A couple years have passed since we went to this business model, our population massively increased and now has tapered off a bit. Over all we are still more than before GoD/F2P.
I'll agree with this. Any time a game comes out as F2P or moves to F2P/hybrid, that's the first and most immediate concern anyone on my main gaming forum has; is it "free to play" or "pay to win." Anything that's seen as "pay to win" gets blasted about how unethical/greedy the devs are. Grab-bag buys, where you get a bunch of stuff with a minuscule chance of getting something rare and highly desirable are equally blasted, with immediate comparisons to gambling/the lottery, asking why such obvious psychological exploitation is going on.
edit: I sort of remember a story about an Asian woman spending over $600 in a month for some pay-to-win MMO and still losing whatever it is she was trying to do. With credit cards, its very easy to spend more than you should, and I think that's one of the grab-bag issues; some people may have trouble with addictive/gambling behaviors, blowing through far more than they should.
edit/clarification: Their main concerns with microtransactional cash shops would be...
Pay to Win - create a game where in order to be competitive you have to spend money, thus making "free to play" misleading at best. Also, this heavily favors "Richie Rich and his group will run roughshod over anyone who doesn't spend $50/month"
Pay to Play - the base game gets "gimped" or hindered deliberately in order to drive players to make the grind for advancement tolerable. This view is due to earlier F2P games from Asia being so high-grind (which, as I understand it, is also more their preference)
Buying Power - related to Pay to Win, and tied the best items being sold. I think this holds over from RMT/powerlevel resentment in other games, where you'd see some player with a max-level, fully decked out character and no idea how to play said character.
Gambling - instead of buying what you want, you have to buy a "chance to" get it. Highly despised, as the odds are not in the player's favor.
Trial game vs Full game - enough features that should be considered part of the game proper are paid versus being included. Similar to Pay to Play, this locks out playable content.
Pricing - paying for virtual goods is not something that has an agreed upon value. Four players can look at the same item, with one saying it ought be free, another saying it should be cheaper, another saying the price is right, and the last thinking its a bargain or should be more expensive.
Cash-shop only - some things are viewed as they should be available through some in-game means in addition to only buying in the shop. This tends to have more an issue with games that have a hybrid model.
Stumbling across this old post has me wondering... was this past two years fun, profitable... EPIC?