Spending real money to play fake games?

[disneysteve]

I enjoy playing several online games and iPhone app games. The games are all free to obtain and free to play. But during play, there are frequent offers to buy more chips or credits or add-ons or whatever. I don't really understand why anyone would do that. What fun is there in playing a virtual poker game, for example, and buying chips. To me, the exciting part is seeing how many chips I can win on my own. Besides, the games typically have free daily bonuses where you get mroe credits just for showing up. Sometimes you can also get bonuses through the game's facebook page.

On the poker game, for example, I think everyone starts with $1,000. I now have over $12 million and never paid a penny to buy chips. Why would I when I've earned that much on my own?

On the bingo game I've been playing lately, I think you start with 10 credits. I now have 177. How? I won them by playing the game and I was given more each day I played with the free daily bonus. Why would I spend money to buy more?

[anthai.lu]

Are you always this self-righteous, Steve? We get it, you're frugal and don't like to spend unnecessary money but don't judge others. While you give good advice, your threads bashing others spending habits are annoying...

Similar to your $200 jeans thread...what's it to you? Just like 99% of products out there, there's a quality level at every price point. Maybe you don't see it but there are reasons why people spend money on higher quality products.

[disneysteve]

We get it, you're frugal and don't like to spend unnecessary money but don't judge others.

Sorry if you took it that way. I think there is a big difference between judging people and trying to understand why people do what they do.

With the games, though, I don't understand why people would pay. It isn't a quality of product issue like with the jeans. Extra game credits are free. Every single day that I log into the game, they give me free credits. Thousands of them in fact. With poker, for example, I think I got 27,000 credits in bonuses today without even playing a hand. Then I got another 1,600 with the link on facebook. At the same time, though, an ad popped up to buy 20,000 credits for $3. Why would I do that when they just gave me even more than that for free?

[NetSkyBlue]

I have to agree with Steve. In fact, I get so turned off by the constant presence of the "for pay" items/cash in free games, that I rarely play them. You might as well burn that dollar, at least you'd get some warmth out of the deal.

[phantom]

I can't speak for everyone who plays these games, but I've run into situations where I could see some value in paying for credits, mostly when I've done something dumb and run out of money. For example, I was tempted to buy credits when I played Farkle, a dice rolling game. Everyday, the game rewarded me with free credits just for turning it on. But, if I choose to take some silly risks and hit a streak of bad luck, I could easily run through the free credits for the day and whatever stockpile I'd built up and be completely out. At that point, if I wanted to play more that day, I would have had to buy more credits. There were times when I really did want to keep playing, so I considered buying credits. Unfortunately, the game was buggy and my credits would reset to 0 every once in a while, so I couldn't see shelling out real money just to see it disappear.

I think the value of paying for virtual currency to gamble with really depends on how you play the game. If you're playing efficiently, and your goal is to accumulate as much money as you can through your overall skill at the game, of course you're not going to pay for currency. That would probably feel like meaningless cheating. But, if you're taking big risks that you might not take with real money (perhaps with the goal of seeing what you can win in a single game), you're going to run out of currency. If you're having fun when you run out of currency in that way, I think it can make sense to pay for more.

[bjl584]

If you are a fan of angry birds, then it's well worth paying the .99 cents to get rid of the ads that pop up between every round.

[disneysteve]

I think the value of paying for virtual currency to gamble with really depends on how you play the game. If you're playing efficiently, and your goal is to accumulate as much money as you can through your overall skill at the game, of course you're not going to pay for currency. That would probably feel like meaningless cheating. But, if you're taking big risks that you might not take with real money (perhaps with the goal of seeing what you can win in a single game), you're going to run out of currency. If you're having fun when you run out of currency in that way, I think it can make sense to pay for more.

I guess. I suppose my problem is that even when I'm playing with fake money, I tend to play the same way as if it were real money. I'm generally careful with it, but I will occasionally go a little nuts and bet big and either win or lose big. If I lose, I just work to build it back up. Sometimes that means not playing for a few days to accumulate the free credits.

[disneysteve]

If you are a fan of angry birds, then it's well worth paying the .99 cents to get rid of the ads that pop up between every round.

I think that's different. I wasn't talking about the paid version vs. the free version of a game. I can totally understand doing that. The paid version typically has no ads, more levels, etc.

I was talking about paying for credits in the game itself.

[bjl584]

I think that's different. I wasn't talking about the paid version vs. the free version of a game. I can totally understand doing that. The paid version typically has no ads, more levels, etc.

I was talking about paying for credits in the game itself.

Angry Birds gives you that option too, but I don't do it. You get free credits and prizes as you play anyway. The only reason to pay for them is a lack of patience.

[tundrabunny]

I have done it on one or two occasions because I was really into whatever game. I charge it against my monthly entertainment budget. I view it in the same realm as purchasing a video game. People purchase new games for their consoles or download games for their computer all the time. I spent a little money to keep playing a game. Gotta be careful with the apps though as there is no upper limit on what they will let you spend, unlike a video game where you just pay one price and get to play an unlimited amount of times.

That's my reasoning anyway - I have an entertainment budget and if that's how I want to spend it, then I'm not going to feel guilty about it unless I go out of budget.

[FrugalFish]

I agree. The ones that bug me the most are the ones geared toward younger kids. DD(7) has a "free" game that she loved initially, but as she gathers "fake currency" in this game to acquire more items for her make-believe world, the items she "buys" have longer and longer waiting periods before the items can be used. You can pay real money to bypass the wait times- though we don't. I think she got up to the point where she was having to wait around 75 minutes to open the items she'd bought with fake earned points, and then it started to frustrate and bore her. I find the nickle and diming mentality of these games a turn off.

[riverwed070707]

If you are a fan of angry birds, then it's well worth paying the .99 cents to get rid of the ads that pop up between every round.

This is exactly what I was going to say -- wouldn't pay for any sort of credit or extra plays, but I have occasionally (maybe twice? lol) purchased a full version to get rid of ads or open additional features that aren't available on the free version.

[Petunia 100]

I used to enjoy playing the zoo game on facebook. They had some animals you bought with real money, but those were mostly donation promotions (like $1 to breast cancer research). Mostly you progressed by buying things with zoo dollars, which you earned in the game. Then they started making some items only available with special tokens , which you could earn in the game, but very slowly. To continue progressing, you really needed those tokens. They began selling them. Then they started making it more and more difficult to earn the tokens in the game. That was when I lost interest.

I agree, it's pretty dumb to spend real money buying virtual items.

[shaggy]

I pay for a couple of add ins to Words with Friends. They cost less than $10 and greatly enhance the playing experience (one tells you which tiles are left; one computes the points of the word(s) you're going to play before you commit to them).

$10 is cheap enough to give me hours of entertainment.

[MonkeyMama]

Paying a few dollars for a game you enjoy is one thing. Being sucked into some of these money drains is another.

Heck, my kids wanted $50 for some game or other. The $50 was to buy something or other in the game. Today they ask you for $50. Tomorrow it's: ??? Totally crazy insane. They are learning to enjoy said game without spending money on it. {I had initially presumed we'd be deleting that one, but I suppose it's still fun to play patiently since they still play it all the time}. I do think most of these games nickel and dime you more ($1 here, $1 there...). That $50 request just blew me away. Do they expect these kids to charge up their parents' credit cards and for the parents not to notice? That has to be the angle... Who really thinks it is worth plopping $50 here and $50 there for some crappy tablet game?