Well-known Youtuber for MMORPGs names the current online role-playing games that are the least Pay2Win

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Which current MMORPGs have the fairest payment models? A genre expert is getting to the bottom of this question with the help of his community. MeinMMO editor Karsten Scholz supplements the YouTuber’s findings with his own assessments.

Who makes the assessment? With 666 videos and 750,000 subscribers, TheLazyPeon is one of the biggest YouTubers for the MMORPG genre. For many years he has been providing reviews, genre reviews and personal insights into his life in Thailand.

In a video from August 22, 2024, the “lazy worker” looks at current MMORPGs that were rated by his community with regard to the payment model. Below, MeinMMO summarizes the exciting findings from the video. Editor Karsten Scholz then adds his assessment of the payment models.

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What does Pay2Win mean?

First the basics: When you talk about “Pay2Win”, what you usually mean (and this is often hotly debated in the community) is that players can use real money to buy things in a game that have a positive effect on a character’s strength and that cannot be earned by playing or can only be earned after a very long time.

If there is the possibility to earn the purchasable increase in character strength over time, this is often referred to as “Pay2Progress”, i.e. paying to make faster progress. The more time free customers have to spend to catch up with buyers of character progression, the more often the term “Pay2Win” is used in this context.

Which current MMORPGs are the least “Pay2Win”?

What are TheLazyPeon’s findings? Since the term “Pay2Win” is quite difficult to grasp and every genre fan draws the line at a different point, the YouTuber simply asked his community: In your opinion, is MMORPG X “Pay2Win” or not? Here are the top 5 fairest, currently relevant genre representatives:

  • Final Fantasy XIV receives the most “non-pay2win” reports of all currently relevant MMORPGs, at 86.2 percent. 13.8 percent consider Square’s online role-playing game to be “pay2win” (possibly due to the possibility of skipping parts of the campaigns with money).
  • In second place: Guild Wars 2, with 82.4 percent of “non-pay2win” reports. ArenaNet’s MMORPG earned this reputation through the ability to obtain the in-game shop’s real money currency by exchanging gold earned. This means there is nothing in the shop that cannot be earned. Added to this is the horizontal character progression, which appeals primarily to collectors, casual players and so-called “completionists”.
  • In third place, the percentage points already drop significantly: 70.9 percent of respondents think New World is “not pay2win”. The buy2play MMORPG from Amazon Games sells mainly cosmetic items in the in-game shop and via the Battle Pass and, according to TheLazyPeon, has one of the fairest payment models on the market.
  • WoW Classic comes in fourth place. 68.2 percent of respondents said it was not Pay2Win. However, a distinction must be made between the Classic versions, which to date have no WoW brand or shop, and WoW Cataclysm Classic, which has both.
  • 5th place: Old School RuneScape, with 67 percent of responses for “Non Pay2Win”. There is a clear separation between the Free2Play and subscription worlds. It is certainly possible to buy equipment with money. However, many items are tied to quests or other requirements. In addition, you can lose all the parts you have bought with every virtual death.
    • Opinions differ when it comes to evaluating the WoW brand.

    How well does modern WoW perform? “Retail WoW”, which has now received the new expansion The War Within, was THE MMORPG in the survey, which divided the participants into two almost equally sized camps: 47.7 percent “Non Pay2Win” versus 52.3 percent “Pay2Win”.

    Like many other players, TheLazyPeon doesn’t like the WoW brand at all, but the associated “Pay2Win” is not big enough for the YouTuber to completely avoid Blizzard’s subscription MMORPG.

    What about the other well-known, current MMORPGs? Lord of the Rings Online narrowly missed the top 5 with 65.6 percent of reports for “Non Pay2Win”. The Elder Scrolls Online (62.3 percent “Non Pay2Win”) and Star Wars: The Old Republic (61.9 percent) follow behind.

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    Subscription with in-game shop should be banned

    How does MeinMMO editor Karsten Scholz rate the top 5? Anyone who has read my column When someone announces an MMORPG like this, I’ll take a seat right at the front of the hype train knows that I would always prefer an MMORPG with a buy2play model and subscription (and without a shop or microtransactions).

    In my opinion, this is the only way developers can avoid all the design decisions around monetization that can have a negative impact on the gaming experience. The sad truth, however, is that MMORPGs with this kind of payment model are simply no longer made.

    Instead, thanks to in-game shops and real-money currencies, modern representatives of the genre regularly balance on the border between “Pay2Win” and “Pay2Progress” and often cross it. TheLazyPeon community has already worked out the positive examples well.

    For me, the fairest payment models of all currently relevant MMORPGs can be found in Final Fantasy XIV and Guild Wars 2. If you only play WoW Classic, you will actually experience a wonderfully old-school gaming experience there – up to a certain point (WotLK or Cataclysm Classic) – as far as the payment model is concerned, but Classic is of course only a part of the overall World of Warcraft product.

    Every World First race has shown for years that the WoW brand is problematic. The amount of money the professional guilds have to invest in equipping their characters in order to remain competitive in the race for boss kills is simply absurd.

    Which current MMORPG has the fairest payment model in your opinion? Which online role-playing games offer clear “Pay2Win” and are therefore not worth recommending? Tell us in the comments! If you are looking for an overview of the currently best MMOs and MMORPGs for 2024, take a look here: The 10 currently best MMOs and MMORPGs 2024

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