Looks like it works.

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Monday, February 18, 2013, 10:38 (4299 days ago) @ Jillybean

It's based on facts, not my worldview. Certain business models encourage the games to be bad, and some actually REQUIRE them to be bad. I've never seen this explored or explained, so maybe I should at some point.

As always, I would be fascinated by your explanation.

Pay to Play

Example: any arcade game.

Business model encourages good games. Players directly pay for playtime, and if it's not good they won't play. The game has to be fun immediately, and throughout. Making unfair games that kill the player randomly in an effort to extract more coin get labeled quarter suckers and are avoided. The better your game, the more people want to play it and the more money you make.

Pay to Own

Example: most console or PC games.

Business model encourages good games. Players put down a lot of money, and so expect quality. If the game is bad, word of mouth diminishes sales, and developer's subsequent games suffer. The better your game, the more people want it and the more money you make.

Ad supported

Example: beats me I don't know any because they suck

Requires games to be worse than they could be. Nobody like ads interrupting their playtime, and all other things being equal, a game without ads is superior to one with ads. So developers choose to make their game worse than they could to make money.

Freeware

Example: Nethack

There is no business model, so it does not affect game quality.

Subscription:

Example: World of Warcraft (formerly)

In theory encourages good games, since if the game isn't fun then players will stop playing and cancel their subscription, but in reality it encourages bad games that string the player along, stretching everything out in order to lengthen the amount of time a player plays, and thus increase his subscription revenue.

Micro transactions for items not available in game

Example: League of Legends.

Encourages the base game everybody gets to be worse than the optimal game if you pay for everything. Consider that whatever is available for purchase must make the game better or more interesting, or else there would be no incentive to buy it. This means, developers intentionally leave out the interesting parts of their games and hide them behind a paywall. This means the version of the game you first play is necessarily worse than a version of the game with all the additional stuff. The stuff could very well be included, since it's available for purchase right away. This is the developer compromising their base game for the sake of money, which is selling out by any reasonable definition.

Micro transactions for stuff available in game

Example: Crimson (from your pals at Certain Affinity), Farmville

The worst business model, which actually REQUIRES games to be bad. If items that can be purchased can also be obtained by playing (gold in the case of Crimson), then what players are doing when they buy stuff is paying to NOT PLAY the game. This should sound strange, because it is. The only reason someone would pay to not play a game, is if paying to not play is somehow more pleasant than actually playing. This therefore, REQUIRES elements of the game to be unpleasant, i.e. bad, or else players would just have fun playing the game and think it insane to pay not to play. Gold in crimson steam pirates requires grinding and killing monsters. Items and action points in sims social require tons of time to obtain. Games of this type need to be purposely bad, and this is not only selling out, but morally unacceptable since you are purposely wasting people's time.