Pay-to-win power

What you're actually buying

Power: stronger characters, gear or upgrades, sometimes through random boxes. In a multiplayer game, what you buy changes who wins.

How it works

Asian cash-shop games normalised giving away the core loop and selling power around it. The Western free-to-play compact, by contrast, tried to be fair: cosmetics only, with everything that affects play earnable. Pay-to-win breaks that. Grind is engineered to be slow enough to be bought away, and a paying minority gains an edge over the free majority. Combined with randomness, as with the Star Cards in Star Wars Battlefront II, it draws the strongest backlash.

When it's fine

In a single-player game, where it just saves time and touches no rankings or other players. Otherwise rarely.

Where it came from

Korea's cash-shop online games sold weapons and convenience items inside free games. The West rebuilt free-to-play around fairness (League of Legends, 2009; Warframe and Path of Exile, 2013), but pay-to-win returned inside full-price blockbusters. Star Wars Battlefront II (November 2017) priced Darth Vader at 60,000 credits (about 40 hours' grind), and EA's defence that this gave players 'a sense of pride and accomplishment' became Reddit's most downvoted comment. Middle-earth: Shadow of War's loot chests let players buy past its Nemesis system and were removed nine months later. EA switched off all progression purchases in Battlefront II a day before launch.

Rules and regulation

Germany's age-rating body USK has listed pay-to-win among 'increased purchase incentives' that can raise an age rating since 2023.

The Battlefront II backlash of November 2017 came before Belgium's April 2018 ruling on loot boxes and prompted gambling inquiries by several governments.

Historical prices and revenues are in US dollars at the time unless marked A$.