It does quite a bit. You might not think that difference means anything, but I just said that it’s the ability to buy power.
You’re the one trying to add additional things on top of that now.
I have already said that P2W is not binary and there are certainly significantly worse cases of it. I’m not however gonna say that anything that isn’t a worst case scenario is not P2W.
As has been pointed out already, world first guilds spend money on gear because buying up BoEs in the early days of the raid tiers offers them a distinct advantage.
Granted its sponsorship money, but it’s money all the same.
These are the people who are at the absolute cutting edge of gameplay.
Keep telling yourself that. Lots of people do it just because they don’t have time. They have probably been playing more than a decade … and are better than you are.
The boosting sites … post on the boosting discords … get the classes they need … and pay them in gold . … without them knowing they are involved in rmt. And they are booked solid 24/7 365
The people that think its p2w are the ones that think getting achievements is winning, and they are winners by afking in dungeons and raids.
People like you that actually play the game use gear to facilitate their fun and the “game” is pushing yourself to the limit and not ticking off some box in your achievement tab.
Activision Blizzard pulled in 8.8 billion in revenue in 2021. 5.1 billion of that was pure microtransactions. 3.6 billion in profit. They will never ever ever ever ever give up the token sales. The entire company is making bank on it.
Pay to win does not require the items purchased be excludive to the cash shop. On your definition, Lost Ark and Diablo Immortal aren’t pay to win either because you can obtain legendary crests and gems and crystals as f2p.
All that matters is whether you can pay money to make your chaacter stronger; any other definition is arbitrary and without basis.
ever wonder why you always seem to get losers on your team that drag you down. in 2017 acti blizzard patented matchmaking that manipulates you into spending money with microtrans. Go figure.