this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2025
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Its a free to play game. You put 1000s of hours in why not spend some.money to customise your gun. Money isnt that tight for some people.
Yeah, I bought a few season passes when I was into DOTA. The main gain from those is cosmetics and some ladder ranking, but realistically it was that I'd played the game a ton for free and felt that paying a bit to engage wasn't a big deal.
Everyday the thrill of the game wore off for me, but honestly given hours played versus money spent it was probably one of the cheapest investments in entertainment I made.
I guess. I'd rather not throw away my money, even if it's not tight. I wouldn't feel joy about a custom skin. Every time I saw it I would be reminded that I'd wasted money.
But that's me, not everyone.
I'll spend like $30 on the weekend getting alcohol and take aways. These add no value to my life beyond the short time I spend consuming them. Spending $20 for a skin that I think looks cool for a gun I really like and often use is an easy choice in a game I got for free.
Its hard to explain for someone that doesnt play but its more than just a skin on a gun when you play competitive games you're expressing your skill as a player in front of an audience of people. Its a way for players to make the gun feel more like their own instead of just having everything look exactly the same. People are playing $80 to play a 1 time play AAA game so for f2p games with infinitely replayability spending some money on a skin isnt a big deal you're just paying devs for the game you love.
The first part of your post makes sense, even if I don't agree with it. But this part stands out- buying a skin isn't a skill question. It's just a wallet question.
Some games have stuff you can only earn via achievements or whatever. I could see being proud of, like, a skin you only get if you get 100 perfect whatevers in a row. But, like, just buying it? But I guess the audience has enough people who are impressed by that sort of thing.
Also not to be a negative nerd, but unless the company is very tiny the developers aren't getting much, maybe zero, of that money. Developers get a salary. Stock options, maybe. It's not like a tip jar. Profits typically go to the owners under capitalism, not the labor. "Buy skins to support the developers" might be indirectly true, in a limited sense, but it mostly feels like capitalist propaganda.
Im not saying buying a skin is skill expression. When a player is playing they are preforming in front of an audience, everything is part of how they express themselves. From how they move to how they shoot to the skins on their gun its all player expression. Not everything has to be an achievement to be proud of some stuff you just like because it makes YOUR character look the way you like. I dont know how to convey this idea properly.
If its a f2p game where cosmetics cost nothing people still choose cosmetics over the default character. This is because your ingame character kind of represents you when you play online.
For your second part about spending money on games I feel like you are being intentionally obtuse. I dont only care about money going to devs. The game isnt made by just devs. I want it to go to the entire company that produced the game I'm playing. If investors get paid thats good I'm glad they are getting a return on investing in the creation of a game I like. If the game made no money there wouldnt be people getting hired to work on it. A f2p game is exactly like a tip jar no one has to buy anything and if no one buys anything the game shutsdown.