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Atyreus · 01-12-2006, 07:03 PM

Those are all fine uses of the phrase "free to play." But as they all qualify themselves, I'm not sure what point they are supposed to serve as examples. The original issue raised in this thread about the phrase "free to play" was about its unqualified use in IRE's advertising and whether or not such a use was dishonest, misleading, unethical or whatever.

Some of us were arguing that a game that doesn't ever charge you a thing to play can, without being dishonest or misleading, advertise itself as "free to play." But at some point your argument seems to have evolved into a statement of the very obvious fact that "free to play" can, like many such phrases in the English language, be used to accurately describe a whole range of things depending on the context and the accompanying qualifiers.

I think this is what Protoss was getting at by suggesting you were taking "free to play" out of context. The whole point of the original argument was in the context of advertising by a company that does, in fact, let you play their games for as long as you want without ever being charged to play.

Also, your current arguments would seem to work against your earlier arguments about IRE's use of the phrase "free to play." Surely if Guild Wars can essentially claim "free to play once you've bought our client program," then IRE, which doesn't require any such purchase, can just claim "free to play."

01-12-2006, 07:03 PM	#353
Atyreus Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Home MUD: The Dreaming City Posts: 60	Those are all fine uses of the phrase "free to play." But as they all qualify themselves, I'm not sure what point they are supposed to serve as examples. The original issue raised in this thread about the phrase "free to play" was about its unqualified use in IRE's advertising and whether or not such a use was dishonest, misleading, unethical or whatever. Some of us were arguing that a game that doesn't ever charge you a thing to play can, without being dishonest or misleading, advertise itself as "free to play." But at some point your argument seems to have evolved into a statement of the very obvious fact that "free to play" can, like many such phrases in the English language, be used to accurately describe a whole range of things depending on the context and the accompanying qualifiers. I think this is what Protoss was getting at by suggesting you were taking "free to play" out of context. The whole point of the original argument was in the context of advertising by a company that does, in fact, let you play their games for as long as you want without ever being charged to play. Also, your current arguments would seem to work against your earlier arguments about IRE's use of the phrase "free to play." Surely if Guild Wars can essentially claim "free to play once you've bought our client program," then IRE, which doesn't require any such purchase, can just claim "free to play."