"The difference between Pay to Win (P2W) and Pokemon Go: economics 101"

#PokemonGO: I'm really tired of seeing people complain that Pokemon is p2w so let me elaborate on this subject. Pokemon actually has a fantastic balance between free players and paying players. In this game you can either play more or pay for some items for convenience and you end up at the same place. The limiting factors in the game such as stardust and candy can NOT be purchased. This is actually the perfect model for a successful game with a long shelf life - you can pay for convenience but not to win. Compare this to another formerly popular game such as Plants vs. Zombies and you see how you CANNOT progress past a certain point without putting real money in to the game - if you want to keep playing you HAVE to purchase plants only available with actual currency rather than in game currency. Which is exactly why I stopped playing PvZ. In PoGo there is not a single thing paying players can do that free players can't with a bit more time and maybe effort. Coins can be won in gyms very reasonably (I've played both rural and city while traveling quite a bit since launch so location is only mildly limiting). I see it like this: I can take down 5 gyms a day for 50 coins and in 3 days I can buy an incubator (quicker if I go for more gyms but I'm estimating conservatively for an average) or I can pay $1.50 for immediate gratification. There is no difference in the end if I pay or not. That being said, every gamer drops $50 for a console game which provides hours and hours and hours of fun (ideally) so it's reasonable to drop some money (if you have it) into a mobile game that provides you with just as many hours of fun. The point though is that YOU DON'T HAVE TO DO SO TO COMPETE. It's important that the companies making the game profit or the game won't continue but the actual currency being spent is for convenience and instant gratification rather than by necessity to keep up with other players or to continue in the game. This is EXACTLY why Niantic will continue to succeed with this game model where others have failed - people who have a couple extra bucks don't mind putting it in to a fun game providing them loads of fun and people who don't have money to spare can still play and keep up by putting a bit more time in to the game. via /r/TheSilphRoad http://ift.tt/2ck4Sx3