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Will subscription models exist in ten years?
Z3R01
Member UncommonPosts: 2,425
Seems like everything is either going full or partially free to play or Buy to play these days.
With the surge in popularity of subscription less models in both mmorpg genre and others like MOBA (LoL, HoN) & FPS (Tribes) will pay to play subscription models die out?
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nope subscription will not die out , but the model will have to deliver alot more to keep players. And i think we will see smaller subscriptions fees aswell
I used to go to the arcade when I was a kid. $.50 a day to play an online game is NOTHING compared to what I used to spend as a youth. This cash shop F2P is a fad and will pass. Subscriptions are hear to stay. You subscribe to the newspaper, the Cable company, phone company. Why are you so against subscribing to somethign you really get some enjoyment out of?
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I truly hope it will, so consumers can have the control of buying what they want to play and not what the company forces them to play.
WoW is a good example. First you need to pay for the game, then a subscription fee for bug fixes, development etc, then you have to pay for an expansion (I thought that's what you paid for with the subscription) cause the level cap and gear improvement and who wants to be behind that?
Well said, besides the fact the subcription fee is nothing insane, it is $15, one days lunch. Big deal, if I enjoy the game I want to pay the company for the enjoyment I get out of it, especially considering I can play an MMO 6+ hours a day if I really like it.
When you do the math I am paying something like $0.08 dollars, 8 fucking cents, 8 pennies, for an hour of gameplay, at an arcade $.50 gets me five minutes.
It's tough to say but I think it's likely that subscription models will die out unless there's a very good reason why it's there. I could see a subscription model in an MMORPG where story-driven content is added on a monthly basis that expands and furthers the overarching story of the game. Think of it like a TV show with a new episode airing every week... you tune in each week to see the next episode and the continuation of the plot.
Subscription models in the way that WoW employs it I think will die off eventually. The quality of free to play games has risen considerably. It used to be that only garbage imports were free to play. Decent imports even had subscription models like Ragnarok Online and Priston Tale. Now we're seeing games like EverQuest 2, Lineage 2 and Aion go free to play just a few years after this. A subscription model simply cannot compete against a free to play model in terms of raw player count if the quality of the two games are equal.
I think APB was a very good example of how subscription models can crash and burn. You can apply free to play to almost anything, you can't do the same thing with subscription models.
To be honest I prefer the a la carte style of payment. If you don't like the game, you don't have to pay for anything. The other end of the spectrum is a shot in the dark and you find out after payment that you don't like something. What I don't enjoy from the a la carte system is where developers/publishers blatantly try and sap money from your wallets by bombarding you with sales and deals and new things to buy with balancing issues to the point where paying is an absolute necessity, and the amount you're paying is higher than a regular subscription cost.
League of Legends I think employs the a la carte style perfectly. Yes you can blow through money and buy every champion and skin and go nuts but it's never a necessity, and champions can all be purchased with in-game currency. You can easily never buy a single champion or skin or whatever and be exactly on the same level as everyone else. I would've never bought LoL if it were sold retail at full price. I tried it because it was free and I liked it so much that I've probably already covered the cost of a retail game in purchases, and I think that's the heart of the difference between subscription/retail and free to play.
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But this is the inherent problem with subscription models, there are only so many gamers to go around. I agree that paying $15 a month for your favorite MMORPG isn't a lot to ask for. I don't know about you, but for me, that automatically means that no other subscription based game is going to get my money. I will not subscribe to 2 games at once. This is why games that used to be subscription-based are choked out of the market and are forced to go free to play.
Until subscription costs in general are lowered, I think only a handful of games at one time can ever really find the subscription-based model to be a viable one.
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The following is just my view... my opinion.
The short answer is: yes.
My view.. aka the longer version.
I've always viewed F2P as a flawed model that will always fail. Why? Well what type of games use F2P? games that failed as a subscriber game... or would have failed if they launched as a subscriber game.
So my game flops and I go F2P... why? Well obviously I hope to lure people in that didn't want to pay. Then I hope they lose all logical pattern of thought and pay more than they would have for a subscription. Its that simple... My game used to cost 14.99 a month and now its free. For every 1 person who pays 0... I need another person to pay $30 a month in my cash shop... to retain the same income as when my game was P2P.
If my game was not worth 14.99 a month... why would anyone pay 30? Well obviously they get caught up in things and don't really think... after a couple of months they realize they were spending over 100$ a month in my cash shop for a game they wouldn't pay 14.99 before it went F2P and they leave.
That is exactly how I view the F2P craze... its all about deception. Which might only include self deception but that's the idea. While a game being F2P can mean it has a larger user base... that has absolutely nothing to do with income generated. Which goes right back to... if my game is not worth paying 14.99 a month for...
So I think we'll see a few years (maybe up to an entire decade) of the F2P/Freemium movement cash grab. Then most likely we'll go back to an MMO market based on subscriptions... likely with fewer developers.
The main issue with the MMO market is not the subscription fee. There are millions of people willing to pay one... the issue is lack of MMO's worth paying for. Telling me your game is "free" and hoping I'll buy stuff at your cash shop... is not fixing any relevant issue ... you are still hoping I will pay... and if your game was worth paying anything for... I'd be paying a subscription.
Quality game + sub fee = guaranteed income
Standard crap game + cash shop = possible income but no guarantees
Of course the theme with the MMO market is people are so desperate for a good game... they have accepted paying for crap out of boredom. Which ties directly into the entire F2P model.
I don't expect the monthly fee payment model to disappear completely. I'm just glad that the 'lets slap a 15$ monthly fee on this including a cashshop because everyone does this' crap is going away. I rather see more competition in pricing and Im glad that a lot of people finally woke up and realised that companies have to earn you as customer.
I do understand the mentality from the MMO companies though. They are after all commercial companies who try to earn as much money as possible. Thats just business. It is then also the customer's responsibility to demand quality for that money. This is the only way to make those companies compete by releasing quality (and finished) MMO's. It forces them to look around more and check reality to see if their product is actually competitive enough for a full 15$ sub.
Subscriptions will not go away but I keep hoping that these silly threads bringing up this same tired topic every week will.
All die, so die well.
I think we'll still see subs as an option among others for some games, but I don't think we'll see them as the sole option for any one game. Personally, I'm surprised it's taking this long to move toward more diversity in options within a single MMO.
For those intersted, here's a timeline of the transition so far.
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
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Heh, I'm old enough to wonder if I'll still exist in 10 years.
But yeah, I think there will always be room for a subscription model, some folks don't mind paying for premium level content.
Maybe in the future paying a sub fee will actually result in some sort of real premium?
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Box + expansions + subscriptions+ cash shop + unlimited free trial or free to play.
Zero to level cap in 8 hours or less.
Instant access streaming download.
Reachable from desktop, laptop, portables, consoles, phones, tablets, and smart TVs.
Video chat or facial recognition driven animation replaces voice.
Design your own avatar with custom skins and b**b physics, for the low fee of only $495.
5,000 games on the market, but only 3 that are really popular (2 easy mode and 1 battleground pvp).
... and last but not least, people still wondering why Warlocks are so damned over-powered in WoW.
When there are MORE F2P MMOs than P2P ones, and more jumping into F2P, it is wishful thinking to say that it is a fad.
And really people are not "against" subs. It is just that FREE is a pretty difficult price to compete with. You really have to deliver more to attract players.
Market supply & demand, you know, econ 101.
Arguably it is already here. If you pay for a sub in DDO, you get a lot more (i.e. "premium") than the F2P players.
Copy that post to your site so that you can find it a couple years from now. In many ways, I think you're spot on... even the very last part.
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
Well Rift is F2P now. STO is F2P now. Aion is going F2P. Anyone can see a trend unless you are blind.
I do see subs staying in 10 years and hopefully by then it will games that deserve it and probably be a few games thinking they think they ahve earned it
I have to agree. There will always be some type of a sub model, but what you get with your sub will change over the next decade. Like someone else mentioned, there could be varying levels of service.
For a single game you could have:
F2P - Trial mode. You're limited to the content you can participate in.
B2P - Access to the entire game and all content with both optional and required DLC having to be purchased.
P2P - Same as B2P, but optional DLC is included in the price. Required DLC (aka expansions) will still have to be purchased.
This is assuming that most companies who create AAA mmos currently stay away from Pay 2 Win models. The other potential change I could see in Subs is that they will become more expensive, but include more options like the SoE Station Pass.
I could see ActivisionBlizzard having a single fee of $25 that allows access to WoW, Titan, CoD Elite, etc. That way, players are more encouraged to stay within a single "family" of games.
I see subs disappearing in 10 years. The world is moving towards microtransactions, paying exactly for what you want. Rather than buying whole albums, people are just buying one or two songs now. I think the same will happen in MMOs or the equivalent at the time. People will pay for updates / content that they want and there will be more pressure on companies to actually deliver content.
yes. Actually I really wonder if the F2P model will exist in 10 years
Its well known that the F2P model is inherently cannibalistic. the more games release as F2P, the closer we are to witness the bubble burst.
IMO in a few years, enough people will have noticed that the F2P model is more expensive in the long run, and the games dont appeal to them (because they are engineered to not) as a freeloader/low spender as much as an old P2P MMO does.
This, coupled with the ferociously competitive F2P market that will be out there soon enough will be the death knell of the F2P model as we know it.
my prediction is that in less than 10 years the industry will be mostly B2P with P2P taking the backseat, an F2P a thing that all those companies singing its praises now will curse.
will proobably have moved on to social gaming!(g+ for exemple)
I am inclined to think that F2P is at its peak right about now, P2P will be a rare model and do have my doubts it will still exist in 10 yrs from now, B2P will probably the way to go from here if and I mean a big if, GW2 pulls this off, how far will they go with their micro transactions will have a big impact on their success aswel as how the game performs overall. But the B2P model may hold a new opening for other developers to go down this route and even build on the idea.
F2P will still be around and we might even see some good MMO's go down that route if they believe they can make money from micro transactions to cover the development costs and make a profit. The biggest hurdle apart from the initial development costs are keeping the game going long term, keeping player retention and investing in future update and content. Browser games seem to be doing very well with social network sites and mobile users. Not the type of games I would consider playing though.
The market will move with the times and the technology, Is it going in the right direction for gamers like us? I can only speak for myself but I dont hold much hope for its existance not the way I know and come to love it. We are already seeing a turn of the way business's are going with DLC's, a big money spinner and feeds of players hunger to play the latest games, Forza buy more cars, DA2 buy more characters/dungeons, ME 3 already got people up in arms and caused a storm, next I can see fifa series selling players/Stadiums/Managers that will be deliberately left out of the game to sell on to the consumer.
Think about any game you play that has not been squeezing your wallet the past few years and think how you could make money from selling content from that game, I can pretty much see that if you think of a way of making money from selling content then the Developer would have. They know players have the I want it now mind set, they know you want an advantage, they know you want to cheat, So they give you all this, but its going to come at a cost. Its not the Developers that are killing the games we have grown up with and have loved and making them easier to complete, its the players.
With the current trend I'd say no. But then, I also see MMOs existing in ten years as iffy the way things are going.
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