Originally posted by boxsnd We will see if his prediction is right. I predict exactly the opposite. F2P/B2P will flourish and P2P will die out with WoW.
I predict you are half right. I think the whole genre is going to be in trouble by then.
Business models are not the issue. pisspoor quality MMORPGs are the issue. Create a quality product and people will pay for it. Once you have a quality product, you can then figure out the best business model. But we can all see how dollar signs have driven this industry since the (anomalous) success of WoW. Developers have lost sight of why gamers play and have zeroed in on their wallets. It shows.
MMORPGs weren't originally mainstream games. I believe they will eventually either die out or return to their roots. I also think there will be forks. Gw2 could potentially be the pioneer to such a fork....A hybrization from action games. But in the end, I don't think they will be what we call(ed) MMORPGs
There has not been too many good MMOs for sure. You are right, but I think we are reaching the tail end of that cycle. GW2 has been a huge success -- the biggest since WoW-- and is seeing more initial success then WoW did initially as well. A big reason for this is the B2P model. I think that is the direction "AAA" quality MMOs will go. Games like TESO and Wildstar look to be promising. I think that the future of this genre is fine, but I also think that there will be more quality games coming. From my current perspective the only thing that could screw up TESO and Wildstar at this point is...a sub model.
I think your wrong and the millions of players still playing WoW agree. People don't care what the pay model is as long as the game is good and keeps them playing. Your trying to factor in this current crop of failed mmo's that had to go to F2P to try and recoup some of the money they lost from bad decisions, yes there will always be a few die hard fans that stick around buying stuff from the cash shops, but doesnt that make the game a niche game?
B2P is a funny model, your basically paying a box price for a F2P model game. Now you say that was a huge success, how are you judgeing this huge success? It might have been from launch, but this genre isnt about quick money making titles, it used to be a marathon and about longevity.
F2P is garbage, it came about to try and save games that nobody was willing to pay for because they were horrible. After the 14 day free trials failed for some of them they just went a step further in trying to bait players to stick around longer and buying a piece of the game at certain intervals.
B2P is even worse, they are making you pay for a F2P model game. LOL silly consumers, you make me laugh.
Subscription models are even worse. You have to pay monthly for a service, after the initial purchase of the product. And if you don't like it, well, too bad, because you aren't allowed to play the game anymore if you're not paying. I'm guessing you never paid for services such as, television, phone, or isp., because if you did, you would know how their services work., and they aren't always good. Let's not forget the competition either, where there is either none or services just as bad the one you don't want. LOL silly consumers indeed.
Yeah its kind of funny that someone claims they are making you pay for a F2P model game after an initial purchase on B2P and there has been like 3 B2P games. Guild Wars 1, which did not even have microtransactions until after the (2nd?) expansion, GW2 which has the most generious cash shop out there which does not provide any gameplay advantage whatsoever and lets you get everything without paying a cent, TSW which only makes you pay for small content packs, and Defiance which only lets you pay for cosmetic stuff and minor exp boosts.
Meanwhile you have games like WoW that make you pay 25$ for a server transfer, 10$ FOR A NAME CHANGE, 25$ for mounts,ect. On top of this, the game has a sub. Sure some of this stuff is in B2P games, but you don't have to pay a sub in addition to the option of getting this stuff.
This poster has it right. MMOs are a service. We don't pay them to keep the lights on. We pay them to provide us with stuff to do. If I have to pay 15$ a month I expect a service that provides me with stuff to do every month. If I have a monthly payment for the YMCA and I go there to find it is "closed" during the day I am going to be pissed off. MMOs have downtime for patches and such, which is mostly acceptable in the same way that you cant go to the YMCA when it is closed. If they never cleaned the equipment, upgraded the equipment, or cleaned the building it would be just as unacceptable as not having content on a monthly basis.
Because his track record for long term success in subscription MMO's is so great, right?
F2P is not going to die in 3-5 years. I used to be a subscription purist, myself. Then I realized it's really not viable in today's economy & market, and the least appealing thing ever to the current generation of consumers. If anyhting, there will be an evolution somewhere down the line, but I think buy to play is the future of online gaming for a good long while.
Uh
His track record is great. Both DAOC & Warhammer are both still using a sub model, and appear to be making enough money to not be taken offline.
So I'd say yeah.
you left out that any type of game developement investment of any worth has ceased for both games ages ago. almost immediately for WAR. they're making literal peanuts on both games, while spending nothing but the light bill.
Originally posted by boxsnd We will see if his prediction is right. I predict exactly the opposite. F2P/B2P will flourish and P2P will die out with WoW.
I predict you are half right. I think the whole genre is going to be in trouble by then.
Business models are not the issue. pisspoor quality MMORPGs are the issue. Create a quality product and people will pay for it. Once you have a quality product, you can then figure out the best business model. But we can all see how dollar signs have driven this industry since the (anomalous) success of WoW. Developers have lost sight of why gamers play and have zeroed in on their wallets. It shows.
MMORPGs weren't originally mainstream games. I believe they will eventually either die out or return to their roots. I also think there will be forks. Gw2 could potentially be the pioneer to such a fork....A hybrization from action games. But in the end, I don't think they will be what we call(ed) MMORPGs
There has not been too many good MMOs for sure. You are right, but I think we are reaching the tail end of that cycle. GW2 has been a huge success -- the biggest since WoW-- and is seeing more initial success then WoW did initially as well. A big reason for this is the B2P model. I think that is the direction "AAA" quality MMOs will go. Games like TESO and Wildstar look to be promising. I think that the future of this genre is fine, but I also think that there will be more quality games coming. From my current perspective the only thing that could screw up TESO and Wildstar at this point is...a sub model.
I think your wrong and the millions of players still playing WoW agree. People don't care what the pay model is as long as the game is good and keeps them playing. Your trying to factor in this current crop of failed mmo's that had to go to F2P to try and recoup some of the money they lost from bad decisions, yes there will always be a few die hard fans that stick around buying stuff from the cash shops, but doesnt that make the game a niche game?
B2P is a funny model, your basically paying a box price for a F2P model game. Now you say that was a huge success, how are you judgeing this huge success? It might have been from launch, but this genre isnt about quick money making titles, it used to be a marathon and about longevity.
The millions of people playing WoW are playing WoW because they have been playing it forever. They are commited to the game, invested to it, and that won't go away anytime soon. As far as the rest of us who play other --newer games, this is not the case. The rest of the industry (which at this point is far bigger then WoW) is constantly jumping from game to game. There are a few who stick around with their sub based MMOs, but for the most part they are sticking with F2P / B2P games. GW2 is a huge success and you are just blinding yourself with World of Warcraft if you can't see this. Just look up some NC Soft earnings reports. They are making the company more money then ever because of it.
Your ignorance of the B2P model is apparent here. A f2p game restricts you, alot of times on content, whereas a B2P game does not. You buy GW2 and you get the whole game. You don't have to pay a cent. You can see and play all the content there is completely for free. That is not a F2P model. F2P models restrict your ability to play the game the way you want to or restrict the amount of content available to you.
The fact that they lost subs, once again, after an expansion launched shows just how well that game is doing. Honestly, the game is going to continue to lose subs every quarter just as it did after Cata. Every expansion they will get back some, but I expect it won't be for long.
Camelot Unchained creator... don't you, you know, have to actually create the game first before you can claim that? Its more like Camelot Unchained 'Idea writer" then maker.
As for the article... yeah... I'm going to have to laugh at it and disagree heavily. No offense but it feels more like an attempt to 'reason' with having a sub fee for your game. F2P has issues, don't get me wrong and it can go the wrong way (which same games ARE doing) but it won't die out or end in disaster, if anything it will evolve and hopefully become better in such a time.
F2P is going to stay, and there is no reaosn why you can't have your game sub if you really want it to be if you push it out to be good enough, or at the very least a Freemium model which can cause players who want to dedicate actual money to the game to have full access.
This ^
I find it HIGHLY questionable that Jacobs makes such a bold claims as 'this whole model will be a disaster in X years', to then NOT follow it up with any actual justification for such a claim. I honestly thought Jacobs was smarter than this.
If he wanted to justify why CU is having a sub (which is what this article reads like), then he could've just kept the article to that. He should've just talked about how he feels it will give him a more strong-knit community and better feedback when it comes to his games.
Those of us grounded in reality have seen what F2P can actually do. Companies like Perfect World & Riot have thrived off of such a model. This isn't to say that sub games have no place, but rather both models do.
Unfortunately the only real part of this rant that is actually true (studios shutting down) has absolutely nothing to do with the free 2 play model. Studios are shutting down (and have been for years) because companies like EA keep driving them out of business. It's happening in all areas of entertainment atm, and there's no sign of this changing any time soon.
Subscription models are even worse. You have to pay monthly for a service, after the initial purchase of the product. And if you don't like it, well, too bad, because you aren't allowed to play the game anymore if you're not paying. I'm guessing you never paid for services such as, television, phone, or isp., because if you did, you would know how their services work., and they aren't always good. Let's not forget the competition either, where there is either none or services just as bad the one you don't want. LOL silly consumers indeed.
Yeah its kind of funny that someone claims they are making you pay for a F2P model game after an initial purchase on B2P and there has been like 3 B2P games. Guild Wars 1, which did not even have microtransactions until after the (2nd?) expansion, GW2 which has the most generious cash shop out there which does not provide any gameplay advantage whatsoever and lets you get everything without paying a cent, TSW which only makes you pay for small content packs, and Defiance which only lets you pay for cosmetic stuff and minor exp boosts.
Meanwhile you have games like WoW that make you pay 25$ for a server transfer, 10$ FOR A NAME CHANGE, 25$ for mounts,ect. On top of this, the game has a sub. Sure some of this stuff is in B2P games, but you don't have to pay a sub in addition to the option of getting this stuff.
This poster has it right. MMOs are a service. We don't pay them to keep the lights on. We pay them to provide us with stuff to do. If I have to pay 15$ a month I expect a service that provides me with stuff to do every month. If I have a monthly payment for the YMCA and I go there to find it is "closed" during the day I am going to be pissed off. MMOs have downtime for patches and such, which is mostly acceptable in the same way that you cant go to the YMCA when it is closed. If they never cleaned the equipment, upgraded the equipment, or cleaned the building it would be just as unacceptable as not having content on a monthly basis.
Oh you mean like buying gold for money?
I have HBO, Showtime, MAX and Starz which I pay extra for becuase they are premium service. I don't mind paying for entertainment because its entertaining. I don't go to the YMCA, so not sure about that. If consumers are willing to pay to get their named changed I don't see why that's a huge problem, me I make a new name because its not an issue. I don't play WoW anymore, but I think your right as they are double dipping with the cash shops and I don't like that either.
I don't continue to pay $15 a month to a game that I don't play. Your acting like games make you keep paying a sub even if your unhappy, if your unhappy then quit. The biggest power players have in letting the dev's know they are unhappy is their wallet. If you have a small percentage of players dumping tons of money into cash shop items while the rest of the game suffers the dev's will focus on throwing out more cash shop items.
Take your YMCA comparison, if they add a ice cream shop into that and fat people and children go into it buying ice cream everyday the rest of the place will go to shit as they ramp up ice cream production. Will you continue going there to work out when they let the equipment go and only focus on selling ice cream?
How the free to play games has to do with low quality?
Nobody knows Path of Exile?
And if companies adopt the model free to play is because their customers are not as loyal as well.
Don't use Path of Exile as "high quality" stuff.
The animations, art assets, and skills are all free-use stuff. It's pretty "meh" quality, it makes a nice picture.
It's great for a free ARPG...but there are much, much better ones out there, that you can buy.
I've followed POE for a year now and played abit myself...but the game is so boring. It has nothing going for it except that people who hate Diablo 3 play it.
Camelot Unchained creator... don't you, you know, have to actually create the game first before you can claim that? Its more like Camelot Unchained 'Idea writer" then maker.
As for the article... yeah... I'm going to have to laugh at it and disagree heavily. No offense but it feels more like an attempt to 'reason' with having a sub fee for your game. F2P has issues, don't get me wrong and it can go the wrong way (which same games ARE doing) but it won't die out or end in disaster, if anything it will evolve and hopefully become better in such a time.
F2P is going to stay, and there is no reaosn why you can't have your game sub if you really want it to be if you push it out to be good enough, or at the very least a Freemium model which can cause players who want to dedicate actual money to the game to have full access.
This ^
I find it HIGHLY questionable that Jacobs makes such a bold claims as 'this whole model will be a disaster in X years', to then NOT follow it up with any actual justification for such a claim. I honestly thought Jacobs was smarter than this.
If he wanted to justify why CU is having a sub (which is what this article reads like), then he could've just kept the article to that. He should've just talked about how he feels it will give him a more strong-knit community and better feedback when it comes to his games.
Those of us grounded in reality have seen what F2P can actually do. Companies like Perfect World & Riot have thrived off of such a model. This isn't to say that sub games have no place, but rather both models do.
Unfortunately the only real part of this rant that is actually true (studios shutting down) has absolutely nothing to do with the free 2 play model. Studios are shutting down (and have been for years) because companies like EA keep driving them out of business. It's happening in all areas of entertainment atm, and there's no sign of this changing any time soon.
To me this is the same kind of garbage he spewed about WAR. The guy has some great ideas and I will certainly be following CU, but he needs a leash. Saying something like this to me indicates that he is trying to justify the sub based model for his game. He has said before that the F2P model "just isn't for his game" and thats ok. When he says something like "Oh the F2P model is doomed!" that is obviously just him trying to toot his own horn about his game.
P2P games that are still P2P; regardless of success, are still turning a profit enough to not go F2P;
Rift(closing down over seas, had to fire 50 people and all the anit-f2p guys were the first to go. added a cash shop) WoW(Obviously)(still huge churn rate and supplimental cash shop income) FFXI(only SE game making money for the company, not an immaculate success objectively) Dark Age of Camelot(maintenence mode for years and years already, dev team mostly gone) Warhammer: Age of Reckoning(yeah, it's not F2P! Haha)(maintenence mode since like 7 months in, devs blowing in the wind company circling the drain) Eve Online(niche, slow growth, extremely low expense, rules its own market. not AAA, and many players do not use the straight sub model for it anyway, they bot/trade their way to the game paying for itself) FFXIV(lmfao. shut down, remade, sub suspended, going to flop again. it was subscription froo for98% of its lifetime you know) Asherons Call(active development scope is nil, amking peanuts and nothing being put into content creation for the most part anymore) Darkfall(lololol, might as well add mortal online to the list. this game represents a pipe dream that should die but a few hundred peopel can't let go of.)
hell, you forgot lineage. 16 years strong still played in high numbers, earns enough money to have its own place in a balance sheet quarterly and still RELEVANT. you can't even support your own argument.
Originally posted by boxsnd We will see if his prediction is right. I predict exactly the opposite. F2P/B2P will flourish and P2P will die out with WoW.
I predict you are half right. I think the whole genre is going to be in trouble by then.
Business models are not the issue. pisspoor quality MMORPGs are the issue. Create a quality product and people will pay for it. Once you have a quality product, you can then figure out the best business model. But we can all see how dollar signs have driven this industry since the (anomalous) success of WoW. Developers have lost sight of why gamers play and have zeroed in on their wallets. It shows.
MMORPGs weren't originally mainstream games. I believe they will eventually either die out or return to their roots. I also think there will be forks. Gw2 could potentially be the pioneer to such a fork....A hybrization from action games. But in the end, I don't think they will be what we call(ed) MMORPGs
There has not been too many good MMOs for sure. You are right, but I think we are reaching the tail end of that cycle. GW2 has been a huge success -- the biggest since WoW-- and is seeing more initial success then WoW did initially as well. A big reason for this is the B2P model. I think that is the direction "AAA" quality MMOs will go. Games like TESO and Wildstar look to be promising. I think that the future of this genre is fine, but I also think that there will be more quality games coming. From my current perspective the only thing that could screw up TESO and Wildstar at this point is...a sub model.
I think your wrong and the millions of players still playing WoW agree. People don't care what the pay model is as long as the game is good and keeps them playing. Your trying to factor in this current crop of failed mmo's that had to go to F2P to try and recoup some of the money they lost from bad decisions, yes there will always be a few die hard fans that stick around buying stuff from the cash shops, but doesnt that make the game a niche game?
B2P is a funny model, your basically paying a box price for a F2P model game. Now you say that was a huge success, how are you judgeing this huge success? It might have been from launch, but this genre isnt about quick money making titles, it used to be a marathon and about longevity.
The millions of people playing WoW are playing WoW because they have been playing it forever. They are commited to the game, invested to it, and that won't go away anytime soon. As far as the rest of us who play other --newer games, this is not the case. The rest of the industry (which at this point is far bigger then WoW) is constantly jumping from game to game. There are a few who stick around with their sub based MMOs, but for the most part they are sticking with F2P / B2P games. GW2 is a huge success and you are just blinding yourself with World of Warcraft if you can't see this. Just look up some NC Soft earnings reports. They are making the company more money then ever because of it.
Your ignorance of the B2P model is apparent here. A f2p game restricts you, alot of times on content, whereas a B2P game does not. You buy GW2 and you get the whole game. You don't have to pay a cent. You can see and play all the content there is completely for free. That is not a F2P model. F2P models restrict your ability to play the game the way you want to or restrict the amount of content available to you.
The fact that they lost subs, once again, after an expansion launched shows just how well that game is doing. Honestly, the game is going to continue to lose subs every quarter just as it did after Cata. Every expansion they will get back some, but I expect it won't be for long.
Where are the invested players in these F2P games? Oh thats right there is no commitment to those games because they cater to people who just want a quick fix and then they are on to the next thing.
MarkJacobsCEO City State EntertainmentMemberRarePosts: 649
Folks,
Actually, my thinking is this:
1) There are ton of publishers/developers trying to flood into the F2P space right now. These numbers continue to swell world-wide, including the US of course, year over year. Every time a publisher lays off a significant number of people, new studios are born. This, along with the belief that F2P is the next Internet Gold Rush will lead to even more developers and publishers getting into this space in the next couple of years. Look at EA's push into this space as an example of what is going on at other publishers but even more so in Asia. This will result in a glut of titles.
2) Many of these same developers/publishers are now spending what used to be thought of as PC-level amounts on F2P games. This trend will increase over the coming years, especially in light of EA's public statement that they are betting heavily on FTP/micro-trans. EA, like other major publishers, have the cash to spend more and more in the hope that this spend will help drive out the competition. This is something almost every, if not every, well-heeled publishers has tried to do over the decades.
3) There is an ever-increasing "race to the bottom" to not only offer F2P games but to make them cheaper in the beginning to get people to make an in-game buy and then hopefully keep them playing/paying.
4) As more and better quality F2P games hit the market (we need to think globally, developers across the world are turning out F2P games at an astonishing rate), more players will decide not to spend anything since they can simply move on to the another game. This is even truer when developers essentially clone other games.
5) An ever-increasing supply + prices heading downward are not a good combination unless you expect demand to substantially increase over the years (which is possible) but whether the demand outstrips the supply, well, we will have to see.
What I expect will happen is that a lot of small developers will get pushed out of the market because unlike 5 years ago, they can't compete the with amount of corporate spending on these games. While there will always be room for the indie surprise hit, 99% of game developers can't count on this. This failure will cause a lot of studios to close down.
In the meantime, publishers world-wide will continue to build F2P games in the hopes that they can have a hit such as LOL and build their own Riot Games. This too will lead to publishers eventually scaling back production and more publisher follies in trying to extract every possible cent they can from games that have failed to meet projections. This will end up hurting the F2P model but will then, I believe, lead to more players wanting the "good old days" of actually paying for a title and not being treating like walking wallets.
What will be left will be some great F2P games, some even better F2P studios (who have survived the shake-out) and some successful publishers who will then look for the next "One model to rule them all" as they have for decades.
Anyway, just wanted to clear that up. I don't expect all F2P games to go away as I have said for years (including my last panel at GDC) that there is, and always will be, room for multiple models in our industry.
Mark
P.S. I'm not saying this because of CU because frankly, CU is going to be a niche game regardless of what happens. If I'm wrong about what's coming, CU is still niche. If I'm right, CU will still remain niche.
Where are the invested players in these F2P games? Oh thats right there is no commitment to those games because they cater to people who just want a quick fix and then they are on to the next thing.
just like all the P2P MMO's that held 90% of their playerbase for a grand total of 34 days...?
F2P is garbage, it came about to try and save games that nobody was willing to pay for because they were horrible. After the 14 day free trials failed for some of them they just went a step further in trying to bait players to stick around longer and buying a piece of the game at certain intervals.
B2P is even worse, they are making you pay for a F2P model game. LOL silly consumers, you make me laugh.
Subscription models are even worse. You have to pay monthly for a service, after the initial purchase of the product. And if you don't like it, well, too bad, because you aren't allowed to play the game anymore if you're not paying. I'm guessing you never paid for services such as, television, phone, or isp., because if you did, you would know how their services work., and they aren't always good. Let's not forget the competition either, where there is either none or services just as bad the one you don't want. LOL silly consumers indeed.
Yeah its kind of funny that someone claims they are making you pay for a F2P model game after an initial purchase on B2P and there has been like 3 B2P games. Guild Wars 1, which did not even have microtransactions until after the (2nd?) expansion, GW2 which has the most generious cash shop out there which does not provide any gameplay advantage whatsoever and lets you get everything without paying a cent, TSW which only makes you pay for small content packs, and Defiance which only lets you pay for cosmetic stuff and minor exp boosts.
Meanwhile you have games like WoW that make you pay 25$ for a server transfer, 10$ FOR A NAME CHANGE, 25$ for mounts,ect. On top of this, the game has a sub. Sure some of this stuff is in B2P games, but you don't have to pay a sub in addition to the option of getting this stuff.
This poster has it right. MMOs are a service. We don't pay them to keep the lights on. We pay them to provide us with stuff to do. If I have to pay 15$ a month I expect a service that provides me with stuff to do every month. If I have a monthly payment for the YMCA and I go there to find it is "closed" during the day I am going to be pissed off. MMOs have downtime for patches and such, which is mostly acceptable in the same way that you cant go to the YMCA when it is closed. If they never cleaned the equipment, upgraded the equipment, or cleaned the building it would be just as unacceptable as not having content on a monthly basis.
Oh you mean like buying gold for money?
I have HBO, Showtime, MAX and Starz which I pay extra for becuase they are premium service. I don't mind paying for entertainment because its entertaining. I don't go to the YMCA, so not sure about that. If consumers are willing to pay to get their named changed I don't see why that's a huge problem, me I make a new name because its not an issue. I don't play WoW anymore, but I think your right as they are double dipping with the cash shops and I don't like that either.
I don't continue to pay $15 a month to a game that I don't play. Your acting like games make you keep paying a sub even if your unhappy, if your unhappy then quit. The biggest power players have in letting the dev's know they are unhappy is their wallet. If you have a small percentage of players dumping tons of money into cash shop items while the rest of the game suffers the dev's will focus on throwing out more cash shop items.
Take your YMCA comparison, if they add a ice cream shop into that and fat people and children go into it buying ice cream everyday the rest of the place will go to shit as they ramp up ice cream production. Will you continue going there to work out when they let the equipment go and only focus on selling ice cream?
They do make you keep paying. If your friends are playing the game and you quit playing. They get way ahead of you and you have to catch up. Thats a pretty big deal for most people in a game like, you know a cooperative multiplayer game. Most people don't like being forced to roll alts just to play with friends. Buying gold for money happens in every game. Not sure what your point is there. If you are talking about how you can do it via the in game engine of GW2 then I have news for you: Gold doesnt get you shit in gw2. You don't need gold to do all the content in the game. The point is that you don't have to pay a cent to play the whole game. Regardless of if you can pay for gold with gems, this still remains the fact.
And honestly that YMCA analogy has gotten a little out of hand.
This warning coming from Mark Jacobs in a recent article he did which included his opinion on the unsustainable f2p model so many games are using.
"Camelot Unchained creator and long-time MMO veteran Mark Jacobs has warned of an impending free-to-play “apocalypse” in three to five years time, thanks to a rush towards unsustainable free-to-play models. He predicted to VG247 that developers will close and publishers stand to lose a lot of money.
“The whole free-to-play thing isn’t going away tomorrow,” Jacobs stressed, “but let’s just see what happens in three to five years – and I’m betting closer to three – where free-to-play will become just another model. Right now you’ve got everybody chasing it, going ‘Isn’t this great? Free to play, we’re going to make so much money’”.
Jacobs felt that many developers and publishers are chasing the free-to-play market in the hope that a small percentage of players will actually lay down money on micro-payment items. He doesn’t see it as an economically viable strategy."
That's a pretty damning article, so CU can never, ever go F2P now, not unless MJ eats his words. oh and alienating most of his potential player base is a bit bold.
I wonder if he may live to regret this statement if/when CU decides to introduce micro transactions.....F2P is a bad thing maybe, but a subscription based game with a cash shop?
Still, it's refreshing to see a game designer be hone.st for a change.
Expresso gave me a Hearthstone beta key.....I'm so happy
This warning coming from Mark Jacobs in a recent article he did which included his opinion on the unsustainable f2p model so many games are using.
"Camelot Unchained creator and long-time MMO veteran Mark Jacobs has warned of an impending free-to-play “apocalypse” in three to five years time, thanks to a rush towards unsustainable free-to-play models. He predicted to VG247 that developers will close and publishers stand to lose a lot of money.
“The whole free-to-play thing isn’t going away tomorrow,” Jacobs stressed, “but let’s just see what happens in three to five years – and I’m betting closer to three – where free-to-play will become just another model. Right now you’ve got everybody chasing it, going ‘Isn’t this great? Free to play, we’re going to make so much money’”.
Jacobs felt that many developers and publishers are chasing the free-to-play market in the hope that a small percentage of players will actually lay down money on micro-payment items. He doesn’t see it as an economically viable strategy."
That's a pretty damning article, so CU can never, ever go F2P now, not unless MJ eats his words. oh and alienating most of his potential player base is a bit bold.
I wonder if he may live to regret this statement if/when CU decides to introduce micro transactions.....F2P is a bad thing maybe, but a subscription based game with a cash shop?
MJ said already that if the game flops to that degree, he won't go F2P. He'll simply close the game. He has no intention fo Microtransactions or F2P.
So yeah, he'll flush the game. He's got integrity.
Help get Camelot Unchained made, a old-school MMORPG, with no hand holding!
Originally posted by boxsnd We will see if his prediction is right. I predict exactly the opposite. F2P/B2P will flourish and P2P will die out with WoW.
I predict you are half right. I think the whole genre is going to be in trouble by then.
Business models are not the issue. pisspoor quality MMORPGs are the issue. Create a quality product and people will pay for it. Once you have a quality product, you can then figure out the best business model. But we can all see how dollar signs have driven this industry since the (anomalous) success of WoW. Developers have lost sight of why gamers play and have zeroed in on their wallets. It shows.
MMORPGs weren't originally mainstream games. I believe they will eventually either die out or return to their roots. I also think there will be forks. Gw2 could potentially be the pioneer to such a fork....A hybrization from action games. But in the end, I don't think they will be what we call(ed) MMORPGs
There has not been too many good MMOs for sure. You are right, but I think we are reaching the tail end of that cycle. GW2 has been a huge success -- the biggest since WoW-- and is seeing more initial success then WoW did initially as well. A big reason for this is the B2P model. I think that is the direction "AAA" quality MMOs will go. Games like TESO and Wildstar look to be promising. I think that the future of this genre is fine, but I also think that there will be more quality games coming. From my current perspective the only thing that could screw up TESO and Wildstar at this point is...a sub model.
I think your wrong and the millions of players still playing WoW agree. People don't care what the pay model is as long as the game is good and keeps them playing. Your trying to factor in this current crop of failed mmo's that had to go to F2P to try and recoup some of the money they lost from bad decisions, yes there will always be a few die hard fans that stick around buying stuff from the cash shops, but doesnt that make the game a niche game?
B2P is a funny model, your basically paying a box price for a F2P model game. Now you say that was a huge success, how are you judgeing this huge success? It might have been from launch, but this genre isnt about quick money making titles, it used to be a marathon and about longevity.
The millions of people playing WoW are playing WoW because they have been playing it forever. They are commited to the game, invested to it, and that won't go away anytime soon. As far as the rest of us who play other --newer games, this is not the case. The rest of the industry (which at this point is far bigger then WoW) is constantly jumping from game to game. There are a few who stick around with their sub based MMOs, but for the most part they are sticking with F2P / B2P games. GW2 is a huge success and you are just blinding yourself with World of Warcraft if you can't see this. Just look up some NC Soft earnings reports. They are making the company more money then ever because of it.
Your ignorance of the B2P model is apparent here. A f2p game restricts you, alot of times on content, whereas a B2P game does not. You buy GW2 and you get the whole game. You don't have to pay a cent. You can see and play all the content there is completely for free. That is not a F2P model. F2P models restrict your ability to play the game the way you want to or restrict the amount of content available to you.
The fact that they lost subs, once again, after an expansion launched shows just how well that game is doing. Honestly, the game is going to continue to lose subs every quarter just as it did after Cata. Every expansion they will get back some, but I expect it won't be for long.
Best post so far.
I think we should stop lumping all FTP into the same category since there are some truely terrible models within this system. It all comes down to execution and not nickel and diming players to death with every little thing.
The fact that MJ's game is set to release right around the time of his prediction is also laughable.
The real reason FTP is here to stay is because the era of people playing 1 MMO for years and years is over.
MarkJacobsCEO City State EntertainmentMemberRarePosts: 649
Originally posted by Zinzan
Originally posted by gylnne
This warning coming from Mark Jacobs in a recent article he did which included his opinion on the unsustainable f2p model so many games are using.
"Camelot Unchained creator and long-time MMO veteran Mark Jacobs has warned of an impending free-to-play “apocalypse” in three to five years time, thanks to a rush towards unsustainable free-to-play models. He predicted to VG247 that developers will close and publishers stand to lose a lot of money.
“The whole free-to-play thing isn’t going away tomorrow,” Jacobs stressed, “but let’s just see what happens in three to five years – and I’m betting closer to three – where free-to-play will become just another model. Right now you’ve got everybody chasing it, going ‘Isn’t this great? Free to play, we’re going to make so much money’”.
Jacobs felt that many developers and publishers are chasing the free-to-play market in the hope that a small percentage of players will actually lay down money on micro-payment items. He doesn’t see it as an economically viable strategy."
That's a pretty damning article, so CU can never, ever go F2P now, not unless MJ eats his words. oh and alienating most of his potential player base is a bit bold.
I wonder if he may live to regret this statement if/when CU decides to introduce micro transactions.....F2P is a bad thing maybe, but a subscription based game with a cash shop?
LOL. I've already alienated a lot of my potential playerbase by saying:
1) No PvE leveling
2) Subscription-based only
3) It won't be a successor to Dark Age of Camelot
What I said in this article wasn't news to our backers. In terms of a cash shop, I'd rather shut the game down at that point.
1) There are ton of publishers/developers trying to flood into the F2P space right now. These numbers continue to swell world-wide, including the US of course, year over year. Every time a publisher lays off a significant number of people, new studios are born. This, along with the belief that F2P is the next Internet Gold Rush will lead to even more developers and publishers getting into this space in the next couple of years. Look at EA's push into this space as an example of what is going on at other publishers but even more so in Asia. This will result in a glut of titles.
2) Many of these same developers/publishers are now spending what used to be thought of as PC-level amounts on F2P games. This trend will increase over the coming years, especially in light of EA's public statement that they are betting heavily on FTP/micro-trans. EA, like other major publishers, have the cash to spend more and more in the hope that this spend will help drive out the competition. This is something almost every, if not every, well-heeled publishers has tried to do over the decades.
3) There is an ever-increasing "race to the bottom" to not only offer F2P games but to make them cheaper in the beginning to get people to make an in-game buy and then hopefully keep them playing/paying.
4) As more and better quality F2P games hit the market (we need to think globally, developers across the world are turning out F2P games at an astonishing rate), more players will decide not to spend anything since they can simply move on to the another game. This is even truer when developers essentially clone other games.
5) An ever-increasing supply + prices heading downward are not a good combination unless you expect demand to substantially increase over the years (which is possible) but whether the demand outstrips the supply, well, we will have to see.
What I expect will happen is that a lot of small developers will get pushed out of the market because unlike 5 years ago, they can't compete the with amount of corporate spending on these games. While there will always be room for the indie surprise hit, 99% of game developers can't count on this. This failure will cause a lot of studios to close down.
In the meantime, publishers world-wide will continue to build F2P games in the hopes that they can have a hit such as LOL and build their own Riot Games. This too will lead to publishers eventually scaling back production and more publisher follies in trying to extract every possible cent they can from games that have failed to meet projections. This will end up hurting the F2P model but will then, I believe, lead to more players wanting the "good old days" of actually paying for a title and not being treating like walking wallets.
What will be left will be some great F2P games, some even better F2P studios (who have survived the shake-out) and some successful publishers who will then look for the next "One model to rule them all" as they have for decades.
Anyway, just wanted to clear that up. I don't expect all F2P games to go away as I have said for years (including my last panel at GDC) that there is, and always will be, room for multiple models in our industry.
Mark
P.S. I'm not saying this because of CU because frankly, CU is going to be a niche game regardless of what happens. If I'm wrong about what's coming, CU is still niche. If I'm right, CU will still remain niche.
anyone else see practically no diference between this scenario and what has become of P2P MMO's. change some words around and it's the same situation.
Where are the invested players in these F2P games? Oh thats right there is no commitment to those games because they cater to people who just want a quick fix and then they are on to the next thing.
just like all the P2P MMO's that held 90% of their playerbase for a grand total of 34 days...?
And they are now F2P and doing great? LOL
A bad game is a bad game no matter what the pay model, not sure what your point it here but I think it was an attempt to be witty?
I think they should have just died instead of hanging around like a leach. They will eventually though.
I think we should stop lumping all FTP into the same category since there are some truely terrible models within this system. It all comes down to execution and not nickel and diming players to death with every little thing.
The fact that MJ's game is set to release right around the time of his prediction is also laughable.
The real reason FTP is here to stay is because the era of people playing 1 MMO for years and years is over.
Exactly. There are obviously failed versions of this model in on both the consumer and producer end. Time is certainly the biggest factor here. The MMO genre is no longer a handful of games, its dozens and dozens (100s?) of games now. Sure the market is getting saturated by F2P games but it is not like F2P games make it "not an mmo". The guys who are going after people willing to pay 10$ for an in game T-Shirt are the same people who are willing to pay a sub. The market is becoming saturated for both models. There is no imaginary line between the two. When people only have enough time to play so many MMOs they will end up playing games that are free more often then not. Sure, they might have a sub to one MMO, but they are playing 3 others without one.
Where are the invested players in these F2P games? Oh thats right there is no commitment to those games because they cater to people who just want a quick fix and then they are on to the next thing.
just like all the P2P MMO's that held 90% of their playerbase for a grand total of 34 days...?
And they are now F2P and doing great? LOL
A bad game is a bad game no matter what the pay model, not sure what your point it here but I think it was an attempt to be witty?
I think they should have just died instead of hanging around like a leach. They will eventually though.
the model doesn't dictate if the game will be bad or good though.acting like subs increase the chances or guarantee a product will be good goes against history.
from MJ's point of view, he can make a case for what is preferable...but he's just as wrong overall about F2P going anywhere as all the F2P chest beaters were about P2P going away. it's all here to stay, with many failures and some successes along the way.
no point in consumers choosing a side in payment models. you got three good p2p mmo's right now that are viable and actually getting support, and really the same number for non sub based...
Comments
I think your wrong and the millions of players still playing WoW agree. People don't care what the pay model is as long as the game is good and keeps them playing. Your trying to factor in this current crop of failed mmo's that had to go to F2P to try and recoup some of the money they lost from bad decisions, yes there will always be a few die hard fans that stick around buying stuff from the cash shops, but doesnt that make the game a niche game?
B2P is a funny model, your basically paying a box price for a F2P model game. Now you say that was a huge success, how are you judgeing this huge success? It might have been from launch, but this genre isnt about quick money making titles, it used to be a marathon and about longevity.
Yeah its kind of funny that someone claims they are making you pay for a F2P model game after an initial purchase on B2P and there has been like 3 B2P games. Guild Wars 1, which did not even have microtransactions until after the (2nd?) expansion, GW2 which has the most generious cash shop out there which does not provide any gameplay advantage whatsoever and lets you get everything without paying a cent, TSW which only makes you pay for small content packs, and Defiance which only lets you pay for cosmetic stuff and minor exp boosts.
Meanwhile you have games like WoW that make you pay 25$ for a server transfer, 10$ FOR A NAME CHANGE, 25$ for mounts,ect. On top of this, the game has a sub. Sure some of this stuff is in B2P games, but you don't have to pay a sub in addition to the option of getting this stuff.
This poster has it right. MMOs are a service. We don't pay them to keep the lights on. We pay them to provide us with stuff to do. If I have to pay 15$ a month I expect a service that provides me with stuff to do every month. If I have a monthly payment for the YMCA and I go there to find it is "closed" during the day I am going to be pissed off. MMOs have downtime for patches and such, which is mostly acceptable in the same way that you cant go to the YMCA when it is closed. If they never cleaned the equipment, upgraded the equipment, or cleaned the building it would be just as unacceptable as not having content on a monthly basis.
looooool .... of course he thinks so, since his c.u. model will be ptp.
For me, buy to play with no subs , DLCs and (non-ptw) micro is the future. I will not play another sub bases mmo or limited ptw-ftp mmos.
Step in the arena and break the wall down
P2P games that are still P2P; regardless of success, are still turning a profit enough to not go F2P;
Rift
WoW(Obviously)
FFXI
Dark Age of Camelot
Warhammer: Age of Reckoning(yeah, it's not F2P! Haha)
Eve Online
FFXIV
Asherons Call
Darkfall
Help get Camelot Unchained made, a old-school MMORPG, with no hand holding!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/13861848/camelot-unchained
you left out that any type of game developement investment of any worth has ceased for both games ages ago. almost immediately for WAR. they're making literal peanuts on both games, while spending nothing but the light bill.
The millions of people playing WoW are playing WoW because they have been playing it forever. They are commited to the game, invested to it, and that won't go away anytime soon. As far as the rest of us who play other --newer games, this is not the case. The rest of the industry (which at this point is far bigger then WoW) is constantly jumping from game to game. There are a few who stick around with their sub based MMOs, but for the most part they are sticking with F2P / B2P games. GW2 is a huge success and you are just blinding yourself with World of Warcraft if you can't see this. Just look up some NC Soft earnings reports. They are making the company more money then ever because of it.
Your ignorance of the B2P model is apparent here. A f2p game restricts you, alot of times on content, whereas a B2P game does not. You buy GW2 and you get the whole game. You don't have to pay a cent. You can see and play all the content there is completely for free. That is not a F2P model. F2P models restrict your ability to play the game the way you want to or restrict the amount of content available to you.
The fact that they lost subs, once again, after an expansion launched shows just how well that game is doing. Honestly, the game is going to continue to lose subs every quarter just as it did after Cata. Every expansion they will get back some, but I expect it won't be for long.
This ^
I find it HIGHLY questionable that Jacobs makes such a bold claims as 'this whole model will be a disaster in X years', to then NOT follow it up with any actual justification for such a claim. I honestly thought Jacobs was smarter than this.
If he wanted to justify why CU is having a sub (which is what this article reads like), then he could've just kept the article to that. He should've just talked about how he feels it will give him a more strong-knit community and better feedback when it comes to his games.
Those of us grounded in reality have seen what F2P can actually do. Companies like Perfect World & Riot have thrived off of such a model. This isn't to say that sub games have no place, but rather both models do.
Unfortunately the only real part of this rant that is actually true (studios shutting down) has absolutely nothing to do with the free 2 play model. Studios are shutting down (and have been for years) because companies like EA keep driving them out of business. It's happening in all areas of entertainment atm, and there's no sign of this changing any time soon.
Oh you mean like buying gold for money?
I have HBO, Showtime, MAX and Starz which I pay extra for becuase they are premium service. I don't mind paying for entertainment because its entertaining. I don't go to the YMCA, so not sure about that. If consumers are willing to pay to get their named changed I don't see why that's a huge problem, me I make a new name because its not an issue. I don't play WoW anymore, but I think your right as they are double dipping with the cash shops and I don't like that either.
I don't continue to pay $15 a month to a game that I don't play. Your acting like games make you keep paying a sub even if your unhappy, if your unhappy then quit. The biggest power players have in letting the dev's know they are unhappy is their wallet. If you have a small percentage of players dumping tons of money into cash shop items while the rest of the game suffers the dev's will focus on throwing out more cash shop items.
Take your YMCA comparison, if they add a ice cream shop into that and fat people and children go into it buying ice cream everyday the rest of the place will go to shit as they ramp up ice cream production. Will you continue going there to work out when they let the equipment go and only focus on selling ice cream?
It's superior to D3 in almost every aspect.
DAoC - Excalibur & Camlann
To me this is the same kind of garbage he spewed about WAR. The guy has some great ideas and I will certainly be following CU, but he needs a leash. Saying something like this to me indicates that he is trying to justify the sub based model for his game. He has said before that the F2P model "just isn't for his game" and thats ok. When he says something like "Oh the F2P model is doomed!" that is obviously just him trying to toot his own horn about his game.
hell, you forgot lineage. 16 years strong still played in high numbers, earns enough money to have its own place in a balance sheet quarterly and still RELEVANT. you can't even support your own argument.
Where are the invested players in these F2P games? Oh thats right there is no commitment to those games because they cater to people who just want a quick fix and then they are on to the next thing.
Folks,
Actually, my thinking is this:
1) There are ton of publishers/developers trying to flood into the F2P space right now. These numbers continue to swell world-wide, including the US of course, year over year. Every time a publisher lays off a significant number of people, new studios are born. This, along with the belief that F2P is the next Internet Gold Rush will lead to even more developers and publishers getting into this space in the next couple of years. Look at EA's push into this space as an example of what is going on at other publishers but even more so in Asia. This will result in a glut of titles.
2) Many of these same developers/publishers are now spending what used to be thought of as PC-level amounts on F2P games. This trend will increase over the coming years, especially in light of EA's public statement that they are betting heavily on FTP/micro-trans. EA, like other major publishers, have the cash to spend more and more in the hope that this spend will help drive out the competition. This is something almost every, if not every, well-heeled publishers has tried to do over the decades.
3) There is an ever-increasing "race to the bottom" to not only offer F2P games but to make them cheaper in the beginning to get people to make an in-game buy and then hopefully keep them playing/paying.
4) As more and better quality F2P games hit the market (we need to think globally, developers across the world are turning out F2P games at an astonishing rate), more players will decide not to spend anything since they can simply move on to the another game. This is even truer when developers essentially clone other games.
5) An ever-increasing supply + prices heading downward are not a good combination unless you expect demand to substantially increase over the years (which is possible) but whether the demand outstrips the supply, well, we will have to see.
What I expect will happen is that a lot of small developers will get pushed out of the market because unlike 5 years ago, they can't compete the with amount of corporate spending on these games. While there will always be room for the indie surprise hit, 99% of game developers can't count on this. This failure will cause a lot of studios to close down.
In the meantime, publishers world-wide will continue to build F2P games in the hopes that they can have a hit such as LOL and build their own Riot Games. This too will lead to publishers eventually scaling back production and more publisher follies in trying to extract every possible cent they can from games that have failed to meet projections. This will end up hurting the F2P model but will then, I believe, lead to more players wanting the "good old days" of actually paying for a title and not being treating like walking wallets.
What will be left will be some great F2P games, some even better F2P studios (who have survived the shake-out) and some successful publishers who will then look for the next "One model to rule them all" as they have for decades.
Anyway, just wanted to clear that up. I don't expect all F2P games to go away as I have said for years (including my last panel at GDC) that there is, and always will be, room for multiple models in our industry.
Mark
P.S. I'm not saying this because of CU because frankly, CU is going to be a niche game regardless of what happens. If I'm wrong about what's coming, CU is still niche. If I'm right, CU will still remain niche.
Mark Jacobs
CEO, City State Entertainment
just like all the P2P MMO's that held 90% of their playerbase for a grand total of 34 days...?
They do make you keep paying. If your friends are playing the game and you quit playing. They get way ahead of you and you have to catch up. Thats a pretty big deal for most people in a game like, you know a cooperative multiplayer game. Most people don't like being forced to roll alts just to play with friends. Buying gold for money happens in every game. Not sure what your point is there. If you are talking about how you can do it via the in game engine of GW2 then I have news for you: Gold doesnt get you shit in gw2. You don't need gold to do all the content in the game. The point is that you don't have to pay a cent to play the whole game. Regardless of if you can pay for gold with gems, this still remains the fact.
And honestly that YMCA analogy has gotten a little out of hand.
That's a pretty damning article, so CU can never, ever go F2P now, not unless MJ eats his words. oh and alienating most of his potential player base is a bit bold.
I wonder if he may live to regret this statement if/when CU decides to introduce micro transactions.....F2P is a bad thing maybe, but a subscription based game with a cash shop?
Still, it's refreshing to see a game designer be hone.st for a change.
Expresso gave me a Hearthstone beta key.....I'm so happy
MJ said already that if the game flops to that degree, he won't go F2P. He'll simply close the game. He has no intention fo Microtransactions or F2P.
So yeah, he'll flush the game. He's got integrity.
Help get Camelot Unchained made, a old-school MMORPG, with no hand holding!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/13861848/camelot-unchained
Best post so far.
I think we should stop lumping all FTP into the same category since there are some truely terrible models within this system. It all comes down to execution and not nickel and diming players to death with every little thing.
The fact that MJ's game is set to release right around the time of his prediction is also laughable.
The real reason FTP is here to stay is because the era of people playing 1 MMO for years and years is over.
LOL. I've already alienated a lot of my potential playerbase by saying:
1) No PvE leveling
2) Subscription-based only
3) It won't be a successor to Dark Age of Camelot
What I said in this article wasn't news to our backers. In terms of a cash shop, I'd rather shut the game down at that point.
Mark Jacobs
CEO, City State Entertainment
anyone else see practically no diference between this scenario and what has become of P2P MMO's. change some words around and it's the same situation.
Anarchy Online still charges 14.99/mo ti get it's full content.
And they are now F2P and doing great? LOL
A bad game is a bad game no matter what the pay model, not sure what your point it here but I think it was an attempt to be witty?
I think they should have just died instead of hanging around like a leach. They will eventually though.
Exactly. There are obviously failed versions of this model in on both the consumer and producer end. Time is certainly the biggest factor here. The MMO genre is no longer a handful of games, its dozens and dozens (100s?) of games now. Sure the market is getting saturated by F2P games but it is not like F2P games make it "not an mmo". The guys who are going after people willing to pay 10$ for an in game T-Shirt are the same people who are willing to pay a sub. The market is becoming saturated for both models. There is no imaginary line between the two. When people only have enough time to play so many MMOs they will end up playing games that are free more often then not. Sure, they might have a sub to one MMO, but they are playing 3 others without one.
the model doesn't dictate if the game will be bad or good though. acting like subs increase the chances or guarantee a product will be good goes against history.
from MJ's point of view, he can make a case for what is preferable...but he's just as wrong overall about F2P going anywhere as all the F2P chest beaters were about P2P going away. it's all here to stay, with many failures and some successes along the way.
no point in consumers choosing a side in payment models. you got three good p2p mmo's right now that are viable and actually getting support, and really the same number for non sub based...