RE: SoF

I don't like it. Buying power is bad in Facebook/mobile games, its very bad in free MMOs, its downright wrong in subscription MMOs like RuneScape. Microtransactions themselves I am okay with - I have yet to purchase any for any game (to my knowledge), but I understand that they are a viable business model for a lot of games - HoN and LoL for example, as well as <del>hat simulator 2</del> err, Team Fortress 2. Even WoW has microtransactions (eg http://eu.blizzard.com/store/details.xml?id=221005143).

But in all of these the items from the transactions are either completely cosmetic (WoW, much of TF2) or are sideways additions rather than straight upgrades (like most of the weapons in TF2 are things that do things differently to the default set and aren't just straight upgrades; HoN/LoL I haven't played but I'm sure I would have heard ripples if one hero was just outright better than one other in every way with no negatives). HoN/LoL also have the rotating hero lineup on a weekly basis or whatever.

This is not what the SoF ticket transactions are. You're buying power outright - tons of exp. Cook has done a bunch of analysis on it and worked out its like $19k to buy enough SoF to get from level 98 or so to 200m exp, skill independent, plus the ton of predetermined exp would probably get a bunch of 99s, as well as the tiny chance at a lucky item (I wouldn't be surprised if the high-end lucky stuff [bandos, armadyl, spirit shields] are less than a 1/100k chance once you take accout of the chance of it appearing on the wheel as well as it then landing on it).

I am annoyed that they went to this measure to get some bursts of money, but I am more disappointed that they let Insight Venture et al push them into this. Its been happening more and more, and honestly could be impacting other areas of the game - poorer experience rewards from quests such as RotM (three 80k lamps vs the four 100k lamps from WGS), poorer experience rewards from Morytania Tasks (174k total, vs 236.5k total from Ardougne tasks), and of course the effigy nerf of earlier this year could all be related to this. Its... not looking good. I may have considered buying some (cosmetic) microtransaction items from them, but as the first true microtransaction added was buying power (I don't consider the membership card incentives nor RaF microtransactions), I will certainly say that I will not be doing so, at all (even if they later release cosmetic stuff). My morals tell me that buying power is bad and I will be sticking to them. However, at least for now, I still enjoy the game enough to not quit yet; though that is mostly down to being a part of a pretty nice community, and I feel lucky to be here. Plus Guild Wars 2 isn't out yet.

Also to touch on the point of it being gambling, I don't think it is. Yes, the argument for it is along the lines of "you're paying to get specific items and if you get say an adamant hatchet that's a loss", but I disagree. People need to stop hoping for the rare items from SoF, because they aren't going to happen. For example, take black dragons. People always hope for visages from them (maybe less now that they're only 6m, but still), but the real value from the dragons is the hide and bones - you're likely to make say 5-10x more than the visage is worth in the time it would take to get one if you keep every hide and set of bones. SoF should be looked on in the same way. Obviously, a little luck is involved - this brings me to my second point in this section: with enough spins it evens out (like any probability distribution). And with the best microtransaction offer to buy being 75 spins, there'll be plenty of spins for any takers of the transaction (with the 75 spin pack being almost half the cost per spin of the 10 spin pack, you'd be best of getting that if you were to buy them).

TL;DR: Annoyed and disapointed, anrgry with the investors not Jagex themselves, won't be buying any microtransactions from them at all, not enraged enough to quit, and it isn't gambling.