Thanks to a guildmate I came upon this interesting blog run by David Edery, who has his fingers interwebbed throughout the gaming world. Â The post of interest was an argument for “aggressive” monetization of games. Â He wrote that Western game developers were wary of Asian games, especially F2P games, where a player could buy everything from functional items, boost items, aesthetic items, and so on. Â Edery said that Western games had a much more tame monetization of games.
To be honest, I found the entirety of the post a little vague.  He has some hyperbolic analogies such as comparing F2P games to coin-driven arcades or TV advertising, and it is unclear whether he is talking about true F2P games or something less when he talks about how some developers rope off a portion of the game for later purchase.  Then he briefly brushes past the wildfire topic of “ethics [in a cash shop],” which is a too-big-for-this-post concept that really muddied his best point.  He did have a fantastic point in his post “[a] game with a more diverse array of offerings is going to satisfy more people and earn more cash in the process.”