FTP, PTP, BTP, PTW... WTF?

So in the past few years there's been a number of changes to how MMO games charge their players to.. well, play. But what do these different price models mean to the players really? is a pay-to-play game automatically better than a free-to-play? Is there really such a thing as a free-to-play to begin with?

First let's go over the basics; PTP or pay-to-play refers to games like the ever-immortal WoW that have players pay a subscription fee. These companies maintain that the monthly charge helps them keep the standard of gaming the players are used to. In all honesty I can't argue with this, I mean there are games out there that don't charge sub fees and are great but can someone ever say that having a greater guaranteed disposable income for development is a bad thing?

BTP stands for ArenaNet... no... really. I have a hard time NOT imagining the guild wars franchise when looking at BTP, which really means Buy to Play, which refers to having to buy the game itself and then never having to pay for anything else content-wise.

Next is FTP or free-to-play. When someone talks about a game like this their almost assuredly talking about LoL (League of Legends), and while a person COULD pay to unlock everything they want (characters, skins, etc.) they don't NEED to which seperates it from our next subject...

PTW, the infamous Pay to WIN! Yes that's right, playing costs you nothing but in-game success requires monetary investment. Off the top of my head is SWTOR, you need to buy (with real money not game currency) the ability to possess more than one crafting/gathering skill. What's that? "Not too bad" you say? Well how about the fact if you're not a subscriber you are stifled in the number of space missions you can run, and even more devious you earn substantially less experience than subscribers! (I can see the angry red lightsabres in the distance) In truth the game does have some cool things about it, the first and biggest being the option of rolling a Jedi/Sith. However that's about where it stops for me. I come back to it now and then when I'm having a fan-boy moment of "Eat hot plasma sith-scum!" but it doesn't hold a candle to most other games available, a truly unfortunate truth.

I'll just leave the link for SWTOR here if anyone is interested in seeing for themselves, which I fully endorse. My opinions are just that, opinions, I don't expect everyone to agree with me.