Quote Originally Posted by Drip View Post
I've seen this debate before in several places. https://www.reddit.com/r/MMORPG/comm...us_pay_to_win/ is a good example of one.
Some people will always call it Pay2Win, no matter what, while to others, there are notable distinctions.

It's really the same thing as the term RPG. I still refuse to call any game from the Diablo series an RPG, they're mere hack and slash games making use of some mechanics commonly found in RPGs even though those mechanics are not qualifications for the RPG genre. Ofcourse, there's also people who are pretty passionate at categorizing Diablo III as an RPG.
Good analogy. The fact is that in this case, similar to your example, Zandel considers collecting waifus to be "winning" (considering that's one of the core highlights of the game, I can understand that), thus if that's the perspective, the game is indeed "Pay to Win". Competition is not required in this definition.

Side Note: How about the Mass Effect series? IMO it's pretty much a shooter with some RPG elements, and not a true RPG (though it has decidedly more story freedom as well than the linear Diablo series)