Sorry I was getting ready to leave for work when I posted and forgot to edit around what I was replying to. I’m talking about how you said it is supposed to be viewed differently from buying traditional virtual items. Both games being so insanely bloated and CIG expanding so quickly that they constantly need larger and larger sums of money does not make what they are doing less of a pay-to-win scheme or any different from the shitty, predatory, practices companies like EA and Activision engage in on a routine basis.
Cool, I get caught up all the time and have to go back and restate things. We're only human.
So I'll say it like this. I play World of Tanks and World of Warships. I have bought "Premium" items in both games. For a long time, there were very few instances where a premium tank on WoT had better performance than it's counterpart non-premium tanks of the same tier, (and arguably nationality).
As an example, the Tier 8 Premium IS-6 was not better than a regular IS-3 when the IS-3 is fully researched, no pay to win there. That has started to change over the last year or so. These days the Premiums are frequently superior vehicles in comparison to their non-premium contemporaries.
Now we have the ship I bought in my starter package for Star Citizen. First, up until the time I uninstalled, waiting on release, I was mostly flying alone, no PvP, no competition, it was me doing the three or so missions, or just flying around experiencing the game and some of the things that were up and running. For instance, I went flying looking for salvage and I actually found some. I was giddy, went back to port, and had no vendor I could find where I could sell said salvage. A let down to be sure, but I'm not seeing any pay to win here. Now as I understand it, there is a little more to do these days, but I'm thinking that overall, the game remains more in a pay to experience state, than any possibility of pay to compete and I don't think winning anything is possible yet.
The last EA or Activision game I bought was The Division (Ubisoft), and I didn't see any pay to win there, if I remember right it was pay to look good and that was it. The last new title I tried was Apex Legends (EA), and it has been free to play with options to buy pretty shit and I have, out of appreciation for a mostly well run free game, I felt it was worth it to support what they had done.
I was looking forward to Anthem and I had heard a lot of people saying it would be bad because it was by EA. I was tempted to try it and got side tracked by Apex Legends. Yesterday I saw a video with a guy berating EA complaining about the loot system. "Just give players their damned loot" he said. Now I haven't played the game. I don't know the extent and details of this "issue". But I do know that I played Diablo2 for many years, hundreds, thousands of hours, I can't say. But I played the hell out of that game and I never ever got a Wind Force Bow to drop, not once. I finally got one in a trade, but I never got one free and clear as a drop or through gambling. There were sets I never completed, like Natalia's, I never got that claw weapon. So I can't say what's wrong with Anthem's loot mechanic, but when the game has only been out a short time, I do wonder if the real problem is just spoiled needy people.
You give money to a developer knowing up front that the virtual items you are getting can't be used because the game isn't playable yet, and the developer tells you up front that you should think of your money spent as an investment and a donation.
I think you should take his word for it.