shapesifter13 wrote:We feel that this move will be a positive for the game, as well as all current and future users. The botters will not want to spend real money in order to troll. Even if they do, they will be very limited in the amount of accounts they can make this way without committing credit card fraud.
This also means that every account has an inherent value to it, as being banned means you will need to buy the game to play again. Any user that is suspended for breaking the rules will have to actually think about what they are doing, because if they end up permanently banned they can’t just make a new free account anymore. Better games in every facet should be much more common. We as developers can go back to trying to make a good game, rather than focusing on how to stop botters or how to rework reports to stop toxic behavior.
In the current day, the bolded text is a lie. Bad actors can create burner accounts and run ads to get Classic Tickets on them, use those Tickets to get into and wreck some rounds, eventually get the account banned, then start the process over again. That this doesn't work for Coven Tickets is why Coven is allegedly cleaner than the standard game, not that I'd know from experience.
I'm not too charitable in my outlook, so I'm inclined to believe the only reason free-to-play bad and ads-for-play good even though both lead to bad actors wrecking rounds is because free-to-play accounts wrecking rounds didn't make any money, but ads-for-play accounts wrecking rounds still brings in those ad bucks.
Thus, there are two options that aren't just staying in place.
The first option is to accept that if you give bad actors an inch then they'll take a mile and go back to free-to-play. The upside to this is that it allows honest players who might not be willing to spend on this game to once again come in and join the proceedings, adding a greater potential that the game's playerbase will perk up. The downside is that it will also make it even easier for bad actors to turn up, meaning that more babysitting would be necessary in order to close the holes that they exploit to mess things up in the first place, rather than just trying to kick people out for exploiting those holes without doing anything else about them.
The second option is to stop cutting any slack and get rid of Ads-For-Play. The upside is that this should oust the bad actors after a short while since the bolded part of the quoted text becomes true again, while the downside is that it keeps the potential for the anemic playerbase's growth restricted, indeed restricting it even more since I'm sure there are some honest players who rely on Ads-For-Play to stay involved, however scarce they may be.
Also, both of them would obviously imply no longer receiving those ad bucks unless Ads For Town Points were brought back or Ads For Coven Tickets were introduced. That's the price of doing the right thing, though.