Originally Posted by p0intman
The microtransaction game is this: you make your gaming experience enjoyable to start with, but as people progress, unless they pay you, their experience slowly deteriorates into a mindnumbing experience where its next to impossible to get anything done without paying extra for it. That is where they want to go, and that is where it has been stated they want to go for a long time now. It isn't a matter of being reasonable, its a matter of, 'How terrible of an experience will people tolerate before they quit or pay up?'
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We know that F2P has been a successful business model for many games. Some clearly P2W, others where we would disagree on the definition. The point being, it is a successful way to make money.
Now in those games, the number of players who pay most of the money are a relatively small percentage, while many players pay nothing at all. These free players are willing to put up with what ever restrictions are placed on them to play the game for free. Other players pay money and get to do things like level up with less grind.
In the end, it ends up being like having a subscription cost, except that players have the option of not paying it. It's like if the reservists in the first Planetside were allowed to level beyond their low BR cap, but it would take 10x as long per level.
So as long as players aren't able to purchase exclusive cash shop guns, or abuse resource boosters to spam grenades, it's really not that big a deal. The game gets more players (players = content) and the game gets paid for. Players who want to can pay a subscription (or just spend the money on things like xp boosters), while the free players can still gain access to all of the same things eventually.
It's an FPS where levels and sidegrades don't make a drastic difference, especially in the huge multi-dozen squad fights. Having more players to shoot at is going to be a benefit to the game which will far outweigh the small power advantage that paying players may have, provided the devs don't go over the top and start selling extreme direct power. I think they understand that going to that extreme would kill the game more than it would help fund it though.