Free to play games have been around for a while now. They are great, who could possibly complain about free games? No one if they are done right, but you have to ask yourself how does the developer earn money after developing a game? Almost all Free to Play games have an in-game store, that usually takes currency acquired from playing the game (at a painfully slow rate) or allowing the player to pay real money to acquire in-game items.
Free to Play games like League of Legends have a store with which players can pay real money for character skins, or to buy in-game currency (like it is earned in-game) of which they can use on Champions. The payment of money for skins is okay as it is just cosmetic and does not affect the game in terms of balance. However, when a champion is newly released, it is usually above average in strength compared to other champions in the game, this can be seen as pay-to-win but people who play the game on a regular basis will be able to afford the champion using in-game currency (earning in-game currency in League of Legends is quite quick).
This does however highlight a growing problem, and that is the option of paying money to get an advantage in the multiplayer side of a video game, hence the term pay-to-win.
Most players understand that the developer must earn money in some way, and an in-game store is justified but the grey area is the availability of items that affect game-play balance. Aside from paying to get an advantage, the only other way for a company to earn itself some money, is to sell cosmetics. You would be surprised how much people enjoy additional customization for their characters (myself included) and I happily pay for something of which I can use and see on my character, that looks cool. Many have noticed that pay-to-win items such as guns in some games, have a cool model to boot. Why not sell these as skins? I think if anyone is buying an item for advantage is foolish, as this simply takes the challenge away if you have a definitive advantage over the other players.
The latest game that joined the "Pay-To-Win" team is Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare with it's season pass. They are heavily promoting the fact that you will get a new shiny gun if you buy into their season pass. I play Advanced Warfare quite a lot, and that gun is certainly the best in-game at this moment, and they know it, as well as the players. It's cheap business tactics to promote this kind of behaviour; it needs to stop. Simply offer it as a model swap, rather than an entirely new gun. Surely this saves time to make items purely cosmetic? There is no need to make individual stats if it simply a model swap for an already existing weapon.
We can only hope that this issue resolves itself, as new ideas come forth and new techniques are tried and tested. Let it be known however that I think despite balance issues with every game, be it free to play or paid. I think in the end, skill will always outshine balance problems.
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