Two Zynga Mobile employees answered frank questions from the Reddit community about everything from the company’s reputation to game cloning. One employee going by the handle ycoseth had a particularly pointed response to a question likening free-to-play gaming to gambling and calling it evil.

“This question pre-supposes that F2P is inherently bad, let me provide a counter argument: When I download a F2P game, I get to, if nothing else, try out that game for some period of time to see if I like the core mechanics,” noted ycoseth. “Cheaper than renting a game, and less of a commitment than something like GameFly. It’s because of F2P games I was able to find an FPS I liked (Super MNC), how many $60 games would I have to buy before I found one that clicked with me ”

“I know I’ve bought $60 games, played them for a little bit and then it’s done,” he added. “I’ve been, as a kid, in positions where my friends all bought a box game I was too poor to afford it, thus leaving me out while my friends played the new hotness. That simply doesn’t happen when my little brother and his friends play LoL [League of Legends]: the kid who wants to spend a ton of money can, the guy who doesn’t want to doesn’t, and it’s very egalitarian.”

“Also, the gaming media tends to look at F2P through the lens of an upper-middle class person with a fair amount of disposable income,” he noted. “Some of Zynga’s bigger markets are in places that are relatively low income (Middle East, South Asia, etc) where gaming is hard to access in the first place, and expensive if you can find it. Zynga (and other F2P games) are offering AAA gaming to these markets on the model that whales will subsidize free players and that’s great.”

“The notion that F2P is ‘evil’ is silly, especially given how many other markets work like this. When you want to be an artist, do you go to Michael’s and ask for the Artist Special It’s $200, includes a spread of paints, brushes, canvases, markers, oils, etc. Oh, you don’t You mean you just go and buy piece-by-piece the stuff you want or need when you want or need it That’s F2P gaming,” he concluded.

Source: Reddit.com