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[Interview] General: From Russia With No Monthly Fee
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
It's no secret that F2P games are given a hard time by many gamers in North America. But is that same thought prevalent in other locations in the world? In today's Free Zone, we talk with Igromania's Gevorg Akopyan about the F2P phenomenon in Russia. See what he's got to say about his country's opinion of F2P and then let us know what you think in the comments.
The first thing he brought up was even in Russia, where it's the prevalent business model, many hardcore gamers, who are mainly male, think free to play titles are primarily for women and children, largely “because most of them either don’t know anything about games and so are willing to play any cheap crap, or they just can’t afford to buy a subscription.” Hmm... in this regard, his country doesn't seem immune from a similar misconception to one we see pretty regularly here.
Read more of Richard Aihoshi's The Free Zone: From Russia With No Monthly Fee.
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Comments
Change the title from "Free" to "PayAsYouGo". Nothing is ever free, and the rising trend of "F2P" increasing revenue for less quality production values is no surprise.
If you're going to spin "Free To Play" you might as well try to be upfront about it. One of the largest reasons it gets a bad rap in North America is that you're trying to bold-face lie to us on a daily basis.
It's not cool.
The Theory of Conservative Conservation of Ignorant Stupidity:
Having a different opinion must mean you're a troll.
World of Tanks is still a bad example if you ask me. The Gold Ammo is game breaking.
It DOES discriminate against non-paying players.
League of Legends is the good example. DDO also works nicely as it is not a competitive game.
Here we go again, using the word "haters" in an article makes me wonder why you even bother to write them. The word is "critic(s)". Hate is far too strong a word to use in this instance and you should know better.
As to any of the Russian f2p games, most if not all require you to spend money on them, hence they are free to try, but in essence, not free to play games. Of course have not played them all, but that is the case with the well known ones.
I guess the Russian mob is filling his pockets now! To start a crusade calling everyone who doesn't like the "F2P" model or isn't sharing his vision of holy F2P is now officially a "hater".
LOL! This whole article is just a farce and surely smells like some bribing went under his table.
/Facepalm
You dont ever have to spend a dime in almost every f2p game out there.......If you spend then it was your choice, no one forces you to pay a thing.
Go play World of Tanks as an example and come back here and say that. Unless of course you enjoy being owned all the time. Yes there is some element of skill in this game, but the gold ammo dominates it.
No F2P game is free! None! The devs have to make money somehow you know.
Turbine started with just fluff in their cash shop for both DDO and LOTRO, but that didn't bring in enough money, so they started adding more and more "real" stuff in the shop to entice people in buying.
Instead of saying it out loud and call it P2W items, they call it "convinience" items. lol! Give me a break.
You are really terribly naieve to think a F2P game is really free. /sigh
Milton Friedman - "There is no such thing as a free lunch"....this is true with F2P games as well. Of course the devs and companies need to make money....duh....they wouldn't be able to stay competitive if they didn't.
The only gripe I have with most F2P games are their quality. If we could get AAA quality in a FTP package, Id be playing all day...
Don't play that shit then. It's pay to win, not free to play.
That said we still see a few too many P2Win titles, Bettlefild Heroes is ok but as a closed beta tester of battlefieldplay4 free I can tell you they shoulda changed its name at launch to battlefieldpay2 win.
Are there far too many pay to win games out there? Yes. But that doesn't mean that all F2P games are P2W. If the game is pvp based, of course it's going to favor the paying customers over the non paying. Simple customer service, keep the paying customer happy. If you play a game where pvp isn't the sole focus of the game and you don't mind playing more than just a few hours a week; you don't have to spend one plug nickel to have fun. Unlike some games, only the pvp content requires that you have the best equipment. Appropriate level ranged equips is plenty good enough to do dungeon raids, grinding mobs for drops, etc. Now if you want to level your toon to max level in as short a period of time as possible, yeah you're gonna drop some dough. If you want to rule pvp, yeah you're gonna have to drop some dough. If you want easy mode, then drop the dough. If you have a level of understanding that through hard work good things happen and easy doesn't really mean better. Then there are lots of games that you can play, have fun with friends, make lots of new, good friends; and not have to spend anything to have that fun. Unless you want to.
Some of you were appropriatly called "haters" not "critics" for a reason. A critic is open to possibilities, sees shortcomings and knows it could have been done better. A hater just doesn't like it because they had one (or more) bad experience and because of it they're all bad. Equivelant of going to a resturant and finding a hair in your soup, therefore all resturants are bad.
World of Tanks monthly revs hitting "double digit" millions: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-03-19-world-of-tanks-monthly-profits-hitting-double-digit-millions
Enough apparently for the licensee to buy the licensor. Fair dinkum!: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-08-07-wargaming-snaps-up-bigworld-for-USD45m
He goes on to say low double digits, and then later they tried to prehaps downplay things a little buy saying that is gross not net profit. Says low double digits, etc., which I would guesstimate from the article 10 to 15 million a month. Also based on the acquisition post "$200 million a year revenue goal" which maybe implies it's not reached yet would be ~16.7m a month.
And this Bullish post: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-06-11-wargaming-net-revenue-will-triple-within-a-year
It's fun game indeed. Cleverly designed to be both fun and competative that also makes it pretty addicting to me. But it has one of the most brutal grind mechanics known to man.
I've personally spent some to buy a top gold tanks and in montly subscriptions, etc. And at least it's not so P2W (Pay to Win) like a lot of browser games are. You pretty much have to pay $50 or so at least to get a good gold tank to enable decent credit flow.
The worst thing that turned my off about it recently was when they added a new tier/level of tanks. Within hours of patch realease many people already had them. This told me there are a hell of lot of people that spend a hell of a lot of money. Spent a lot to convert free gold tank expereince to instantly get the new ones. It will take money months at my rate constantly grinding for both XP and credits without laying out the cash like this.
Also I'm in the World of Planes beta. I'd say it's just okay, at least the last time I tried it about a month ago. Even when it's It's a lot arcade and not so much sim I'd say you'd have to like flight sim type games to like it. I'd rather see World of Battleships.
All join the grind of the "Belarusian Death March"..
World of Tanks switched it so gold ammo can be purchased with ingame currency now, which makes it funny because now EVERYONE uses gold ammo.