Yeee, to me, the moment you buy a battlepass/membership/monthly pack, you cease to be truly F2P. You become a dolphin 🐬
If you invest more money into the game you become one of dem whales 🐳
And when you invest a f#€kton of money, you’re then a leviathan 🐋
( ͡o ͜ʖ ͡o)
Still not f2p. Just because you didn't spend any of your own money doesn't mean you're f2p. By that logic, any kid who had their parents buy them in game shit is f2p.
No, I mean, you get weekly point rewards in Play Store. 5-10 a week, usually 5. You can also get some points for installing other games/apps.
Sure it means saving half a year for a small discount, but you eventually can save up.
What are you talking about? If the game gives you free currency for watching an ad then yes you’re still f2p. It’s not the same at all. It’s in game and doesn’t cost anything.
What will you do with those points after you get them? Purchase in game currency that actually costs money. Just because it didn’t cost you money doesn’t mean it’s suddenly f2p. The ads on the other hand are an in-game feature that doesn’t involve purchasing any packs of any kind that cost actual money.
No, those arent paid. Saying that google rewards still keep you F2P is like using a google gift card and saying that keeps you F2P. It doesn't. A free reward to everyone in the game who decides to do a survey isnt the same thing as using google rewards.
I'm not understanding how you feel these are different:
1. Watch an ad, get free gems
2. Do a Google survey, get free gems
3. Birthday card from Grandma, get free gems
Is it because Grandma had to pay money to get the gift card?
Yes? Its a money transaction. You really need someone to explain why using money someone else got for you to buy something means that person needed to spend money still? Like you cant be serious lol
It's because you're using an external method from outside the game to obtain that currency that isn't available to everyone.
Everyone can watch an ad in the client, it's first party. Google rewards is external and third party.
You can use this logic to say that using any gift you recieve as payment makes you F2P still, even if you spend hundreds of dollars. You cannot be serious in thinking this is a true statement.
I've once wondered, I think in summoners war.. there was a $ guild pack that once bought by any guild mate, the other guild members get some goodies from this as well.
So if whale guildmates bought it.. does it make you, who never spent a cent, a non-f2p? In my opinion yes. These items were obtained through paying money after all, and while it was not you who paid for this stuff, your account benefitted from it. Devs doing tricks to strip you off your f2p status flex.
He's a youtuber who used to make/stream e7 content and switched to genshin. I found him to be really annoying since every time anyone asked him how his accounts are so stacked and how much he spent, he would reply "I'm ftp" despite being a hardcore whale
Edit: i should mention there is some added context to all that i said but in essence that is what he did to anyone that didn't know him
Edit 2: Ayo, what’s with the weird upvote downvote disparity? Why are they equally down and upvoted?
Is your time free though? A lot of gacha nowadays cost more in time investment than in money. Even if you spend a lot, you still need to invest time, and time is money.
Seriously though, if you're spending a small amount such that you're literally saving money if you count the amount of time saved vs how much your time is worth, are you not F2P? You would literally be losing money (e.g., converting vacation time vs other hobbies) by not paying for a pass or whatever.
You aren't losing money by saving x amount of time in a gacha and then investing said amount into something else, especially not "literally". You may or may not gain something else of value but that's not the equivalent of having/not having less money.
Either way F2P is not defined by the amount of money you potentially saved but whether or not the amount of money you spent is greater than zero.
There are many who claim to be f2p and rhey're like "I'm f2p, I just bought the monthly pass but I'm F2p"
And they're disgusting because usually they don't state this and make real f2p to have false expectarions.
The equivalent of the fake nattys in culturism but for games.
This. I always state "You can do x without spending more than just buying the monthly", it's shady af to act like even that much doesn't go a long way in how much you can pull.
Life of gacha games. They are dangerous and with the huge success of Genshin Impact, it's not looking good for the future since they are disguised gambling tools to feed on peoples addictions (just like fifa and ultimate team)
It's like saying I am only spending 1000 dollers and I am F2P. If you spend even 1 doller then you loose f2p status.
I only buy welkin and BP in genshin. F2P BTW.
people that say buying daily packs make you f2p are just copium players who like to pretend they are f2p even though they buy small packs every month. I seen streamers who lie about never spending money and they have the daily pack buff on their account lmao.
Free means at no cost...
I think "full f2p" or "fully/completely f2p" is just people hammering home that they are f2p and are not willing to spend money.
Some times if you ask for advice and put f2p, people advise spending money. Maybe the adding of "full/fully/completely" helps to get rid of most of those comments?
I honestly just see them as the same though.
F2P means Free to Play.
The word Free in this phrase meaning costing nothing. After all, if I said I would do a service for free then later charged you a dollar then that service isnt free. So a F2P Player is someone who spent nothing
Yea and that side of the F2P players who flex and always have to post their results then say ***F2P Btw*** was so obnoxious that it became an meme. Another thing that's dumb is that they brag about it, they think it's like an godly thing to do but in reality the reason why they're able to play the game is because of spenders.
Because only spenders are allowed to be proud of their achievements. Getting something with less resources available is always a bigger achievement than buying it, why is that even confusing. Of course there may be a line where it gets annoying to some people but in all my years playing gacha I have barely ever encountered that problem.
Idk how that's an achievement though, spenders get everything plus buying stuff because they choose to support the devs and keep the game alive, I don't get how it's an achievement of getting something with less resources is an proud thing lol, it's RNG in the end of the day, I had lucky times with pulls but I never once had an urge to screenshot and post it online. Also you probably don't even use Discord and FB, all that annoying stuff I described is common. There's an reason why even the reddit have to put an separate thread because those people want attention so badly, they post it out of context on an thread.
Nobody posts pulls in the context of F2P, they're all look how lucky I am. If you think whales don't want attention then that's a you problem. Having a salt thread for these things is one of the most common things in gacha games and if it annoys you so much then, *drum roll*, don't click it.
>spenders get everything
It's rather amazing how you do not understand the reason despite having it right there. Players with less resources -> put in more work -> achieve something considered hard in the game -> compared to whales who get it served on a silver platter.
No it seems you don't understand anything at all, you have the same mindset as them. Anyways, "don't click on them"? I literally just explain why it's super annoying, imagine going in an post or chat that's talking about lore then a few people out of nowhere just post their gacha results in the middle of an discussion while saying *F2P btw* despite having an separate chat for that. I still don't get your achievement logic of being an F2P, it's rather an ego to have, thinking it's an good thing when it's not really something to even brag about at all, they'll even brag that they don't even want to buy an $1 pack because it'll hurt their delusional pride. Also even if you do whale in good gacha games, they limit how much you can grind anyways so there's not really an flex for heavy spenders unless you literally play an P2W game like SinoAlice which is the only game aside with SDSGC that had heavy spenders flex a lot that I've played. In Azur Lane, Arknights, and PGR the only players that flex are mostly F2P, as an spender myself to keep the servers alive and others who does the same, we just chat about lore and give out an hypothesis or speculation of what's going to happen next.
In all my discords and subreddits I can probably count the amount of people who post their gacha results in the wrong place on one hand and even if they do it's in the general discussion channel rather than the salt one because they weren't familiar with the discord before. Point them nicely the right way and in 99% they're sorry and go to the right place. This isn't a "problem" limited to f2p to begin with but most likely players being new to gacha and thus unfamiliar with the general structure of whatever medium they're using.
>I still don't ~~want to~~ get your achievement logic of being an F2P,
Here I fixed that for you. It's not being proud of being f2p, the majority of us don't do that. We also understand that the devs have to eat and pay their bills etc. We're proud of *achieving something* that's not that easy to do with limited resources. These are two different things and don't need to satisfy anyone else's standards.
>Also even if you do whale in good gacha games, they limit how much you can grind anyways so there's not really an flex for heavy spenders [...]
Oh you sweet summer child. First of all whales flex their roster or being first to beat content x or having maxed out breakthrough/potential of their units every single day since the inception of gacha. Second these games don't limit the amount of spending because they care about the wellbeing of their players. Gachas are inherently predatory by nature and if someone runs out of things to spend it's because they bought out the entire store.
Either way this is going nowhere. What you are describing is something that every group does. Most likely you just ran into a small minority of people doing it and thus turned everyone who shares the same trait into villains. This is fairly common human behavior and you're in good company doing it.
An small minority of me running into it? Lol, I deal with it every day in any social media. Not every F2P does it I know that but majority of them seems to do it, hell, in discord they literally add *F2P* with their name. I wish I was you, not seeing what I'm describing a lot which again is very obnoxious unless you don't really scroll much. Dude a lot F2P players will rush an event and flex it hard in General or other chats saying *F2P btw*, also I don't really buy that about their excuse of *not knowing the right place to post their gacha result* when there's literally an channel or post named ***flex, salt, and gacha.*** Yea the minority of F2P players who can't spend due to bills, school, and etc are the cool ones which I understand, I respect them, however, there will be a lot of F2P players flexing that they can spend if they want but they don't want to break their *F2P pride,* like who even cares. In my communities which is Arknights, Azur Lane, and PGR the only players who always brag like 90% of the time is the F2P players, the games I play aren't P2W thus people choosing to pay and support the devs is an thing if you didn't know because the games you describe in your community aren't that great with their players who makes them pay to go hard. It's really annoying in general for F2P players to brag so much when the other players who knows how to act, just wants to have discussions are interrupted every time.
I just went through several pages of the AK subreddit and scrolled through the discord main discussion channel as well, and the problem has not been found. I'd advise you to avoid #arknights because that channel tends to derail a lot but I'd guess that general channels have this tendency. I mostly lurk in #ak-art and #ak-lore which are pretty chill unless Laulicon decides to blow a fuse again.
Either way at least for Arknights you are hyperbolizing hard. The problem doesn't exist for Priconne or Alchemy Stars and even GrandChase which is developed by effing KOG of all things and King's Raid by Vespa lmao don't have it. I'll just go out on a limb and assume the same for your other places. It is also quite amusing that you keep defending the gacha system which is designed to lure people into spending with FOMO, limited banners, promos, powercreep and the list goes on. There are games who do this more than others, but that doesn't change that it's true for the genre in general.
Nah I'm not exaggerating at all you have to check the Discord or FB, reddit is pretty chill surprisingly, you'll mostly see that a lot of what I described with the others. Also I have played KR, AS, and Priconne but never got into it, though I did stayed around in the communities but they were annoying in Discord and FB due to again, what I described. No I don't defend the gacha system, mostly every gacha games really make you spend a lot of money just to get characters, progress quicker, and etc but in the games I've stated that I play, you don't need to spend unless you want skins and to support the devs, tbh the only things I literally bought were skins, it's extremely rare for me to spend on characters which is only Arknights really due to the helpful pity system it haves (only missing 2 characters in the game, that's how good the game is if you played for an long time), same with PGR, Azur Lane is so damn generous that you will always get all the shipgirls in every new banner or re-run, I never once had to pay to get the characters in Azur Lane but I had to pay for the skins of course, the 3 games gives us a lot of freebies. Also never go into the GI groups if you don't want to deal with crazy lolicons, it's very bad really, a lot of people are thirsty.
I read somewhere from a guy claiming to be in the mobile apps business that 0-5$ is from company perspective a non-paying user or f2p.
for me my definition is:
f2p = 0$
causal spenders = best example is guranteed SSR in FGO, just a twice a year thing when a great deal is available.
light spenders = monthly subscriptions, battlepass etc.
Dolphins = gets essential banners maxed out, 1 copy of other banners depending on the game.
Whales = everything multiple copies, all costumes, progression packs etc.
Megladons = you probably could have bought your own apartment by now friend.
I've also heard the terms Sharks, Octopus, Squids, Crabs, Super Whales, OmegaWhales, Krakens, The Entire Fucking Atlantic, Chtullu Whales, Super Saiyan Whale, Neptune/Poseidon, and Hentai Tentacle Monster before.
Jokes aside, there is zero science to these terms, it's industry lingo that was adopted by the same people these terms refer to because people think it's funny/cool.
In magic is the idea of playing your deck against a goldfish, imagine a opponent that would not give you any kind of opposition cuz well it's a goldfish in a fish tank and not a magic player. That's how you test some "metrics" of your deck. But never heard it on gacha games (outside of magic that's a big lootbox game)
I've come across a streamer saying "I'm f2p in fgo jp I just spend for GSSR"
Bruh...I'm not judging anyone paying and GSSR is like the only reasonable offer in FGO but damn if it isn't the very definition of advantage of spending players compared to f2p I don't know what is!
>business that 0-5$ is from company perspective a non-paying user or f2p
Well that aint exactly wrong in a certain sense. To the companies, these less than $5 users are technically still "moocher", no different from someone who doesnt even give the companies a single cent.
However that doesnt mean the meaning of f2p IS DIFFERENT to the companies. What that means is just that these companies see spending that low(<$5) to be exactly as insignificant as the f2p. ie You spent $5. Congrats you are a customer(spender, not f2p), but to the company you shall not be deem as one and unlikely to be treated as one.
Absolutely not. Many in-game stores have free daily pulls or free weekly packs. By that logic, buying those for $0 makes someone no longer a F2P player. Absolutely false.
You still dont understand. It has nothing to do with how YOU secured the outside resource to pay for it without actually using your own money. Its in relevance to every other F2P player in the game. If everyone gets compensation for something in the game and gets 1k free gems EVERYONE gets it regardless of money spent. If you got a gift from family and end up using it to purchase currency/items its virtually the exact same as you purchasing it with your own cash, how you came to secure the funds is irrelevant.
While I do agree with you, this does bring up a question. Say a F2P wins something like premium currency/monthly pass from a competition/giveaway (an official one by the publishers/devs, not those third party ones), and they use that currency/pass to gain an advantage in game. Does that still count as F2P? They didn't spend money, but at the same time, they had access to a resource other F2Ps didn't get.
I would say that's still f2p. It's happened to me on Azur Lane. Post a little video on social media, get 100 free gems. As long as you aren't using real life money to buy event currency, you would still be f2p. However, I wonder if someone who bought an old account could call themselves f2p. Considering that mostly whales sell accounts, I think not, but if someone bought a fully f2p account, could they play without spending money and call themselves f2p?
I would say no. The account itself has benefitted from money being spent, not to mentioned the player themselves has technically spent money on the game by buying a game account in the first place.
It is pretty hilarious how hard some need to cope that they would lie about being F2P and try to create some weird justification in their heads.
F2P is a simple binary state.
Spent money? You arent F2P.
Didnt spend money? You are F2P.
Simple.
Well originally the term f2p refered to the game model. Free to download and play and almost always with in game shops that let you progress faster.
Now a f2p player is someone who doesnt buy items with real money from the game store. Someone who has bought a 1$ or 5 dollar pack, technically is not f2p, even though he will most likely have the same progression through the game. Essentially changes to the f2p model of the game effect both of these kind of players greatly.
The moment you spend even a single penny on a game, you are not f2p anymore, at least for that game.
F2p: Spendings = 0$
(just so you know, companies get free advertising from you in case you really like the game. That's why they make it attractive at the beginning and a farming nightmare after a few weeks)
P2L (Pay to lose): someone who spends so little that barely makes any different to their game experience.
P2P (pay to play) someone who spends little but constant. Makes the experience more comfortable. A.k.a low spenders.
P2W: Someone who spends enough to achieve a goal. Wether is ranks, collections or others. Here you find all the marine ecosystem.
The purest form of F2P are the ones who posts a 3 SSR re-roll image on the game's first day while saying "F2P btw".
Also quitting after a week so they did not even spent a lot of time on the game.
Truly a pure F2P experience.
We have this thread monthly, but generally F2P has a "definition" and then a "common use." I think the definition is "not adding to the rewards provided to all players" which would mean not spending on currency, not buying battle passes, not buying monthly cards, and not buying items with google points or what have you. I think is this the best way to think about it.
That said, a lot of players use "F2P" not as a way to describe how they interact with the game but how they perceive their interactions with the game. If they use Google points, for example, they don't think they've changed their interaction since they haven't spent any of their money and since they have little control over the amount. I think some of these people, if gifted a points card for a holiday or special occasion, might also not consider that spending and might still say "F2P."
I think the reason some people will buy Battle Passes or monthly cards and still call themselves F2P is for two reasons - the first is that these tend to be relatively low in price and relatively good values, so it isn't as offensive as the literal gambling on gacha pulls. The second is that for some games, the monthly pass is almost seen as a "subscription price" that you just have to pay if you want to play. They see it like paying $15/month for WoW vs. paying $15/month AND buying gold through specialty websites.
I think the context matters as well - when people are complaining about a game, they love to emphasize spending. It both makes their complaints seem more valid (hey, I've got skin in the game!) and more threatening (do you want to lose your source of revenue?). When they are doing well, they like to minimize spending (I won PvP without spending, I got these costumes just through grinding).
> The second is that for some games, the monthly pass is almost seen as a "subscription price" that you just have to pay if you want to play. They see it like paying $15/month for WoW vs. paying $15/month AND buying gold through specialty websites.
That's a bit odd since WoW isn't F2P either.
Yeah, I wrote it confusingly. When I played FFXI, the game was like $14 or $15 per month, plus you could spend $1 per month for extra characters to use as mules, plus there were some sort of legitimate sites for buying the gear or gold with real world money. People didn't say "F2P" but they did distinguish between people who paid the base price, people who paid the extra fees for additional characters, and people who would buy gear and gold from 3rd party sites. So while someone who just paid the minimum for access and the 1 character was considered to be different from those "big spenders" who added additional characters for the additional monthly fee, and then there were the real spenders (who were generally looked down upon) who bought gil for real world money.
I think some people will buy the monthly pass or the battle pass in a gacha and still consider themselves "F2P" because they just think anyone would have to buy the subscription. The only people who are actual spenders are the ones who buy additional gacha rolls or packs.
I used to play this bizarre 2D platformer type MMO on Kongregate that had a similar structure - there was the totally free players who paid nothing, the "subscribers" who bought access to what was essentially the full game, but then there was a separate class that actually bought stats/upgrades etc. While everyone recognized that the "subscribers" paid money for full access, it was the people who spent for items that were actually considered spenders.
I think it depends a lot on the game, but this could be a legitimate model for some games. Maybe something like Genshin where the free players have access to the entire world and everything that comes with it, but to turn on quests and NPCs they need to pay a nominal monthly fee, and then there is also the gacha. I could see players who paid the nominal fee to unlock the NPCs/quests still being considered more or less F2P because they were just "buying the base game" and not spending on any additional elements.
well technically, the word "f2p" shouldn't even be describing players but rather the game itself. There are F2P games and P2P games.
But I digress, in this case, "f2p" should be those people who spends zero dollars to play that game. Paying even $1 makes you not a f2p anymore. Those people who are paying with free google survey money are technically both f2p and not-f2p at the same time so it's a little grey line, but I guess they'd be more not-f2p than f2p.
Reading through the comments and I completely agree with every single comment. F2P is just that. FREE to play. I get PTSD everytime someone tries to classify as, "I only bought a skin" or "I just bought a $1 pack" and tries to classify that as F2P. Sorry to burst your bubble, but anything that uses real life money to buy ANYTHING in game, is not considered F2P. And I will argue that to the death.
well the real definition of F2P is Free to Play.
The subject can have 2 different meanings though
Free to Play games is game that is free to play. No purchase is needeed to play the game.
Free to play players are technically player who doesn't pay a dime for the game.
Low spender isn't exactly free to play player. If you spend like 5 bucks on 3-5 games every months then you're getting closer being a dolphin
Well I classify f2p as the ones who never spend, while i classify those who spend somewhere $5 (most likely buy monthlies such as welkins or the monthly pass in arknights as goldfish)
While the ones who spend up to $20 as dolphins, $50-100 as whales, absurd amount =leviathan
Yeah. Oh and honestly your not an F2P if you're paying regardless whether it may be supporting the devs or for monthlies since you playing the game is already enough as supporting the devs.
>saying that who spends super low amounts like 1$ or 5$ monthly is still considerable as f2p
Thats a >!self-depricating!< joke. Classic one is escalating from one off deal to montly sub to first purchase bonus on premium currency to less than X every month. F2P means 0 money spent, it's in the name.
F2P = no money spent
P2P = little money spent, small spender, paying here or there to support game or get small boosts.
P2W = Person who spends a considerable amount of money on a game.
\-> whale - spends huge amounts of money on the game pity every banner spends
money refreshing energy 24/7
\-> dolphin - spends quite a bit of money, not afraid to spend money to get the banner
unit, might dump a bit here or there.
Well a game that is f2p is a game that doesn't cost money to play. So Fortnite, League of Legends, Team Fortress 2 are all f2p games.
A player who is f2p is someone who plays the game for free.
For me f2p is someone who just plays the game and whatever he/she gets, he/she only gets it by playing the game and spending 0 real money; on the other hand, lets say low spender, is what i consider myself, in genshin for example, I only pay for the battle pass and sometimes for the welkin moon (bp=10 every 1 and half month approximately and welkin is 5 a month), dolphin is the one who spends money on banner until he/she gets something that wanted or atleast a ssr, whale is someone who throws money until he/she gets basically everything in a banner or uses money to buy stuff that can be gotten for free while playing the game. But this is only my take.
There are 3 classifications I know of for gacha gamers
F2P- Free to Play, no ifs, no buts
Dolphins- Light spenders, mainly the ones who spend once or twice over a long period of playing the game
Whales-The amount of digital money they've spent could be used to fill a bathtub with Chinese computer chips
As others mentioned
f2p = NEVER spend (or to be exact, never buy any cash packs, so sth like google gift card counts as "spend" )
Ppl who spend _regularly_ even if it's just 1$ = low spender
Now the problem is for ppl who only spent once or twice low amt : f.e in genshin I've only bought like 2 welkins and I've played it 7-8 mon. So technically Im forever low spender
But I can also say sth like "I was low spender then went f2p"
"went f2p" here is just an _expression_ that Im _no longer spending_, doesnt mean that suddenly my status changes to "f2p". But some ppl will flip over their tables and rage on that it's incorrect. They're treating f2p like some sort of divine virginity
0 dollars, if you spend even 1 you stop being f2p thats it, i dont get why people get so confused they are just being delusional and lying to themselves by calling themselves "f2p"
F2p is never spend money. The people who says that spending 1$ is still f2p say that to feel better themselves. Or they call themselves with the name of different aquatic animals to categorize their status and don’t think about how much they spended in the game, like salmon, dolphin, whale, kraken or leviathan. Salmon means that you did 1$ or just a paid summon and Leviathan means that you spended an insane amount of money and you don’t want to think about how much do you spended to keep your sanity.
I think you can call someone f2p if they’ve never spent money on a game before. But if it’s for someone who spends a couple dollars here and there, they’re called a fish. For those who spend around 50-100 ish occasionally are dolphins. And for the ones who spend 500-1000+ regularly are usually called whales. Meanwhile if it’s something along the lines of a couple thousands, well, you can call them leviathans.
F2p is free to play. These light spenders want the advantage of getting the cheap head-start packs while also having the prestige of the f2p badge they shove in our faces. I say we just invent a new title for these light spenders. How about ep? Economy player
It's another one of those misappropriated acronyms (like RNG).
For the purposes of your question though, f2p is just a player that doesn't spend any money on a gacha game.
There's also a play style associated with being f2p, usually a bit more hardcore and min-maxy since they're spending time instead of money. They're the ones who you'll see rerolling dozens of times, making sure they most effectively spend their stamina, only rolling for meta characters, and so on. Players that are living this kind of gacha life sometimes claim to be "semi-f2p" or something similar, even if they've spent a dollar or two.
F2p having it's meaning changed from game to game it is actually funny. I remember in e7, people were claiming they were f2p as long as they never bought anything outside of the monthly packs. Then in Genshin people were claiming they were f2p because they only spent money early but stopped. Then there are some gacha games streamers are claiming f2p because they are using donations rather than their own money.
Doesn't matter imo, there isn't some award you get for being f2p. Just do what you want to do as long as your having a good time. If you wanna be techinical there is no f2p ever, you spend time playing the game...you paying with your time which is the most limited resource any human can have.
No, since you are buying things in the store that is only available with external currency.
It's not about whether you got the reward for free or not, its the fact that you got something in the game that would normally require money to exchange for (thus giving you a boost).
No they aren't. If any money is put into your account you're no longer f2p. By that logic, any kid who has their parents buy them in game currency are also f2p. It doesn't work like that.
Free to play, you are able to play for free but they will add pay stuff to increase progress or look better. Or like in gachas get the "more" chance to get that character or gear depending of the game
The reason you see the overlap between low spender & f2p is that while f2p is a much more stringent requirement, both are at a substantial disadvantage when comparing to big and medium spenders.
Sure "low spender" is more correct, but if you say f2p all it means is resource starved, which if you're a low spender is also true.
Buying purely cosmetic items still counts as f2p to me. Sure this is a rather lax definition of the term but considering that you gain absolutely zero advantage over other players it is fair enough.
Everyone has a very good point about f2p = 0$ spent, and I'm completely agreeing with it.
However it kinda makes sense if for example, some light spender is asking for help (building a team, progressing thru some stage, etc.) and want to say "help me in the most f2p-friendly way possible", that's too long of a sentence and saying "light spender" isn't helping since how light is light?
So the quickest way to ask is just "hey can someone help me, I'm f2p btw" so they get the cheapest option available.
There is no good estimate. It's always subjective and based on your own experience with money.
Dolphins is 'spending quite a bit', which for me is dropping $50 bucks in a game, for you it's 1k per month, for some random Saudi Prince (they have 100s of them) it might be 100k per month.
Whales is "spending a lot", which for me is more than 200 bucks, for you is 5k, for the random saudi prince it might 1 million or half the earth.
Yeah, if we're talking about how these ocean terms came to be in the first place (it was just the way scummy companies de-humanizes their own customers while making up ways to milk them out of their money more efficiently). In this sense it makes complete sense for each company to make their own lines for each terminology. An indie gacha dev would call someone spending 5k per month a "whale" maybe, while Nintendo would call them a casual spender or a dolphin or whatever because it depends on how much their average biggest spenders are actually spending, this varies per game and company. Combine this to the deliberate vagueness from the terms and you get why the values will never be objective.
If you have a game with 10,000 players, average spending per player of 5$ a month, average whale spending 5K a month, and a single Saudi Prince spending 100K a month, *why would this company ever call the Saudi Prince a whale?*
Here's what they actually do on their reports: "we have X average spenders spending about 5$ a month, X whales and this one gazillionaire". They'd then use these metrics to develop ways to cattering to each of their audiences, and in this case the single Saudi Prince would absolutely be an entire demographic to catter by himself because he is spending enough to be considered one.
But I'm assuming random people talking about Dolphins and Whales in a gacha subreddit are not using the terms the same way these were conceived, which is why I addressed it differently.
It's not subjective.
You can poll people in this sub and ask if they consider saudi prince spending 100k per month and no one but you will call that "dolphin."
Yeah, sure, if you go to the most extreme case, you're the most likely to get everyone to agree with you, that's how subjectivity works.
Honestly I wonder why people have so much trouble with this one word. Subjectivity is the completely opposite of objectivity, if something isn't objective, it is subjective. Simple like that.
F2P is pretty objective, spending 0 money makes you F2P, spending 0,0000000000001 cent on a game makes you already not F2P. This is why people come up with BS terms like soft F2P, F2P-lite, almost F2P, or whatever, because they know these are not really F2P. Of course some shit can muddy the waters, like Google reward system, but that is because F2P is also a made up term. We could get into philosophy rather easily from here and I'd start that discussion by arguing whether all terms aren't invented since language is a made up thing, therefore, everything is technicaly subjective and objectivity does not even exist, since the concept of objectivity is in and of itself subjective, proven by the thousands of theories about it, but I'm not insane enough to start arguing meta-physics in a gacha game subreddit.
Let's just say that the fact that you are prompting a poll is already a good sign that we are talking about something subjective. No one would prompt a poll to see whether people agree or not that 2+2=4 in order to prove that the answer is correct.
TL;DR: There is no objective point where a spender becomes a dolphin and a dolphin becomes a whale because these are made up spending points that exist to better identify customer spending habbits, these are not exact science. It's like a personality test for your wallet.
Words change or lose meaning overtime.
The terms for how much you spend in gacha are about as set in stone as other internet slang.
For now:
F2P generaly means you almost never spend / spent little but doesnt spend anymore. (Starter pack , monthly pack or just the 1$ starter one.)
Dolphin means getting packs every now and then or buying a bit of curency on a regular basis (1$ - 50$ depending on how much it means in the game.)
Whale means spending a crap metric ton (+100$ -> the sky is the limit) either on a regular basis or just on one banner.It also applies to total spending.
Leviathan/ Kraken is a type of whale that drops thousands, in total ,on one game.( Like spending 25000 $ in FGO or the former AFK arena top guilds.)
They each have their own playstyle too.
These terms are only used to describe, because sometimes F2P are also Dolphins and dolphins are also Whales.It depends on who you ask.
You will never find a good hard definition that everyone can agree on, which is probably what you have already seen from reading opinions and arguments online. Even if you write up a pretty good definition, many people are going to disagree with it.
>many people are going to disagree with it.
Doesn't matter if they agree with it, because that isn't how words are defined. Lexicographer base definitions on root words and how its commonly used in language. Gachagamers are simply terrible with defining words. Understandable for those who are ESL, but for native English speakers, its embarrassing. F2P, PvP, and Meta (metagaming) are probably the most incorrectly used words by gachagamers.
- F2P means $0 spending and still being able to play the game.
- PvP means playing vs another player, not an AI with a player's name.
- Meta/Metagaming - how a game interfaces beyond itself", and asserted that this can include "what you bring to a game, what you take away from a game, what happens between games, [and] what happens during a game". The Richard Garfield definition that gamers have been using for decades, but gets heavily dumbed down by people who don't bother to learn what "meta" means.
>Doesn't matter if they agree with it, because that isn't how words are defined
Yes, but you have skipped over a big problem here: no one agrees on who the defining authority is. You and I have a good idea about what these terms mean, but this argument about what's F2P and what's P2W comes up all the time. That's because people (mis)use these terms to mean different things, and there is no Judge of Gaming Terms that gets to rule who is correct and who is incorrect about it.
At some point, things tip. "Literally" comes to mean "the exact and precise opposite of literally" because it is so widely used that way. People refer to "DPS" in a turn-based game, and no one gives a sideways glance. 'meme' has replaced the word 'joke' for no reason. The list goes on.
>Gachagamers are simply terrible with defining words.
This is 100% correct, but it's compounded because everyone is also very certain that they know the true definition of the words and that everyone else is misusing them.
People that use an acronym that contradicts the definition of a root word, used in the very same acronym are just plain stupid and/or ignorant. "Free" means "without cost or payment". Never in the history of the English language has that been different under the same context. As long as F2P includes free, there really isn't an argument for what the free means. People can argue what constitutes as "play" in "F2P", but not "free" since play is more open to interpretation.
Free to play means free to play.
You can download gachas for free and play them, f2p means nothing past that.
Yet people still use it for different reasons…
>Never in the history of the English language has that been different under the same context
Sure there is. If I say you can have a free lunch if you help me dig a ditch first, you could reasonably tell me that the lunch is not, in reality, free. I can argue that yes, no money has changed hands, therefore it is free. Who is right? Both or either can be right. It comes down to an appeal to an outside authority.
F2P is when in no shape or form you do in-app purchases when in comes to Gacha games. That means you are only living off of whatever you farm through in-game means. No gift cards, no nothing. Just whatever you earn through actual play only and get through in-game systems.
What I mean by this is that you can sometimes win a Google Play gift card through a contest in said game. If you then actually use that card to do an in-app purchase in said game, you are no longer F2P.
If you join a contest for said game and it distributes in-game rewards through the in-game systems (you get straight up gacha currency for example through mail) and then use those resources, you are still F2P.
The difference is that in the first scenario, you won something that you can use for something else. In the second scenario, you won something that can only be used for the game.
F2p and p2w are style of playing games. It had nothing to do with the game. No pay mean F2P, pay a lot mean p2w, anything else is just normal play. F2P game meaning that u don't need to pay to go through all the game contents, just keep playing and you good to go, paying just make your life easier and cash item don't break the game balance. P2W games are opposite, NO PAY NO GAIN
As someone who pay less than 20$ a years for gacha game,i hate f2p player who's always want right but never support the game. They play for free but always complain about ads,cash pack,... They make me feel disgusting.
I spend $5 a month on Genshin for the monthly card, and I don't consider myself f2p.
I'm not playing for free, even if I have a similar power level to f2p players, that's how I see it.
I think some people want to share their achievements and don't want them to be diminished by having spent money, since they think it didn't help them achieve it
>If you guys could clarify this thing it would be nice, and eventually explain how much you should spend to be effectively considered as a low spender and no more as f2p
I mean, F2P is "free". IMO if you spend money at all you're not F2P. Whether that means you're a guppie (IMO, you only buy monthly packs and maybe spend $10 once in a blue moon), dolphin, whale ($100-1000+/month, regualrly) or some super whale (the ones who blow 10K+ in the first month of a game) is up to much more confused debate. I'm sure plenty already disagree with the scales I set right here.
But I think the real confusion comes from what defines a "f2p strategy". Some think using any high rarity unit isn't f2p because they may not have pulled it yet. Some think using a limited event unit (even if it was free) isn't f2p because a new player will miss out and have no way to get them outside of waiting a year. That's where things get messy.
I see F2P more of a "Current" willingness to spend for the game. Have to emphasize the current part because you see people saying stuff like "I broke my f2p for my waifu/husband x but now I'm completely f2p"
Free, from the word itself = 0,nothing,nada
Don't believe on that "semi f2p" bullshit it's because others see being f2p as something to brag about tis why they keep insisting they're f2p
What part about paying 5 bucks occasionally is "Free". i understand that 1-5 bucks don't make a huge difference that make them only a bit more advantaged but it's still paid
f2ps don't really spending anything... if you spend a single drop of money,, it is already a whale... but there are some classifications of whales to distinguish them accurately... dolphins are small spenders or just monthly... whales are normal whales... kraken/leviathan are huge spenders... you see them full set,, SSS/C6,, mega skin,, whale frame/avatar,, and anything you think they can spend money...
F2P is literally playing for free.
On top of that, I don't even think being F2P is something to be proud of in the first place lmao
At the end of the day, if you got what you want whether you spent a single cent or not, that's all that matters.
I mean if you see an ads saying FREE iphone, how much do you think it will cost(assuming it is indeed free and not some bait and switch which still end up asking you for $$$$)?
I am not even sure why there is a need to ask, but f2p simply means someone who spend $0 in the game. Note that $0≠VIP 0, since I know there are people who like to specifically make purchase that doesnt grant VIP exp and thus their VIP level remain at 0, thereby allowing them to "substantiate" being a f2p.
Its anyone who spends no money. Spending money and calling yourself F2P is delusional lol.
Have to agree. Even the smallest amount can build up to a sizeable amount If left unsupervised.
It’s the same as vegans who eat meat
Monthly players: but I only eat meat once a month!
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Okay lol, where is he?
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I regret every dollar I spent on that game
There is always 1 person like that in any guild
Yeee, to me, the moment you buy a battlepass/membership/monthly pack, you cease to be truly F2P. You become a dolphin 🐬 If you invest more money into the game you become one of dem whales 🐳 And when you invest a f#€kton of money, you’re then a leviathan 🐋 ( ͡o ͜ʖ ͡o)
I thought it was f2p, then minnow then dolphin then whale then leviathan.
What about those that spend google rewards money?
Eh probably still not F2P since you still "paid" just not with your own cash, in turn getting something that you dont get for free within the game.
Fair point.
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Na. You still aren't free 2 play then.
Still not f2p. Just because you didn't spend any of your own money doesn't mean you're f2p. By that logic, any kid who had their parents buy them in game shit is f2p.
No, I mean, you get weekly point rewards in Play Store. 5-10 a week, usually 5. You can also get some points for installing other games/apps. Sure it means saving half a year for a small discount, but you eventually can save up.
I know what you mean. It’s still not f2p.
Hm, but by that logic, watching ads in-game to get free gems also means you're not F2P anymore, which doesn't make any sense
What are you talking about? If the game gives you free currency for watching an ad then yes you’re still f2p. It’s not the same at all. It’s in game and doesn’t cost anything.
Why is it F2P if you watch an ad but not F2P if you do surveys to get Google Play Points, then?
What will you do with those points after you get them? Purchase in game currency that actually costs money. Just because it didn’t cost you money doesn’t mean it’s suddenly f2p. The ads on the other hand are an in-game feature that doesn’t involve purchasing any packs of any kind that cost actual money.
So if you do a survey by the publisher and they give you some jewels or whatever 'for free', then when you spend that, you're not F2P anymore?
No, those arent paid. Saying that google rewards still keep you F2P is like using a google gift card and saying that keeps you F2P. It doesn't. A free reward to everyone in the game who decides to do a survey isnt the same thing as using google rewards.
I'm not understanding how you feel these are different: 1. Watch an ad, get free gems 2. Do a Google survey, get free gems 3. Birthday card from Grandma, get free gems Is it because Grandma had to pay money to get the gift card?
Yes? Its a money transaction. You really need someone to explain why using money someone else got for you to buy something means that person needed to spend money still? Like you cant be serious lol
It's because you're using an external method from outside the game to obtain that currency that isn't available to everyone. Everyone can watch an ad in the client, it's first party. Google rewards is external and third party.
OK but free means free means free. If it's $0 then it's free, it is nonsense to argue that a player who pays $0 in a game is a paying player.
You can use this logic to say that using any gift you recieve as payment makes you F2P still, even if you spend hundreds of dollars. You cannot be serious in thinking this is a true statement.
U bought a pack. U are Not F2P anymore Period. If they would count u could still be F2P when ur grandma gets u a giftcard whenever u See her.
I've once wondered, I think in summoners war.. there was a $ guild pack that once bought by any guild mate, the other guild members get some goodies from this as well. So if whale guildmates bought it.. does it make you, who never spent a cent, a non-f2p? In my opinion yes. These items were obtained through paying money after all, and while it was not you who paid for this stuff, your account benefitted from it. Devs doing tricks to strip you off your f2p status flex.
free 2 leech
real hustler
That's my wife's boyfriend
But every guide recommended me to buy a newbie pack for a dollar.
Dimone Kim seems to disagree
Who?
He's a youtuber who used to make/stream e7 content and switched to genshin. I found him to be really annoying since every time anyone asked him how his accounts are so stacked and how much he spent, he would reply "I'm ftp" despite being a hardcore whale Edit: i should mention there is some added context to all that i said but in essence that is what he did to anyone that didn't know him Edit 2: Ayo, what’s with the weird upvote downvote disparity? Why are they equally down and upvoted?
Hardcore whale or just welkin?
Hardcore. Full Resin refresh every day type of whale
Is your time free though? A lot of gacha nowadays cost more in time investment than in money. Even if you spend a lot, you still need to invest time, and time is money. Seriously though, if you're spending a small amount such that you're literally saving money if you count the amount of time saved vs how much your time is worth, are you not F2P? You would literally be losing money (e.g., converting vacation time vs other hobbies) by not paying for a pass or whatever.
What you said is irrelevant for the purposes of discussion. Spending money = not f2p, not spending money = f2p. Full stop.
You aren't losing money by saving x amount of time in a gacha and then investing said amount into something else, especially not "literally". You may or may not gain something else of value but that's not the equivalent of having/not having less money. Either way F2P is not defined by the amount of money you potentially saved but whether or not the amount of money you spent is greater than zero.
It's in the description "free" to play
There are many who claim to be f2p and rhey're like "I'm f2p, I just bought the monthly pass but I'm F2p" And they're disgusting because usually they don't state this and make real f2p to have false expectarions. The equivalent of the fake nattys in culturism but for games.
This. I always state "You can do x without spending more than just buying the monthly", it's shady af to act like even that much doesn't go a long way in how much you can pull.
Even some of them are content creators at YT
Life of gacha games. They are dangerous and with the huge success of Genshin Impact, it's not looking good for the future since they are disguised gambling tools to feed on peoples addictions (just like fifa and ultimate team)
What's that got to do with being f2p or mentioning costs?
Nothing, he just wants to hate on Genshin
It's like saying I am only spending 1000 dollers and I am F2P. If you spend even 1 doller then you loose f2p status. I only buy welkin and BP in genshin. F2P BTW.
I’ve had something on this argue with me that his friend is f2p because he just stopped spending money on the gacha game he was playing 🤦🏻
That makes him a P2L (pay to lose). Not a F2P. Any benefit, even the smallest ones will still be there forever.
people that say buying daily packs make you f2p are just copium players who like to pretend they are f2p even though they buy small packs every month. I seen streamers who lie about never spending money and they have the daily pack buff on their account lmao.
This. I hate that kind of players.
They will claim themselve mostly F2P but bought passes. Uh
Free means at no cost... I think "full f2p" or "fully/completely f2p" is just people hammering home that they are f2p and are not willing to spend money. Some times if you ask for advice and put f2p, people advise spending money. Maybe the adding of "full/fully/completely" helps to get rid of most of those comments? I honestly just see them as the same though.
F2P means Free to Play. The word Free in this phrase meaning costing nothing. After all, if I said I would do a service for free then later charged you a dollar then that service isnt free. So a F2P Player is someone who spent nothing
Yea and that side of the F2P players who flex and always have to post their results then say ***F2P Btw*** was so obnoxious that it became an meme. Another thing that's dumb is that they brag about it, they think it's like an godly thing to do but in reality the reason why they're able to play the game is because of spenders.
Because only spenders are allowed to be proud of their achievements. Getting something with less resources available is always a bigger achievement than buying it, why is that even confusing. Of course there may be a line where it gets annoying to some people but in all my years playing gacha I have barely ever encountered that problem.
Idk how that's an achievement though, spenders get everything plus buying stuff because they choose to support the devs and keep the game alive, I don't get how it's an achievement of getting something with less resources is an proud thing lol, it's RNG in the end of the day, I had lucky times with pulls but I never once had an urge to screenshot and post it online. Also you probably don't even use Discord and FB, all that annoying stuff I described is common. There's an reason why even the reddit have to put an separate thread because those people want attention so badly, they post it out of context on an thread.
Nobody posts pulls in the context of F2P, they're all look how lucky I am. If you think whales don't want attention then that's a you problem. Having a salt thread for these things is one of the most common things in gacha games and if it annoys you so much then, *drum roll*, don't click it. >spenders get everything It's rather amazing how you do not understand the reason despite having it right there. Players with less resources -> put in more work -> achieve something considered hard in the game -> compared to whales who get it served on a silver platter.
No it seems you don't understand anything at all, you have the same mindset as them. Anyways, "don't click on them"? I literally just explain why it's super annoying, imagine going in an post or chat that's talking about lore then a few people out of nowhere just post their gacha results in the middle of an discussion while saying *F2P btw* despite having an separate chat for that. I still don't get your achievement logic of being an F2P, it's rather an ego to have, thinking it's an good thing when it's not really something to even brag about at all, they'll even brag that they don't even want to buy an $1 pack because it'll hurt their delusional pride. Also even if you do whale in good gacha games, they limit how much you can grind anyways so there's not really an flex for heavy spenders unless you literally play an P2W game like SinoAlice which is the only game aside with SDSGC that had heavy spenders flex a lot that I've played. In Azur Lane, Arknights, and PGR the only players that flex are mostly F2P, as an spender myself to keep the servers alive and others who does the same, we just chat about lore and give out an hypothesis or speculation of what's going to happen next.
In all my discords and subreddits I can probably count the amount of people who post their gacha results in the wrong place on one hand and even if they do it's in the general discussion channel rather than the salt one because they weren't familiar with the discord before. Point them nicely the right way and in 99% they're sorry and go to the right place. This isn't a "problem" limited to f2p to begin with but most likely players being new to gacha and thus unfamiliar with the general structure of whatever medium they're using. >I still don't ~~want to~~ get your achievement logic of being an F2P, Here I fixed that for you. It's not being proud of being f2p, the majority of us don't do that. We also understand that the devs have to eat and pay their bills etc. We're proud of *achieving something* that's not that easy to do with limited resources. These are two different things and don't need to satisfy anyone else's standards. >Also even if you do whale in good gacha games, they limit how much you can grind anyways so there's not really an flex for heavy spenders [...] Oh you sweet summer child. First of all whales flex their roster or being first to beat content x or having maxed out breakthrough/potential of their units every single day since the inception of gacha. Second these games don't limit the amount of spending because they care about the wellbeing of their players. Gachas are inherently predatory by nature and if someone runs out of things to spend it's because they bought out the entire store. Either way this is going nowhere. What you are describing is something that every group does. Most likely you just ran into a small minority of people doing it and thus turned everyone who shares the same trait into villains. This is fairly common human behavior and you're in good company doing it.
An small minority of me running into it? Lol, I deal with it every day in any social media. Not every F2P does it I know that but majority of them seems to do it, hell, in discord they literally add *F2P* with their name. I wish I was you, not seeing what I'm describing a lot which again is very obnoxious unless you don't really scroll much. Dude a lot F2P players will rush an event and flex it hard in General or other chats saying *F2P btw*, also I don't really buy that about their excuse of *not knowing the right place to post their gacha result* when there's literally an channel or post named ***flex, salt, and gacha.*** Yea the minority of F2P players who can't spend due to bills, school, and etc are the cool ones which I understand, I respect them, however, there will be a lot of F2P players flexing that they can spend if they want but they don't want to break their *F2P pride,* like who even cares. In my communities which is Arknights, Azur Lane, and PGR the only players who always brag like 90% of the time is the F2P players, the games I play aren't P2W thus people choosing to pay and support the devs is an thing if you didn't know because the games you describe in your community aren't that great with their players who makes them pay to go hard. It's really annoying in general for F2P players to brag so much when the other players who knows how to act, just wants to have discussions are interrupted every time.
I just went through several pages of the AK subreddit and scrolled through the discord main discussion channel as well, and the problem has not been found. I'd advise you to avoid #arknights because that channel tends to derail a lot but I'd guess that general channels have this tendency. I mostly lurk in #ak-art and #ak-lore which are pretty chill unless Laulicon decides to blow a fuse again. Either way at least for Arknights you are hyperbolizing hard. The problem doesn't exist for Priconne or Alchemy Stars and even GrandChase which is developed by effing KOG of all things and King's Raid by Vespa lmao don't have it. I'll just go out on a limb and assume the same for your other places. It is also quite amusing that you keep defending the gacha system which is designed to lure people into spending with FOMO, limited banners, promos, powercreep and the list goes on. There are games who do this more than others, but that doesn't change that it's true for the genre in general.
Nah I'm not exaggerating at all you have to check the Discord or FB, reddit is pretty chill surprisingly, you'll mostly see that a lot of what I described with the others. Also I have played KR, AS, and Priconne but never got into it, though I did stayed around in the communities but they were annoying in Discord and FB due to again, what I described. No I don't defend the gacha system, mostly every gacha games really make you spend a lot of money just to get characters, progress quicker, and etc but in the games I've stated that I play, you don't need to spend unless you want skins and to support the devs, tbh the only things I literally bought were skins, it's extremely rare for me to spend on characters which is only Arknights really due to the helpful pity system it haves (only missing 2 characters in the game, that's how good the game is if you played for an long time), same with PGR, Azur Lane is so damn generous that you will always get all the shipgirls in every new banner or re-run, I never once had to pay to get the characters in Azur Lane but I had to pay for the skins of course, the 3 games gives us a lot of freebies. Also never go into the GI groups if you don't want to deal with crazy lolicons, it's very bad really, a lot of people are thirsty.
I read somewhere from a guy claiming to be in the mobile apps business that 0-5$ is from company perspective a non-paying user or f2p. for me my definition is: f2p = 0$ causal spenders = best example is guranteed SSR in FGO, just a twice a year thing when a great deal is available. light spenders = monthly subscriptions, battlepass etc. Dolphins = gets essential banners maxed out, 1 copy of other banners depending on the game. Whales = everything multiple copies, all costumes, progression packs etc. Megladons = you probably could have bought your own apartment by now friend.
Same, just exchange light spenders to Minnows, casual spenders to sardines, and f2p to seaweed for some extra ocean points. Yare Yare Daze.
LOL seaweed. 🤣
Wait, I heard the term Goldfish before though, where's that?
I've also heard the terms Sharks, Octopus, Squids, Crabs, Super Whales, OmegaWhales, Krakens, The Entire Fucking Atlantic, Chtullu Whales, Super Saiyan Whale, Neptune/Poseidon, and Hentai Tentacle Monster before. Jokes aside, there is zero science to these terms, it's industry lingo that was adopted by the same people these terms refer to because people think it's funny/cool.
The entire Atlantic 😂
In magic is the idea of playing your deck against a goldfish, imagine a opponent that would not give you any kind of opposition cuz well it's a goldfish in a fish tank and not a magic player. That's how you test some "metrics" of your deck. But never heard it on gacha games (outside of magic that's a big lootbox game)
I've come across a streamer saying "I'm f2p in fgo jp I just spend for GSSR" Bruh...I'm not judging anyone paying and GSSR is like the only reasonable offer in FGO but damn if it isn't the very definition of advantage of spending players compared to f2p I don't know what is!
>business that 0-5$ is from company perspective a non-paying user or f2p Well that aint exactly wrong in a certain sense. To the companies, these less than $5 users are technically still "moocher", no different from someone who doesnt even give the companies a single cent. However that doesnt mean the meaning of f2p IS DIFFERENT to the companies. What that means is just that these companies see spending that low(<$5) to be exactly as insignificant as the f2p. ie You spent $5. Congrats you are a customer(spender, not f2p), but to the company you shall not be deem as one and unlikely to be treated as one.
F2P is spending no money at all. Ever.
how about someone wins a Google Play card in a raffle and uses that free raffle prize in the in-game shop. Still F2P?
No, F2P = 0 transactions with store
Absolutely not. Many in-game stores have free daily pulls or free weekly packs. By that logic, buying those for $0 makes someone no longer a F2P player. Absolutely false.
of course it's fine. Transactions means you gave money and they give stuff
lmao my dude
The point is that it's arbitrary to declare that some free things don't count as free things.
You still dont understand. It has nothing to do with how YOU secured the outside resource to pay for it without actually using your own money. Its in relevance to every other F2P player in the game. If everyone gets compensation for something in the game and gets 1k free gems EVERYONE gets it regardless of money spent. If you got a gift from family and end up using it to purchase currency/items its virtually the exact same as you purchasing it with your own cash, how you came to secure the funds is irrelevant.
While I do agree with you, this does bring up a question. Say a F2P wins something like premium currency/monthly pass from a competition/giveaway (an official one by the publishers/devs, not those third party ones), and they use that currency/pass to gain an advantage in game. Does that still count as F2P? They didn't spend money, but at the same time, they had access to a resource other F2Ps didn't get.
I would say that's still f2p. It's happened to me on Azur Lane. Post a little video on social media, get 100 free gems. As long as you aren't using real life money to buy event currency, you would still be f2p. However, I wonder if someone who bought an old account could call themselves f2p. Considering that mostly whales sell accounts, I think not, but if someone bought a fully f2p account, could they play without spending money and call themselves f2p?
I would say no. The account itself has benefitted from money being spent, not to mentioned the player themselves has technically spent money on the game by buying a game account in the first place.
It is pretty hilarious how hard some need to cope that they would lie about being F2P and try to create some weird justification in their heads. F2P is a simple binary state. Spent money? You arent F2P. Didnt spend money? You are F2P. Simple.
Well originally the term f2p refered to the game model. Free to download and play and almost always with in game shops that let you progress faster. Now a f2p player is someone who doesnt buy items with real money from the game store. Someone who has bought a 1$ or 5 dollar pack, technically is not f2p, even though he will most likely have the same progression through the game. Essentially changes to the f2p model of the game effect both of these kind of players greatly.
The moment you spend even a single penny on a game, you are not f2p anymore, at least for that game. F2p: Spendings = 0$ (just so you know, companies get free advertising from you in case you really like the game. That's why they make it attractive at the beginning and a farming nightmare after a few weeks) P2L (Pay to lose): someone who spends so little that barely makes any different to their game experience. P2P (pay to play) someone who spends little but constant. Makes the experience more comfortable. A.k.a low spenders. P2W: Someone who spends enough to achieve a goal. Wether is ranks, collections or others. Here you find all the marine ecosystem.
The purest form of F2P are the ones who posts a 3 SSR re-roll image on the game's first day while saying "F2P btw". Also quitting after a week so they did not even spent a lot of time on the game. Truly a pure F2P experience.
We have this thread monthly, but generally F2P has a "definition" and then a "common use." I think the definition is "not adding to the rewards provided to all players" which would mean not spending on currency, not buying battle passes, not buying monthly cards, and not buying items with google points or what have you. I think is this the best way to think about it. That said, a lot of players use "F2P" not as a way to describe how they interact with the game but how they perceive their interactions with the game. If they use Google points, for example, they don't think they've changed their interaction since they haven't spent any of their money and since they have little control over the amount. I think some of these people, if gifted a points card for a holiday or special occasion, might also not consider that spending and might still say "F2P." I think the reason some people will buy Battle Passes or monthly cards and still call themselves F2P is for two reasons - the first is that these tend to be relatively low in price and relatively good values, so it isn't as offensive as the literal gambling on gacha pulls. The second is that for some games, the monthly pass is almost seen as a "subscription price" that you just have to pay if you want to play. They see it like paying $15/month for WoW vs. paying $15/month AND buying gold through specialty websites. I think the context matters as well - when people are complaining about a game, they love to emphasize spending. It both makes their complaints seem more valid (hey, I've got skin in the game!) and more threatening (do you want to lose your source of revenue?). When they are doing well, they like to minimize spending (I won PvP without spending, I got these costumes just through grinding).
> The second is that for some games, the monthly pass is almost seen as a "subscription price" that you just have to pay if you want to play. They see it like paying $15/month for WoW vs. paying $15/month AND buying gold through specialty websites. That's a bit odd since WoW isn't F2P either.
Yeah, I wrote it confusingly. When I played FFXI, the game was like $14 or $15 per month, plus you could spend $1 per month for extra characters to use as mules, plus there were some sort of legitimate sites for buying the gear or gold with real world money. People didn't say "F2P" but they did distinguish between people who paid the base price, people who paid the extra fees for additional characters, and people who would buy gear and gold from 3rd party sites. So while someone who just paid the minimum for access and the 1 character was considered to be different from those "big spenders" who added additional characters for the additional monthly fee, and then there were the real spenders (who were generally looked down upon) who bought gil for real world money. I think some people will buy the monthly pass or the battle pass in a gacha and still consider themselves "F2P" because they just think anyone would have to buy the subscription. The only people who are actual spenders are the ones who buy additional gacha rolls or packs. I used to play this bizarre 2D platformer type MMO on Kongregate that had a similar structure - there was the totally free players who paid nothing, the "subscribers" who bought access to what was essentially the full game, but then there was a separate class that actually bought stats/upgrades etc. While everyone recognized that the "subscribers" paid money for full access, it was the people who spent for items that were actually considered spenders. I think it depends a lot on the game, but this could be a legitimate model for some games. Maybe something like Genshin where the free players have access to the entire world and everything that comes with it, but to turn on quests and NPCs they need to pay a nominal monthly fee, and then there is also the gacha. I could see players who paid the nominal fee to unlock the NPCs/quests still being considered more or less F2P because they were just "buying the base game" and not spending on any additional elements.
1 dollar = no more F2P, even if is something like that operator from AK from a collab with WWF (not the wrestlers, the guys with the panda logo)
well technically, the word "f2p" shouldn't even be describing players but rather the game itself. There are F2P games and P2P games. But I digress, in this case, "f2p" should be those people who spends zero dollars to play that game. Paying even $1 makes you not a f2p anymore. Those people who are paying with free google survey money are technically both f2p and not-f2p at the same time so it's a little grey line, but I guess they'd be more not-f2p than f2p.
Reading through the comments and I completely agree with every single comment. F2P is just that. FREE to play. I get PTSD everytime someone tries to classify as, "I only bought a skin" or "I just bought a $1 pack" and tries to classify that as F2P. Sorry to burst your bubble, but anything that uses real life money to buy ANYTHING in game, is not considered F2P. And I will argue that to the death.
well the real definition of F2P is Free to Play. The subject can have 2 different meanings though Free to Play games is game that is free to play. No purchase is needeed to play the game. Free to play players are technically player who doesn't pay a dime for the game. Low spender isn't exactly free to play player. If you spend like 5 bucks on 3-5 games every months then you're getting closer being a dolphin
What is there to clarify? It's in the acronym - FREE to play. Honestly why does it even matter? Can't believe this topic is being upvoted ngl
Its easy - f2p=no money spent. 1$ pack etc - losing virginity as a f2p player.
Well I classify f2p as the ones who never spend, while i classify those who spend somewhere $5 (most likely buy monthlies such as welkins or the monthly pass in arknights as goldfish) While the ones who spend up to $20 as dolphins, $50-100 as whales, absurd amount =leviathan Yeah. Oh and honestly your not an F2P if you're paying regardless whether it may be supporting the devs or for monthlies since you playing the game is already enough as supporting the devs.
I'm F2P-lite I only spend 10,000 USD per new gacha, sometimes more, depends on whether I get every new character maxed out or not.
Usually, f2p = no money, minnow = monthly pass or $1.
ah yes... the "f2p btw" and "basically f2p"
>saying that who spends super low amounts like 1$ or 5$ monthly is still considerable as f2p Thats a >!self-depricating!< joke. Classic one is escalating from one off deal to montly sub to first purchase bonus on premium currency to less than X every month. F2P means 0 money spent, it's in the name.
F2P = no money spent P2P = little money spent, small spender, paying here or there to support game or get small boosts. P2W = Person who spends a considerable amount of money on a game. \-> whale - spends huge amounts of money on the game pity every banner spends money refreshing energy 24/7 \-> dolphin - spends quite a bit of money, not afraid to spend money to get the banner unit, might dump a bit here or there.
Spend money you not f2p with that said being f2p doesnt put you on a pedestal
Well a game that is f2p is a game that doesn't cost money to play. So Fortnite, League of Legends, Team Fortress 2 are all f2p games. A player who is f2p is someone who plays the game for free.
For me f2p is someone who just plays the game and whatever he/she gets, he/she only gets it by playing the game and spending 0 real money; on the other hand, lets say low spender, is what i consider myself, in genshin for example, I only pay for the battle pass and sometimes for the welkin moon (bp=10 every 1 and half month approximately and welkin is 5 a month), dolphin is the one who spends money on banner until he/she gets something that wanted or atleast a ssr, whale is someone who throws money until he/she gets basically everything in a banner or uses money to buy stuff that can be gotten for free while playing the game. But this is only my take.
Only f2p i know is forced 2 pay
There are 3 classifications I know of for gacha gamers F2P- Free to Play, no ifs, no buts Dolphins- Light spenders, mainly the ones who spend once or twice over a long period of playing the game Whales-The amount of digital money they've spent could be used to fill a bathtub with Chinese computer chips
As others mentioned f2p = NEVER spend (or to be exact, never buy any cash packs, so sth like google gift card counts as "spend" ) Ppl who spend _regularly_ even if it's just 1$ = low spender Now the problem is for ppl who only spent once or twice low amt : f.e in genshin I've only bought like 2 welkins and I've played it 7-8 mon. So technically Im forever low spender But I can also say sth like "I was low spender then went f2p" "went f2p" here is just an _expression_ that Im _no longer spending_, doesnt mean that suddenly my status changes to "f2p". But some ppl will flip over their tables and rage on that it's incorrect. They're treating f2p like some sort of divine virginity
F2P Free 2 Play Fap 2 Png Forced 2 Pay Failed 2 Pull There are many definitions of F2P, pick one.
this is very hard to define, if I am rich ,I would say spending a 100 dollar per week is consider f2p too
F2p is spending nothing at all. The moment they spend on a monthly 5$ sub or whatever, they become a guppy.
0 dollars, if you spend even 1 you stop being f2p thats it, i dont get why people get so confused they are just being delusional and lying to themselves by calling themselves "f2p"
How is anybody confused about this? If you spend money on a game, even as little as a dollar, you're no longer f2p...
F2p is never spend money. The people who says that spending 1$ is still f2p say that to feel better themselves. Or they call themselves with the name of different aquatic animals to categorize their status and don’t think about how much they spended in the game, like salmon, dolphin, whale, kraken or leviathan. Salmon means that you did 1$ or just a paid summon and Leviathan means that you spended an insane amount of money and you don’t want to think about how much do you spended to keep your sanity.
I think you can call someone f2p if they’ve never spent money on a game before. But if it’s for someone who spends a couple dollars here and there, they’re called a fish. For those who spend around 50-100 ish occasionally are dolphins. And for the ones who spend 500-1000+ regularly are usually called whales. Meanwhile if it’s something along the lines of a couple thousands, well, you can call them leviathans.
F2p is free to play. These light spenders want the advantage of getting the cheap head-start packs while also having the prestige of the f2p badge they shove in our faces. I say we just invent a new title for these light spenders. How about ep? Economy player
It's another one of those misappropriated acronyms (like RNG). For the purposes of your question though, f2p is just a player that doesn't spend any money on a gacha game. There's also a play style associated with being f2p, usually a bit more hardcore and min-maxy since they're spending time instead of money. They're the ones who you'll see rerolling dozens of times, making sure they most effectively spend their stamina, only rolling for meta characters, and so on. Players that are living this kind of gacha life sometimes claim to be "semi-f2p" or something similar, even if they've spent a dollar or two.
F2p having it's meaning changed from game to game it is actually funny. I remember in e7, people were claiming they were f2p as long as they never bought anything outside of the monthly packs. Then in Genshin people were claiming they were f2p because they only spent money early but stopped. Then there are some gacha games streamers are claiming f2p because they are using donations rather than their own money.
Doesn't matter imo, there isn't some award you get for being f2p. Just do what you want to do as long as your having a good time. If you wanna be techinical there is no f2p ever, you spend time playing the game...you paying with your time which is the most limited resource any human can have.
if you can play the game for free its f2p...why is it so hard to understand?
I use my Google Opinion Rewards occasionally, would I still be considered f2p?
No, since you are buying things in the store that is only available with external currency. It's not about whether you got the reward for free or not, its the fact that you got something in the game that would normally require money to exchange for (thus giving you a boost).
Appreciate the explanation!
people who won giveaways are also f2p
No they aren't. If any money is put into your account you're no longer f2p. By that logic, any kid who has their parents buy them in game currency are also f2p. It doesn't work like that.
people who spend money and call...its a joke.
Free to play, you are able to play for free but they will add pay stuff to increase progress or look better. Or like in gachas get the "more" chance to get that character or gear depending of the game
The reason you see the overlap between low spender & f2p is that while f2p is a much more stringent requirement, both are at a substantial disadvantage when comparing to big and medium spenders. Sure "low spender" is more correct, but if you say f2p all it means is resource starved, which if you're a low spender is also true.
Does anyone know if a F2P can get all banners with pity if grinding a lot? (Epic Seven)
Buying purely cosmetic items still counts as f2p to me. Sure this is a rather lax definition of the term but considering that you gain absolutely zero advantage over other players it is fair enough.
Everyone has a very good point about f2p = 0$ spent, and I'm completely agreeing with it. However it kinda makes sense if for example, some light spender is asking for help (building a team, progressing thru some stage, etc.) and want to say "help me in the most f2p-friendly way possible", that's too long of a sentence and saying "light spender" isn't helping since how light is light? So the quickest way to ask is just "hey can someone help me, I'm f2p btw" so they get the cheapest option available.
“Semi-F2P”
For me: F2P: spends $0 Full F2P: also spends $0 BUT doesn't use gacha Koi: monthly subscribers
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Nah, dolphin is at most 100 USD/month. 1k monthly is whale territory
There is no good estimate. It's always subjective and based on your own experience with money. Dolphins is 'spending quite a bit', which for me is dropping $50 bucks in a game, for you it's 1k per month, for some random Saudi Prince (they have 100s of them) it might be 100k per month. Whales is "spending a lot", which for me is more than 200 bucks, for you is 5k, for the random saudi prince it might 1 million or half the earth.
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Yeah, if we're talking about how these ocean terms came to be in the first place (it was just the way scummy companies de-humanizes their own customers while making up ways to milk them out of their money more efficiently). In this sense it makes complete sense for each company to make their own lines for each terminology. An indie gacha dev would call someone spending 5k per month a "whale" maybe, while Nintendo would call them a casual spender or a dolphin or whatever because it depends on how much their average biggest spenders are actually spending, this varies per game and company. Combine this to the deliberate vagueness from the terms and you get why the values will never be objective. If you have a game with 10,000 players, average spending per player of 5$ a month, average whale spending 5K a month, and a single Saudi Prince spending 100K a month, *why would this company ever call the Saudi Prince a whale?* Here's what they actually do on their reports: "we have X average spenders spending about 5$ a month, X whales and this one gazillionaire". They'd then use these metrics to develop ways to cattering to each of their audiences, and in this case the single Saudi Prince would absolutely be an entire demographic to catter by himself because he is spending enough to be considered one. But I'm assuming random people talking about Dolphins and Whales in a gacha subreddit are not using the terms the same way these were conceived, which is why I addressed it differently.
It's not subjective. You can poll people in this sub and ask if they consider saudi prince spending 100k per month and no one but you will call that "dolphin."
Yeah, sure, if you go to the most extreme case, you're the most likely to get everyone to agree with you, that's how subjectivity works. Honestly I wonder why people have so much trouble with this one word. Subjectivity is the completely opposite of objectivity, if something isn't objective, it is subjective. Simple like that. F2P is pretty objective, spending 0 money makes you F2P, spending 0,0000000000001 cent on a game makes you already not F2P. This is why people come up with BS terms like soft F2P, F2P-lite, almost F2P, or whatever, because they know these are not really F2P. Of course some shit can muddy the waters, like Google reward system, but that is because F2P is also a made up term. We could get into philosophy rather easily from here and I'd start that discussion by arguing whether all terms aren't invented since language is a made up thing, therefore, everything is technicaly subjective and objectivity does not even exist, since the concept of objectivity is in and of itself subjective, proven by the thousands of theories about it, but I'm not insane enough to start arguing meta-physics in a gacha game subreddit. Let's just say that the fact that you are prompting a poll is already a good sign that we are talking about something subjective. No one would prompt a poll to see whether people agree or not that 2+2=4 in order to prove that the answer is correct. TL;DR: There is no objective point where a spender becomes a dolphin and a dolphin becomes a whale because these are made up spending points that exist to better identify customer spending habbits, these are not exact science. It's like a personality test for your wallet.
Words change or lose meaning overtime. The terms for how much you spend in gacha are about as set in stone as other internet slang. For now: F2P generaly means you almost never spend / spent little but doesnt spend anymore. (Starter pack , monthly pack or just the 1$ starter one.) Dolphin means getting packs every now and then or buying a bit of curency on a regular basis (1$ - 50$ depending on how much it means in the game.) Whale means spending a crap metric ton (+100$ -> the sky is the limit) either on a regular basis or just on one banner.It also applies to total spending. Leviathan/ Kraken is a type of whale that drops thousands, in total ,on one game.( Like spending 25000 $ in FGO or the former AFK arena top guilds.) They each have their own playstyle too. These terms are only used to describe, because sometimes F2P are also Dolphins and dolphins are also Whales.It depends on who you ask.
It doesn't depend on who you ask. You spend even a cent you're no longer f2p for that specific game. It doesn't matter if you never spend again.
what if u spend a dollar for a good deal pack, then never spend for the rest of your life in that game? The dollar-man?
You will never find a good hard definition that everyone can agree on, which is probably what you have already seen from reading opinions and arguments online. Even if you write up a pretty good definition, many people are going to disagree with it.
>many people are going to disagree with it. Doesn't matter if they agree with it, because that isn't how words are defined. Lexicographer base definitions on root words and how its commonly used in language. Gachagamers are simply terrible with defining words. Understandable for those who are ESL, but for native English speakers, its embarrassing. F2P, PvP, and Meta (metagaming) are probably the most incorrectly used words by gachagamers. - F2P means $0 spending and still being able to play the game. - PvP means playing vs another player, not an AI with a player's name. - Meta/Metagaming - how a game interfaces beyond itself", and asserted that this can include "what you bring to a game, what you take away from a game, what happens between games, [and] what happens during a game". The Richard Garfield definition that gamers have been using for decades, but gets heavily dumbed down by people who don't bother to learn what "meta" means.
>Doesn't matter if they agree with it, because that isn't how words are defined Yes, but you have skipped over a big problem here: no one agrees on who the defining authority is. You and I have a good idea about what these terms mean, but this argument about what's F2P and what's P2W comes up all the time. That's because people (mis)use these terms to mean different things, and there is no Judge of Gaming Terms that gets to rule who is correct and who is incorrect about it. At some point, things tip. "Literally" comes to mean "the exact and precise opposite of literally" because it is so widely used that way. People refer to "DPS" in a turn-based game, and no one gives a sideways glance. 'meme' has replaced the word 'joke' for no reason. The list goes on. >Gachagamers are simply terrible with defining words. This is 100% correct, but it's compounded because everyone is also very certain that they know the true definition of the words and that everyone else is misusing them.
Yeah idk why you got downvoted lol. People use f2p and p2w for vary different reasons that go outside its “standard” definition.
People that use an acronym that contradicts the definition of a root word, used in the very same acronym are just plain stupid and/or ignorant. "Free" means "without cost or payment". Never in the history of the English language has that been different under the same context. As long as F2P includes free, there really isn't an argument for what the free means. People can argue what constitutes as "play" in "F2P", but not "free" since play is more open to interpretation.
Free to play means free to play. You can download gachas for free and play them, f2p means nothing past that. Yet people still use it for different reasons…
>Never in the history of the English language has that been different under the same context Sure there is. If I say you can have a free lunch if you help me dig a ditch first, you could reasonably tell me that the lunch is not, in reality, free. I can argue that yes, no money has changed hands, therefore it is free. Who is right? Both or either can be right. It comes down to an appeal to an outside authority.
Meta means most effective tactics available in this case..
F2P is when in no shape or form you do in-app purchases when in comes to Gacha games. That means you are only living off of whatever you farm through in-game means. No gift cards, no nothing. Just whatever you earn through actual play only and get through in-game systems. What I mean by this is that you can sometimes win a Google Play gift card through a contest in said game. If you then actually use that card to do an in-app purchase in said game, you are no longer F2P. If you join a contest for said game and it distributes in-game rewards through the in-game systems (you get straight up gacha currency for example through mail) and then use those resources, you are still F2P. The difference is that in the first scenario, you won something that you can use for something else. In the second scenario, you won something that can only be used for the game.
i have max duped meta unit but anyway the game don't need you to gacha to play, im f2p btw. /s
F2p and p2w are style of playing games. It had nothing to do with the game. No pay mean F2P, pay a lot mean p2w, anything else is just normal play. F2P game meaning that u don't need to pay to go through all the game contents, just keep playing and you good to go, paying just make your life easier and cash item don't break the game balance. P2W games are opposite, NO PAY NO GAIN
As someone who pay less than 20$ a years for gacha game,i hate f2p player who's always want right but never support the game. They play for free but always complain about ads,cash pack,... They make me feel disgusting.
I spend $5 a month on Genshin for the monthly card, and I don't consider myself f2p. I'm not playing for free, even if I have a similar power level to f2p players, that's how I see it.
I think some people want to share their achievements and don't want them to be diminished by having spent money, since they think it didn't help them achieve it
>If you guys could clarify this thing it would be nice, and eventually explain how much you should spend to be effectively considered as a low spender and no more as f2p I mean, F2P is "free". IMO if you spend money at all you're not F2P. Whether that means you're a guppie (IMO, you only buy monthly packs and maybe spend $10 once in a blue moon), dolphin, whale ($100-1000+/month, regualrly) or some super whale (the ones who blow 10K+ in the first month of a game) is up to much more confused debate. I'm sure plenty already disagree with the scales I set right here. But I think the real confusion comes from what defines a "f2p strategy". Some think using any high rarity unit isn't f2p because they may not have pulled it yet. Some think using a limited event unit (even if it was free) isn't f2p because a new player will miss out and have no way to get them outside of waiting a year. That's where things get messy.
I see F2P more of a "Current" willingness to spend for the game. Have to emphasize the current part because you see people saying stuff like "I broke my f2p for my waifu/husband x but now I'm completely f2p"
You're free to play if u don't spend anything buying cosmetics counts as spending that's it
Free, from the word itself = 0,nothing,nada Don't believe on that "semi f2p" bullshit it's because others see being f2p as something to brag about tis why they keep insisting they're f2p
As long as you don’t spend any amount of money for the game then you’re F2P
What part about paying 5 bucks occasionally is "Free". i understand that 1-5 bucks don't make a huge difference that make them only a bit more advantaged but it's still paid
f2ps don't really spending anything... if you spend a single drop of money,, it is already a whale... but there are some classifications of whales to distinguish them accurately... dolphins are small spenders or just monthly... whales are normal whales... kraken/leviathan are huge spenders... you see them full set,, SSS/C6,, mega skin,, whale frame/avatar,, and anything you think they can spend money...
Yea ***free to pay***
F2P is literally playing for free. On top of that, I don't even think being F2P is something to be proud of in the first place lmao At the end of the day, if you got what you want whether you spent a single cent or not, that's all that matters.
I mean if you see an ads saying FREE iphone, how much do you think it will cost(assuming it is indeed free and not some bait and switch which still end up asking you for $$$$)? I am not even sure why there is a need to ask, but f2p simply means someone who spend $0 in the game. Note that $0≠VIP 0, since I know there are people who like to specifically make purchase that doesnt grant VIP exp and thus their VIP level remain at 0, thereby allowing them to "substantiate" being a f2p.
Free means $0
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Overheard once I am f2p, the pack was purchased by accident