Put the quarter in the jar! (on payment and monetizing models)

There's this cartoon I like, Ed Edd 'n Eddy. It's pretty obscure, even though it "is currently Cartoon Network's longest running series^{[citation needed]}".

The Eds are these kids who are constantly trying to get money for jawbreakers by running scams (not that I'm comparing video games to scams). One episode starts with a neighborhood kid (Johnny) minding his own business, when the Eds suddenly run up to him and frantically start telling him to do all sorts of crazy things in sequence (put the marshmallows in the tuba! now shoot the balloons! shoot the ballons!!!). Johnny has a lot of fun doing all these things, until at the end, the Eds hand him a jar and yell "Put the quarter in the jar, Johnny! Put the quarter in the jar!" Naturally, Johnny doesn't comply. He hands the jar back and says "Nice try, Eddy." Why? Well, mostly because this is a cartoon about how the Eds always get screwed over and fail to get any money, not a commentary on game payment models.

Nevertheless, I thought of this scene while contemplating how different payment systems affect game design and player enjoyment. Specifically, I was thinking about the difference between "Pay first, then play" models (like purchasing a game in a store or online, or even arguably subscription plans) and "Pay during or after gameplay" models (micro-transactions, shareware)

When I'm playing a game of the latter type, I often feel like a "put the quarter in the jar" moment is coming on, and the things I'm going through right now were put there in order to pave the way to the payment moment. For example, I might wonder, "why do I have these 10 extra-special doohickey points when I need 100 for most useful things, and how do I get more?" and the answer is, because they want me to buy more with real cash. Or I might try out a certain "optional" part of the game only to find that I need to feed it a steady stream of cash in order to have any success with it. This kind of thing puts me on guard and makes me enjoy the game less.

On the other hand, when I'm playing a game that I've already fully paid for (at least for the moment), I know that the design decisions I encounter are there for gameplay purposes, not "funneling me into paying some money" purposes.

I'm not saying that the free-to-play/shareware payment models are bad - each payment model has its own drawbacks for the player, if only because the player has to pay at some point in any case. But this "put the quarter in the jar!" feeling is something to watch out for when designing micro-transaction-like games.