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My main dislike of the claim is based upon two main points:
1. In order to play competitively you need credits, and:
2. In order to consistently obtain credits, someone has to pay real money for them.
The 'free' argument seems to revolve around the fact that you can get someone else to buy those credits for you in return for something within the game.
The drawback with that reasoning is that it could apply to anything. Gemstone, EverQuest, World of Warcraft, etc, could also be played without spending a single cent, if you could get another player to pay your monthly charge in return for something else in-game. Yet I would feel decidedly miffed if I were to buy a MMORPG that plastered "free to play" all over the front of the box, got it home, and discovered that it was only "free" if I could get someone else to pay the monthly fee.
The argument isn't even limited to computer games. Imagine a restaurant which advertised itself as "free", but then as soon as you sat down and looked at the menu you realised it wasn't. "Well, Sir, you could try polishing other customers' shoes and perhaps they'll pay for your meal" just wouldn't cut it. Nor would "But you don't have to eat here!" when I'd already gone to the hassle of walking there and sitting down, even if the water was free and there was no entry charge.
However this point has already been covered again and again, and I really can't see anything changing. The muds that would suffer from such a change are generally those who also pay for advertising - so Synozeer would have to deliberately spend time and effort to make a change that would upset his customers. Not exactly good business sense.
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