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F2P is making more than TWICE as much money as P2P in the US

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  • GravargGravarg Member UncommonPosts: 3,424
    Originally posted by Waldoe
    Originally posted by Elandir90

    IMO,  MMOs compared to other games genre are sub par. Specially the mainstream market, they are made so poorly, they are so similar that the "Free is cheaper"  comes handy and totally justify the current trend.

    Why on earth would  one pay for a game monthly if  one can have almost the same experience for free on another similar enough.  Unless you are talking about games like EVE and other indies that offers different experiences.

    I dare you to name ONE company that delivers enough content monthly to justify a sub,i dare you.... People ain't stupid, they pay what they think its fair.

    No surprise F2P market is growing ever stronger. 

    Name a game that pumps content out faster than Trion with Rift.

    QFT.  Trion puts out more content than all the F2P games combined lol.  There's a few that actually add "content", but almost every F2P just adds cosmetic stuff that won't make a difference, since they can't put out content as DLCs because for some reason people think that's wrong.  DDO and Lotro get bashed for locking content...but like any game, if there isn't more content to play, then you'll probably quit.  WB wants to make money, so they add content for you to buy, then get bashed for it lol.  P2P you pay a sub, you get it all...much easier and better way to go imho.  I really don't like F2P, and I only play Rift and Defiance.  I've been messing around with Neverwinter, but after looking at the "chance to get this item" things you can buy in the gift shop...uh no, just simply no.  Let's go spend $100 on a mount because it has like .0001% chance to come out of that box lol.

  • AeliousAelious Member RarePosts: 3,521
    Mtibbs

    Sorry but most of those games are not F2P:

    Archeage
    Guild Wars 2
    Defiance

    Are B2P/P2P. AA looks to be F2P but in China, I think WoW is also F2P in China. In Korea AA is P2P, who knows about US/EU.

    Bless
    Ein

    Could be good games, graphics look great but updated engines are no surprise and it's takes more to be a quality game.
  • WaldoeWaldoe Member UncommonPosts: 642
    Originally posted by Mtibbs1989
    Originally posted by Yamota
    Originally posted by XAPKen

    Times change, markets change, tech changes, games change, payment models adapt.

     

    I think Scarlet Blade is a great example.  Have you ever seen anyone say it should be monetized as box plus subscription?  I doubt it.  Now ask yourself why is that.

     

    Exactly. This F2P crap is actually made it so that more low quality, garbage MMOs can be released because it will be F2P and they will be able to dupe a few weak-minded people to fork out houndreds of dollars for playing a freaking video game.

    You're completely right, New F2P games are crappy quality:

    Bless

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR_iBJcZtwI

    Ein Online

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2jZbNHa3jc

    Archage

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2zm0gABZUg

    Neverwinter

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5dsZhLHPeQ

    Guild Wars 2

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgyS_-HiD54

    Defiance

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiT826PSugE

    Age of Wushu

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Coaxkb4HoPk

     

    Those titles are just so poor quality compared to these new subscription games:

    RIFT

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if30VE4ekpk

    Darkfall: Unholy Wars

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b75WH87BLSM

    Wakfu

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJC8sTHESaI

     

     (If I'm forgetting other any other subscription based games forgive me; I can't remember them all off the top of my head.)

     So tell me what's really going on? You can pick and choose which games are "good" or "bad". However, as you can see from what I've posted up above there's so many new games that are great and are free-to-play compared to how many new games that are (still) subscription based.

     

    There are very few subscription games that are successful!

    World of Wacraft

    Everquest

    UO

    DAOC

    RIFT

     

    There have been very few successful games (on the top of my mind) that have been able to pull off their ability to stay profitable with a subscription based model.

     

    You choose what games are crap:

     

    The ones released as "AAA" subscription games that fail (then in switch to F2P)?

    The ones released as free-to-play games that are successful?

     

    You don't even know the difference between f2p and b2p. Next post please.

     

    ArcheAge will be p2p. Final fantasy 11 was a mainstay in p2p titles for a while. Lotro was also quite successful when it was p2p.

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by moraelin
    Easy to rip people off pieces at a time..then they don't even notice the cash shop expenditures outweigh the subsciption prices :)

    You miss the memo that most F2P players don't pay?

    Sure some whales pay through their nose. I think it is a good thing. They subsidize everyone else.

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by Robokapp
    Originally posted by Gravarg
    I've been messing around with Neverwinter, but after looking at the "chance to get this item" things you can buy in the gift shop...uh no, just simply no.  Let's go spend $100 on a mount because it has like .0001% chance to come out of that box lol.

    I think even among F2P'ers, lottery items are frowned upon.

     

    It's the turd sandwich analogy. Nobody likes it, really, but someone out there keeps eating it so they keep making more.

    That is just illogical. If the game is not fun, or i don't like it, why would i play it?

    Every single F2P game i played is fun for me.

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  • JasonJJasonJ Member Posts: 395
    Originally posted by nariusseldon
     which also brings a slight improvement on monetization to $195 million.

    If they are saying F2P games only made $195 million last year and not an INCREASE of 195 million then the numbers are wrong, way wrong.

    Nexon, NDoors, NCsoft are all PUBLICALY traded companies that release their revenue for shareholders and Nexon alone made far more than that on their F2P games, if you throw in NDoors, those two companies made over 400 million in PROFITS last year off their F2P offerings...profits...just off of F2P games, not total overall.

    Odds are this article is only talking in the west, once again showing that this genre suffers a case of "its a small world" thinking which is why its losing ground to South Korean companies that look at the big picture.

  • RazeeksterRazeekster Member UncommonPosts: 2,591
    Originally posted by kadepsyson

    Neat thing about Free to Play games numbers - since people aren't subscribed, as soon as they register for the game they are counted as F2P players forever.

     

    Also, the numbers seem really far off from what I'd expect.  For example, if $86 million is the total revenue for subscriptions, that means at $15 monthly fees there are only 5 million subscribed players in the USA paying subs for MMOs.  Doesn't that seem extremely low?

     

    I'm betting games that call themselves free to play but offer subscription levels, count subscribers as F2P players for the purpose of this obviously misleading and off the mark report.

     

    edit: clarity

    I think you vastly overestimate how many people in the USA even play MMOs. I live in Maine and I know very few people that play MMOs. When I was in middle school Runescape was sort of popular but after that most everyone moved on once they hit high school and formed other hobbies where MMOs didn't fit into their lives. I do know though that a lot of these people play console games (me and a couple friends are always going over our Elder Scroll adeventures haha).

     

    I think though a lot of people on here forget that not as many people play MMOs as they seem to think.

    Smile

  • CecropiaCecropia Member RarePosts: 3,985
    Originally posted by Mtibbs1989

    You don't even know the difference between f2p and b2p. Next post please. B2P is F2P with an initial price tag. Move along.

     

    ArcheAge will be p2p. Final fantasy 11 was a mainstay in p2p titles for a while. Lotro was also quite successful when it was p2p. Archeage is F2P in other countries and I stated in my post to forgive me for forgetting FF11. If Lotro was "successful" as you say they were. They wouldn't have made the change to the F2P market. So there for it wasn't successful in their mindset.

     

    LOTRO did the switcheroo because of DDO's huge initial success. This was briefly before Turbine assured it's customers that LOTRO would remain P2P. Also just before WB came along. That's how it all went down, bud. I watched it happen.

    "Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb

  • nariusseldonnariusseldon Member EpicPosts: 27,775
    Originally posted by Razeekster
    Originally posted by kadepsyson

    Neat thing about Free to Play games numbers - since people aren't subscribed, as soon as they register for the game they are counted as F2P players forever.

     

    Also, the numbers seem really far off from what I'd expect.  For example, if $86 million is the total revenue for subscriptions, that means at $15 monthly fees there are only 5 million subscribed players in the USA paying subs for MMOs.  Doesn't that seem extremely low?

     

    I'm betting games that call themselves free to play but offer subscription levels, count subscribers as F2P players for the purpose of this obviously misleading and off the mark report.

     

    edit: clarity

    I think you vastly overestimate how many people in the USA even play MMOs. I live in Maine and I know very few people that play MMOs. When I was in middle school Runescape was sort of popular but after that most everyone moved on once they hit high school and formed other hobbies where MMOs didn't fit into their lives. I do know though that a lot of these people play console games (me and a couple friends are always going over our Elder Scroll adeventures haha).

     

    I think though a lot of people on here forget that not as many people play MMOs as they seem to think.

    There are 45M+ MMO players in the US.

    http://www.superdataresearch.com/us-free-to-play-does-it-pay-to-switch/

  • LoktofeitLoktofeit Member RarePosts: 14,247
    Originally posted by Mtibbs1989

    ArcheAge will be p2p. Final fantasy 11 was a mainstay in p2p titles for a while. Lotro was also quite successful when it was p2p. Archeage is F2P in other countries and I stated in my post to forgive me for forgetting FF11. If Lotro was "successful" as you say they were. They wouldn't have made the change to the F2P market. So there for it wasn't successful in their mindset.

    Actually, it was a planned strategy and very successful. Both Jeffs, Steefel and Anderson, were talking about Free to play and microtransactions long before LOTRO launched. Do you really think Turbine, with people like the aforementioned two and Butler on their team was so shortsighted as to not plan for any way for their core audience to spend money on the game beyond an initial two year sub investment (lifetime deals)? They effectively frontloaded two years of revenue and switched to what was quickly becoming the preferred model - free to play - at a time in the MMO lifecycle where most devs would be consolidating servers.

    There's no data to support your assumption that LOTRO was doing poorly.

     

    "You should do some research befoer you talk out of your ass...."

    Funny you should say that, because... yeah. image

    There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
    "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre

  • taus01taus01 Member Posts: 1,352

     

    It's common knowledge that the eastern market has successfully made the transition to F2P more than 5 years ago and has since then grown to a point where they now not only buy up failing western products but also produce and release AAA quality mmorpgs that not only rival but outshine any western mmorpgs on the market.

    The western market is still trying to re-create the magic WoW formula failing miserably year after year and losing money in the process Western gaming companies will fail within the next 2-3 years if they do not adapt to the changed market.

    "Give players systems and tools instead of rails and rules"

    image
  • AeliousAelious Member RarePosts: 3,521
    Yeah but even the "failed WoW clones" have more depth than a lot of eastern MMOs. Not that is makes it better but there is a difference of what is popular between east and west. If we played MMOs at bangs with other gamers we would also prefer shallower, grind friendly games.

    They are easier to create and maintain hence why it works in thier F2P market. Great for them but the west copying that means we will eventually see the same grindy, shallow titles.

    In the west most of the F2P games have been transitions which is why in the short term F2P is synonymous with player declines.

    It's all about context and bot as black and white as some seem to think. I agree that the next 2-3 years will be telling for the west's version of F2P but the results may not be easily predicted.
  • PrecusorPrecusor Member UncommonPosts: 3,589
    Originally posted by taus01

     

    It's common knowledge that the eastern market has successfully made the transition to F2P more than 5 years ago and has since then grown to a point where they now not only buy up failing western products but also produce and release AAA quality mmorpgs that not only rival but outshine any western mmorpgs on the market.

    The western market is still trying to re-create the magic WoW formula failing miserably year after year and losing money in the process Western gaming companies will fail within the next 2-3 years if they do not adapt to the changed market.

    F2p AAA quality mmorpgs that outshine western mmorpgs?.. post some links please so i could try them out.

  • StonesDKStonesDK Member UncommonPosts: 1,805
    There's a big difference in discussing stats that includes social games on facebook and mobile devices vs the games being discussed on this site
  • ShaighShaigh Member EpicPosts: 2,142
    Originally posted by nariusseldon
    Originally posted by Razeekster
    Originally posted by kadepsyson

    Neat thing about Free to Play games numbers - since people aren't subscribed, as soon as they register for the game they are counted as F2P players forever.

     

    Also, the numbers seem really far off from what I'd expect.  For example, if $86 million is the total revenue for subscriptions, that means at $15 monthly fees there are only 5 million subscribed players in the USA paying subs for MMOs.  Doesn't that seem extremely low?

     

    I'm betting games that call themselves free to play but offer subscription levels, count subscribers as F2P players for the purpose of this obviously misleading and off the mark report.

     

    edit: clarity

    I think you vastly overestimate how many people in the USA even play MMOs. I live in Maine and I know very few people that play MMOs. When I was in middle school Runescape was sort of popular but after that most everyone moved on once they hit high school and formed other hobbies where MMOs didn't fit into their lives. I do know though that a lot of these people play console games (me and a couple friends are always going over our Elder Scroll adeventures haha).

     

    I think though a lot of people on here forget that not as many people play MMOs as they seem to think.

    There are 45M+ MMO players in the US.

    http://www.superdataresearch.com/us-free-to-play-does-it-pay-to-switch/

    That's because they count games like LoL, Diablo 3 and war of tanks as MMO's.

    Iselin: And the next person who says "but it's a business, they need to make money" can just go fuck yourself.
  • PrecusorPrecusor Member UncommonPosts: 3,589
    Its aslo amsuing to see how some posters are claiming b2p = f2p
  • taus01taus01 Member Posts: 1,352
    Originally posted by Precusor
    Originally posted by taus01

     

    It's common knowledge that the eastern market has successfully made the transition to F2P more than 5 years ago and has since then grown to a point where they now not only buy up failing western products but also produce and release AAA quality mmorpgs that not only rival but outshine any western mmorpgs on the market.

    The western market is still trying to re-create the magic WoW formula failing miserably year after year and losing money in the process Western gaming companies will fail within the next 2-3 years if they do not adapt to the changed market.

    F2p AAA quality mmorpgs that outshine western mmorpgs?.. post some links please so i could try them out.

    1. I did not say F2P i said "AAA quality mmorpgs" that includes F2P, B2P and P2P.

    2. I said "produce and release". A lot of titles are still in production or beta. Although i don't know if you are Korean or Asian, you might be able to play some of them. But then if you are korean you would not ask these silly questions now, would you?

    3. Here is an article and a video for you to get started, you can do the rest yourself, it takes about as much time to find that information as you took replying to my post: http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/04/22/leaderboard-bless-vs-black-desert-vs-blade-and-soul-vs-archeag/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2DCNJx_0aQ

    "Give players systems and tools instead of rails and rules"

    image
  • AeliousAelious Member RarePosts: 3,521
    taus01

    I know it's hard not to be biased but the difference from east to west in regards to MMOs transcends personal taste and is more one of social feasibility. One who seems so in touch with eastern MMOs should know the type of game favored, why it is and why it would be easy to transition to F2P.

    As far as AAA MMOs coming from the east now? Where are they? None of them are here yet. Even if they were, an updated graphics engine doesn't constitute a good MMO. Of those games listed Black Desert and AA do seem like good games, BD more of an innovation than the rest. The others seem like the same ole personally.
  • GitmixGitmix Member UncommonPosts: 605
    Originally posted by nariusseldon

    http://2p.com/5170acba61fc1cbdad62bf61_1/March-2013-US-Digital-Games-Market-Overview.htm "Speaking of the MMO, the free-to-play MMO is definitely a trendy and have a growth of 3 million players in March, which also brings a slight improvement on monetization to $195 million. To the contrary, the pay-to-play MMO segment is going down in March and loses around 289,000 subscribers. Nonetheless, the overall revenues remained relatively stable at $86 million"  

     

    And what's the ratio of F2P to P2P games these days? Like 20 to 1?
    Of course they're going to have more players and more revenue...Derp.

    Games don't go F2P because it's the better model, they do it because the market is saturated and for a game to survive with the sub model in this context it needs to be incredibly good.
  • PhryPhry Member LegendaryPosts: 11,004
    Originally posted by taus01
    Originally posted by Precusor
    Originally posted by taus01

     

    It's common knowledge that the eastern market has successfully made the transition to F2P more than 5 years ago and has since then grown to a point where they now not only buy up failing western products but also produce and release AAA quality mmorpgs that not only rival but outshine any western mmorpgs on the market.

    The western market is still trying to re-create the magic WoW formula failing miserably year after year and losing money in the process Western gaming companies will fail within the next 2-3 years if they do not adapt to the changed market.

    F2p AAA quality mmorpgs that outshine western mmorpgs?.. post some links please so i could try them out.

    1. I did not say F2P i said "AAA quality mmorpgs" that includes F2P, B2P and P2P.

    2. I said "produce and release". A lot of titles are still in production or beta. Although i don't know if you are Korean or Asian, you might be able to play some of them. But then if you are korean you would not ask these silly questions now, would you?

    3. Here is an article and a video for you to get started, you can do the rest yourself, it takes about as much time to find that information as you took replying to my post: http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/04/22/leaderboard-bless-vs-black-desert-vs-blade-and-soul-vs-archeag/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2DCNJx_0aQ

    Must admit the graphical quality of Black Desert surprised me, it was very good, and the player avatars were also, very good, i think the only thing that really let things down was the combat, maybe they tried to copy GW2 a bit too much, but all this diving about and hitting things just looks daft to me, have neither the patience nor the interest in that kind of gameplay. which is also why i quickly lost any interest i had in GW2. But thats my preference, i think Black desert probably does qualify as a AAA grade MMO, it might even make it outside of the asian market. image

  • taus01taus01 Member Posts: 1,352
    Originally posted by Aelious
    taus01

    I know it's hard not to be biased but the difference from east to west in regards to MMOs transcends personal taste and is more one of social feasibility. One who seems so in touch with eastern MMOs should know the type of game favored, why it is and why it would be easy to transition to F2P.

    As far as AAA MMOs coming from the east now? Where are they? None of them are here yet. Even if they were, an updated graphics engine doesn't constitute a good MMO. Of those games listed Black Desert and AA do seem like good games, BD more of an innovation than the rest. The others seem like the same ole personally.

    I am not discussing the quality or how good these games are. Those vary on personal taste way too much to be a base for a mature discussion.

    What i said was that the eastern market is very healthy and is expanding into western territory not only by buying up IP and development studios but also by producing astounding quality. They finance these AAA quality mmorpgs with their short lived mediocre F2P games (although some of them look quite impressive).

    The western market has to learn that creating mmorpg games with AAA budgets but failing on release and then going F2P is not going to work forever. This can not go on for very much longer.

    Personally i think that the market is already lost to eastern mmorpgs once these next generation games hit the western market. 2-3 years from now most mmorpg developers will be bankrupt or bought by eastern publishers unless they get their act together.

     

     

    Originally posted by Phry
    Must admit the graphical quality of Black Desert surprised me, it was very good, and the player avatars were also, very good, i think the only thing that really let things down was the combat, maybe they tried to copy GW2 a bit too much, but all this diving about and hitting things just looks daft to me, have neither the patience nor the interest in that kind of gameplay. which is also why i quickly lost any interest i had in GW2. But thats my preference, i think Black desert probably does qualify as a AAA grade MMO, it might even make it outside of the asian market. image
    This is just one of the titles that come from the eastern market. Of cause, like here, not everyone will like every type of game and the way it was designed. The point however is that these guys have a healthy market and are now producing AAA quality mmorpgs.
    What impressed me the most about Black Desert is that the cities and animations feel real. Noticed how there are no bars or names or icons anywhere on the characters or NPCs? The houses are full of people, NPC walk around the town etc.

    "Give players systems and tools instead of rails and rules"

    image
  • TheLizardbonesTheLizardbones Member CommonPosts: 10,910


    Originally posted by kadepsyson
    Neat thing about Free to Play games numbers - since people aren't subscribed, as soon as they register for the game they are counted as F2P players forever.

     

    Also, the numbers seem really far off from what I'd expect.  For example, if $86 million is the total revenue for subscriptions, that means at $15 monthly fees there are only 5 million subscribed players in the USA paying subs for MMOs.  Doesn't that seem extremely low?

     

    I'm betting games that call themselves free to play but offer subscription levels, count subscribers as F2P players for the purpose of this obviously misleading and off the mark report.

     

    edit: clarity



    The numbers don't seem that low. WoW's total subscribers for the U.S., Europe and Australia were in the five or six million players range a year or so ago and they are by far the largest pay to play game that exists. Most of the other subscription games are sub one hundred thousand players. Five million in the U.S. alone seems entirely possible.

    Some more notes are that in 2010, only 22% of WoW's players were based in the U.S. That would put the total number of U.S. WoW players today at about 2.2 million. Five million U.S. players seems entirely possible, or even low using those numbers.

    That is a good question on how players are counted. You'd think people paying a monthly subscription would be "subscribers" and people just buying stuff from the shops would be "F2Pers" and the people paying nothing would be "set decorations*". Something like that anyway.

    ** ** **

    * Multi-level marketing resources

    I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.

  • LoktofeitLoktofeit Member RarePosts: 14,247
    Originally posted by Razeekster

    I think you vastly overestimate how many people in the USA even play MMOs. I live in Maine and I know very few people that play MMOs.

    I'm going to use that the next time we're discussing target audience numbers or demographics at work just to see if I can keep a straight face while saying it.

    There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
    "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre

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