If it’s not converting over to a free-to-play model, it’s a fairly good bet that your favorite online-only PC game launched on a free-to-play model. Or else it’s World of Warcraft. But excepting Blizzard’s subscription-based juggernaut, the industry has moved into the microtransaction business…despite the enduring stigma they carry.

So now developers have a new needle to thread: crafting microtransactions that engage players without alienating them. We put it to the very people they hope will buy in:

Community Question: Free-to-play microtransactions…what got you to buy in, what pissed you off, and why? Tag it #f2pmicro

— Raptr (@Raptr) May 2, 2013

Perhaps not surprisingly, we got a certain amount of this:

@raptr #f2pmicro Never paid, & won’t. I hate the damn things! Pay to win isn’t the way to go! At least some games you can earn to win #LoL

— Em/Lips (@ColdLipstick) May 2, 2013

That’s a sentiment echoed on Facebook as well — clearly not fans of Zynga, then. But it didn’t take long before we got a sense of what might convince people otherwise.

@raptr If it has something I want and is reasonably priced, I’ll get it. However, too often they cost too much or are unbalanced #f2pmicro

— Shi Xian Lee (@FSKrieger22) May 3, 2013

“Balance” was an issue that came up quite often. On Facebook, The Clean Race Crew adamantly stated that, “any free to play shouldn’t be pay to win. Give everyone the same chance, even if items are more expensive with in-game cash.” David Rapp added that, “micro-transactions are fine as long as they don’t create a gap in the power curve that’s impossible to overcome without real money.” Colin Busick specifically called out Blacklight: Retribution, which used to “make some of the best weapons in the game only accessible with real cash.”

Dakota Lake put it more succinctly: “If it’s free to play, it should be free to win.”

And while gamers clearly despise the “buy to win” school of thought, they also want something with a little weight to them. Rob Anderson talked about buying high-tier chests in Defiance and never getting the loot he wanted. Similarly, Chris Fehrenbacher supports microtransactions, but finds, “too often, it’s focused on cheap gimmickry and poor performance. I want to support developers,” Fehrenbacher continues, “but I won’t hesitate to stop my patronage once the game shows a lack of support.”

A few people had already reached that point. Zben Novageist Zeon felt free-to-play killed Star Wars: The Old Republic. “I bought the game and paid to play for months, but when it became free-to-play, I lost so many advantages that I lost interest and stopped playing.” Avid Everquest 2 player Kristin Stumpp bought into that game’s prestige housing, furniture, and vanity armor without complaint, but when the game locked higher-tier spells, she drew the line. “I purchased the game and every expansion,” says Stumpp, “but I can’t play without paying to use my spells and armor. After 6-7 years of playing they lost me, perhaps permanently.”

And Germaximus Almightimus Supremus (possibly not his real name) voiced the other major gripe: “The thing that pisses me off the most is when they are in a subscription-based game. It has no place there, and they should be ashamed of themselves.”

Despite all that negativity, the community also offered not only positive examples, but gave up the microtransactions they happily purchased.

@raptr bought a DOTA 2 key to open a box and loved it. What PMO was there are games that gives you more advantage to other players #f2pmicro

— Freddie Sanchez (@FreddieL337UG) May 2, 2013

@raptr TF2 Strange weapons. Something so simple as a kill-counter (or other) has eaten up far too much of my money. #f2pmicro

— TheChrisD (@TheChrisDGaming) May 2, 2013

Cosmetic add-ons came across as a popular choice, whether it was mounts, pets, armor, skins, or trading the random drops in Team Fortress 2. Particularly when it came to role-playing games, the customization held a lot of appeal.

“I think Guild Wars 2 has a good model,” said Nick Modrowski, echoing the sentiments of several other players. “An up-front investment to dissuade the less serious players and then free play for the duration. I would like to see microtransactions limited to vanity items.”

Time and again, the personal held an advantage over the powerful. Microtransactions that unbalanced or altered the game itself were almost universally hated; “short-cut” purchases to gain access to in-game item faster were frowned upon, but tolerated. Personalizing one’s character or their possessions, on the other hand, met with both respect and enthusiasm.

It just goes to show that people will always pay more to get exactly the experience they want.

Now that user-generated content gets its moment to shine. Valve just announced the Robotic Boogaloo Update, a completely community-created update to the popular class-based shooter. That doesn’t just include the 57-item loot drops joining the lineup…it’s also the update hub website, the animated short accompanying the announcement, a web comic, and the splash images advertising it in the Steam store.

That’s a vastly different proposition from any other game updates seen before. Rather than submitted art or code being adopted, the TF2 community has just become deeply involved in the state of their game, the look and feel of it, and even in the marketing of its microtransacted goods. From beginning to end, it’s a crowdsourced campaign.

Robotic Boogaloo items will drop in the form of RoboCrates (destined to become rare items after a two-week promotional period) which must be unlocked using a $2.49 RoboCrate Key, similar to the game’s standard Supply Crates.

In another first, the people involved in creating both the Boogaloo content and its marketing collateral agreed to share in the revenue generated from RoboCrate Key sales.

Valve insists this doesn’t mark the end of their own, internally-created updates for Team Fortress 2, but it does mark a new chapter in user-generated content and what it can be. It will be interesting to see if and how other developers leverage their communities’ creativity to build on the games themselves, both in terms of in-game and consumer facing material.

After all, nobody knows what fans want to see from their games better than the fans themselves.

And its fundraising is not going well.

Out of a goal of $1.5 million, Shadow of the Eternals barely passed the 10% funding mark in its first five days, with roughly $156,000 raised. Most Kickstarter campaigns do the bulk of their funding in the first 48 hours. Shadow’s third day of fundraising only saw a gain in the $1000 range.

Today a campaign just launched on Kickstarter,  but at $14,000 in to a $1.35mil goal it doesn’t seem to be making much headway.

What’s going wrong? It could simply be that the funding crowd put the brakes on a deal they don’t entirely care for. Because while Shadow of the Eternals has a lot going for it, its developer has ignored or sidestepped a lot of things those enthusiast investors need.

Foremost among them: trust. Shadow’s campaign didn’t initially roll out on Kickstarter, IndieGoGo, or any official crowdsourcing site that states and strictly enforces its funding rules. Developer Precursor Games set up a donations page on their own website, which clearly lacks Kickstarter’s all-or-nothing safeguards. The FAQ on Shadow states that their goal is “flexible.” Asked directly by James Brightman of Games Industry International what might happen if Shadow doesn’t raise the full $1.5 million, Precursor CEO Paul Caporicci replied, “At the end of the 30-day campaign, we’re just going to evaluate our options.”

That suggests Precursor might not immediately refund pledged donations if they fall short of their goal…something Kickstarter does automatically.

Then you have the team itself. Precursor is essentially the remnants of the now-shuttered Silicon Knights, including its controversial creative director, Denis Dyack. While they did indeed make Eternal Darkness, Silicon Knights’ last two games were the universally reviled X-Men: Destiny and Too Human, the mediocre super-flop that plunged the company into a failed legal dispute with Epic Games.

The court ruling in that case ordered all remaining copies of Too Human destroyed…a sentiment echoed by many game reviewers. Other stories of mismanaged funds have floated around the Internet for years.

If that didn’t eat up whatever goodwill Precursor had, one final thing does: a flimsy promise that donors will have direct involvement in Shadow’s development.

Those kinds of promises have shown up frequently in Kickstarter campaigns — the recently released Stardrive even features five playable factions created by top-tier donors. In Shadow’s case, anyone who contributes gains membership into the Order of the Unseen — basically amounting to access to a restricted forum where, according to Caporicci, “allows backers to stay in communication with Precursor, suggesting anything from insanity effects to include, story elements, what platforms to support, etc.” Given the sophistication of the demo — built in CryEngine — and Dyack’s own history of butting heads with fans over creative choices, it’s easy to be skeptical about just how much impact community members can hope to have.

It also seems very lightweight compared to a $5000-tier reward (one taker so far) to design your own sanity event, a signature gameplay feature from Eternal Darkness. Suggestions can be ignored, and when placed against someone who’s paid to get hands-on, it feels more likely that they will be.

And of course, donors might question what they’ll get for their money. That $1.5 million will only fund the first installment in a proposed episodic series, not a complete product in itself. Precursor’s plan seems to treat later episodes as stretch goals for hitting unspecified marks above and beyond the initial $1.5 million. Thus far, that doesn’t seem to be much of an issue. Shadow is on track to miss its goal by a wide margin, suggesting its story will never be finished. That’s a possibility guaranteed to alienate gamers.

Kickstarter proved time and again that the community would cheerfully send money to a talented developer with a great idea. Arguably, Precursor has their great idea — certainly, they have a better presentation than most indies could ever hope for. They just left far too many question marks on the table.

Gamers have expectations when they play a game. Now they’re applying that scrutiny to become more savvy funders. Caveat emptor, indeed.