Why are games still $100? Bus tickets were 20 cents when I was a kid, $8 movies in the cinema, in fact everything has gone up in price over the years, but games are still $100 (and very rarely more than that). Personally, I would say it’s fair to pay $300+ for a good game in 2022 so long as it had no micro-transactions, but since that seems a little crazy, it makes sense that cash shops HAVE to be in today’s games, and maybe the P2W model is the only way forwards.

What’s truly fascinating is that P2W wasn’t created by developers, but instead by players. Players wanted to pay to win. There was a huge demand there, so 3rd parties created web sites where players could buy materials, gold, weapons etc. It’s obvious devs caught on to this, and so they started putting P2W into their own games instead of allowing 3rd party services to profit?

We’re 5 months into Diablo Immortal and I’m honestly surprised at how many completely Free to Play (F2P) players there are out there, both on this reddit, and on my server.

To be able to constantly ignore the devs trying to bait you to spend your money, and also to be OK with playing against some very strong Pay to Win (P2W) players (especially in regards to PVP) every single time you play DI.

I’ve seen a few F2P players put in massive hours grinding to flex huge stats that even some P2W players haven’t achieved, and I’ve also seen a few players play regularly, but more casually, and these players are often below the server paragon level and need to be carried through harder content, yet they happily log in and enjoy the game daily.

The whole F2P system, generally speaking, is predatory. So those who know best probably stay away from F2P games to begin with (and prefer to pay a one off price for a complete game with no micro-transactions), but I think long term F2P players are an interesting breed.

In the grand scheme of things, is someone who has played DI completely for free since launch winning over someone who’s paid to win for some convenience (inventory space for example via boon) and more power (and potentially more enjoyment?).

What I’m curious about is the psychology of long term F2P players. Do F2P players feel like they’re winning against “the system” by playing this game for free? IE: They feel like they are getting enjoyment without the pain and disgust from paying for it, and that challenge (of not paying Blizzard/NetEase) alone is what drives them? Or is it more a competition against other players who do P2W?

Not at all having a go at anyone. I’m just curious. Hoping some F2P players who have been playing completely free since launch will chime in and share some insights.