Look at my hours. How many of them do you think I was actually happy while playing? I will never get that time back.

Edit: For the naysayers who've been commenting "but you've played the game for X hours, you must enjoy it"

I used to enjoy the game. I started playing in 2014 when I bought my first ♥♥♥♥♥♥ laptop, because I didn't have the ability to play many newer games, and didn't want to spend money on games I couldn't run regardless. I loved the idea of driving around in realistic WW2 era tanks, because I'm a big fan of military history, and even studied it in college. My first hours in Tank Arcade, before I learned what crew skills did, before I learned the subtle nuances of armor types, and calibers, and shell types, etc, I had the most fun I've ever had in video games, playing War Thunder.

Like with so many other live service games in this modern age though, I've had to watch a game that I used to love get progressively worse, patch after patch, update after update.

I watched the economy move from a F2P model (albeit with a small bit of grinding) to a "pay to progress at anything more than a snails pace." To put it into perspective, I unlocked the F-82 within a month of only playing Air Arcade and only F2P using the few boosters the game gave you back when I first started. I started grinding the German air tree this year, and just hit Rank 3 planes last month, WITH premium.

Top tier past 7.7 is an absolute atrocious mess. CAS was already strong before, back when 8.0 was top BR, but now, with the addition of AGMs, Drones, Helis, thermals, etc, I die more often to Air vehicles in Tank RB, than I do to actual tanks. And having a bad match at top BR means you have to go back to sub 6.7 for atleast a dozen matches just to recoup your SL losses to continue grinding.

The games economy has been absolutely trashed by Gaijin to almost force players to buy premium time, and premium vehicles, just to make profit to save up for higher tier vehicles.

So yea, at 2200hrs, I realized I hate this stupid game. But I'll keep playing it until my premium runs out, because I didn't waste money for nothing.

Second Edit: Yesterday, May 19th 2023, Gaijin released a community post accusing those of us who have rightful complaints about the games economy being catered only towards those who spend copious amounts of money, as review bombing their game and driving away new players. They simultaneously made excuses for why why they want to keep making the grind in the game even harder for both new and old players. Instead of taking accountability for how they as a company have failed both new and veteran players, they have decided to shift the blame onto the players themselves. This should be a sign to all players, new and old, that Gaijin absolutely does not give a crap about us, and only cares about their potential profits.

Please, I beg of you, fellow fans, go find something else to play instead. GHPC is a relatively inexpensive tank sim for the ground RB lovers. DCS world and IL-2 Sturmovik exists for those of you who play air. If Gaijin wants to blame the playerbase for why their game is failing, then lets give them the excuse they've made, and leave.