Not sure what's wrong with games being "pay to win", isn't that the point of them? Unless you meant pay to win, or the newer and weirder version, play to earn.

PtW games I've seen use

- social manipulation from fake players to employ peer pressure, membership, and others to extract revenues

- employees masquerading as players to stir up conflict that gets people to pay money to support the "guild war"

- employees masquerading as players that target free or low revenue players to get them to pay to survive/not be harassed.

- have outright gambling with attendant neurologically tuned payouts like slot machines

All told these are "games" in the sense that blackjack and poker and other gambling pursuits that prey on neurological reward systems are "games". Except they lump on social networking manipulation and group dynamics to further revenue extraction.

And they aren't nearly regulated to the degree that casino games are.

The games I've described are Machine Zone and other of their ilk that are the worst offenders, but their revenue has forced practically all vendors of video entertainment to consider using their tactics to "enhance shareholder value".

Oh that describes pay to win, but the comment I replied to was admonishing "play to win", which sounds like what you would want.

My bad typo.

I think they mean where you have a competitive multiplayer content but players who spend more on DLC have an advantage over players who spend less.

Pay to win mobile games with in app purchases like Candy Crush with in app purchases

Ah I stuffed up, the parent comment said play to win, which sounds like how games should be?