Originally posted by PhelcherLONGEVITY is how you rank success....
Longevity was how MMO's measured their success, that steady stream of income over the first few years showing the calibre of the game. But those days have gone, MMO's cant maintain traction for more than a few months now. So its go for the big money at launch and/or hope the cash shop rakes it in longer term.This whole process has helped create the short term vision, the pandering to solo gaming, the lack of solid end game. What is amusing is some posters on here hail this as the best thing since sliced bread.MMO's are becoming smaller, less involved, less to do, less depth, less lore, less roleplaying, less grouping, less crafting, less housing, less zone size, less classes, dfggggggggsimpler UI for simpler play, simpler skills and powers for simpler class consept. Of course not everyone of these easymode MMO's has become lesser in all these areas, but they have in most of them.But at least the content locusts are happy they can get from 1 to 50 in five days, wheeeeeeeeeh, so much fun! Oh crap what do I play now? :D
Like you said .. longevity is no longer a measure of success. It has changed, just like the genre.and as you said .. yeah so much fun ... isn't that why i am back playing MMO in the first place?
You are incapable of understanding that it is the consumer who judges the industry, not the industry. You fail at your dtat-point marketing because you are not a gamer, or a player. You a scammer.
Proof? Who cares if you are back playing MMOs, u already said u aint paying for them.
Secondly, please talk your MMO banter to the non-mmorpg forum. You like bite-sized arcade games that can entertain you (free of charge) for 15~ 30 minutes. You repeatedly mirror arcade players and consol gamers. Mmorpg players spend all day talking about what they are going to do when the get in game.
Lastly, it is not what u accomplish in 15minutes, it is what do i want to accomplish with the time i have right now. Face it narius you dont want to commit to a game... & lets not forget, you dont care about these games n forums, bcuz just recently u admitted u only do this while at work because ur bored.
Then why arent u bite-sized gaming?
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
LOL, it's not becomming irrelevant no matter how many times you say it. Even SoE, who is supposedly going to offer F2P in each of their games, has a sub option. F2P will never give you more as a player or as a developer. It's a last stand card right now, not done because it's a superior model. You showed it yourself with that model you linked. F2P has sky rocketed past P2P many times over yet actual income is about even. What does that tell you?
I understand you have a dog in the fight and you take every advantage of the abundance of F2P so you want it to stick around. Keep some perspective though. This is a flux time for the industry and things are bound to change. Not one major title has gone F2P for longer than 6mo/year without breaking somewhere down the line. It's not sustainable without major hits to the overall product.
No it's not, income is the only way to rank success today. The biggest Hollywood movies stay in theaters for a few weeks at most, then they go to DVD within a few months. It's the ones that make lots of money that matter, not the ones that languish in the theaters.
Yeah .. and not even gamers use longevity to rank success.
How many love COD, or HALO ... and how many never spend more than 2 weeks on these games?
In fact, why is longevity even considered? It should be fun.
Is a movie better because it is longer? Is a book better because it is longer? Why should games be better if they are longer?
And yet again....they were talking about MMORPG's, NOT console gaming, or movies, etc.
All of which are entertainment products. Stop pretending MMOs are something magical.
Yes, they are entertainment products. However, they are a different genre of entertainment product from console gaming. Stop pretending they are all the same genre (* category* for those that don't understand the term for what it means or conveniently ignore it) of game.
This is what you and several others here fail to, or refuse to understand. MMORPG's are not single player games, not entirely, nor were they meant to be. If people don't like grouping, or being social... they like being the hero and having linear play with the ability of save points...play XboX or PS3 FFS...that what's the specialize in. Stop campainging to turn a totally different genre into more of the same that you already have access to elsewhere. That most of you quickly fly through to unwrap the next shiney new game just to rinse and repeat.
There are some like that already...fine...everyone is entitled to some of what they enjoy. But anytime the idea is brought up for one with some old school features (SOME, not entirely like the old school, as yes...there were some bad design flaws which were addresed in newer MMORPG's and that are good), or some one mentions "Gee, it would be nice to have a game like this"...there you all are to tell everyone you're expert opinions on the market and society and why they won't work. It's because sadly the majority are like you who yell the loudest and never shut up with the relentless march towards MMORPG extinction to make single player games of them on the PC.
What I don't get is if the types you all salivate over are so great....then why are you all here everyday with ridiculous post counts interjecting constantly and not playing these games?
I know I am not because they are all garbage to me and not worth the money nor time...for me anyways. Waiting to see what EQ Next and ESO have to offer. Possibly Archage as well. What's you're excuse?
Originally posted by Aelious LOL, it's not becomming irrelevant no matter how many times you say it. Even SoE, who is supposedly going to offer F2P in each of their games, has a sub option. F2P will never give you more as a player or as a developer. It's a last stand card right now, not done because it's a superior model. You showed it yourself with that model you linked. F2P has sky rocketed past P2P many times over yet actual income is about even. What does that tell you?
I understand you have a dog in the fight and you take every advantage of the abundance of F2P so you want it to stick around. Keep some perspective though. This is a flux time for the industry and things are bound to change. Not one major title has gone F2P for longer than 6mo/year without breaking somewhere down the line. It's not sustainable without major hits to the overall product.
F2P will never give you more as a player or as a developer.
Not sure about that, for many games it has given the devs more than their subs did. For players thats probably true, but for me I did not use many of the systems a sub has (rarely bg, never raid...) so for many games f2p lets me use just as much as I used on the sub, cheaper.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Originally posted by Aelious Which games has it given more than when they had subs? Mind you this was when they were healthy, not at the bottom implementing F2P.
Discounting the first month? I'm told AOC, DDO and Lotro are making way more than before they went f2p.
SOE products I'm not sure about, but considering after the EQ2 f2p, they switched all their games to f2p, I can only assume they are making more.
edit - recall lotro did not switch becaues they were bleeding. They switched because DDO did so well on f2p.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Originally posted by Aelious Which games has it given more than when they had subs? Mind you this was when they were healthy, not at the bottom implementing F2P.
Discounting the first month? I'm told AOC, DDO and Lotro are making way more than before they went f2p.
SOE products I'm not sure about, but considering after the EQ2 f2p, they switched all their games to f2p, I can only assume they are making more.
edit - recall lotro did not switch becaues they were bleeding. They switched because DDO did so well on f2p.
You're told? That's a good one, but I'd need more than that. I only remember hearing about how well those titles were doing shortly after they did the big switcheroo. After that, just crickets.
"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
Originally posted by Aelious Which games has it given more than when they had subs? Mind you this was when they were healthy, not at the bottom implementing F2P.
Discounting the first month? I'm told AOC, DDO and Lotro are making way more than before they went f2p.
SOE products I'm not sure about, but considering after the EQ2 f2p, they switched all their games to f2p, I can only assume they are making more.
edit - recall lotro did not switch becaues they were bleeding. They switched because DDO did so well on f2p.
You're told? That's a good one, but I'd need more than that. I only remember hearing about how well those titles were doing shortly after they did the big switcheroo. After that, just crickets.
That works both ways, if your not getting any information you can't say they are making less.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
LotRO and DDO both recently released paid expansions, as I predict Aion will.
AoC may have though I'd have to see real #'s. it was all the rage at release and went down to nothing before going F2P.
I'm not saying F2P is bad, I'm glad these games stay open for the people who enjoy them. My contention is that it's not "the future" because all the info I've seen so far points to it being a bailout strategy. Just so happens that a lot of games came out at the same time, causing a higher occurrence of F2P games. For players and developers P2P is more beneficial in the long run.
Discounting the first month? I'm told AOC, DDO and Lotro are making way more than before they went f2p.
SOE products I'm not sure about, but considering after the EQ2 f2p, they switched all their games to f2p, I can only assume they are making more.
edit - recall lotro did not switch becaues they were bleeding. They switched because DDO did so well on f2p.
You're told? That's a good one, but I'd need more than that. I only remember hearing about how well those titles were doing shortly after they did the big switcheroo. After that, just crickets.
That works both ways, if your not getting any information you can't say they are making less.
I never claimed that they are making less, I said I had not heard anything regarding how those games are faring after they relaunched as F2P. Please do not put words in my mouth.
"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
Discounting the first month? I'm told AOC, DDO and Lotro are making way more than before they went f2p.
SOE products I'm not sure about, but considering after the EQ2 f2p, they switched all their games to f2p, I can only assume they are making more.
edit - recall lotro did not switch becaues they were bleeding. They switched because DDO did so well on f2p.
You're told? That's a good one, but I'd need more than that. I only remember hearing about how well those titles were doing shortly after they did the big switcheroo. After that, just crickets.
That works both ways, if your not getting any information you can't say they are making less.
I never claimed that they are making less, I said I had not heard anything regarding how those games are faring after they relaunched as F2P. Please do not put words in my mouth.
I never said you specifically claimed that they made less. Aelious said it, my orginal quote was of him.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
It was plagued by problems yeah so I coulsnt give you a definitive timeline. You could match up the F2P announcment with an xfire graph but that would not be concrete.
My point is that to be the "future" of MMOs it will have to be proven just a little more than big net conversions. NW could help in proving me wrong, that is unless it has a sub option, but I don't have high hopes for it.
I don't know what the future holds for f2p or p2p but there are some thing we know.
F2P games with a cs have been around for years, way before UO. So we know the model can be successfull. Since both f2p and p2p games are successfull, we can say with relative certainty that the pricing model a game uses is fairly independent on the games success, a game will sink or swim primarily based on it's merits and not the pricing. The pricing model may help but will not determine the success.
We also know that a number of games in the last few years have switched to p2p to try and get more money.
We also know from a number of dev statements that games are being made with both pay systems in mind, start with p2p, and switch to f2p at some point in the future. This leads me to believe there will be even more f2p games in the future.
We also know there are virtually none (that I know of) p2p games that do not have some kind of micro-transaction system in them, therefore the argument of just p2p is moot.
We also know that several devs have stated f2p is the future. Whether they were talking out their arses or have any data to support that I don't know.
Looking at the above, while we can't say for certain, the p2p future doesn't look bright. To me it looks like an introductory model only then when subs drop/stabilize, switch to f2p.
Conjecture - subs of 50-400k sound like a lot and to me is successfull and when games cost only 10million to make and the population of total mmo gamers was a few million that probably was really successfull. Today when games cost 50+million to make and the total population of games is 50+ million, that may not be enough to satisfy devs or investors.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
I'm counting big name title only because you're right, there have been F2P game around for a long time but then protection costs and quality start to become part of the equation. That may be why I feel that way do, because quality of game makes a big difference. I'm not interested in B rate games and they can afford to be F2P.
IMO in the end it comes down to income vs production. Yes, these are forms entertainment but the are held to the same business standards. In my experience people wont pay if they don't have to and income for a company is needed in order to work on it. In every F2P situation I know of something suffered or was skipped over in order to make the model work. Sure companies can get by with each model but it takes far less P2P subscribers to equal the same income as a F2P. Income may not always equal content but content will always take income to happen.
Originally posted by PhelcherLONGEVITY is how you rank success....
Longevity was how MMO's measured their success, that steady stream of income over the first few years showing the calibre of the game. But those days have gone, MMO's cant maintain traction for more than a few months now. So its go for the big money at launch and/or hope the cash shop rakes it in longer term.This whole process has helped create the short term vision, the pandering to solo gaming, the lack of solid end game. What is amusing is some posters on here hail this as the best thing since sliced bread.MMO's are becoming smaller, less involved, less to do, less depth, less lore, less roleplaying, less grouping, less crafting, less housing, less zone size, less classes, dfggggggggsimpler UI for simpler play, simpler skills and powers for simpler class consept. Of course not everyone of these easymode MMO's has become lesser in all these areas, but they have in most of them.But at least the content locusts are happy they can get from 1 to 50 in five days, wheeeeeeeeeh, so much fun! Oh crap what do I play now?
Like you said .. longevity is no longer a measure of success. It has changed, just like the genre.and as you said .. yeah so much fun ... isn't that why i am back playing MMO in the first place?
You are incapable of understanding that it is the consumer who judges the industry, not the industry. You fail at your dtat-point marketing because you are not a gamer, or a player. You a scammer.
Proof? Who cares if you are back playing MMOs, u already said u aint paying for them.
Secondly, please talk your MMO banter to the non-mmorpg forum. You like bite-sized arcade games that can entertain you (free of charge) for 15~ 30 minutes. You repeatedly mirror arcade players and consol gamers. Mmorpg players spend all day talking about what they are going to do when the get in game.
Lastly, it is not what u accomplish in 15minutes, it is what do i want to accomplish with the time i have right now. Face it narius you dont want to commit to a game... & lets not forget, you dont care about these games n forums, bcuz just recently u admitted u only do this while at work because ur bored.
Then why arent u bite-sized gaming?
The thing is if we didn't have Nari posting with his wacky everything is wonderful in the world of MMO's threads, I would have to find another poster to get as much entertainment from. The mental gymnastics needed to make out everything in the world of MMO's is great and just getting ever better has to be seen to be believed. His threads are sort of like a MMO preview hype article, but for the whole industry. Keep taking those happy pills everyone!
Yes, they are entertainment products. However, they are a different genre of entertainment product from console gaming. Stop pretending they are all the same genre (* category* for those that don't understand the term for what it means or conveniently ignore it) of game.
Really? Isn't DCUO a console game? Isn't Dust 516 .. from the beloved CCP .. a console game? Does EQ has a console version?
And when is "console games" a genre? Is Assassin Creed PC magically in a different genre than Assassin Creed PS3? Please enlighten me.
This is what you and several others here fail to, or refuse to understand. MMORPG's are not single player games, not entirely, nor were they meant to be. If people don't like grouping, or being social... they like being the hero and having linear play with the ability of save points...play XboX or PS3 FFS...that what's the specialize in. Stop campainging to turn a totally different genre into more of the same that you already have access to elsewhere. That most of you quickly fly through to unwrap the next shiney new game just to rinse and repeat.
Why not? If a MMO can be played like a SP game, if i can quickly fly through one, rinse and repeat, and have fun .. is there a reason not to do so? Just because you are unhappy with it? That does not sound like a good reason to me.
Heck, i am going to play STO, a MMORPG, story missions like a single player game tonight. I am NOT going to socialize. What are you going to do? Call the MMO police on me?
There are some like that already...fine...everyone is entitled to some of what they enjoy. But anytime the idea is brought up for one with some old school features (SOME, not entirely like the old school, as yes...there were some bad design flaws which were addresed in newer MMORPG's and that are good), or some one mentions "Gee, it would be nice to have a game like this"...there you all are to tell everyone you're expert opinions on the market and society and why they won't work. It's because sadly the majority are like you who yell the loudest and never shut up with the relentless march towards MMORPG extinction to make single player games of them on the PC.
No different than people ranting on easy mode, lack of DP, how WOW is dying. It is a internet forum. What do you expect? People just agree with you and don't voice their opinion?
What I don't get is if the types you all salivate over are so great....then why are you all here everyday with ridiculous post counts interjecting constantly and not playing these games?
Because it is fun? Because it is a slow work day? Because I am taking a break? Because i am waiting for my dungeon to pop? Does it matter?
The thing is if we didn't have Nari posting with his wacky everything is wonderful in the world of MMO's threads, I would have to find another poster to get as much entertainment from. The mental gymnastics needed to make out everything in the world of MMO's is great and just getting ever better has to be seen to be believed. His threads are sort of like a MMO preview hype article, but for the whole industry. Keep taking those happy pills everyone!
wait wait wait .. who says everything is wonderful?
Didn't you read my post touting MMORPGs need more ideas from other genres? And innovations away from the old UO/EQ virtual world ideas?
And honestly, the genre is full of MMOs that don't really feel like MMOs. Look at the Rise and Shiny section on Massively, new ones are featured all the time. Many different versions of MMOs are already out there, it's just that not a lot of people want to play them.
"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
Comments
You are incapable of understanding that it is the consumer who judges the industry, not the industry.
You fail at your dtat-point marketing because you are not a gamer, or a player. You a scammer.
Proof? Who cares if you are back playing MMOs, u already said u aint paying for them.
Secondly, please talk your MMO banter to the non-mmorpg forum. You like bite-sized arcade games that can entertain you (free of charge) for 15~ 30 minutes. You repeatedly mirror arcade players and consol gamers. Mmorpg players spend all day talking about what they are going to do when the get in game.
Lastly, it is not what u accomplish in 15minutes, it is what do i want to accomplish with the time i have right now. Face it narius you dont want to commit to a game... & lets not forget, you dont care about these games n forums, bcuz just recently u admitted u only do this while at work because ur bored.
Then why arent u bite-sized gaming?
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
-Nariusseldon
Because p2p games are out of fashion. Let's compare F2P lobby games. There are tons. P2P is becoming irrelevant in the industry anyway.
I understand you have a dog in the fight and you take every advantage of the abundance of F2P so you want it to stick around. Keep some perspective though. This is a flux time for the industry and things are bound to change. Not one major title has gone F2P for longer than 6mo/year without breaking somewhere down the line. It's not sustainable without major hits to the overall product.
Yes, they are entertainment products. However, they are a different genre of entertainment product from console gaming. Stop pretending they are all the same genre (* category* for those that don't understand the term for what it means or conveniently ignore it) of game.
This is what you and several others here fail to, or refuse to understand. MMORPG's are not single player games, not entirely, nor were they meant to be. If people don't like grouping, or being social... they like being the hero and having linear play with the ability of save points...play XboX or PS3 FFS...that what's the specialize in. Stop campainging to turn a totally different genre into more of the same that you already have access to elsewhere. That most of you quickly fly through to unwrap the next shiney new game just to rinse and repeat.
There are some like that already...fine...everyone is entitled to some of what they enjoy. But anytime the idea is brought up for one with some old school features (SOME, not entirely like the old school, as yes...there were some bad design flaws which were addresed in newer MMORPG's and that are good), or some one mentions "Gee, it would be nice to have a game like this"...there you all are to tell everyone you're expert opinions on the market and society and why they won't work. It's because sadly the majority are like you who yell the loudest and never shut up with the relentless march towards MMORPG extinction to make single player games of them on the PC.
What I don't get is if the types you all salivate over are so great....then why are you all here everyday with ridiculous post counts interjecting constantly and not playing these games?
I know I am not because they are all garbage to me and not worth the money nor time...for me anyways. Waiting to see what EQ Next and ESO have to offer. Possibly Archage as well. What's you're excuse?
F2P will never give you more as a player or as a developer.
Not sure about that, for many games it has given the devs more than their subs did. For players thats probably true, but for me I did not use many of the systems a sub has (rarely bg, never raid...) so for many games f2p lets me use just as much as I used on the sub, cheaper.
Discounting the first month? I'm told AOC, DDO and Lotro are making way more than before they went f2p.
SOE products I'm not sure about, but considering after the EQ2 f2p, they switched all their games to f2p, I can only assume they are making more.
edit - recall lotro did not switch becaues they were bleeding. They switched because DDO did so well on f2p.
You're told? That's a good one, but I'd need more than that. I only remember hearing about how well those titles were doing shortly after they did the big switcheroo. After that, just crickets.
"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
That works both ways, if your not getting any information you can't say they are making less.
I presume that was aimed at Narius in the middle of the quote and not me.
AoC may have though I'd have to see real #'s. it was all the rage at release and went down to nothing before going F2P.
I'm not saying F2P is bad, I'm glad these games stay open for the people who enjoy them. My contention is that it's not "the future" because all the info I've seen so far points to it being a bailout strategy. Just so happens that a lot of games came out at the same time, causing a higher occurrence of F2P games. For players and developers P2P is more beneficial in the long run.
I never claimed that they are making less, I said I had not heard anything regarding how those games are faring after they relaunched as F2P. Please do not put words in my mouth.
"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
I never said you specifically claimed that they made less. Aelious said it, my orginal quote was of him.
Possibly, however I know it was pretty insignificant after the first few months honeymoon period too.
My point is that to be the "future" of MMOs it will have to be proven just a little more than big net conversions. NW could help in proving me wrong, that is unless it has a sub option, but I don't have high hopes for it.
I don't know what the future holds for f2p or p2p but there are some thing we know.
F2P games with a cs have been around for years, way before UO. So we know the model can be successfull. Since both f2p and p2p games are successfull, we can say with relative certainty that the pricing model a game uses is fairly independent on the games success, a game will sink or swim primarily based on it's merits and not the pricing. The pricing model may help but will not determine the success.
We also know that a number of games in the last few years have switched to p2p to try and get more money.
We also know from a number of dev statements that games are being made with both pay systems in mind, start with p2p, and switch to f2p at some point in the future. This leads me to believe there will be even more f2p games in the future.
We also know there are virtually none (that I know of) p2p games that do not have some kind of micro-transaction system in them, therefore the argument of just p2p is moot.
We also know that several devs have stated f2p is the future. Whether they were talking out their arses or have any data to support that I don't know.
Looking at the above, while we can't say for certain, the p2p future doesn't look bright. To me it looks like an introductory model only then when subs drop/stabilize, switch to f2p.
Conjecture - subs of 50-400k sound like a lot and to me is successfull and when games cost only 10million to make and the population of total mmo gamers was a few million that probably was really successfull. Today when games cost 50+million to make and the total population of games is 50+ million, that may not be enough to satisfy devs or investors.
IMO in the end it comes down to income vs production. Yes, these are forms entertainment but the are held to the same business standards. In my experience people wont pay if they don't have to and income for a company is needed in order to work on it. In every F2P situation I know of something suffered or was skipped over in order to make the model work. Sure companies can get by with each model but it takes far less P2P subscribers to equal the same income as a F2P. Income may not always equal content but content will always take income to happen.
The thing is if we didn't have Nari posting with his wacky everything is wonderful in the world of MMO's threads, I would have to find another poster to get as much entertainment from. The mental gymnastics needed to make out everything in the world of MMO's is great and just getting ever better has to be seen to be believed. His threads are sort of like a MMO preview hype article, but for the whole industry. Keep taking those happy pills everyone!
wait wait wait .. who says everything is wonderful?
Didn't you read my post touting MMORPGs need more ideas from other genres? And innovations away from the old UO/EQ virtual world ideas?
Hey guys, I have a great idea! Let's take MMOs and NOT make them MMOs! Who's with me!
"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
I am with you. Destiny looks great. D3 infuses some MMO ideas (it can go both ways) and it is great.
So change the genre to make it better for some players is a "problem"? I thought that is called "innovation".