Is Top Drives Pay to Win?

Note: Before the Moderators take this down as just another one of those complaint posts about the Top Drives experience, this is an essay that is meant persuade/help the understanding of Top Drives players. This is not sponsored or endorsed in anyway, by Hutch or anyone associated with them, this is all just from my personal experience playing Top Drives.

Top Drives is a pay to win game. Now hear me out, I know this sounds like every other post that complains about Top Drives and the play style of the game, but this is different. Top Drives is pay to win but in a good way. Playing through Top Drives you realize that packs require in game currency to buy: cash and gold. To set some things straight, there are two different kinds of methods to play, Top Drives is a free to play game but the way to play is a different. There is pay to play and pay to win. Infamously EA (Electronic Arts), has recently been blasted for making several of their games pay to play. Not only were people spending money for the game itself but they were also spending an absorbent amount of money just to unlock some things that should be unlocked through game play and a bit of grinding. Hence making it pay to play and pay to win with the perks of paying thrusting you into the top and making you an instant winner. Hutch, the developer of TD (I am shortening Top Drives to TD because all of you reading this know what it is), has made the game free to play, and pay to win, NOT pay to play. You can pay but it isn’t necessary and even then you may not win all the time. Top Drives is not pay to play because you can play to level 150, get legendaries, make hundreds of thousands of cash and save several thousands of gold to buy packs all without spending any money on the game. You can buy microtransactions in order to give you that little bit of resource that you need to finish or do something BUT, it isn’t necessary. Hutch has also made TD somewhat resistant to pay to win by forcing you to start out small and work your way up rather than you needing to pay in order to play and win. I have not spent any money on TD and I have over 100 cars, 8 legendaries and a whole lot of other cars, granted it takes some time and dedication but it is possible, you just need to work for it. My friends can contest to that, one has a Chiron, one has several event exclusive legendaries and neither of them has spent any money on TD, but they play smart. Now I am not saying that you shouldn’t buy microtransactions, but I am also not recommending that you do buy them, just do what you are comfortable with doing and what you feel that you want to do but for your safety and well being, DO NOT USE ALL OF YOUR MONEY ON TD TO OPEN PACKS, DO NOT MAKE IT AN ADDICTION. It is possible to play TD without spending any money, but you can spend money to get resources in order to advance your progress and success in the game. If you still aren’t fully convinced consider this: have you ever bought a pack of Pokemon trading cards? If you have, congratulations, that is pay to play. Pokemon trading cards require you to buy packs with real money in order to have a chance of getting a good card for you to use and play with against other players in card matches. You won’t get a good card every time, because that would just break the game, but you need to buy packs if you want to stay competitive. In short Pokemon trading cards are pay to play and pay to win, because that is just how it is structured. TD on the other hand is free to play and although you have to use in game currency to buy packs, that in game currency is free and you can earn it for free. You can pay for currency but it isn’t necessary, all it does when you pay is advance your progress quicker, but does not automatically put you at an instant advantage against other players. Pokemon and Top Drives are a similar concept, I’ve always thought that TD was pokemon cards but with cars, but Pokemon cards need money to actually play whereas Top Drives is free to play and you have the option to put actual money into the game. People get quite angry when they don’t get a good card from a Ceramic or Carbon Fiber pack but you would are doing the same thing as buying pokemon cards and getting a card you already have but don’t need. All I have to say to that is keep on persevering, it is hard and sometimes highly antagonizing, but eventually you will get good cards. If you got good cards all the time, then it would get boring and it wouldn’t really be worth playing and pursuing. It is the constant chase for good cards that makes the game interesting and fun, if you poured millions of real world currency into the game, then it would get very boring very quickly. The effect of pulling legendaries would be great for the first few paid packs but after that it would become common place and not nearly as exciting and eventually it wouldn’t be worth playing. So just take your time and enjoy the process, it can take some time to get through but it is better than putting too much money into the game. Top Drives is a game like no other. I haven’t seen a car card game much less a card game that has this sophisticated and with this much detail and yet it is free to play, with ads that you choose to watch for rewards, natural and easy progression, and quality game play with in depth features and strategy that doesn’t require you to pay. The game is also interesting in the fact that every car is useful in some odd and niche way, so the Bugatti Chiron is not good for motorcross track compared to the Ford Raptor and the Ford Raptor is not good for fast circuit like the Bugatti Chiron, etc. etc. *unless the Mid Range Acceleration is screwed up, in which case no matter how much you pay, the card will always be broken until Hutch fixes it

In conclusion, Top Drives is pay to win, but in a way that actually makes sense. Hutch isn’t EA, they aren’t forcing you to pay to play the game, BUT you do have the choice to pay and possibly win. Top Drives is a free to play game and you can play the game without dropping a penny on the game and still be good. We want to be good but in order to be good you need to be smart, Hutch isn’t forcing you to pay, they are forcing you to play smarter, not harder. Hutch is making a free to play game after all, so it kind of must be pay to win because without the ad revenue and players who support the game by buying packs, we wouldn’t have Top Drives. Don’t be ashamed to be a pay to win player on TD because it is your choice and other people can do what they want to do and you are free to choose, just don’t get ahead of yourself. You can always pay but you may not always win and that is the beauty of Top Drives, you need to be smart when playing the game.