Pay to Win in Browser Based Strategy Games

Gamers regularly complain about pay to win in free to play MMORPGs. Things like resistance training in Forsaken World or games like Seal Online that sell gear outright in their cash shops. These are legitimate concerns, but pale in comparison to the pay to win elements in browser based strategy games like Evony, Sparta: War of Empires, and Wartune. There are literally hundreds of browser based empire building strategy games and they're all pay to win. They aren't subtly pay to win either, players are quickly introduced to the benefits premium currency in these games. I've personally played dozens of them and tutorials quickly explain that premium currency can be used to build instantly, get more resources, and more. If you've never played one of these games before, think of them as a real time strategy game like Starcraft, Age of Empires, or Warcraft 3, but with MMO elements (thousands of players on the map). Being able to just buy resources with cash is obviously a huge advantage.

Sparta: War of Empires - Typical Strategy MMO

I actually had a Skype conversation with a representative of Ministry of War, a browser based strategy game by Snail Games, and he insisted to me that the game wasn't pay to win. I've played Ministry of War before and the game literally lets players buy in game resources (food/gold/stone/etc) for cash. When I brought this up, he simply told me that since players can get these resources for free just by playing the game, it wasn't actually pay to win. When I brought up the fact that players being attacked can just whip out their credit card and buy huge amounts of resources and train soldiers (instantly if you spend the cash) to defend, he brushed it off as a part of the game. I really shouldn't be surprised though, the person I spoke to was employed by the company that makes the pay to win game. I'm not sure why he denied the obvious though. A game could be pay to win and still be successful – just look at League of Angels!

How is this fair? Players can just buy resources!

I actually really like the strategy games and think that games like Evony would actually be REALLY fun if they weren't pay to win. I actually played quite a bit of Astro Empires years ago. It was my first free to play strategy game and I thought it was incredible. I remember I ran into a wall when it came to progression though. I had to pay money to get more than a certain amount of colonies/bases. I played a few other more modern games like War Tune and Siege Lord, but quickly stopped because they were similar to Ministry of War and entirely pay to win. These games are fun for a while, but you quickly realize that you're at an absurd disadvantage to paying players. I suspect if anyone released a non pay to win browser based strategy game, it would do incredibly well. Practically all these games are built on the same engine too, so it wouldn't be difficult to grab the engine and launch it without any pay to win elements. The game could monetize some other way – like donations, selling cosmetics, etc. Would anyone else play a game like this? A non pay to win strategy game? I know I would.

By, Omer Altay