Semi unrelated, I remain stunned at how effective free2play games are at generating revenue.

I occasionally play World of Warships, which is one of those games where you can either grind your way up to a better ship, or pay real currency to accelerate the process. Being a cheap <explicative deleted> I’ve ground my way up to medium high tier ships; it’s fun enough.

Then I looked into the company, and they have 1,750 employees, which is really expensive! It’s unbelievable that a “free” game can float such a massive development budget.

I think the positive spin is that the great thing about free2play is that you get to “try before you buy”. If I tried World of Warships and loved it, spending $10 on more slots for ships makes sense. But the cynical part of my brain suspects that a small number of whales are draining their personal accounts in order to support development and subsidize the free play of people like me.