Top Mud Sites Forum - View Single Post - Pay-to-Play vs. Pay-to-Advance

KaVir · 06-05-2005, 08:06 PM

Well, the other posters seem to disagree with you, so I'll pin it up to "opinion". Obviously the perks would have to be good enough to buy, or it wouldn't be a viable business model.

Your definition is flawed though. With that definition, every mud could advertise itself as 'free' - you don't have to pay the monthly fee for Gemstone IV if your gf agrees to foot the bill, for example. The same is true of other computer games - if a friend buys you a copy of Halo 2 as a birthday present, then you've not paid anything for it...but that doesn't mean those games are 'free'! Someone still has to pay the monthly fee for Gemstone, someone still has to buy Halo 2 - and someone still has to pay for those credits.

It's one thing to argue that you can play the game for free, but quite another to claim that all aspects of it are free. The credits enter gameplay through the expenditure of money, therefore they are not a free resource, and therefore aspects of gameplay which require them are not 'free'.

06-05-2005, 08:06 PM	#153
KaVir Legend Join Date: Apr 2002 Name: Richard Home MUD: God Wars II Posts: 2,052	Well, the other posters seem to disagree with you, so I'll pin it up to "opinion". Obviously the perks would have to be good enough to buy, or it wouldn't be a viable business model. Your definition is flawed though. With that definition, every mud could advertise itself as 'free' - you don't have to pay the monthly fee for Gemstone IV if your gf agrees to foot the bill, for example. The same is true of other computer games - if a friend buys you a copy of Halo 2 as a birthday present, then you've not paid anything for it...but that doesn't mean those games are 'free'! Someone still has to pay the monthly fee for Gemstone, someone still has to buy Halo 2 - and someone still has to pay for those credits. It's one thing to argue that you can play the game for free, but quite another to claim that all aspects of it are free. The credits enter gameplay through the expenditure of money, therefore they are not a free resource, and therefore aspects of gameplay which require them are not 'free'.