your guild might not include you in every week raids, especially DPS. So 7 day permit is a better thing to buy which is not expensive even. Story is free so you aint paying for that. You get 25% or so more experiance which is decent but can be fixed with the EXP buffs. You can craft more but some crafting is worthless anyway.

So in the end I dunno what you really pay for besides unlimited money, freedom of guild leadership, some extra crafting aaaand... uhhh, suppose nothing really important? Thats money well spent right there. Oh lets not forget the continuous additions to the cartel market which requires extra money from you and you wont likely even get the item you wanted because drop rate for them all is random.

You will likely get 20 pairs of belts and bracers before the item you actually wanted.
In the end, this free to play model creates a greedy market that is ripping off paying players.

I think the main reason why this is getting so much flak, is mostly because there's no indication of where the message is being directed. Yeah, this is an issue with the industry, but at the same time Jason pointed out flaws at a very general audience instead of pointing out the other sub-demographic of folks who have legitimate reason not to pay. Much like expressing counter arguments in a persuasive essay, you have to be able to show a differing perspective to show everyone that you do know what you're talking about. Right now, a few people know and realize this, but it's not clear enough in the writing for it to be displayed as fact rather than a semantic theory.

In short, Better do a liiiiittle more proofreading before tackling this touchy subject.

If a game is free to play and no subscription is required that means you don't have to pay a cent ever...

Even if I was a millionaire I would not spend money on games.. I spend money on real life things like medicine or food... etc

I don't support games because I do not require games to live... the companies who make games should worry about them selves not make plays worry if they will make money or not.

Since I worked behind the scenes before I have witten a column on this. I will try again here to summarize. You know how youtube and Facebook are multi million dollar companies and do not sell a single product? Do you know why your cell phone only charges you .10 for 3 paragraphs sent to outspace satalites?
Now look at these companies, they basically run the world. Space is filled with their satalites, the enterprises have huge sky scraper buildings and yachts in ever port.
GPS was a free military service where all you needed was to buy the reciever...Why?

Because it is ALL PAID FOR UP FRONT! That 25 bucks a month you pay for internet, although a small sum (like the text message charge) is monopolied. Even if the business has competitors, it is still going to the same people. multiply that by the rate of gowth and you have millions pouring in. That alone pays for fees, business expenses and research with extra to throw on on the investment market or expand. And that is just the people. Now the private. When another sky scraper needs internet, they do not pay the 25 bucks per line as you do. They have special fees and rates (in the thousands, or usually millions but paid out over 90 years or the durration of the business, IE, it is apart of the cost of the business if some one purchased the buiding)... What does all that have to do with the game business?
Because space is limited I will try to sumarize. The games are paid for themselves x3 over usually when launched. Everything depends on the contract and use of cash. SOny, for example, knows you cannot run the internet without its laptops (well you would but they have a huge market share). They make a contract with Cow Cable, and get a percentage of your internet bill profits, they also sign a deal with local elcetric ocmpany, and then sign deals with microsoft. You know have a system to big to fall. This means they do no independent contracting to other branches because they want to increase profits on any adventure, even if it COSTS THEM NOTHING. So the board members are formed, they create an mmorpg brnach saying "hey, we can rake in 15 bucks per person subscribed", but only if the profits break the investment and raise it by the end of 2 years.
MEaning, the game can run fully paid and stay open infanantly, but the greed behind the wheel (board of non gamers) needs paid. IF they do nto like the profits, they shut it down; The code is not sold, because even if some one said, "oh hey, I will take the code and host the game all alone". If SOE says yes and thet good guy makes .001 cent off the relaunch, and it is ok whatever...but if the YOU THE PEOPLE end up liking it and paying out of kind heart (Star Citizen), then they get mad and jelous and will try to sue you saying "oh well that was out title". So instead of getting sue crazy, they shut it down.
IT gets more complicated, and this is the route most titles go. Unless you are indie and take more risk. More risk = less partners (like your cable company). HEnce the birth of kick starters etc.
Foregin titles, like the asian games that get ported have different contracts, they usually do the same crap, but back in their home land. IF successful, they might get lucky enough to negotiate a partnership in the other parts of the world, but usually through corpirate backers, like NExon etc..
PWE is it's own franchised software. They sell the core Perfect World game like a casino machine to other countries to RENT OUT. As long as people are paying they will keep the slot machine in their building. And they have stock trade.
All in all, these media sites, and the companies would like you to think IT IS YOUR FAULT. That some you slipped and tripped on the F2P install button, and since they have no repo man to knock on your door and force you to subscribe, they blame you for it. When the board members demand their fully paid game is not making what htey want, IT IS YOUR FAULT. And all these sissy ball less media sites do the PR song of "YOU FREE LOADERS".
I have paid subscription games since EQ, WoW, etc...I have had the same quality of service and content as the new F2P market. I have had hackers in my paid wow account. I have had lost inventory in EQ. I have had bad to no customer support. The content is pathetic as the other titles. Vut the fan boi is dillusional and or tries to support his "team" like a foot ball fan or a political fanatic. You have to seperate the football mentality here. Those are other forms of entertainment. Supporting a title is not like supoprting your local team. YOu know not hte real players. You want to meet them? They are blowing your sub money on cocain in vegas and yachts in the pacific.

Well written article. I agree with you Jason Winter and keep up the good work guys :)

Personally I think the way we pay for mmo's etc may have to change. Someone that can't find $15 a month worth of time won't pay for it. Paying for quest packs etc is good but what if you don't like it. I think they could charge by the hour or something similar. First 5 hours are free then 20 hours for $15 or something. I would like this cause you can have multiple games at once or if you can't play the game you don't lose more money.

i dont see any reason for p2p most mmo's were just bad and if the mmo was p2p well congrats you just spended money and a game that was not good like guild wars 2 everyone was soo hyped about it
but when they finaly started playing it everyone managed to finish that mmo in like 1 week the developers doesnt even want to make expansions i would rather try a mmo before spending instead of
being hyped about a game i dint play yet

By the way,if i had any money i would send them but my family is poor so i cant,how can you even write that post when some people arent the richest?

The only free 2 play game worth paying for right now is WarThunder lol

Wow...well guys, i hate to login on site for putting a question, but this shit deserved it, MMObomb, you lost all my respect with this, i know a developer and a manager of an online game, and she asked me to help her on developing the game from the suggestions of a gamer, the point is that the game is free to play, from 2008 i play free-to-play games, and i've never spent 1€ on them, no one disappointed that, well i hate shoppers in pvp and pay-to-win games, and now you say that i do something wrong? then, i must laught, because if you offer me free bacon and then complain about the fact that i didn't pay it, then you are an hypocritical! and yes, say goodbye to me, i will remove my subscription to newsletter of this site....omg i don't tought that a site like this would do such a bad move...

and to p2player......and am freeloader at every game you can play because i am trying all...and only really few ppl can stop at any game style you can mind....like a tornado on a corn field:-D never had problem with premium users:-) you can try it if you want it:-D but dont play mmorpgs, i growed up from that:-) only action filled games:-)

I pay for games I feel are worth it... games that put effort and work into the game and doesn't just copy/paste every single game on the market today to make a quick buck. I will join a free to play game and play it for a good while to get a feel for the game, check the community, and see all the game has to offer when I reach end game. If I find that the game is lacking I won't pay a cent, if the games community is aweful I move on to a new game, If the company that host the game doesn't care about bugs/exploits/bots/gold farmers I refuse to give them money.

Once I find a game I enjoy and are willing to stay with for a good long while I pay them and enjoy the features a paid subscription or cash shop provides me... But lately they have all been very lazy and it shows. I hope the future games being released aren't as terrible.

:-D i think the main reason why ppl dont pay for games, is that they are f**** expensive...some of them really joking with prizes. i am buying old games, and games which want a reasonable prize...if you look at credit shop of world of battles, you will need your monthly pay for make army you want:-D and the same is the tank prize at wolrd of tanks....thay came down, but still...all friends who playing it are all behind 100 euros, and thats means lots of food, drugs, or even a woman in a club. with 200 euros you can find a old car yourself:-) and the second problem is the old computers players....you will really dont pay game which dont run perfectly on your machine...i was thinking about premium at League of Legends, world of tanks, tribes ascend, world of battles, and warthunder...LoL changed, so it sucks now for me, world of tanks becomes little laggy for me at best details after graphics updates, but i will come back to it, tribes becomes laggy after time, and only warthunder will be mine surelly:-) and i remember time whan League of legends had old graphicc mod for old Graphipcs without shader...and who bought it because it was only game that works smoothly...was pissed off when they stopped it....and with that numbers af active players i think 10 percent is good:-)

The kids crying about subscription cost because of college payments are cute, wtf are you playing games for if you're in college, go study little guys. I like freeloaders because I usually pay for games, because omg I have a job but freeloaders are fun, easy to kill and cry alot. I don't see the problem. They have to do twice the work for twice the time, it is all relative. Most people do have the money but do not want to pay, they know they can achieve the same thing as a paying player just not as fast (in most games, SWTOR restricts way too hard). I do like that everyone at lvl 55 in swtor are all paying players... the freeloaders stay at lvl 50 in a different pvp bracket... where they belong hahahahhaa

I only pay for games that I know I am going to enjoy in the long run. For example, I am still playing a free to play game that came out in 2007. As long as the game entertains me, I will pay for it.

Now that I think about it i only spent $35 on like 10 FP2 games. :I

Meh. This article is neither informative or entertaining.

P.S. Freeloaders? In Russia it is a common belief that anyone who pays for a game is either dumb or insecure. Millions of ignorant *****s deeply believe that those who spend real world money on a game are breaking it. From time to time you can even hear/read something like "Duh! Everybody knows that cash shop is not the main source of income for developers and publishers!".

In short: QQ.

In long:

First of all nothing is free. They should go take it up with my ISP why I am not paying for there game. We don't owe them jack crack! We are not the ones who made them go f2p! Even somehow I had money to pay for a f2p or sub2p, why would I waste my money on poop quality games they give us anyways? They are all the same and are non creative or challenging. They are all turning into single player PVE non open world pvp/pk care bear games(WoW clones). Why should we give them free money when there games SUCK! And deep down inside everyone knows this but are in denial because if they give up on the games they are playing, they will have nothing to do and would be bored. So people try to put up with what they got and make the best out of it crap. So they should STFU or pack up cause they games are not even worth the trouble anyways!

Whoever wrote this article is a complete f*** nerd... Free to play games draw people who don't want to dip money into a game. It seems like that's so overlooked.

FREE TO PLAY = FOR CASUAL GAMERS

Yes, you can make a profit at free to play but don't fucking turn the tables on the f2p players saying they are moochers. People that wanna pay for games can pay, probably end up playing better games anyways but then again, people play games to have fun.

Whoever wrote this needs to get on with their life...

@Jason Winter

If your a journalist you should research more the subject... For writing this you are a very poor games journalist... REALLY? How can you think and write such a poor article and don't know how things work...
How did you get a job in this domain? You use internet and don't know how all the things related to the internet work ? ( including games)

GOOOGLE IS RICH ( and don't tell me it was rich from the start)... AND ITS FREE.... YOUR BROWSER ITS FREE.... HALF OF YOUR PROGRAMS FROM YOUR COMPUTER ARE FREE... YOUTUBE IS FREE AND ITS A PROFITABLE SITE and pays money for YOUTUBERS, TWITCH IS FREE, MAIL SITES ARE FREE, CLOUD SITES ARE FREE etc etc etc..... HELL EVEN YOUR SITE IS FREE.... ( APPLICATIONS ON TABLETS AND MOBILE PHONES ARE FREE)
HOW DO YOU THINK THEY SURVIVE SO WELL? DID YOU EVER THINK OF THAT?

Let me give you a clue... Radio posts have employees too and your listening to them for free? TV companies that make TV shows have employees? Are you watching them for free? And how come some make more money than others in the same industry? RATING....( + publicity, contracts with 3rd parties etc.)
Now compare it to the internet and see if you find similarities... ( why the quoted World of Tanks then keep releasing new games and keep on profit + buying licenses for other games...?) ( or Lol offers so many prizes and tournaments or Dota 2 is supported unconditionally by Steam for free?) (etc. )
Are you really that naive and superficial and unprepared or are you just playing stupid so you can convince kids to start paying in F2P games to support the games...
Your article is so poor its a disgrace and calling players names like “freeloader” or “moocher” or "cheapskates" its shameful for a journalist in general...
All comments above show some reasons why people don't pay blindly money to F2P and not knowing that if they only play that game means supporting the devs and their game.. The money they spend in the game is a PLUS, A BONUS.
So please don't make a fool out of your self.. Its a shame to read something like this .... Hope nobody important sees it.( Maybe this job is not for you... Maybe another job?)

The one game I payed for (DFO) got shut down so I don't see myself paying for anything for awhile now. There's just not many games that are worth paying for like DFO was to me. That and I'm broke as hell so there's that.

Are u f*** kidding me ? how dare you whoever posted this shit, SO WHAT IF I DONT PAY THEM F**** MONEY FOR THERE GAME ! if they got a problem with that then they should have not maid the dam thing free to start with, yeah sure ill spend someone in there cash shops or what not but that’s if i mean IF the game showing its truely Free to play Not “o you have to buy this to unlocked thes quest line or some such bullshit. this was one of the worst Post by u guys ever how dare u put down free to play gamers (You’re a free player, who refuses to pay for your game. Less charitable names for your ilk are “freeloader” or “moocher.” How dare you take all the hard work the game developers go to to present this game, the millions of dollars, the sweat and tears of thousands of hours’ of labor, and refuse to pay even a dime in support? Who led you to think that sort of thing was appropriate?) When ur Sit is all about free to play games NOT about how u spend ur money on them. GO f*** urself MMObomb and yeah im sure alot of ppl will start saying shit about all of this but really i give two shits what u all think about it. SO on that note i say this, IF the game saying free to play then it show be f*** free to play i should have been maid or feel like i need to pay them money for a GAME they are saying is free to play.

Free-to-play isn't the players' fault....that's on the developer. If someone chooses not to spend a cent and still enjoys playing it then that's their right.

Mmobomb has far more interesting articles of any other free mmo review site, this is the only one I visit now. SWTOR is free to play but they had an annoying experience decrease for free players so I became a full-time subscriber for a while I even bought they're expansion. I've also laid down some cash for many other MMOs.

So I try to support the developers of games I really enjoy whenever I can.

The issue isn't really that they advertise it as being Free to Play.

First, Free to Play games attract many players that can't afford to make purchases. Players like this are usually children whose parents aren't always willing to spend money. They go to Free to Play titles because that's about all they can afford and want some entertainment.

The second group doesn't feel like making a purchase is worth it. The cash shop isn't enticing enough or too highly overpriced to justify spending anything. These people want to feel like they're getting a lot for the money regardless of the amount spent. Imagine the people that are always pinching pennies or looking for bargains in real life. They play MMO's too and this is the result. Gotta be careful not to make the game too Pay to Win or it could scare off another group of players though.

Lastly, you have the people that aren't interested in the game or don't play it very often. You know, they uninstall it quickly or move on to another game only to occasionally stop by and play the game every now and then.

I think most players that don't fit into these groups are likely to spend money eventually. There's the occasional holier than thou type that just thinks spending digitally is like flushing money down a toilet too.

i play F2P games exactly because of that they are free and i am only 16 years were do you expect me to get money to buy games or to pay a monthly subscription

If the game is good, ill buy something out of the store to support them. If the game blows (which is why most of the games are "F2P" in the most case) i wont pay, i dont even wanna play it.

Im playing since 3 years LoL, not much anymore, but i bought some skins to support them. I also bought something in Aion. Thats it. I enjoy sub base or B2P games much more.

if game worth paying i will pay, atm im playing smite spend 35£ or so, and i don't regret anything.

Why are the editorials on MMOBomb always so god damn trite and basic? The controversy around free-to-play games has been around so much longer than you rubes give it credit for and that might be why every statement you make on the subject is just barely scratching the surface of a debate that's been rung around many times before.

Yes, free-to-play games aren't free! What a shockingly cruel world we live in!

It's always fun getting bitched at in-game for refusing to pay for a game when I'm broke and struggling to pay for college.