When Pokemon Unite first released, many players criticized the game for its pay to win structure. The item upgrades cost way too much, making it realistically impossible to acquire max level held item upgrades through non-payment means. At the time, it cost around $80 (USD) of purchases to fully upgrade a held item. But now that months have passed since it’s initial release, the game’s economy drastically improved. This then begs the question, is Pokemon Unite still pay to win?
The short answer is yes, Pokemon Unite is still pay to win. But it’s a lot more generous than it used to be. After the vocal complaints of its user base, the developers drastically shifted the mission rewards and economy of the game. Pokemon Unite actually gives players ample mission rewards and currency to quite easily acquire level 30 upgrades for held items, alongside providing them with instant level 30 upgrades for three of their select items. At the current state, players can play the game and grind quite easily for level 30 held item upgrades. This was once previously daunting and impossible.
So a lot of players may argue that because of this, the game is no longer pay to win.
When considering whether a game is pay to win or not, it’s not just a “yes or no” scale. In actuality, it’s more of a spectrum. In other words, there are levels of severity. At the current state of Pokemon Unite, players can easily compete in ranked with the base upgrades provided by simply playing the game. Paying is no longer needed to keep up with the best of the best. But players can still choose to do so, chipping off the necessary committed play time to acquire the highest level Held Item Upgrades. This, on its own, makes the game pay to win to a certain degree.
Free to players can definitely still see success in Pokemon Unite. In fact, in the current state of the game, they should be able to easily compete with ‘pay to win’ players that were previously unstoppable on the game’s release. Though definitely still pay to win to a certain degree, Pokemon Unite’s economy drastically improved after the developers heard the community’s complaints. For those who steered away from the game due to the game’s pay to win factor, consider coming back! The game provides tons of events and rewards, granting the player ample opportunity for held item upgrades.
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absolutely correct pay to win means paying is the only means to acquire something but in Pokémon unite in-game purchases are not the only way to get items grinding and playing the game events are also another way
Saying the game is p2w is just dumb. The only reason someone would call this game p2w, is because they got a bad solo q match and are now salty. WhosTheBoss recently posted a video where he sounds like a complete idiot calling the game p2w and saying random things like outfits cost money.
It was never pay to win. At all times everyone had access and ability to everything that helps or hinders in the game with just purely in-game currency.
Pay to win implies that there was a real-world pay-wall (as an ONLY MEANS) dividing players from Meta-defining Pokemon/Items/etc.
But all Pokemon and items have always been achievable through in game leveling and earning.
There are also daily and weekly AND monthly free rewards for players to help them move up quicker.
If you do not want to put in the time to get to a good spot thats on you.
If you played during the game’s initial release, I think youd know that not to be true. The game rewards for it’s launch didnt support the held item system at all, since the currency was so hard to acquire.
This resulted in whales being the only ones capable of maxing out held items, especially during the first month, maybe two months, of the game’s launch.
There was literally not enough rewards built into the game to support maxing out a held item, let alone 3, especially considering the increased price for upgraded as levels go on.
It has DEFINITELY improved a lot since then. In fact, I agree with you where it’s actually quite free to play friendly now. But it still has pokemon locked behind pay walls, especially during their initial release. This therefore still places it on the pay to win spectrum, albeit much less severe than it was in the past.
absolutely correct pay to win means paying is the only means to acquire something but in Pokémon unite in-game purchases are not the only way to get items grinding and playing the game events are also another way
Having some new pokemon, which realistically launch in broken states at times locked behind literal real life currency Aoes Gems ONLY isnt pay to win at all, amirite?
Plus having a held item system which rewards real money currency exchange isnt pay to win at all.
Undoubtedly, it’s improved a LOT since it’s initial launch. In fact, it’s very free to friendly now, but having such mechanics definitely puts in on the spectrum of “pay to win,” albeit admittedly on the less severe side. I
Pokemon unite os not pay to win for any reason, it could be a pay to skip, but i think you donato even know what that meandri lol
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