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So why won't this game go F2P or B2P?
MMOExposed
Member RarePosts: 7,387
So why won't this game go F2P or B2P?
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
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Because EA dont want to make the investment that it takes to make a sucesfull F2P. In contrary to popular belief, F2P is not just flipping a switch...
WAR is pretty much dead to them.
If WoW = The Beatles
and WAR = Led Zeppelin
Then LotrO = Pink Floyd
How much they want to invest is up to them. They don't HAVE to invest anything, and let's face it, there's not enough subs to justify any difference between f2p with no cash shop and a subscription model. It's loose change to them. They are doing it because they just don't care to do what people want them to, because it symbolizes failure and because they resent us in a way for turning our backs on this garbage.
I know everyone will cry about this, but one thing struggling mmos can do with minimal investment is put an ad bar inside the game. It's a simple UI change that while people can pretend it would actually impact their decision on whether they play or not, they are full of it. People aren't going to decide not to play an mmo because of an ad, unless the ad interferes with being able to play.
I would prefer it, in a game like this, swtor, etc, to the alternative of locked down features and a money hungry cash shop pay2win model.
I had a blast until a few things happened:
1. Everyone was in scenarios and PQs were barren.
2. I couldn't get anyone to do keep raids because everyone was in scenarios.
Simple. Because EA owns it, and have made it abundantly clear they don't give a damn about supporting MMOs. They view their games as cash cows, and nothing more.
Cows that are sent to the slaughter, not even milked. Then they make a mid-sized BBQ, and what's left is just the bones.
No long term plans, no growth, no customer retention. All press releases, overhyped crap to play around with stock values at wall street. Sad that what 20 years ago was almost an art form has been turned into an industrialized chicken farm.
I want my niche organic stuff!!!!! sigh.
I still have hopes that EA will make DAOC and WAR ftp
EQ2 fan sites
DAoC is over 10 years old and still has a sub, it'll never be F2P.
WAR is semi-F2P with the trial at least.
Expresso gave me a Hearthstone beta key.....I'm so happy
Everquest was 13 years old before it finally went ftp last year -- never know
EQ2 fan sites
Behold the power of the p2p payment method.
With no further development, and a skeleton crew to keep the servers on, i would imagine just a few hundred players would be all it takes to keep the game running...well forever.
My sneaking suspicion is that when EA bought Mythic, there was a clause to keep WAR running indefinately, so long as it payed for itself. I believe this to be true because of their refusal to go free...if they can sustain the subs they have constant money perehaps just enough to keep the game on. Since they are not spending any time or money developing the game...perhaps EA agreed to let it be while its able to run itself.
Going f2p means opening the flood gates, perhaps having to spend money on hardware to support more players, more customer service reps, and forum mods/GM's are needed and there is zero gurantee that for this expansion of players that any will pay more than a token amount, if any.
If they go b2p they lose a revenue stream.
Staying p2p has kept the game alive imo, though it deserves a proper burial...since the developers are clearly not earning the sub fee.
Yeah the potential for this game has come and gone, it's past its prime to attract a large market segment with so many other MMOs that are better in just about every aspect. Even if they were to invest the resources to make it go F2P, it wouldn't give enough profit and the risk is just too high for the whole scheme to go into the negative.
Also let's not forget about how they're going to retain new players they attract if they go F2P. They're not planning to go heavy on producing content, they only have a skeletal crew supporting the game, and the MMO crowd is fickle. The way I see it, it's just a recipe for disaster.