I understand how some games are free to play with the option of in-game purchases. With all due respect, however, paying to play and having to keep paying is not good in my opinion. Don’t get me wrong. I love this game, but it’s just that. Why should I have to keep paying in order to keep playing?
Because we are telling you what it costs to keep you the level of satisfaction. Other games are "free" but increase the level to be satisfied and reach this level you have to purchase in-game products which are more expensive than we are.
It is unfortunate that we have to pay to play but since AirlineSim is such a good game I don’t mind having to pay. Plus AirlineSim has very low prices, you may spend the same amount on credits for 3 months and on other website that money may give you the most insignificant reward for your money.
A couple of things lead to our current payment model:
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As sk mentioned, “free-2-play” games aren’t free at all. If you actually want to be successful you have to spend enormous amounts of either time or money.
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free-2-play games sell in-game advantages, something we definitely do not want in AirlineSim. Therefore, money has to come from somewhere else.
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Having to pay to keep your account active ensures that the majority of players in AS is actually actively playing. This is especially important because accounts and resources in our game worlds are limited and no ones wants these resources to be clogged up by dead accounts.
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Maybe others say it’s old-school, but I think trying a game for free (demo) and than paying for it when you like it is both transparent and fair to the players as well as us.
Considering the product we get, I would say the price nowhere in comparison. Most people, who realise the in-depth, complexity and eventual rewards of the game would gladly pay more. And AS team went through great lengths of work implementing various payment methods, so that no-one would have a problem in any part of civilized world to make a little contribution for the costs.
btw
+1 for "[color=#1C2837][size=2]free-2-play games sell in-game advantages, something we definitely do not want in AirlineSim."[/size][/color]
I have been an avid gamer since about Doom II (1994) when it came out on a 3.5" Floppy Disk at my local computer store I started to play on my dad’s old 486 laptop.
Games today have evolved so much, and so many different advances have taken place in the hardware, software and developer tools. As with the progression of games, the delivery method has also change, I can remember being a 13 year old game addict and standing around at my local gamestop (which had walls of PC games) for at least an hour to pick out the one game I wanted to bring home play on my PC. Today at a gamestop it is all about console games, accessories and of course social networking and when I ask about PC games they are located on a small shelf usually out of the way or in a bin that was once used for clearance products.
Today the free-2-play model seems to be working cross platforms, I personally hate it. I played a f2p game called “World of Tanks”. I have always been a fan of history, and armored warfare so this game was a no-brainer for me. Being instantly addicted I got bored of the slow progression of the free game play and put down some cash. Losing interest from time to time, I would “re-up” every so often and put down a little cash to buy extra’s and bonus content. After about 3 months of on and off playing, I had sunk about $120 bucks for a game I played for maybe 5 hours a week at best. I can remember buying Fallout (1) in 1997 for I think $39.99 (about $54 in today’s money if you account for inflation) and playing it for hours on end, trying to get through all the content and alternate endings, even today I still play it from time to time. I can recall dozens of other games just as or more fulfilling as Fallout since then, even today there are several games that are worth my time. But the free-2-play model I think is an overly simplistic model for people with too much cash and too much time to spend with these games as a distraction from life. Don’t get me wrong, I still play World of Tanks from time to time, but I refuse to pay for it, or any other free-2-play games due to black whole money pit that they become if you try to enjoy these games. Although I guess you could consider free-2-play the modern day arcade machines, I can remember going down to a local arcade and spending $20 for about an hour’s worth of gameplay and walking away wishing I spent it on something else.
My 2 cents.
I for one do not mind paying at all. I think that it is pretty cheap when you think about the vast amounts of work that the programmers put into the game, not to mention who would pay for all the servers.