The Most Expensive Free Pay-To-Win Games That Aren’t Worth It

Avid and casual gamers usually have a lot of opinions about the gaming industry, but there is one market in the industry that almost all gamers agree on. Pay-to-win games are one of the most annoying trends in video games because they force the player to pay money not just to play, but to advance or have advantages over other players in player-vs-player games.

Pay-to-win isn’t a new model. It crops up constantly in mobile gaming and has for so long that it’s practically a cliché. Character collection games like Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes or Marvel Strike Force and level-based games like Angry Birds are both exceptionally guilty of this model. That said, AAA games built for consoles and PCs are guilty of it too, even after controversy exploded over Star Wars: Battlefront 2 (more on that later), leaving many to think the pay-to-win model had left AAA games for good.

Updated on September 19, 2024, by Antonio Samson: Free-to-play games can offer players a fun experience from time to time, especially at the beginning of the games. However, being pay-to-win is a common issue with many free-to-play games, especially if there’s a competitive aspect to them. This article was updated to include more games and to meet CBR’s editorial and formatting standards.

20 FIFA Ultimate Team Has Become A Pay-To-Win Juggernaut

Microtransactions Overshadow The Fun Of Building A Dream Team

• Pro: FIFA Ultimate Team offers the thrill of building a custom soccer squad with real-life players.
• Con: It’s almost impossible to stay competitive without purchasing player packs through microtransactions.

FIFA Ultimate Team (FUT) is a wildly popular mode in the FIFA series, letting players assemble their ideal team from a pool of real-life soccer stars. On the surface, it promises the joy of mixing and matching world-class players to form a competitive squad. However, FUT has gained a reputation for its heavy reliance on microtransactions, which profoundly affects the competitive landscape. Obtaining the most elite players, such as Messi or Ronaldo, often involves purchasing packs of cards, which are essentially loot boxes containing random players of varying quality.

While it’s possible to grind for in-game currency, the time investment required is enormous, and even then, players are not guaranteed to acquire the top-tier athletes needed to stay competitive. This leads to a situation where those who invest actual money in buying packs have a significant advantage over free players. Moreover, as new player cards are continuously released, there’s pressure to spend more to keep up, making FUT an ongoing financial commitment for serious players.

19 Raid: Shadow Legends Overwhelms With Offers For Power

Powerful Champions Are Locked Behind Expensive Microtransactions

• Pro: The game offers stunning graphics and complex gameplay for a mobile RPG.
• Con: Upgrading and summoning powerful champions often requires real money, limiting free play.

Raid: Shadow Legends is one of the most visually impressive mobile RPGs on the market, with many champions to collect and dungeons to conquer. It is a deep and tactical game, offering a complex battle system and character development. However, its aggressive monetization model quickly becomes apparent. The strongest and most useful champions are often locked behind expensive summoning shards or in-game purchases, making it difficult for free-to-play users to stay competitive without sinking considerable amounts of money into the game.

The game’s gacha system is the main mechanism for obtaining champions. Free players can grind to earn shards to summon random characters, but the drop rates for the most powerful champions are abysmally low. Meanwhile, frequent offers and limited-time events tempt players to spend real money to increase their chances of acquiring elite champions. Even after obtaining a strong character, upgrading their skills and equipment often requires additional spending, creating an ongoing financial drain for those who want to progress quickly.

18 Call of Duty: Mobile Rewards The Biggest Spenders

Exclusive Weapon Skins And Upgrades Give Paying Players A Clear Advantage

• Pro: Call of Duty: Mobile delivers a console-like experience on mobile devices.
• Con: Premium players can access exclusive weapons and equipment that give them an edge in multiplayer modes.

Call of Duty: Mobile adapts the beloved first-person shooter franchise for mobile devices, offering a polished, high-intensity gameplay experience that rivals its console counterparts. While the game is free to download, the in-game monetization model can significantly impact player performance, especially in competitive multiplayer modes. Premium purchases unlock exclusive weapons, skins, and upgrades, many offering gameplay advantages that free players cannot easily access.

Although skilled free-to-play users can still enjoy the game, they may find themselves consistently outgunned by players who have invested in the premium battle pass or bought special weapon bundles. These premium items often come with better stats or unique abilities that can tilt the balance of power. Moreover, Call of Duty: Mobile frequently releases limited-time events where top-tier rewards are locked behind paywalls, making it clear that spending money is the quickest way to stay competitive.

17 Mobile Legends: Bang Bang Penalizes Non-Spenders In Ranked Play

Ranked Matches Heavily Favor Players With Paid Skins And Heroes

• Pro: A competitive and fast-paced MOBA experience that has captivated a global audience.
• Con: Paid skins and heroes offer significant in-game boosts that tilt the scales to pay players.

Mobile Legends: Bang Bang is a wildly popular MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) that has garnered millions of fans worldwide. The game offers a fast-paced, strategic experience where players control heroes with unique abilities to defeat opponents. However, much of the competitive edge in Mobile Legends is tied to purchasing skins and heroes, many of which are only accessible through real-money transactions. Skins in Mobile Legends do more than just change a hero’s appearance; they often grant small but significant stat boosts, giving paying players an advantage in ranked matches.

Additionally, new and powerful heroes are frequently released, and many of these characters come with strong abilities that can dominate the battlefield. While it’s possible to unlock heroes through grinding, the time and effort required can be immense. Players who opt to spend money can unlock these new characters immediately, allowing them to climb the ranks much faster. This pay-to-win dynamic is especially apparent in high-stakes ranked matches, where free-to-play users often find themselves at a disadvantage against those who have purchased top-tier content.

16 World of Tanks Can Be Brutal Without Paying

Players Can Pay For Better Tanks And Ammo, Making Battles Uneven

• Pro:World of Tanks offers intense tactical warfare with many tanks and vehicles.
• Con: Free players face a steep uphill battle against those who pay for premium tanks and ammunition.

World of Tanks is a tactical multiplayer game around large-scale battles featuring historically inspired armored vehicles. Players can command various tanks in intense, strategic matches, from nimble scouts to heavy-duty behemoths. However, the game’s free-to-play model often feels punishing for players who don’t spend money on premium content. Premium tanks are typically more powerful and durable than their free counterparts, giving paying players a clear edge in combat.

In addition to tanks, World of Tanks offers premium ammunition that is more effective than standard ammo, further widening the gap between free and paying players. While it is possible to grind for in-game currency to purchase tanks and ammo, the process is slow and can make the game feel more like a job than a fun pastime. Spending real money on premium content becomes almost unavoidable for players who want to advance quickly or be competitive in high-level matches. The imbalance between free and paying players can lead to frustrating, one-sided matches where skill takes a backseat to wallet size.

15 Neverwinter Is Technically Free-To-Play

But Fans of the Game Describe It as Pay-To-Progress

• Pro:Neverwinter offers an easy way to level up new characters quickly.
• Con: Even though recent updates have made it easier to progress through the game, it could still take potentially months of grinding to progress through the levels without paying.

Neverwinter is an RPG set in the Dungeons and Dragons world, The Forgotten Realms, which players and fans of the books have loved for years. Like many pay-to-win games, Neverwinter follows a free-to-play formula that allows players to download and play the game for free. As the player advances, however, they are faced with powerful equipment that would take months upon months of grinding to achieve. Those same items can be purchased with real money, making the game much easier if the player is willing to pay.

Neverwinter‘s story is fun, ongoing (creators released the Demonweb Pits module in 2023), and can theoretically be played without spending money. Casual fans can level up and acquire better equipment as they advance, but it can take a long time to progress through the story if you don’t pay, something that is prohibitive unless you are a fan of the immersive Forgotten Realms settings. Neverwinter also offers a player-vs-player (PVP) mode, and players who haven’t spent any money don’t stand a chance.

14 Genshin Impact Capitalizes On The Gacha System

Free Play Means Resisting Random Rewards From Banner Pulls

• Pro: The ongoing story is compelling, the characters are great, and gamers can play for free.
• Con: At the same time, the gacha system’s manner of handing out random items gives the game an addictive draw similar to gambling, making paying for a banner pull hard to resist.

Genshin Impact is an open-world action role-playing game that allows players to collect characters of different weapon types, elements, and power sets to build powerful teams. To acquire these characters, players must pull on character banners through a gacha system, which is basically in-game gambling. With a unique and interesting ongoing story and more ways to play than most gacha games ever have, Genshin Impact has beautiful graphics and cleverly named weapons like a bow called Silvershower Heartstrings.

Genshin Impact is free to download and gives players enough free characters and free pulls on the banners to make it possible to be completely free to play. Some fans even brag about being free-to-play. However, the 5-star characters that drop from these banners will noticeably improve gameplay and make it easier. Plus, half of the appeal of a gacha game is for fans to get their favorite characters, which means the gambling-style gacha system could easily turn into a gotcha system. Outside of gacha, however, Genshin Impact doesn’t deserve the hate it’s gotten.

13 Mario Kart Tour Makes This All-Ages Game Mobile

Gamers Play The Beloved Plummer Anywhere, For A Price

• Pro:Mario Kart Tour is a fun game that allows players to experience the Mario Kart game on their mobile app.
• Con: Upgraded karts, gliders, and other stuff are often locked, and only cash will open them up.

Mario Kart is a wonderful all-ages racing game that has a huge fan base that almost certainly loved the idea of playing the game as a mobile app. But after Mario Kart Tour was released in 2019, this gacha-style game became just another symbol of a money-grabbing pay-to-win scheme. The gameplay is great, and the nostalgia ploy is even better, but to advance smoothly in the game, players have to buy specialized karts, drivers, or other paraphernalia. Players have a couple of options for leveling up. They can buy a season pass, but the amount of grinding they have to do to get a new Kart, etc. is prohibitive.

They can “shoot the pipe,” which is the gacha mechanism that may get them the reward they are looking for. But this method can lead to duplicate rewards. Finally, players can buy the upgrade outright, but all options result in opening up the pocketbook. You can still get the app, but Nintendo has stopped making new content for it. The constant introduction of limited-time events and exclusive drivers, karts, and gliders often disadvantage players unless they participate in the game’s microtransaction economy. This system may discourage long-term engagement for those unwilling to invest.

12 Dungeon Keeper the Mobile App Is Based on the PC Game

Unfortunately, the Game’s Appeal Is Ruined by In-App Purchases

• Pro:Dungeon Keeper is a classic game with a solid fan base that loves the game and the nostalgia that surrounds it.
• Con: The waiting period makes gameplay boring and the possibility of paying to speed it up seems unfair.

The Dungeon Keeper games are classic late-’90s PC video games in which players can build dungeons and protect them with traps, minions, labyrinths, and spells. The original game was loaded with dark humor, but when the mobile app came out, the only one laughing was the app’s creator, EA. The mobile versions are essentially the same idea as the original games, but in-app purchases make sure there’s always a catch that ruins the fun.

When players expand their dungeons in any way, they go through a cool-down period. In other words, they have to wait, similar to when a contractor says the project will take longer than first believed. Or players can pony up the cash for renovations to be done quickly. If waiting is between winning or losing, most players will feel caught in the middle and taken advantage of when they pay. This has led to frequent comparisons to the original, with longtime fans lamenting how mobile gaming monetization strategies have tarnished the beloved franchise.

11 Angry Birds Go! Makes It Hard To Compete Without Cash

The Next Entry in This P2W Franchise Ups the Ante

• Pro:Angry Birds Go! is a cute idea based on a game that has a great deal of nostalgic appeal.
• Con: You can almost buy two AAA games for what it costs to get a top-of-the-line kart in Angry Birds Go!

As mentioned earlier, Angry Birds is one of the mobile games that made the pay-to-win strategy commonplace. This game started life as a simple but addicting physics-based puzzle game that soared to popularity like a bird that actually has wings. But the joy of playing it soured when Angry Birds started having pay-to-win features. Then Rovio Entertainment released Angry Birds Go!

The idea of wingless birds on racing karts is cute. But the game takes a page out of Mario Kart Tour and doubles the ante. Just like Mario Kart, Angry Birds Go! requires players to buy better karts to be competitive. The cost of these upgrades carries genuine sticker shock. Players may end up spending between $60 and $120 on an upgraded kart. Those aren’t typos. Players who attempt to grind for upgrades without spending money are often left behind, struggling to compete with those who have purchased superior karts.

10 Warframe’s Grind Seems Endless

The Game Is Popular but New Players Suffer

• Pros: Cool characters, great combat mechanics, and a heavy lore base have made this game popular over the years.
• Cons: The game is complex and difficult for new players to understand, making them ripe targets for paying to progress through the game rather than grinding for hours.

Warframe, much like Neverwinter, is a game that can be downloaded and played for free. With interesting character designs and unique combat mechanics, Warframe is quite popular in the MMO world. However, it’s extremely difficult to grind and tends to run roughshod on new players. With a complex set of rules, a tutorial that some players think is unhelpful, and foreign concepts like “void farming,” players who haven’t been with the game since 2013 will find game-play difficult.

Completing the main story requires specific Warframes (a kind of battle interface system that grants everything from shields to supernatural powers) that can be tedious to grind for. Furthermore, the grind seems like a strategy to irritate players into making an impulse purchase of needed characters and items. The problem is that some new Warframe bundles can cost upwards of $60, which is the equivalent of the cost of a whole new game. While veterans may appreciate the depth, many systems and mechanics can alienate those unfamiliar with the game. This steep learning curve often results in frustration and a reliance on microtransactions to bypass the grind, especially for rare items and Warframes.

9 Marvel Snap Offers a Punishing Grind for Those Who Can’t Pay

This Card Battle Game Is Unfortunately Hampered by P2W

• Pro:Marvel Snap is a card battle game in the Marvel Universe that has a roster of 300 characters and offers quick satisfaction with short matches.
• Con: New and powerful cards are only realistically available through buying them.

Marvel Snap is a card battle game that advertises itself as easy to learn. It also offers matches that end in around three minutes, so the gameplay is punchy and satisfying. The object of the game is to use high-power cards to capture a location. The player who has two or more locations by the end of the match wins. So far so good. But a lot depends on the cards that you have.

Enter pay-to-win. Other than buying the cards, how else can players get them? Well, there are a few ways. They can buy a season pass for $10 to reduce the time they have to spend grinding, or they can resign themselves to a long grind and hope they eventually get enough Collector Tokens to buy a top card that is balanced and powerful. As new, more powerful cards are introduced, staying competitive without spending money becomes increasingly difficult. This pay-to-win structure may deter some players from investing despite the game’s otherwise engaging and strategic card battles.

8 Candy Crush Saga Is The Model For Costly Mobile Games

It Is Also Among the Most Popular Mobile App Games

• Pro: Candy Crush Saga is the perfect combination of minimal concentration and regular dopamine rewards that have made this mobile game a waiting-room staple.
• Con: It’s also the ultimate pay-to-win game, ensuring that players can only get so far before they have to fork over cash.

One of the most infamous examples of a pay-to-win game is Candy Crush Saga. At its core, this game is a highly addictive Bejeweled-style matching game that can be mindless and easily rewarding. This game shows off a common mobile game model that is free to download, offers easy introduction levels, and has lots of free upgrades at first.

Once players have been playing Candy Crush Saga for a while, they’ll find that each new level becomes more impossible to beat. They’ll eat through all their saved power-ups and do-overs and eventually be forced to purchase more power-ups to keep going. Candy Crush Saga is also a perfect example of how many games only give players a certain number of tries before they need to wait (or pay) for their energy to refresh. As players progress, the limited number of moves and power-ups needed to complete a level often result in a “pay or wait” scenario. This model has proven highly lucrative but alienates players who prefer a more skill-based progression.

7 The Simpsons: Tapped Out Is a Fun City Builder Game

This Popular Game May Tap out Players

• Pro: This is a fun city-building game that is set in a town and amid a cast of characters that are well-loved and have a huge fan base.
• Con: Like many pay-to-win games, to make any real progress, you have to put money into the game to supplement the currency that you can earn, but which never seems like enough to get ahead.

Based on America’s most dysfunctional TV family, The Simpsons, Tapped Out (as fans refer to it) is advertised on EA’s website as “life-ruiningly fun.” Tapped Out is a city-building game that has a dedicated fan base. The setup is that Springfield has been destroyed, and players get to help Homer find his family and friends as he rebuilds the town. But to rebuild, characters in the game need money.

Players can perform jobs or simple tasks to earn money. Like many pay-to-win games, this one starts with a certain amount of free play. Players can have the satisfaction of finding certain characters and rebuilding some of their favorite Springfield buildings. These buildings end up generating some income as well. But before long, players discover that to gain any real ground, they have to buy in-game currency to purchase the high-end buildings that make them viable players. Event-exclusive characters and buildings often require significant investments, frustrating those trying to advance without relying on microtransactions.

6 Final Fantasy: All The Bravest Relied On Final Fantasy’s Popularity

But Popularity and Nostalgia Aren’t Worth The Cost

• Pro: Nostalgia is a big draw in this game for players who have been with the Final Fantasy series for years.
• Con: Players must pay to advance in the game by unlocking characters and gaining more energy for those characters.

Final Fantasy: All the Bravest capitalized on a popular game built for consoles or PC by making a mobile-friendly version of the game. Much like Lara Croft GO for the Tomb Raider franchise, this game plays off the popularity and hype of the extremely successful Final Fantasy series. It could have been a slam dunk for the video game company Square Enix, but instead, it became a poster child for one of the worst examples of pay-to-win games. When it came out in 2013, reviewers actually used words like shameless, cynical, and cowardly to describe the game.

All the Bravest forces players to pay to advance, unlike other games that make paying an option to ease grind frustration. Not only do players have to keep paying to unlock all the characters available in the game, but they also have to keep paying to gain more energy if they don’t want to wait. With the high cost of playing the game, the only real draw it has is nostalgia. And apparently, that wasn’t enough to keep the game going. Square Enix ended service for Android and iOS versions in 2022 and 2023 respectively, making it one of the franchise’s biggest mistakes.

5 APB: Reloaded Runs In The GTA Vein

But You End up Paying To Escape the Grind

• Pro:APB: Reloaded is a cops and robbers-style game that allows players to choose sides.
• Con: Players have to make purchases using in-game currency which can be slow to accumulate for the free version (unless you buy them outright), whereas the premium (paid-for) version allows you to earn more in-game currency.

Like a love letter to the Grand Theft Auto franchise, APB: Reloaded has made a name for itself by being a third-person MMO shooter that allows players to play however they want. Whether as a good guy who fights for justice or a bad guy causing mayhem, this franchise has solid appeal for gamers who enjoy games like GTA but want to choose to be a good guy or a bad guy.

APB: Reloaded is a revamped version of the original release, and the best thing about it is that gamers can enjoy a significant amount of time playing the game for free. But to get cool weapons or advance in the game without an endless grind, players have to either earn in-game currency or real currency that enables them to buy things outright. If players want to enjoy the gameplay without it feeling cumbersome, paying for the premium edition of the game is necessary. Premium increases the amount of in-game currency you can earn. Without it, players will be stuck on the same grind for ages.

4 Clash Of Clans Is Just Another “Freemium” Game

The Popular Strategy Game Has a Strategy To Make Money

• Pro: A popular game that makes strategy-style gameplay available on individual and multiplayer levels.
• Con: Players face an unfair challenge when going up against opponents who have paid for upgrades.

Clash of Clans is a mobile strategy game that, like many other pay-to-win games, is free at the start. Technically, a player never has to spend money to play this game. But Clash of Clans utilizes the same old strategy. If players wish to progress through the game and have a fighting chance against other players who put money in, spending money becomes necessary. Nevertheless, this is a very popular game that has made combat strategy fun and addicting and has spawned a graphic novel series.

Any game that pits players against other players and has the option to pay to progress or get an advantage is ultimately pay-to-win. Paying to have advantages over other players means paying to beat the competition, especially those who won’t or can’t pay the same amount. This makes the appeal of paying-to-win greater and becomes self-limiting. New players will be those who can afford it. Players who invest in faster building times and stronger defenses often dominate, while free-to-play users face slower progression and frequent setbacks. This imbalance continues to drive players towards in-app purchases if they wish to stay competitive.

3 Star Wars Battlefront Tanked Because Of Loot Boxes

A Reboot Loaded With Potential Left Fans Angry

• Pro: With great gameplay, beautiful graphics, and a history in the beloved franchise, the Star Wars Battlefront series has a lot to offer.
• Con: Even though the “Loot Box” problem has been remedied, the sour taste of feeling taken advantage of remains.

Star Wars Battlefront and Battlefront II were gorgeous Star Wars games that brought everyone’s favorite heroes and villains into a single place. These games had everything going for them. Not only was there an appeal to the franchise, but nostalgia related to popular early versions of the games. With fun gameplay, impressive graphics, and the ability to play several popular characters, these Star Wars games were set up to be massive successes. However, its Loot Box system proved to be more than players would put up with.

The Battlefront games locked so many characters and so much content behind Loot Boxes that it made them almost unplayable without shelling out even more money. What was even worse was that these AAA games were anywhere from $60-$100 just to purchase in the first place. Eventually, Battlefront II’s Loot Boxes were removed after the massive controversy nearly destroyed the games, but the damage was done. Gamers still have a sour taste over what happened. Instead of being legendary Star Wars games, they are legendary flops.

Fans Got What They Feared, But The Game’s Still Popular

• Pro: This is yet another example of a beloved game franchise that enters the mobile world with good gameplay that touches on the feel of the Diablo series (while not exactly being immersive).
• Con: Buying legendary gems can start at $.99 and escalate to as much as $49.99.

Caught in the looming shadow of All the Bravest, Diablo Immortal reaps the benefits of being attached to the popular gaming franchise. Diablo Immortal came out in 2022 and brought the Diablo world to mobile devices and dubious fans who hoped P2W features would not ruin the game. While the game had a lot of promise, it ended up performing similarly to most mobile games on the market these days.

As fans feared, Diablo Immortal is filled with microtransactions that stack up quickly. To advance in the game, players need to collect legendary gems. There are a lot of ways to get these gems, but the fastest way to make any real progress is to, that’s right, buy them. Transactions of one dollar each add up. Transactions that are $50 each break the bank. While the game has made quite a lot of money from its players, it’s not what fans wanted to see, and overall, it’s been a massive disappointment. Despite being free-to-play, relying on in-game purchases to advance through the more difficult stages leaves non-paying players at a disadvantage.

1 MapleStory Sucks Wallets Dry

This Multi-Player Game Has A P2W Strategy That Excludes Authentic Gameplay

• Pro: MapleStory is a sidescroller that has managed to be popular with players despite its pay-to-win scheme.
• Con:MapleStory is, even its fans admit, one of the most cynical and explicit pay-to-win games available.

MapleStory came out in 2003 and, since then, it has been the definition of a pay-to-win game because the game literally allows players to pay their way straight to the top. Giving players the ability to pay their way to victory is exactly the type of behavior that frustrates fans who wish to enjoy games and play them authentically. Nevertheless, the game’s success has even led to the creation of a Webcomic.

Despite the literal pay-to-win content of this game, the franchise is still ongoing. MapleStory 2 came out in 2015, and despite how old the original game is, it’s still being updated. In fact, in early 2024, MapleStory was among the most profitable games in the first quarter (lawsuits and angry gamers notwithstanding). Part of the backlash includes the community-made, digital clone MapleLand, but even that hasn’t put a dent in this popular game’s profit. As new updates introduce even more exclusive items and abilities, the gap between free-to-play and paying users widens, leading to frustration within the player community. Despite this, the game remains a financial success.