I mean thats pretty standard for any f2p game with a grind portion. Its literally either forcing people to pay via pay to play or make it free with pay to progress but heaviliy nudge them towards paying for progress.
No, you can do so in other ways.
like?
Warthunders core gameplay is too weak to monetize purely cosmetically like path of exile etc. I think the game would still be profitable but not anywhere near the money printer they have now.
Not sure what “balance reasons” you are talking about. In my opinion research time in general is too long even for premium players
Well, that’s the thing. They can’t do that without extreme time investment. I, as someone who plays premium vehicles with premium account, feel like I make no progress at all after playing for hours a lot of the times. Now imagine how F2P player feels like. That’s simply terrible game design. Sure, it brings gaijin money, but not as much as gaijin would earn by actually making players feel like they are real people and not just cash cows