The pay to win controversy #LFTE
Welcome back fellow gamers! I hope the holiday season is treating you well. Just wanted to take a moment, climb up on my soapbox and speak my piece about developers and publishers using this ridiculous micro-transaction business model. For those new to micro transactions, it’s the ability to make in game purchases that contribute to your gaming experience. It was originally more popular with mobile games, such as Clash of Clans and Candy Crush Saga, where you will use in game currency to purchase power ups, upgrades, speed up time and other special customizations. 
This in game currency can be earned doing different task, depending the game, but can also be purchased using real money. For the non competitive games this can be a plus to get by troublesome boards or bosses. That’s usually the case with mobile games but this method of upgrading is becoming more popular with Triple A titles and their creators.
Big game companies are using micro-transaction to not only sell incomplete games but milk the community with a pay to win business model. Pay to win is when you can just spend real money to enhance your characters attributes instead of going through the motions of grinding and developing a strategy. This is most recently seen in the new Star Wars Battlefront 2. Battlefront allows players to purchase loot crates and special cards that give them top tier characters immediately that would normally take a serious dedication of gameplay to obtain. Some people may not mind shelling out an additional $70 bucks on an already $70 game to have the best character in an online match. For those of us that can’t afford to spend that kind of money it takes away from our online gaming experience. There was a level of respect that is given to someone who has grinded and put in the hours to get their character to the top tier. But being paired in a match with over powered noobs because they can Spend more money than me sucks, to put it simply. I’m all for paying for custom skins and things that don’t alter the flow of a match, like getting the flame helmet in Halo. This pay to win just deters me and a large part of the community from fully enjoying or even playing a game. With that being said, cut it out big game companies.
What do you think about this pay to win scenario? Are you ok with it, does it make you furious? Let us know in the comment section below!
