When a game is "Free" then "YOU" are the product

Folks,

I believe that GGG is a great company that has an IP that is now more than a decade old that has served an ARPG community respectfully. They are one of the few companies that tend to listen to the fan base. We can complain to the high heavens about what "we" want, but in the end it is still their game, their franchise, their product which of course is free to use.

In the end, you are the consumer of a free product meaning you are the product and if the "company" does not perform to your liking, then move on. Not all leagues are going to tickle your feathers, nor quench your thirst for awesomeness, so that is the risk that is taken every 3-4 months.

The main reason, however, this post exists is because I've witnessed multiple responses, threads and replies about a new league that is ALREADY negative without having any direct knowledge or evidence (for example, "omg, they nerfed "x" and "y"). I get it. You and I can have our built-in opinions (prejudice) about certain things about the game based on past and recent history, but that doesn't mean you and I will be correct. I see speculation and conjecture about "omg POE2 is taking all resources from POE1" without direct knowledge or evidence to support it. Come'on folks.. stop it.

POE remains a good game, GGG is a good company, and while not perfect by any means, they do try to improve based on feedback.

You are the consumer. MTX is the product. The game is the lure.

People like to complain. It's not related to being free or even to gaming. The lazy and ignorant complain about things they don't know or don't want to do some research on. One common term they use is "destroyed" and "op".

and I'm pretty sure a gamer remains a gamer, playing a free game or not. Those who watch ads on social media are a lot closer to products.

There are free games out there; PoE isn't one of them. PoE is F2P, not free.

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Phrazz wrote:

There are free games out there; PoE isn't one of them. PoE is F2P, not free.

Can you further define this statement?

I guess this about "PoE is F2P, not free":

You need some stash space to play comfortably with 1-2 chars.
That means about 30 EUR or $ to start playing in maps (= atlas).

Stash tabs:
a) currency
b) map
c) 1-2 premium for trade (and comments)
d) 6? normal

And you need much more to play with more chars.

So I say POE reaches the price of an "normal" AAA game (without expensive DLCs) after some dozen hours if you want some QoL.

I think that is fair, though you have spend money but did not own a software product and have less rights because of this.

Edit:
Read the "real" answer. It has another focus than I guessed.

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ABagOfChitlins wrote:

"

Phrazz wrote:

There are free games out there; PoE isn't one of them. PoE is F2P, not free.

Can you further define this statement?

"Free to Play", also frequently known as Freemium, is a well known and time-tested (for better or worse) model of video game monetization in which the core game is free to download and can be played without investment, but which also features extensive microtransaction systems designed to take advantage of a customer being hooked on the product after the "free" period. It is characterized by attempts to make the bar to entry as low as possible to entice as wide a playerbase as is feasible into playing the game. This is in pursuit of making Whales/Diehards out of enough players to sustain the game for everyone else, with the idea that the paying players get special perks/boons/shinies that the free players do not get.

It is a highly successful model, but it is also extremely prone to predatory monetization. Freemium monetization models tend to rely on quirks of human psychology to try and subvert people into paying and get them hooked in ways similar to gambling addictions or occasionally drug addictions. The term 'Skinner box' is often used to describe freemium pricing, in that the game is specifically designed to condition players towards compulsive play rather than being designed to be "fun", as keeping players in your game for as many hours a day and as many days in a year as possible is often seen as the key to successfully monetizing freemium games.

Grinding Gear/Path of Exile is generally held to be on the more ethical end of freemium models, but it is by no means spotless in its execution. There is nothing "micro" about most transactions in PoE, the prices for MTX skins in this game are beyond ludicrous (and I say this as someone who's fallen for it more often than is probably good for me). You could buy the whole entirety of Elden Ring for what it costs to get one armor skin in PoE, which is simply not kosher. There are also arguments that Grinding Gear is overly miserly with storage, though frankly I am less swayed by those. Nevertheless, the company does not indulge in XP boosters, Itemfind boosters, or other "quality of life" items intended to make the game painful to play unless constant purchases are made, which is one of the most certain possible signs of a predatory freemium game.

What you are speaking of - "if the product is free, you're the product" - is a phenomenon associated with data collection businesses like The Goog, who offer a wide variety of useful tools entirely for free, with no "premium" price tags attached, because their profit comes from collecting the data of people using those tools and selling it to SkyNet. They make the barrier to entry as close to zero as they can because the only thing they really care about is getting people into the system so they have more data to sell. The user of the tool is not the end consumer/customer of the data collection company's business - you and your data are the product being harvested for sale to the end customer, which is usually hyperpredatory marketing firms attempting to pry money out of you until you go broke and die, but is also often hate groups, terrorists, Alt Groups, and anyone else with a few bucks to throw at gaining information on the chosen targets of their hatred.

That is really the core difference between freemium and 'free' - in a freemium scheme you-the-player are still the end customer. In a 'free' scheme, you are not.

Despite what people will inevitably say about Tencent, Grinding Gear/Path of Exile is not one of these companies. GGG does not collect data that isn't pertinent to development and operation of their game(s) and has little interest in selling what data it does possess to SkyNet. They are firmly freemium, rather than free - you-the-player are their end customer.

Your post seems to be at odds with itself. On one hand you're saying that GGG is one of the few companies that listen to their players and act on feedback. On the other hand you are suggesting that players shouldn't complain and instead stop playing.

In any case, players are not the product. Purchasable cosmetics and QOL features are the product. We are the customers.

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ABagOfChitlins wrote:

Can you further define this statement?

When something is free, you're not encouraged, expected or indirectly forced to pay enything to get the full value - because there is no value - it's free. "F2P" isn't "free", it's a business/monetization model. In MOST F2P games nowadays, you are, in one way ot another, expected, encouraged or indirectly (sometimes directly) forced to spend money after a while or to get "the most out of" the game.

F2P = a monetization model. Very few things that include the word "monetization" are free. That said, very few things are free; you 'always' pay with something.

OP has a pithy thread title but like a lot of pithy statements it's specious.

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superbomb1967 wrote:

You are the consumer. MTX is the product. The game is the lure.

Mtxes aren't the product either. Support packs and GGGold bundles are the product. Aesthetic mtxes are just a different sort of support badge.

Gameplay-affecting mtxes are a GGGold tax.

You can call the game a lure; it's not wrong. I'm a little less forgiving. I think of F2P games as interactive advertisements.