| From my perspective, TF2 was ruined the moment microtransactions became involved. The point of a game, from my perspective, is that it allows people to compete in a game of skill or chance (or some mixture of both) in a way that is independent of a wider socioeconomic context. For example, it doesn't matter if you're broke or a billionaire when playing chess. That's the point. As soon as a "game" starts involving microtransactions where your real world finances determine the probability of you winning, it's not a game anymore, it's a casino. It defeats the object of a "game"; it is unfair. If items are purely cosmetic it's one thing but we're talking about items with different gameplay attributes here. Imagine if chess was invented today and the IP owned by a company. The entire world playing chess and then suddenly, the owner of the IP would announce that from now on, you can pay $20 and restore a piece to the board. This would of course be insane and defeat the object of the game. I also feel like it would quickly become socially unacceptable for people to invoke this option when playing chess face-to-face. Behind a screen, though, people are moderated from one another and it's an option. Of course this is a wider comment on "F2P" games in general and why they're not valid as games in my view. The fact that Valve doesn't allow mods of TF2 when they allowed mods of their other Source games is very telling. |
Paid content was always for purely cosmetic changes (with some very small exceptions, removed in 2013). You could pay for items if you want, but they also were granted to you weekly entirely for free.
You could/can purchase every weapon in the game for about $5 total.
I played TF2 at a competitive level for a year without spending a cent on the game.