I think it is this type of elitism that needs to be weeded out for the genre to continue it;s positive gains in the last 4 years. Also believe every successful game from now to the future, will be free to play. Any game that does not have a hybrid payment module, will die out with in a year, like War did.
Riiiiiight.... youre the victim and everyone else is "elitist"..
Mr. "Im always right and anyone who thinks more than one type of model can work in the same market is a dummy".
This is just such a blindly obstinate viewpoint. F2P is just a business model, not a religion. Stop trying to burn folks like heretics for denying the "one and only almighty model".
We're not burning him at the stake for denying it's a better model (and I am not saying it is, it certainly has its negatives just as much as P2P), what we are burning him at the stake for though is blaming crappy quality on games being F2P which is like me blaming crappy quality of games on CoD-type games, it may make sense if you connect allot of dots while wearing a tinfoil hat but that's really grasping for things. Now if you'll excuse me the stake needs some gasoline thrown on it.
F2P games can be cheaper to make because customers are more forgiving when they dont have to pay upfront. Thats just a fact. Just pay attention to the banner ads as you randomly browse the internet. Everyone has their own F2P game.
This certainly doesnt mean that you cant invest a lot into building and developing a great F2P game. But companies dont have to do that to make money off the model. Sure some of them are good. I dont think anyone ever said that all F2P games are inherently bad. But there are also vast numbers of crappy F2P games out there. Thats just undeniable.
Just because browser based games fall within the realm of F2P does not say anything about the model itself. To put it bluntly what you said about customers being more forgiving is actually false because in a F2P game you don't pay up front for access if the game is shit we'll just walk away without paying a dime ergo all long running F2P games (Runescape, Silk Road Online, etc) have something which makes them worthwhile to not only play but also invest in and that's the inherent strength of F2P: Developers are expected to deliver something enjoyable or at least a good enough skinner box to keep people playing ergo if anything the innovation (and sometimes the quality) of F2P games surpass P2P games because while a P2P game may have more money to play it that initial large investment is also a double edged sword as the game is less likely to innovate.
Except the poorly done F2P games dont rely on the majority of players. Just a small minority that will pay big for an advantage in even the crappiest of games. Of course they dont have the same staying power as the well designed F2P games, but that only adds to the negative image of the model, and they can certainly be very profitable while they last.
I disagree that subscription models dont encourage innovation. Both models need to innovate to keep customers in a competitive market. Subscriptions provide a very steady base of revenue that doesnt vary as much from month to month as F2P games. That can give you more potential for being able to keep a dev team steadily employeed and generating new content full time.
I think it is this type of elitism that needs to be weeded out for the genre to continue it;s positive gains in the last 4 years. Also believe every successful game from now to the future, will be free to play. Any game that does not have a hybrid payment module, will die out with in a year, like War did.
Riiiiiight.... youre the victim and everyone else is "elitist"..
Mr. "Im always right and anyone who thinks more than one type of model can work in the same market is a dummy".
This is just such a blindly obstinate viewpoint. F2P is just a business model, not a religion. Stop trying to burn folks like heretics for denying the "one and only almighty model".
How is creating an enviroment everyone can enjoy "elitist" ?
Free-To-Play does not create an environment I, and many others, can enjoy.
Originally posted by VorthanionI sure hope this buisiness model collapses. I'm tired of the crappy quality games that have resulted from this movement.
are you also tired of all the crappy quality P2P MMO's that continue to release?
I'll take subscription based SWTOR over any of the current F2P pieces of garbage anyday.
How did f2p change the content of the game ?
It was designed for subscription, which means it had a higher quality development than those I have played that were F2P from the start
Really ? what games would that be ?
I find it a lot higher in quality than Neverwinter or Planetside 2 or any of the plethora of asian F2P monstrosities. I don't know about Archeage, it may start off as F2P or not, but the jury is still out on whether it's of high quality or not. As far as I know, Wildstar is starting as subscription as will EverQuest Next and Elder Scrolls Online. All three of which look good on paper, but we'll see. The potential already looks better than most games built for F2P from the start.
Everquest Next is f2p. The payment models of Wildstar and TESO are currently unknown.
Originally posted by Rthuth434 Mark sounds like TRION. look what happened 3-5 years after they said something similar.
They were able to fund the development and launch of a major expansion that tripled the size of their game world, and still maintain a healthy paying and playing subscriber base?
Sounds like a solid plan to me
They have "Rift Lite", but that's basically a free trial, letting you access a limited portion of the game. That's not F2P.
And of course, you have to point out the obvious fact that, whatever fate may befall Rift in the future, it doesn't automatically follow that because the folks at Trion said "X" and sees a certain outcome, that because Mark Jacobs says something similar to "X", that CU will automatically see the same outcome.
I just need to quote this bit from that article, because it's music to my eyeballs.
"Jacobs believes that keeping player-bases smaller and more focused, with players who actually want to pay to play is the key to long-term prosperity in the MMO scene.
“Camelot Unchained is going to be a niche subscription game,” he explained, “so we eliminate the vast majority of people who won’t subscribe to this game, those who might say ‘Oh no I’m not going to pay a subscription, I want free-to-play.’ That’s just great because by getting rid of them, we say ‘We get it. You don’t want free-to-play, that’s fine. Go away’.
“That then allows us to focus our game on the people who want to pay for it, and are willing to pay for it. I’ll take a smaller subscription base that is dedicated, is energised and is excited to play our game, and to work with our game, than ten times that base where I have to deal with a lot of people who really don’t care."
A-freaking-men, brother.
He hits the nail squarely on the head with that first statement, but really fleshes it out beautifully. He knows what he wants, he understands the type of players he's catering to, he doesn't care about those who "want to play for free", and he's unapologetic about it.
If more people thought like Mark in this industry, we'd see a lot more MMOs that catered to a specific market segment and did it well, and fewer trying to "cater to everyone" and doing a half-assed job of it.
I love how this guy acts like he's some kind of visonary for stating the obvious.
Well yes...
A lot of f2p games will be dieing off in the next 3-5 years...
This is, of course, because aging games that were never that high qulaity in the first place will get drown out in the market by all the AAA titles going f2p. This has nothing to do with the f2p model being fundamentally flawed and everything to do with a huge increase in competition in the f2p market.
And yes it will be more difficult to get investment for new f2p tittles because you'll be expected to go head to head with Tera/SWTOR/Aion, and pretty much every other mmo not named WoW at launch... as opposed to four years ago when your main competition was Perfect World and Maple Story.
And... niche subscription model is insanely difficult to pull off. Once the initial hype of launch wears off it was hard to get new subscribers even back when your only competiton from f2p was PWE and Nexon. And with little new blood coming into the system you're left trying to retain a dwindaling vetran playing base that slowly gets disheartened of ever more deserted/merged servers. The only game I know of that was able to break that cycle and be succesfull is EVE (technically FFXI as well... but it started mainstream and gradually became niche as the market changed around it.)
buy to play bought expansions and a fluff only cash shop would work fine i think heck give em some 25% exp potions to, an ok instead of a exp you can use cash if u want to buy out of death debt
Just wait until the politicians come up with an internet usage tax and the F2P studios have to shell out big bucks. You know it will eventually happen.
I think it is this type of elitism that needs to be weeded out for the genre to continue it;s positive gains in the last 4 years. Also believe every successful game from now to the future, will be free to play. Any game that does not have a hybrid payment module, will die out with in a year, like War did.
Riiiiiight.... youre the victim and everyone else is "elitist"..
Mr. "Im always right and anyone who thinks more than one type of model can work in the same market is a dummy".
This is just such a blindly obstinate viewpoint. F2P is just a business model, not a religion. Stop trying to burn folks like heretics for denying the "one and only almighty model".
How is creating an enviroment everyone can enjoy "elitist" ?
Free-To-Play does not create an environment I, and many others, can enjoy.
what binds you play a free to play game ?
Apparently people like you who think every game should be F2P?
Nobody is saying you cant go play your F2P game. We dont want to. We want to play this subscription game that these forums have been set up to talk about. The forum that you chose to post in...
even though i have no interest in camelot unchained, i agree with Mark Jacobs. i hope more developers and publishers come to realize this. pay2play is where the quality is.
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
My opinion is this shows he is out of touch with what todays gamers want this is not 2001 they want something they can play for cheap and they will buy stuff if they want to not need to.
It's funny but SOE is making millions from PS2 and free realms people buy stuff if you don't force feed it down their throats.
F2P is good for older games or limited F2P in games like SWTOR. The people who just want to level and see part of the game can, then they can choose to subscribe because to not subscribe you limit yourself severly. The problem is F2P is here to stay until publishers close and several MMOs shut down for good. Which NEEDS to happen. There is no room for 3+ dozen MMOs for 15 Million Players. MMO Must go back to the Niche crowed, not the Lobby D3 players, or the FPS players, or the single players that want Dragon Age or a Subscription Skyrim where they talk to other players but not play with them.
I think it is this type of elitism that needs to be weeded out for the genre to continue it;s positive gains in the last 4 years. Also believe every successful game from now to the future, will be free to play. Any game that does not have a hybrid payment module, will die out with in a year, like War did.
Riiiiiight.... youre the victim and everyone else is "elitist"..
Mr. "Im always right and anyone who thinks more than one type of model can work in the same market is a dummy".
This is just such a blindly obstinate viewpoint. F2P is just a business model, not a religion. Stop trying to burn folks like heretics for denying the "one and only almighty model".
How is creating an enviroment everyone can enjoy "elitist" ?
Free-To-Play does not create an environment I, and many others, can enjoy.
what binds you play a free to play game ?
Apparently people like you who think every game should be F2P?
Nobody is saying you cant go play your F2P game. We dont want to. We want to play this subscription game that these forums have been set up to talk about. The forum that you chose to post in...
I guess having an opinion is only for the millionaires ...
What I beleive, has no bearing on your opinion, so im curious why would my opinion be any different then Marks ?
If you bothered to read anything Mark said instead of blindly lashing out at him, he never once said that the F2P model was inherently bad, or that it should be used, or that everyone need to use subscription based models.
He just said a subscription based model was best for what he wanted to do with this game, and its what the people backing him want.
Your opinion is different because you are a zealot who refuses to leave anyone else alone unless they agree that your way is the only way.
My opinion is this shows he is out of touch with what todays gamers want this is not 2001 they want something they can play for cheap and they will buy stuff if they want to not need to.
It's funny but SOE is making millions from PS2 and free realms people buy stuff if you don't force feed it down their throats.
He is not as out of touch as you seem to think. Yes a handlful of games work with Free2Play. However It is not a viable model for MMOs as much as you think it is. There are fewer and fewer good MMO developers because there are so many MMOs the good ones are asking for more and more money, you cannot pay them with Free2Play when everyone is going Free2Play. In Time people will see how much money they are wasting in Free2Play models outside of the P2P models they use to pay for. Some people in the Free2Play models will spend $500+ a year when if they just subed they would be paying $150 for the year.
I think it is this type of elitism that needs to be weeded out for the genre to continue it;s positive gains in the last 4 years. Also believe every successful game from now to the future, will be free to play. Any game that does not have a hybrid payment module, will die out with in a year, like War did.
Riiiiiight.... youre the victim and everyone else is "elitist"..
Mr. "Im always right and anyone who thinks more than one type of model can work in the same market is a dummy".
This is just such a blindly obstinate viewpoint. F2P is just a business model, not a religion. Stop trying to burn folks like heretics for denying the "one and only almighty model".
How is creating an enviroment everyone can enjoy "elitist" ?
Free-To-Play does not create an environment I, and many others, can enjoy.
what binds you play a free to play game ?
Apparently people like you who think every game should be F2P?
Nobody is saying you cant go play your F2P game. We dont want to. We want to play this subscription game that these forums have been set up to talk about. The forum that you chose to post in...
I guess having an opinion is only for the millionaires ...
What I beleive, has no bearing on your opinion, so im curious why would my opinion be any different then Marks ?
If you bothered to read anything Mark said instead of blindly lashing out at him, he never once said that the F2P model was inherently bad, or that it should be used, or that everyone need to use subscription based models.
He just said a subscription based model was best for what he wanted to do with this game, and its what the people backing him want.
Your opinion is different because you are a zealot who refuses to leave anyone else alone unless they agree that your way is the only way.
He is also saying he would rather have 200K subscription players paying $10 a month and only spent $20 Million on a game than try to copy WoW. Spend $250 Million on a game and try for 10 Million Subs then go free to play because they need more money than 500K subs can make alone.
Today we have too many MMOs, the bubble must burst at some point and close a large number of MMOs down.
My opinion is this shows he is out of touch with what todays gamers want this is not 2001 they want something they can play for cheap and they will buy stuff if they want to not need to.
It's funny but SOE is making millions from PS2 and free realms people buy stuff if you don't force feed it down their throats.
They are making money off the games but look at the design of PS 2. It's become watered down crap. It looks almost nothing like the original PS. Even with the F2P model in PS 2 it's been turned into a Pay2Win because of granted experience bonuses to subbing players.
Frankly I can understand how someone would think a statement like Mark's would be out of touch. We haven't seen a successfull sub game since WoW and EvE which was back in 2003/2004. Sub games can work but we as players have gotten to a point where we won't pay for a crappy game, which is why we haven't seen a sub game since 2003/2004.
"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth."
My opinion is this shows he is out of touch with what todays gamers want this is not 2001 they want something they can play for cheap and they will buy stuff if they want to not need to.
It's funny but SOE is making millions from PS2 and free realms people buy stuff if you don't force feed it down their throats.
He isnt trying to get ALL of today's gamers. People who played the earliest MMO's arent dead. Heck, a lot people who played EQ, UO, and DAOC are still in their early 20's. Our voices have just been drowned out by the mainstream market of instant gratification casual players.
You dont need millions and millions of subscribers to have an active and interesting gameworld to play in.
So no, we arent the mainstream. We arent the majority. But we are a dedicated community that want to be allowed to have ONE game that we are allowed to play without other people coming in and demanding everything about it be changed.
The user and all related content has been deleted.
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
He hits the nail squarely on the head with that first statement, but really fleshes it out beautifully. He knows what he wants, he understands the type of players he's catering to, he doesn't care about those who "want to play for free", and he's unapologetic about it.
If more people thought like Mark in this industry, we'd see a lot more MMOs that catered to a specific market segment and did it well, and fewer trying to "cater to everyone" and doing a half-assed job of it.
This ^
F2P is not a new concept but it seems to be a huge craze right now, everyone is doing it and trying it, but it won't stay that way forever.
There is a ton of F2P MMOs out right now, and I could imagine in a year or 2 a bunch of them won't be around anymore. Most people that play F2P games play a lot of them and won't be spending money on all of them or even any of them. Most of the time just one, if that.
Just the over saturation of F2P will cause a "Shakeout" like MJ said and only the profitable ones will survive. That is why it is jokingly referred to as Free 2 Pay at times.
The F2P model can work, and it can work well (there are plenty of examples), but it doesn't work for every developer or game, same with subscription.
Point is subscription is less random in the fact you can always see where your break even point is based on how many subs you have. And all your work / money can go into fixing bugs / patching the game, developing more content, providing support, etc.
F2P not so much since people don't have to pay anything it can be completely random. So you have to waste a bunch of development time on the cash shop and balancing it, making people want to buy stuff, etc. (not all companies do this well and it turns into pay to win) How can you continue to develop the game, content in general, and patch / fix the game as a F2P game if you're not making enough money from microtransactions to afford it.
I'm not sure about you all, but I dislike pay to win games, systems, etc. It is obnoxious and hilarious when these shops also come with things that use to be standard and just came with the game (like game features,etc).
I'd rather pay a sub to pay for the developers to actually develop the game / content and fix / patch the game, rather than the developers waste as much development time as needed on the cash shop so they can cover their paychecks. I want to play a game not a cash shop. A bit of a exaggeration, but still.
Originally posted by jesteralways even though i have no interest in camelot unchained, i agree with Mark Jacobs. i hope more developers and publishers come to realize this. pay2play is where the quality is.
I hate to come back into a forum that has already been discussed to the death. Unfortunately I hate seeing posts likes these (no offense to you). However, the quality of the product lies with the companies willingness to create something great and continue it's developement post production. Not the payment model they use to obtain money from their customers.
There's a reason why companies who make games such as Tera Online, AoC, and DCUO which start out with a subscription model end up forced to convert to a different payment method. It's because of the amount of content they're producing post release isn't sufficient enough to keep a customer coming back for more. These games still have great combat systems and incredible graphics for MMO's. They are truly good products for what they are.
However, I don't see how you think that a P2P model makes the quality of a product better. Please explain how you're coming to this conclusion?
You basically provided the evidence yourself. If the quality of content provided is sub par or a steady flow of content becomes a problem people quit or unsub forcing the game to go F2P. Even if the game play is fun it can't offset lack or quality of content. I don't see this being a problem with CU mainly because the content will come in the form of new areas, classes, races, etc. The hook of the game will be the game play itself (RvR) and not the content because you will have multitudes more of unique encounters by having the main interaction being between Players and not having to deal with an excessive amount of scripted NPCs who actions at some point become predictable.
"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth."
Originally posted by Golelorn Just like MJ missed with ToA, NF, and Warhammer he is wrong about this, too.
Really? Because he seems far FAR more in touch about just about everything happening in the MMO space than any other developer.
Notice how devs don't rave about their increased revenue over the long haul? They get a big boost when they go free, of people trying it, and it has saved a few games that went frrom making -10 money to +1 money, but it has not lasted in most games. And even some games that started as FTP (Tribes) is adding back in a BTP option.
The rush to FTP will die. FTP won't go away, it fits some games, but it does not fit nearly as many as are going for it. Darkfall and Eve prove that a niche MMO with the right design can do a monthly fee and do well.
Comments
Except the poorly done F2P games dont rely on the majority of players. Just a small minority that will pay big for an advantage in even the crappiest of games. Of course they dont have the same staying power as the well designed F2P games, but that only adds to the negative image of the model, and they can certainly be very profitable while they last.
I disagree that subscription models dont encourage innovation. Both models need to innovate to keep customers in a competitive market. Subscriptions provide a very steady base of revenue that doesnt vary as much from month to month as F2P games. That can give you more potential for being able to keep a dev team steadily employeed and generating new content full time.
Free-To-Play does not create an environment I, and many others, can enjoy.
Everquest Next is f2p. The payment models of Wildstar and TESO are currently unknown.
They were able to fund the development and launch of a major expansion that tripled the size of their game world, and still maintain a healthy paying and playing subscriber base?
Sounds like a solid plan to me
They have "Rift Lite", but that's basically a free trial, letting you access a limited portion of the game. That's not F2P.
And of course, you have to point out the obvious fact that, whatever fate may befall Rift in the future, it doesn't automatically follow that because the folks at Trion said "X" and sees a certain outcome, that because Mark Jacobs says something similar to "X", that CU will automatically see the same outcome.
I just need to quote this bit from that article, because it's music to my eyeballs.
"Jacobs believes that keeping player-bases smaller and more focused, with players who actually want to pay to play is the key to long-term prosperity in the MMO scene.
“Camelot Unchained is going to be a niche subscription game,” he explained, “so we eliminate the vast majority of people who won’t subscribe to this game, those who might say ‘Oh no I’m not going to pay a subscription, I want free-to-play.’ That’s just great because by getting rid of them, we say ‘We get it. You don’t want free-to-play, that’s fine. Go away’.
“That then allows us to focus our game on the people who want to pay for it, and are willing to pay for it. I’ll take a smaller subscription base that is dedicated, is energised and is excited to play our game, and to work with our game, than ten times that base where I have to deal with a lot of people who really don’t care."
A-freaking-men, brother.
He hits the nail squarely on the head with that first statement, but really fleshes it out beautifully. He knows what he wants, he understands the type of players he's catering to, he doesn't care about those who "want to play for free", and he's unapologetic about it.
If more people thought like Mark in this industry, we'd see a lot more MMOs that catered to a specific market segment and did it well, and fewer trying to "cater to everyone" and doing a half-assed job of it.
I love how this guy acts like he's some kind of visonary for stating the obvious.
Well yes...
A lot of f2p games will be dieing off in the next 3-5 years...
This is, of course, because aging games that were never that high qulaity in the first place will get drown out in the market by all the AAA titles going f2p. This has nothing to do with the f2p model being fundamentally flawed and everything to do with a huge increase in competition in the f2p market.
And yes it will be more difficult to get investment for new f2p tittles because you'll be expected to go head to head with Tera/SWTOR/Aion, and pretty much every other mmo not named WoW at launch... as opposed to four years ago when your main competition was Perfect World and Maple Story.
And... niche subscription model is insanely difficult to pull off. Once the initial hype of launch wears off it was hard to get new subscribers even back when your only competiton from f2p was PWE and Nexon. And with little new blood coming into the system you're left trying to retain a dwindaling vetran playing base that slowly gets disheartened of ever more deserted/merged servers. The only game I know of that was able to break that cycle and be succesfull is EVE (technically FFXI as well... but it started mainstream and gradually became niche as the market changed around it.)
Just wait until the politicians come up with an internet usage tax and the F2P studios have to shell out big bucks. You know it will eventually happen.
Nanulak
Apparently people like you who think every game should be F2P?
Nobody is saying you cant go play your F2P game. We dont want to. We want to play this subscription game that these forums have been set up to talk about. The forum that you chose to post in...
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
My opinion is this shows he is out of touch with what todays gamers want this is not 2001 they want something they can play for cheap and they will buy stuff if they want to not need to.
It's funny but SOE is making millions from PS2 and free realms people buy stuff if you don't force feed it down their throats.
If you bothered to read anything Mark said instead of blindly lashing out at him, he never once said that the F2P model was inherently bad, or that it should be used, or that everyone need to use subscription based models.
He just said a subscription based model was best for what he wanted to do with this game, and its what the people backing him want.
Your opinion is different because you are a zealot who refuses to leave anyone else alone unless they agree that your way is the only way.
He is not as out of touch as you seem to think. Yes a handlful of games work with Free2Play. However It is not a viable model for MMOs as much as you think it is. There are fewer and fewer good MMO developers because there are so many MMOs the good ones are asking for more and more money, you cannot pay them with Free2Play when everyone is going Free2Play. In Time people will see how much money they are wasting in Free2Play models outside of the P2P models they use to pay for. Some people in the Free2Play models will spend $500+ a year when if they just subed they would be paying $150 for the year.
He is also saying he would rather have 200K subscription players paying $10 a month and only spent $20 Million on a game than try to copy WoW. Spend $250 Million on a game and try for 10 Million Subs then go free to play because they need more money than 500K subs can make alone.
Today we have too many MMOs, the bubble must burst at some point and close a large number of MMOs down.
They are making money off the games but look at the design of PS 2. It's become watered down crap. It looks almost nothing like the original PS. Even with the F2P model in PS 2 it's been turned into a Pay2Win because of granted experience bonuses to subbing players.
Frankly I can understand how someone would think a statement like Mark's would be out of touch. We haven't seen a successfull sub game since WoW and EvE which was back in 2003/2004. Sub games can work but we as players have gotten to a point where we won't pay for a crappy game, which is why we haven't seen a sub game since 2003/2004.
"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth."
He isnt trying to get ALL of today's gamers. People who played the earliest MMO's arent dead. Heck, a lot people who played EQ, UO, and DAOC are still in their early 20's. Our voices have just been drowned out by the mainstream market of instant gratification casual players.
You dont need millions and millions of subscribers to have an active and interesting gameworld to play in.
So no, we arent the mainstream. We arent the majority. But we are a dedicated community that want to be allowed to have ONE game that we are allowed to play without other people coming in and demanding everything about it be changed.
Is that really too much to ask?
Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
This ^
F2P is not a new concept but it seems to be a huge craze right now, everyone is doing it and trying it, but it won't stay that way forever.
There is a ton of F2P MMOs out right now, and I could imagine in a year or 2 a bunch of them won't be around anymore. Most people that play F2P games play a lot of them and won't be spending money on all of them or even any of them. Most of the time just one, if that.
Just the over saturation of F2P will cause a "Shakeout" like MJ said and only the profitable ones will survive. That is why it is jokingly referred to as Free 2 Pay at times.
The F2P model can work, and it can work well (there are plenty of examples), but it doesn't work for every developer or game, same with subscription.
Point is subscription is less random in the fact you can always see where your break even point is based on how many subs you have. And all your work / money can go into fixing bugs / patching the game, developing more content, providing support, etc.
F2P not so much since people don't have to pay anything it can be completely random. So you have to waste a bunch of development time on the cash shop and balancing it, making people want to buy stuff, etc. (not all companies do this well and it turns into pay to win) How can you continue to develop the game, content in general, and patch / fix the game as a F2P game if you're not making enough money from microtransactions to afford it.
I'm not sure about you all, but I dislike pay to win games, systems, etc. It is obnoxious and hilarious when these shops also come with things that use to be standard and just came with the game (like game features,etc).
I'd rather pay a sub to pay for the developers to actually develop the game / content and fix / patch the game, rather than the developers waste as much development time as needed on the cash shop so they can cover their paychecks. I want to play a game not a cash shop. A bit of a exaggeration, but still.
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You basically provided the evidence yourself. If the quality of content provided is sub par or a steady flow of content becomes a problem people quit or unsub forcing the game to go F2P. Even if the game play is fun it can't offset lack or quality of content. I don't see this being a problem with CU mainly because the content will come in the form of new areas, classes, races, etc. The hook of the game will be the game play itself (RvR) and not the content because you will have multitudes more of unique encounters by having the main interaction being between Players and not having to deal with an excessive amount of scripted NPCs who actions at some point become predictable.
"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth."
Really? Because he seems far FAR more in touch about just about everything happening in the MMO space than any other developer.
Notice how devs don't rave about their increased revenue over the long haul? They get a big boost when they go free, of people trying it, and it has saved a few games that went frrom making -10 money to +1 money, but it has not lasted in most games. And even some games that started as FTP (Tribes) is adding back in a BTP option.
The rush to FTP will die. FTP won't go away, it fits some games, but it does not fit nearly as many as are going for it. Darkfall and Eve prove that a niche MMO with the right design can do a monthly fee and do well.