Forum Announcement, Click Here to Read More From EA_Cade.
Is spending money to get VIP status worth it?
WinMacSims3
Posts: 1,610 Member
Recently The Sims FreePlay introduced a feature called VIP. VIP has perks like bonus money, bonus allowance, Rainbow Cake Slices, Time Extensions Tokens, etc. However, there's a catch, you have to spend real money in FreePlay to unlock VIP.
The problem with VIP is you have to spend real money on purchases like Simoleons and Lifestyle Points (although there are permanent purchases but only 5 that contain clothes and furniture) which money would probably be wasted on considering FreePlay is a Freemium game. Also not helped is there is The Sims 4 or The Sims 3 which is probably more worth spending money on those games than FreePlay.
Do you think VIP is really worth it?
The problem with VIP is you have to spend real money on purchases like Simoleons and Lifestyle Points (although there are permanent purchases but only 5 that contain clothes and furniture) which money would probably be wasted on considering FreePlay is a Freemium game. Also not helped is there is The Sims 4 or The Sims 3 which is probably more worth spending money on those games than FreePlay.
Do you think VIP is really worth it?
Origin ID: GothicSimmer, YouTube: GothicSimmer
0
Comments
If a "free" game (like the Sims Freeplay) wasn't playable without using real money then I would just stop playing it. But fortunately it is
I really do question is if VIP is worth it. The problem with FreePlay's VIP is you need to spend real money which there are other games that are better spending money on especially The Sims 4. TS4's base game and Expansion Packs cost $60 and $40, respectively and it's probably worth spending money to get The Sims 4 rather than spend money on FreePlay to unlock VIP levels.
People usually have a principle to only spend real money to buy a game, purchase DLC, or upgrade a edition. If money was spent on temporary in-app purchases, FreePlay would be more expensive than The Sims 3 or The Sims 4.
The most expensive in-app purchase is $99.99 and gives you 500 VIP points. You would have to purchase the $100 purchase 24 times meaning that it would cost $2400 to get VIP 15.
On my Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 tablet I am now at lvl 52 without using real money. So only 3 lvls left there too before I reach the max lvl.
So no. I don't think that using real money is neither necessary nor worth it. But I am still happy that some of the players pay because otherwise EA would stop the development of the game
The freeware concept requires some players to pay for everybody else. This is a huge advantage for the majority who don't pay. But I am not really sure that I like this "freeware" concept anyway because it doesn't really seem to me to be fair.
It's possible to play FreePlay without spending real money but the problem is that the game tends to convince you to spend money such as where a screen appears asking you to buy one of the currency packs and if you don't have enough currency (e.g., Simoleons) to purchase an object or build a building, the game asks if you want to buy the currency so it's possible to accidentally pay if not careful.
The one thing I dislike about free games is they restrict features such as requiring payment, two examples are FreePlay's VIP and those that cost real money and/or LP/SP. That means not paying won't allow you to use VIP features. Most paid games don't do that although DLC or Expansion Packs could be an equivalent to this notably The Sims and any game with Expansion Packs/DLC such as the Borderlands games. Although missing some features and content isn't bad in the PC/Mac games but it can be a problem with the Gallery/Exchange. As time progresses, it's possible for a Gallery/Exchange item to require many EPs/SPs/GPs to properly use them and it's even more worse with The Sims 3 Store in TS3 especially if the Store item is no longer obtainable such as the Dr. Pepper items, Origin exclusive items, and pre-order only items (Limited Edition) and don't forget The Sims 3 Katy Perry's Sweet Treats which EA no longer sells.
I think it's more worth spending money on TS3 or TS4 especially since TS4 tends to roll out new DLC about every month or two and TS3 has the Store content (most notably the Premium Content and Worlds) in addition to EPs and SPs. Both of them (or at least one of them) are worth spending money on to unlock content rather than spending money to get VIP points in FreePlay (and you have to spend $2400 to get VIP 15).
I agree that the prices in this game is so high that you shouldn't ever consider to use money on it. But again it isn't worth than other free games. All such games have a lot of ingame advertising and the prices are always uneasonably high. So if you don't have the strength to just ignore all the advertising then you shouldn't play such games (unless you are so wealthy that you don't need to care). I don't think that more than at most 10% use real money on such games. So those few people have to pay for everybody. Therefore the prices are high. I don't care about this if only very wealthy people pay the prices. But unfortunately I suspect that there are also poor people with a pathological gambling addiction who buy everything in such games and I absolutely don't like that.
I agree that the prices for SPs, GPs and EPs for TS3 and TS4 are more reasonable than the prices for downloads in free games. But the prices for other downloads for TS3 from the store were too high too.
I don't care if I miss some of the special quest rewards in the Sims Freeplay because they are never that important anyway. Besides that it is my experience that we will get them anyway for free if only we wait long enough and don't panic.
I could use VIP10 - but only because it would allow me to get yet another sim even though I already have the maximal 34 sims. But I don't even care to calculate how much real money that would cost me
The advantage of being your own neighbor is that you know where everything is when you are on visit and can buy the things you need. To have more neighbors is an advantage for the daily bonus and it is especially easy to get neighbors for the android version because you only need to mark them as somebody you follow on Google+. You don't need to wait for any confirmations like you do on Apple's Game Center.
It is quite easy to get neighbors though and once you have a good neighbor you only have to visit that neighbor. I don't ever visit other neighbors than the one I know (in my case my own other town). But even though I am lvl 54 on my iPad my town isn't nearly as valuable as my strongest Game Center neighbor who has a town worth more than §143,000,000. Even that is small though compared to my strongest Google+ neighbor who's town is worth more than §2,100,000,000
My own towns are only worth §17,500,000 (android) and 28,500,000 (iOS). (The difference came when I in a couple of months only played on my iPad). So even though I haven't investigated it I am sure that I could find everything I need in my neighbors' towns if I needed to
If you have too few neighbors then it is usually easy to get more just by adding friends of your few existing neighbors. Nearly all such friends will usually also play the game (if it is friends in the Game Center or Google+).
VIP 10: $480 (2000 points)
VIP 11: $720 (3000 points)
VIP 12: $1080 (4500 points)
VIP 13: $1440 (6500 points)
VIP 14: $2160 (9000 points)
VIP 15: $2880 (12000 points)
Each of lvl 10 to 14 allows one extra sim in the game and lvl 15 allow 2 extra sims in the game (among other things). The dollar prices are only approximate because they are translated from Danish prices in DKR instead of dollars. But still I don't understand why anybody ever would consider to pay that much for having small extra advantages in a free game - unless you are a billionaire of course
That is just to much for me. XD
Some Simmers noted on Should you spend money on TS4's DLC or FreePlay's VIP? that Free to Play games have ended up being shut down and you usually are not refunded for the money spent for the game. FreePlay being an online game makes the VIP thing worse, TS4 or TS3 having DLC also doesn't help especially since the former likes to release new content about 1-2 months.
But if you buy something in the game (like LPs, SPs or other things) it is usually to speed things up and thereby get a temporary advantage in the game. If you are warned just a couple of months before that the game server will be closed down then you have already got that temporary advantage. So the game company will probably claim that your purchases were like buying tickets for a concert or sports match and that you can't claim your money back for such things after you have used them.
Even though some other MMO games can be extremely slow to advance in without purchases you can usually always manage without buying anything. So it is never necessary to buy anything unless you are too impatient to just wait for advancing without speeding things up.
The prices in all such game are usually extremely high if you buy things. Yes there are cheap things too. But to pay even one dollar for a small handful of LPs or SPs is IMO extremely expensive because you have to do it very often if you want it to have much effect. But to use just one dollar in average every day in a couple of years will make even a free MMO game into a very expensive game. So I would never recommend anybody to do it.