I don't know what game to start with .

Well I'll start with the game I ended up leaving. I used to play Pet Society on Facebook and it was alright. At first there was a trickle of premium items every update and it wasn't too bad. It was the fancy stuff there would be a reason why you'd pay money to buy them. They also had a few "do this survey and get money" offers that I used to do (probably only spent a tiny bit of money on it to boost what I'd earned online at the most maybe £10) so it wasn't too bad.

First the thing that annoyed me was EVERYTHING started to be aimed at girls. There was a big uproar on the forums but their response was "there are more girl pets then boy pets" my response was "well you ain't gonna get any male pets if they don't have items they can buy". But that was a small thing, I didn't care what the colors were of the things I was putting into the house so it never bothered me. The clothes kinda did but the items for the house didn't.

THEN the premium take over started. It started small like they brought in this "digging" feature and some of the maps were premium. They then started putting items that didn't really NEED to be premium up in the premium shops. Then it was clothes and not just "this outfit and that outfit" you had to buy a mystery bundle, you'd never know what was in it and there was usually more female clothing then male clothing so they were a total waste and expensive! Seeing as you could technically get the same clothes 10 times in a row it was a waste of money. After that the swing went towards premium. People who could afford it gave us the "they need to make money" line but it kinda sucked. I stopped playing because it wasn't fun anymore, you couldn't decorate a room properly because 90% of the items you had to pay for and I've never earned enough to warrant spending a lot of money on a game that I could have grown bored of and never played again. At least console games you buy one time and they are yours forever, but with these games I haven't played in over a year if I went back to it now then I'd have missed over a years worth of items and who knows they might have deleted things I paid for!

The other nightmare I had was a pirate MMO I played. "FREE MMO" it says. Yeah right! Up to a certain point, you get to a stage when you HAVE to pay to carry on playing. Not even for items or anything the game just then becomes a pay wall. Of course I've always felt differently about MMO's because it is the adventure that matters. There have been a few I've tried out and was like "nah this is too aimed at premium members" and others were you haven't noticed it.

The one I'm playing at the moment is Simpsons Tapped Out. Until this update I haven't had a problem. The balance is quite good. You get 60% of the characters on the mission line there have been a few moments I've been like "why is all that premium and we only get this soddy thing" but its been far and few between. All the premium items give you bonuses to make buying them worth it and you get free donuts for leveling up (and between them updating with new levels you can win them when you get a certain amount of XP.) I've saved up and brought myself one premium item (Sideshow Mel and the Krusty studios) and there are a lot of items I'd love to be able to have an unlimited amount of money to spend on it and buy them. But you don't get a good conversion of donuts for your money and compared to how much you'd be spending and how many items you'd be able to buy I'd never put money into it.

This update pissed me off. Well the last two technically. Last week they updated with three or four new buildings and only the main plot line one was "freemium" this week they updated with a yard sale and only 2 of the items are "freemium" and one of them is kind of pointless.

It doesn't usually annoy me but it will start to bug me if the swing stays that way. I've always though make the items that are premium worth it. Keep it at about 40:60 Premium:Freemium you are more likely then to have people put big money into the game. Thing is people will buy donuts no matter what and it is the hooking people into the game that make the companies money. I have actually thought about buying donuts before and might have if the conversion was better but for about £50 I'd only be able to buy a handful of the items.

BUT to be fair on Tapped Out they do give a LOT of things away. They've recently had totally FREE things like new characters/outfits that had something to do with their upcoming episodes. So I'm not about to walk away from it, in fact I'm more obsessed then ever. But there will be a time when all the updates make me feel like these two did where I'll just sit there and go **** you then and walk away. Not yet but it could happen.

I'm not a freemium player by choice. If I had the money I'd buy into these games. Problem is I don't have the money, at the moment I'm saving up to get on WoW full time but I have to SAVE the money for an account because I don't get any ******* money I can spend during the month on myself anyway! I understand they need to make money but I'd rather they just make it a premium game instead of saying "you can play this for free! But if you want anything half decent you'll have to put thousands of pounds at our door!" I mean I don't pay as much as they are asking for donuts on computer games for my PS3!

That is quite funny I'll agree.

To be honest I'd never buy a game, I dislike these "free" games because there is always way too much that is behind a pay wall. I'd rather spend £20 on a game then get it for free but miss out on everything because I can't spend hundreds of thousands on them.

When I first met you lot I started playing that Facebook game but then they changed everything especially the leveling system and then added a whole boat load of premium items that I could never afford. All this meant was that I ended up stuck on my level for ages whilst all my friends putting money into the game leveled up twice as fast and didn't want to play with me anymore. Well it's easy to level up when you have stupidly powered premium weapons and I don't!

I don't trust any game that says it is free to pay because you'll always join then find so much that you have to pay for that you'll never afford. It is why I started playing Simpsons then looked at how much was premium and deleted it straight away.

I know nothing is ever going to be truly free, I mean I brought the Arkham games for my partner and he still had to pay for somethings, same with Skyrim. But at least as you said we have those games forever now, no matter what I'll just log into my Playstation account and have them to play. Some of these free online games can restart your towns/pets whatever, won't always be around if they don't make the money off of people and things like WoW you can get banned from the game in a blink of an eye and lose all the money you've put into it.

Even though I know so many people enjoy online gaming and app gaming I just can't find any happiness in it. I'd rather buy my console games which will be with me forever (unless I sell them on eBay after I've completed them.)

Nothing in life is free so I don't really get into these games. I always feel disappointed that I can't buy the cool stuff but I know I can't afford it so I don't bother. I play a few of them and have done in the past and the best ones are the ones that flood both the premium and freemium markets with items. You do need a 50/50 split not for fairness but to keep interest.

Nothing is free though so I don't see why people go into these things thinking they'll get everything for nothing.

Pet Society were the worst for it though, and they were run by EA when they went bad.

I don't get how a game can say its free and not actually be, you know, free! I hate those games because it feels like they do their best to make you spend your money and if you don't then you miss out on some of the fun. That isn't the point in gaming. I brought my PS3 games and some of them have add-ons I'd have to pay for but I still get a complete game for the money I spent, I don't get half a game. If some of these online "free" games told me to pay £20 for a full but basic game then I could "add-on" later then fair enough, but I don't like games that say they are free but then change the dynamic to suit paying customers and have the attitude that "if you play for free you can't complain" of course you can!

My friend lets her son play FREE games on her iPad, she'd never pay for a game for him and she'd never buy things in game for him. He never asks for it but you'd be damned sure that his heart (he's 11) will sink when he see's the super cool items that come out for real money and he's stuck with a dustbin or something pointless like that. So my friend can't complain because her 11 year old is upset that he puts time and effort into a game and is meant to be happy that he gets a bin? Its free so where is the problem? Problem is the game could have one player who pays £1,000 every week into the game and they'd still go out of business because you don't make games for one or two people you make them to get the most people on your servers that you can possibly get and a good 50% if not a LOT higher are going to be free players who can't afford the mobile device/computer system they are playing it on let alone to pay stupid amounts of money for constant add-ons and premium currency.

If a game is "free" to play I think it should be FREE not free to download but if you want a half decent game then you'll have to pay at least a million within your first week or don't bother at all.

I do get where you are coming from Amanda, the money has to come from somewhere. I don't think anyone is really debating that, it is the balance of the items.

As you said when the premium items aren't worth the money you are spending you know there has been a problem somewhere. Though I also agree with Lucius that if a game says free to play it has to at least be free to play.

To explain :

Anna


Pirate 101 is the name of the MMO I was thinking. It took me forever to join, I kept getting the pop up adds saying "join and play free now" so I did. I loved the game, unfortunately I was playing at a time when money was tight. Suddenly I couldn't move on with the quest because I had to pay to get on with it. I know that it didn't say anywhere that the game was only free until quest whatever. It was FREE TO PLAY. Well it isn't free to play at all!

That is why I like WoW, it is far from free to play you know where you stand but when you put money into it you'll get a whole game out of it. Yeah there are probably loads of things you can buy with premium cash in game but that doesn't mean that the quest would be cut off from you because you don't have the money to pay for it there and then.

WoW might be expensive but at least its honest.

Same with WoT, I play that perfectly fine free. My tank doesn't suddenly have no bullets because I don't pay mid-game to have bullets. You can pay and get stupidly strong tanks, you can pay and get more XP and gold per day. My boyfriend loves tanks and loves that it gets him closer to his friends so he puts money into the game, I personally won't, but I can still play it. Pirate 101 I couldn't.

That is my biggest gripe, you have to at least be able to play a game free if it says Free to Play. There can't be a hidden text somewhere on the internet saying (*Until level 10 when you have to pay stupid amounts of money) you have to be able to play the game free.

For PS3 the closest thing I'd think of is Skyrim. I brought Skyrim for near enough £30. Since then 3 updates have been put online for it, all of them cost money. I can physically complete Skyrim without them though, and when my cousin brought me them I could have added them one by one and still completed them. I didn't need to half way through Skyrim wait until the newest update was out that I'd have to buy to complete my game.

Skyrim doesn't hide behind a "Free to Play" wall it has its price on it and sits on a shelf waiting for people to buy it. Guess what? People see how much it costs, saves up and buys it. Not hindered at all.

Yeah I might not buy an app if I think it is overpriced, I defo would have overlooked Tapped Out if I had to pay for it, but that is mainly down to the fact I'm not stupid enough to trust my phone to always let me play Tapped Out, or to keep it and its data on there or for the game to always be available. I can now play Skyrim every day to the end of my life (or the disks life) if I don't play in over a year I'll have a save point saved on my system. If I don't then I can recreate my game once again. You don't get that security with an app.

Plus I don't trust premium cash. I got given 100NC on Neopets in an event last year and it is expiring soon. Now I didn't want anything in the Neoshop (you couldn't buy shit all for 100NC anyway) I'm not moaning because it was never my money in fact I was really happy to be given it, but what if I had actually put that money into the game and was saving the last of my NC waiting for that perfect item? I wouldn't get it because Neopets wouldnt' let me save them, after a year it would be gone. Not to say I think thats a bad thing, personally I don't know anyone who would save NC for over a year, but you get my drift, you could sit on a stack of NC, Dougnuts whatever and then find they disappear within the blink of an eye.

Sorry if that is rambly, falling to sleep as I type!

That is total and utter rubbish I'm afraid! Of course you can compare the two quite easily. 

They all rely on the income of their games to carry on, yes in the bigger picture as Anna is pointing out with Pet Society if people stop paying you lose your game when it comes to Tapped Out, WoW is more like Skyrim because you do have to pay to play completely and the difference between Tapped out, Pet Society and WoW is that if they don't get the money they'll turn the servers off but if Skyrim didn't we just wouldn't get a new game but could play Skyrim forever.

That is kind of the point!

We all probably have games like Skyrim, we all probably paid £20+ for the game, we'll keep that game forever. As Anna said if you want the extra's you cough up and pay for them, you don't get weekly "new" items that they try and get you excited for, you get what you pay for.

That is the difference we like!

If I had to pay £2 for an app I probably would, The Walking Dead app says that it is free for one chapter, it got me hooked and I brought the rest. They made their money and everyone is happy.

If I download a FREE app and see there is 5 premium items compared to the 10 freemium items I'm more likely to pay silly amounts to buy one or two of the premium items if I like the game. They make their money and everyone is happy.

If I download a FREE app and every week I get about 20 premium items and a freemium dustbin I won't pay money because I'd just be throwing money into a black hole. They DON'T get anything from me and I stop playing.

If I download ANY app and suddenly three months into the game the data gets wiped, premium items and all, and their customer service is terrible then I lose out on a HELL of a lot of money that I could have spent on something else. They get my money, they lose a customer.

Skyrim it doesn't matter if the game crashes, resets or whatever I did put any money into that particular quest, I put time and effort and it'll piss me off but I'm not out of pocket because of it.

WoW is different because of its nature as a MMO, you put money in and they save your character and their history into their database so if something goes wrong they sort it out. A small app like Tapped Out or a Facebook app like Pet Society was wouldn't do that. 

So I guess what I'm saying is I'd rather put money into proper MMO's/RPG console games then in apps because I know I'm always secure with what I do with my money. Apps are unreliable so I won't put the same amount of money into Tapped Out as I would WoW but I WOULD give them money if they had a good exchange rate FOR my money and they didn't flood the market with items for premium. People are more willing to buy things if they don't have to spend over £100 just to get one item out of 10.

Now I'll agree some of that pricing is a tad out but it isn't bad! So what you'd have to put a lot of money into the game to get all the characters, people obviously do because they love the game so EA make their money. If they didn't make the money they would stop putting so much in the premium section to win people back.

You guys really are missing the point.

WoW is comparable to STO not Skyrim. So lets compare them two instead shall we? Seeing as they are actually comparable!