Free-to-play schemes could be unlawful, warns OFT

Lets not go overboard. I'm absolutely sure you could do horntail with a single party without ever buying cubes. Can you solo it? Maybe not. I'm relatively certain you could do Pink bean too, given the constant power creep. But the "ermgerd THE ONLY WAY TO DO ANYTHING I MAPLE IS SOLO" is one of the worst things about maple now.

Hence the "to a small extent" explicitly for Horntail. You're not doing Empress or Pink Bean on a non-paying group. You went into a soloing tirade when I had no such thought even on my mind.

Unfortunately,


Not something everyone knows, not something implicit in the way new bosses are, but only the literal "Buy NX now!" at the bottom of every web notice. So they'd have to rephrase that, big deal.
I completely agree with Chilly, this is a very weak attack on those companies. To really change something they'd have to go after the gambling aspect.

I read the direct exhortation and "buy nows" as two different things, not him rewording the same thing. I suppose it really is the same thing.
Although the best chance is the following,

"As part of the investigation, the OFT has written to companies offering free web or app-based games, seeking information on in-game marketing to children."

Hopefully they might be able to determine the gambling aspect being marketed to children, which might end them in the right spot.

Kind of a far leap though.