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An issue I see in the gaming community is paying to win, whether that is $5 for an overpowered weapon or $200 for a tank that can kill everyone in a single shot. A recent event that has created a huge amount of displacement towards in-game purchases, in general, is EA’s Star Wars Battlefront 2. This triple-a game which already did cost upwards of 50 dollars on release required extensive in-game purchases to even have a chance against other players. The game was multiplayer only which only added to the annoyance of many gamers who simply wanted to get the bang for their buck but instead were almost forced to spend their hard-earned cash to get to the top. This annoyance translated into a $3 billion-dollar loss for the company due to a fall in stock because of uncertainty from the stockholders, this is why getting the perfect balance for players is crucial. It is crazy for people who have played video-games for more than 5 years to suddenly see this wave of developers and companies simply selling out to make more money. The rise of “pay-to-win” stems from the success of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive’s crates system which, at its peak, had in-game items selling for $50,000. Although these items or “skins” didn’t have any effect on in-game skill, it did captivate the minds of developers and game development companies worldwide on how to make a lot of cash from a simple concept. Gaming should be about skills and fun which are both destroyed by the money involved which should and has never influenced before in the past how much fun or skill that you have in a game that you have already purchased. A claim I hear regarding paying to win is: ‘It is more fun that way and at the same time keeps the server/game running’ Preposterous! If you want your community to thrive then it must have balance for people who do donate and don’t donate. Remember, no one likes to be killed over and over by a child that has worked out how to type in his or her parent’s PayPal password. As a Garry’s Mod player, it is difficult to understand the mentality of some of these DarkRP servers that do have a slight potential but ruin it with donator exclusive items. They thrive on these donations, which makes the ordinary user’s experience boring and tedious. You may even see players getting annoyed and flaming in chat who find being killed by a weapon and a class they cannot even get extremely upsetting. To all budding server owners or new game developers out there, I advise that you think financially about your server or game rather than, later down the line, deciding to add all of your perks. If you truly want to appeal to the greater audience, then your goal should be to give enjoyment rather than making money.