Sammy and I spent about a couple hundred... Each... (Destiny)

by Anton P. Nym (aka Steve) , London, Ontario, Canada, Monday, October 23, 2017, 11:28 (2592 days ago) @ Claude Errera

Also, ME3 multiplayer was co-op, not competitive; the "pay to win" aspect of microtransactions grates a lot less when you aren't losing because of someone else dumping money in. (Indeed, some players might start encouraging others who are, er, "headshot-challenged" to dump some money in to address the deficiency...)

Isn't that precisely what the patent we were all worried about last week was aimed at?

Eh, not quite as I understand it. That was regarding PvP matchmaking, where "pay to win" pushes a lot of plains-ape buttons in a way that rarely ends well for anyone in the mid- to long-term. (Specifically, it hits the "envy" button pretty hard.)

-- Steve thinks doing it in PvP would lead to a very toxic player base over time unless managed very well. (Probably easier to pull off in a Free to Play title.) PvE, not so much.