Games like Valve’s DotA 2 are free to play, meaning that all the core content of the game and all of its characters free to players. However there are options where players can choose to pay for items in the game, like cosmetics, different skins and looks, and so on. This has zero impact on your character and its abilities.
However this year as part of Chinese New Year and part of the New Bloom Festival, Valve recently decided to change up the way the Year Beast Brawl plays. For those unfamiliar, the Year Beast Brawl is basically where each team will pick a monster as an ally that can be upgraded through points which will then help players fight against the other team.
While points can be earned by winning matches, Valve decided that this year, points could also be bought using real life money. What this meant is that for players with a lot of money and are willing to spend, they could technically buy as many points as they want and in turn beef up their Year Beast monster thus overwhelming the opposition easily.
According to The Verge’s Vlad Savov, an Year Beast pumped up on bought points managed to win them a game in just 12 minutes, which is actually a pretty short game as far as DotA 2 matches are concerned. This has led to many crying foul as this is no longer play to win, but pay to win.
Granted this is a once in a year event although it does set for a pretty dangerous precedent. After all if Valve could do this now, who’s to say that future events or updates won’t see Valve trying to reintroduce the model?