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Is it even possible to make an F2p without selling advatages?
gessekai332
Member UncommonPosts: 861
F2p games always seem to degrade iinto one of two things:
1) p2win or p2get ahead (selling gear with good stats or selling exp boosts).
2) RNG gambling aka pay for a random chance to get some p2win item or advantage (keys for treasure boxes, lockboxes, or crafting success enhancements)
Is it possible to make an F2P where you dont result in ultimately granting a person an advantage?
Most memorable games: AoC(Tryanny PvP), RIFT, GW, GW2, Ragnarok Online, Aion, FFXI, FFXIV, Secret World, League of Legends (Silver II rank)
Comments
I know it's possible because I played Street Gears and the only thing you could buy was outfits, cosmetic items.
But all other F2P games I played are ,for all intended purpose, Pay2Win games. I think it's purely greed tbh.
i feel like only league of legends was the only f2p ive ever played that didnt leave a bitter taste in my mouth. whenever i bought something in that game i felt that it 1) was worth the money, 2) wasnt cheating, 3) was rewarding the developer for providing me with an enjoyable game. All other f2p games always went the quick greed route into trying to trick me into giving them money (RNG treasure boxes) or forcing me to give them money (p2win). these such games onl provided me with 2 months of game time tops before i quit and never looked back because i was so bitter towards them for cheating me.
Most memorable games: AoC(Tryanny PvP), RIFT, GW, GW2, Ragnarok Online, Aion, FFXI, FFXIV, Secret World, League of Legends (Silver II rank)
Not really, there usually needs to be an advantage of sorts (XP, earning potential or something else) to make people want to pay. There are ways around this such as Cryptic's take of allowing you to trade for cash shop items/currency with other players while maintaining the items at a tolerable level ( example in STO: you can get say the original enterprize as a low level grinding ship which works well for the first dozen or so levels but it doesn't offer a advantage over normal ships you purchase at the same level, same goes with the level cap store ships, they're good but they're not as good as the fleet issue ships which you can get in-game).
that makes no sense
how can you be at a disadvantage for content you aren't even playing
I know first hand that as a player it's easy to just think as a player. In that mindset the more free the better, get your restrictions out of my gaming! What I don't think is concentrated on enough is the entity providing that content and that it's a business just like the one most of us work at. We may look at a company providing a game free as greedy because they create systems that force or strongly urge you to pay for things. If they didn't how would they find their game? NCSoft tried "all free, pay or not" with Aion and what happened? It was a sliver of revenue last quarter and NCWest was downsized.
F2P isn't just about the players.
Experience boosts aren't really pay to win in a themepark. So you get to the plateau that everyone else will get to anyway? Who cares.
edit: skill boosts in a sandbox would be an entirely different story of course.
ok pvp I could agree with
but pve offers no advantage, mobs are tuned according to your lvl, you don't gain any advantage over the content like you do in Pay2Win by buying an expansion, you just play in a different expansion
Some day I'm going to put a sword through your eye and out the back of your skull!
Arya Stark
Yes. It is possible. The key is selling convenience. It's not the same as advantage assuming the two are not blurred.
Let's say a fast mount can be had for a huge amount of effort in game. The same (or similiar) mount is available in the item shop. The mount adds convenience to gameplay because it makes travel faster.
In P2P gaming (before item shops invaded them), the pattern was:
effort yielded achievement yielded reward yielded convenience
in other words, if you want the mount, you have to make an effort to get it
In F2P, one can skip the effort and achievement, and go directly to convenience. In all except P2W, this is done without imbalancing the game.
item shop purchase yields reward yields convenience
in other words if you don't feel like making the effort, just buy it
Even LoL allows you to buy an advantage in that you have more character options and the new and often OP release characters. But it was subtle enough to not be an issue.
There are a lot of things you can sell and not even impact the game, than there are other things you can sell which are not that much of an advantage as to concern you.
I don't mind if other players can buy a fleeting advantage though, as long as it's not something I can't obtain with gameplay, or something I need, I don't mind. The main thing is, whether the game is fun to play without buying things... I can deal with other players having an advantage, whether they pay or play, there is often someone with an advantage anyway, but if the game is full of boring progression and painfully unenjoyable content which their selling a solution to, well that's just a bad game, it wasn't fun, and it often woln't be fun just because you bought out of the worst part either.
I actually have some really interesting business ideas which could introduce content which would greatly enrich games without any impact on the gameplay whatsoever, which would be compelling to buy and very profitable... but yeah, I have no incentive to share it >:D
With F2P taking over the market though, developers need to come up with creative ways to sell us desirable stuff, while still maintaining the fun and integrity of the game. Honestly, I've left games because of gamble boxes and other trashy MT behaviors... It shouldn't be tolerated...
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes.
That way, if they get angry, they'll be a mile away... and barefoot.
^ Ignorance is bliss.
I believe that EvE numbers should be standard for success. So how much money does it cost to keep server like EvE running per month?
also how much money would it cost to make new content/ player made content tools?
and on top of all that, how much it cost for social monitoring like bug tickets and GM each month?
all of this factored together.
maybe for each expansion or content update you make it so its all done through kick starters.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Advertising-supported. I wouldn't want to play it, but it's a business model that worked for television.
Yeah, and in addition to that, say you're a level 70 and someone is getting a raid together for a level 70 instance... these days in WoW it's almost always for transmog patterns. I've literally seen level 70 players left out of raids in order to make room for level 85's because it's "faster" with them. It's stupid.
I'm not sure what specifically you're talking about but I agree with Joey.
Aion proved this even though they also sold stated items if I'm not mistaken.
GW2 has shown this partially because you could consider the gem/gold buying P2W. GW2 itemization is a little atypical of most titles.
Allods upgrades? STO lockboxes? LotRO quest lock outs? EQ2/VG race/class/item & spell tier locks? Each of these have been railed against at one point or another for being horrible F2P models.
The fact remains that developers need money and it's not going to be made strictly by xp potions and cosmetic items for any type of quality game with regular updates.
Depends on what you mean by advantage. EXP potions and fluff are one thing. Weapons and armor quite another. This IS a business after all, and the object is to make a profit on their investment. I have no problem what so ever with that.
In fact, if I find such a game to be entertaining, I make a point of using the cash shop to support it.
Path of Exile is an example of a game that does a good job of that. There are others as well. People who go into hysterics about "P2W" need to remember the old saying. There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. TANSTAAFL.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_ain't_no_such_thing_as_a_free_lunch
What is this "greed" you speak of? That people want to make a profit from their investment? What is the difference between profit and "greed"? Its been my experience that many people use the word "greed" to mean; "you have more than me" or "you want more than I think you should".
I don't mind the current state of F2P. I really can't think of any that have an extreme P2W system.
The #1 reason why F2P will always be better than the sub model is POPULATION. EverQuest 2 was a ghost town. Now, there are loads of people running around. A game with little player intereaction is a dead game in my book. It's like going to a forum without any other users.
I tried that with our last beta, the earnings from ads is meager to say the least.
Thanks,
Mike
Working on Social Strategy MMORTS (now Launched!) http://www.worldalpha.com
I guess the problem is that it's hard to use that gamer-attention more efficiently advertise anything other than your own cash-shop.
For a while, I was wondering if the toy companies were going to get into MMOs as a promotional tool for their toy lines but I suppose the costs are far too large for it to be used as some sort of loss-leader.
If people find worth their money and are spending on certain virtual items, why would you think of ways how not to sell those items?
You make no sense.
Not really true. Why do you think cable and satillite cost so much? It's because they pay huge amounts of money to the tv networks (even the local ones) to be able to broadcast their channels. IMO it's a horrible example because they take money from advertising and then ask for more so you can see the ads :P.