People don't seem to get the idea that if there are micro transactions in a game for currency, they are going to make normal currency acquisition harder than normal. It's the logical business route all companies that do this take to get you to actually buy the currency. So whilst all you people chant on about how unaffected you are, the overall effect is taking more of your time to get what you want. I don't think the fact it is open ended excuses this as it's pay to play game and things shouldn't be made as such if you don't pay even more...
I am yet to see a decent argument as to why it exists, to say they need the money revenue with the options they have available is just an ill informed lie.
The question is by how much, really. If it is manageable, it won`t make a difference.
I have an example: SWTOR and EA and their "packs". It brought in the game a way for players to get rich - by selling the items exclusive to said packs - literally being a way of getting ingame money with real cash. Thing is, it didn`t have any effect on my own money and gear anyway. Sure, I didn`t have ALL the "pimp your avatar" things, but I am not a collector, so I didn`t give a sh*t anyway.
The only question here is: how much faster can a "wallet warrior" get the minimum, over a non paying player, given equal time invested playing? Minimum being - house with at least 2 garage slots, for a getaway car and a race car, assault rifle + sniper + RPG, some decent clothing, additionally one more heli slot + all their needed upgrades. Because everything else is just unnecessary fluff or gear.
The thing is SWTOR is a free to play game so those advantages are somewhat allowed. GTA is a game that made $1billion in three days and has all the potential to continually make money from DLC. Free to play games like DotA 2 have proven that you can give people everything they need to enjoy the game up and survive off of cosmetic and quality of life benefits alone, so why does GTA need to have a currency option when it's a pay to play game with excessive profit?
The game should be designed in such a way that you don't even need these packs as the games base economy means you will earn them all in a decent play time. Having this kind of thing at launch just seems like greed and judging from the low income in singleplayer endgame outside of stocks, I can easily see it having an effect on our in game income as opposed to if the system was never going to be in.
And it's not even about the effects it has on the game really even if that is worrying, it is just insulting to have such a model in a game that we have all paid for and they have made a lot of money off. With the money they made and the money they have the potential to make, I find it hard to argue that such a system isn't just greed. Players should have content that they can purchase to keep the company running, not some economy harmful system just because a company is being greedy.
This is a game we have all paid full price for, it shouldn't just be ok to obtain a reasonable amount of things like you did in SWTOR. You should be able to obtain everything at the same rate as everyone else irrespective of your cash, with companies having to put out more content as a means for getting you to pay more money. I think in a game that can sell you cars/clothing/weapon skins/extra maps/extra missions and a whole boat load of other content (there is not limit on the potential for creating content that people will buy) you can't really make an excuse for having something like currency for cash in game.
To me it's not the effects that are the problem it's the principal of it all.
