Talk:General Discussion/@comment-138.229.17.112-20140915004000/@comment-24332640-20140916205349

As Evilfrank said, the term "pay to win" is usually associated with PvP-centric games. Which aren't as popular in Japan as they are in the west in the first place and that's probably the only reason you don't see that term associated with Japanese games as much.

That said, there are tons of Japanese games with abusive free-to-play models. If anything I'd say it's even worse there than it is in the west. It's kind of hilarious to see somebody talking about "greedy Western people" and act like the Japanese are totally altruistic or something. Get real.

The fact that the free-to-play mechanics of KanColle are quite forgiving is probably a big part of what let the game become successful in the first place. It's actually really different than the majority of Japanese free-to-play games that were available when it launched (though I think KanColle's success has caused at least some companies to reconsider some of these things). Remember the game was not expected to be a big hit and had zero marketing when it first launched. Initially it's userbase grew slowly based almost entirely on word-of-mouth. And if it followed a more typical Japanese free-to-play model with stamina bars limiting your activity, requiring you to spend real money just for a chance at building rare ships or equipment, etc. then nobody would have cared enough about the game to tell all their friends about it.

So let's all be thankful that KanColle doesn't follow abusive free-to-play practices but let's not fool ourselves into thinking that's the norm in Japan. It's KanColle that's the exception.