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F2P does work for Tera but will it work for TES?
Isturi
Member Posts: 1,509
Grats to Gameforge for picking up anouther 500k in players it just goes to show that non AAA titles can benifit form F2P now it was very intreasting that Nicholas Lovell believes the game TES when launched would prob use a P2P format but later go F2P hmm you think DEVS are finialy getting the picture when it comes to F2P and MMO gaming.
Lets hope so for the players sake.
Comments
I think devs are getting the pics.
All data points of F2P gaining on P2P, and there are way more F2P players than P2P. So the writing is prettymuch on the wall.
Thge problem with f2p vrs p2p is f2p means so many things. Pay to play you pay a sub and that's it. Free to play has all kinds of different things on cash shops and many of them are just out right scams.
f2p doesn't have to be pay to win or any of the other negative things you often get. It just seems when bad devs/game companies get a hold of this idea they don't seem to know how to handle it.
If it does go free to play I hope these devs don't fall for the same easy money grab so many do. People are much more wise to it than they were when games first started going f2p. Nothing big ever happens with games that go down this road in the NA market.
since when? i can't think of many p2p mmos that don't offer stuff like paid character transfers or special mounts and such sold for cash.. or adventure packs/missions.. I will agree f2p usually has a lot more incentives overall to want you to pay cash but they should as they offer no box fee and no sub fee.. just depends how the f2p shop is setup..
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
What I hope developers are actually seeing is that you don't need a huge net hoping to get more whales than minnows. If you make a good game and are happy with non-WoW numbers than you'll be successful and your game will grow. Last thing is that TERA is doing F2P out of nessesity just like x titles before them. Not as comparable to one not released yet and make no mistake TESO is a AAA game.
Speaking of TERA I need to see if they locked the graphics to free players. It looked really grainy to me from when I first played and the option to manually change the settings was not clickable.
What your talking about exists in all types of business models. It's not a biproduct of one specific business model, it's the mark of a greedy developer / publisher.
For example, I can hop into Planetside 2 right now, having not spent a dime on that game, and kick some ass, have fun, and be competitive. However, if I was to pick up Age of Conan again, or SWTOR, I wouldn't be able to enjoy either of those games, because the content is all gated by monetization.
It's not that bad devs/ publishers don't know how to handle F2P. It's that they are looking for any way they can to nickel & dime people, regardless of the business model. Heck, EQ2 was especially bad about this.
Are sub games selling quests/missions? Which ones? That to me is just wrong, I don' care about extra fluff garbage, i could generally get enough of that normally in a game but selling content in a sub game is wrong to me. I haven't personally tried a F2P game that I didn't find too limiting but mayb I've just tried the wrong ones. Currently playing B2P with GW2 and that's been fine. I've played quite a few sub games too and haven't really had a complaint about thst model either.
You never bought an expansion in a sub game? That is selling content, isn't it?
I thought through a cash shop was implied, yes I've bought expacs but that's generally a bit more than just a few quests. I get what you mean though.
FFXI sells mission packs/battle areas, EQ2 used to sell adventure packs. Those are the two off top of my head sure there are more.. not to mention paid expansions that most all sub games have.. also most sell extra stuff like mounts and such for cash.. then of course the paid transfers and all the other things some p2p games charge for
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
The first problem I have with this is that they aren't going by any reliable metric. They have counted registered users and nothing more. I go congradulate them on getting 1 million registered users, however that says nothing about active players.
The second problem I have with all of this is the flawed logic. AAA titles that don't have the content and quality to be pay to play can benefit from going free to play yes. That is different from saying AAA titles can benefit from being free to play over being pay to play.
If the game warrants the pay to play subscription model they will make a great deal more than if they were free to play. If they do not then they will make a great deal more by going the free to play model.
A f2p game with 1 million subscribers were maybe on average 1-10k are spending $20-$50 a month is not as good as 500k players spending $15 a month. The f2p game in that scenario is only bringing in around 500k a month where the pay to play with half as many players is bringing in 7.5mil a month. Even if the pay to play can only keep the interest of 250k players you are sill looking at around 3.7mil.
F2P games have a very small portion of their player base actually spending money. Even fewer spend a significant amount on a monthly basis.
Believe me, if TES can keep 200k+ subs playing for extended periods of time then they won't make the f2p switch. It would be foolish to do so. Bethesda is known for depth and even single player titles from them boast an excessive amount of gameplay hours. Zenimax Online though isn't Bethesda, so we shall have to wait and see what kind of game they deliver.
If it is not profitable to keep the sub fee then yes, they will make the switch to f2p like other failed AAA titles. If it is profitable then no, they won't.
Do not mistake the failure to maintain player interest for extended periods of time with an unwillingness to pay a monthly fee.
Isn't the answer obvious?
TES will be p2p in the beginning. Because they want to sell many box and get all the money they can when their subscription is high.
If TES manage to keep most of their subscriber and their subscription number don't decline sharply they willl keep being pay 2 play.
Else it'll be change to f2p like all the rest of the other AAA mmorpg.
well you know 96.248% of the statistic is made up on the spot. Many F2P company are making money.
Reading forbes article on most profitable mmorpg a few years ago most are f2p games you probably never heard of before. Obviously a lot have to do with those being asian and they have a large market.
If p2p games make more money. There won't be so many games transform from p2p to f2p... lotro, tera, aion, swtor etc etc
Obviously it depend if TES "can" manage to keep a large amount of subs. And I dont think you are pshychic so all we can do is wait and see.
I said it once and I will say it again.
If developers want sub model they need to do 5$ sub fee or less.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
How about these made up figures from 2009?
Runescapes 200million users equated to 50 million in revenue for the year which equals about 4 dollars a player. Of course not a month, thats 4 dollars a year from each player.
How many subs do you need to hit 50mil? Around 278k subs. EvE, an indie in the begining, has more than that.
What that means is Runescape needed over 600 times as many players to make the same amount of money...
Keep in mind that Runescape is and has been viewed as one of the top grossing free to play games out there (Notice I did not say THE top grossing free to play there are some that gross higher but also have a much larger player base).
dude you are dillusional. Runescapes don't have 200 million users. If Runescapes have 200 million users, I'm sure TESO won' thave a problem hit 1 billion player.
Just because a game have hundred of millions of "registered account". Don't mean anyone play them.
I personally is registered to 50+ f2p games. That don't mean I play any of them. Most of them I tried for 10 minutes, find it sucks and stopped playing.
And if you ever played those "AAA p2p games turning into f2p", you'll notice one thing. They have monthly subs.... I never really called those games f2p. More like annoying games that content lock everything and want you to pay a monthly sub. They are more like extended trial. Or people that are just too poor or casual enough to care about it.
Seriously answer me this. Why did Aion, Tera, AOC, LOTRO, DDO turned into f2p? And answer me the second question, arn't they making more money after the conversion? and the most important question is do you think the final department people from those game is that dumb to trasnfer the game into f2p unless they think they'll make more money?
What's most wrong about what you said is you assume all f2p are the same. And you think either f2p or p2p model is better. It depend on the game and the market. There is a market for both.
just because MMOs are going to F2P dousnt mean its better for MMOs. the main reason they are going to it is
1. they make a much larger profit at less expense
2. with so many F2P out there people wont play a P2P game anymore.
i think i have made it clear i dislike F2P for several resons so i wont get to much into argument, but in the end its not about it being better for players or being a better system its simply that F2P makes them more money and is less expensive to maintain, so all MMOs are going this way whether they want to or not.
and if people want to keep beleaveing that its better for them then fine im tired of this argument
F2P may be the way of the future, but ya know they dont make them like they used to
Proper Grammer & spelling are extra, corrections will be LOL at.
The number's look good at this point for Tera and I'll also throw TSW,Swtor and GW2 into the bunch.
Will the success be long lived for these game's or will they wilt in the long run?I think this is the big question.
Game's going ftp is a fairly new model,Lotro and EQ2 did it 2-3 year's back and are successful to this point.Does this continue though?The market is becoming more and more saturated with ftp,ptp going ftp,btp and so on.Can the mmo market really sustain all this competition?I have my doubt's.
My feeling is that we will see a few more titles go under in the next 2-4 year's,because of the ftp/btp market.I also expect 1 or more to be big name's and not just something like a smaller title.
Some day I'm going to put a sword through your eye and out the back of your skull!
Arya Stark
If you are interested in making a MMO maybe visit my page to get a free open source engine.
CoH already went under but i know exept for the people who played it, it wasnt considered a big name game.
i still miss my CoH
F2P may be the way of the future, but ya know they dont make them like they used to
Proper Grammer & spelling are extra, corrections will be LOL at.
agree here, all hyped games have interest to sell boxed and charge subs at the start, after like 6 month to 1 year time number of sub starts to degrade, so they turns f2p or mix model: pay for such and such on monthly base.
try before buy, even if it's a game to avoid bad surprises.
Worst surprises for me: Aion, GW2
That means nothing, and is nothing new.
I believe the number quoted by SoE was a 400% rise in concurrent players with DCUO ftp early on.
The question is, how many of those 500k made it off the starter isle? How many will be playing a month from now? How many will ever drop a cent into the game beyond that?
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!