‘Buy-to-play’ is a term that refers to games that have box or download fees associated with them but do not incur a mandatory subscription. Some have optional subscriptions and are more properly referred to as hybrid B2P. Most have cash shops and microtransactions.
buy to play
Blizzard lays out the design pillars for World of Warcraft’s accessible neighborhood housing
The news that World of Warcraft is getting housing with its next expansion, Midnight, shocked the whole MMORPG genre - and us too, as...
Perfect Ten: 10 MMOs (and MMO-adjacent games) you can play on Nintendo Switch in 2025
In our family, there's an ongoing joke that I was the one who got the Nintendo Switch as a birthday present a few years...
Elder Scrolls Online explains Cyrodiil Champions, its multi-stage PvP revamp test
As ZeniMax Online Studios continue testing Elder Scrolls Online's update 45 on the PTS, it's been teasing much more for testers - and that...
The Stream Team: Slithering into Guild Wars 2’s Year of the Snake celebrations
It's the year of the snek! All snekkies, all the time! Ahem, OK maybe it's really the Year of the Snake, but Massively OP's...
UK rebuffs game preservationists’ petition to make retroactively breaking old games unlawful
One of the big industry-wide narratives that emerged from the wreckage of 2024 was player-initiated efforts to center game preservation - indeed, even to...
Destiny 2 Heresy episode act one releases today with new activity, weapons, and balance tweaks
It's time for a new episode and three more acts' worth of stuff in Destiny 2. The Heresy update arrives to the looter shooter...
Diablo III’s rerun of the Light’s Calling for Season 34 releases following its scheduling delay
Diablo III fans who were ready to relive the Light's Calling theme for the OARPG's Season 34 had to sit and wait for a...
The MOP Up: Stardew Valley’s creator isn’t quite done with the game yet
Stardew Valley hasn't reached the end of its development cycle. So when will Stardew Valley's creator stop working on the game? "If I feel like it's...
One Shots: Prop painting is a contact sport
If you go to an art school where they teach the art of Pictomancy, you're going to want to stash those small, fine brushes...
Guild Wars 2, Overwatch 2 compensate players for recent tech and sale bungles
This is a tale of two MMO studios and how they handled recent fiascos competently. Happy Friday!
First, ArenaNet announced last night that it is...
Destiny 2 highlights new activity, new and returning weapons, and Star Wars cosmetics arriving with Heresy update
The devs of Destiny 2 have once again put together a look ahead to its February 4th Heresy episode release in both video and...
Elder Scrolls Legends has officially sunsetted after years of lingering in maintenance mode
Back in November, we covered the sad news that multiplayer CCG Elder Scrolls Legends was truly doomed. After siloing the game off under a...
The Daily Grind: The perfect MMO guild doesn’t exist… or does it?
I must admit right up front that this is not my guild. I have a guild of weirdos who live mostly on Discord now....
Massively Overthinking: The MMOs where suddenly you’re a different character now
I was recently thumbing through my Lord of the Rings Online screenshots when I stumbled into one I'd taken of a player's extremely smart...
Elite Dangerous dates the release of its colonization feature for February 26
Consider us surprised and perhaps a little bit confused - mostly because of the lack of details - but Elite: Dangerous devs have just...
Guild Wars 2 has finally updated its region transfer system, but it’s not gonna make anyone happy
Last March, following one of Guild Wars 2's world restructuring beta events, ArenaNet told players that it was planning to update its system for...
Massively on the Go: Pokemon GO’s February shows a little love
Pokemon Go's Dual Destiny season trudges on in February, though there is at least some reasonable progress being made in terms of "getting" the playerbase....
The Stream Team: The joys of Rising Flames in Guild Wars 2
What's the best way to get Massively OP's MJ pumped for a story chapter in Guild Wars 2? Name it Rising Flames! Having just...
Massively OP Podcast Episode 503: The Quinfail
Justin and Bree discuss The Quinfall's messy early access, Camelot Unchained's worrisome future, New World's broken servers, and Throne and Liberty's server merge, with adventures in LOTRO, Fallout 76, WoW Classic, Guild Wars 2, and Playnite, plus a mailbag topic on what kind of MMO character template we have IRL.
Guild Wars 2’s lunar new year festival is live with snake tail pants
As promised, Guild Wars 2's Lunar New Year event is officially live this afternoon. "Shed the old year and slither into the next -...
