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I just paid $12,500 for a F2P game

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  • WalterWhiteWalterWhite Member UncommonPosts: 411

    If people have the cash to spend insanely large amounts on a F2P MMO, good luck to them but you won't see me doing it.

    To pay silly amounts of money for virtual items is bonkers when that cash could have been used for a car or clothes, maybe a better PC or TV but it is their decision.

  • AxehiltAxehilt Member RarePosts: 10,504
    Originally posted by Dihoru

    Incorrect, for a developer you certainly can't differentiated between playing the core game in its uninhibited form and playing it in a crippled form. Arguably in the latter you're not actually playing the game even with experience playing to core gameplay experience (ex: I've played DDO until I started hitting paywalls and gated content at which point I quite because those in my opinion do not make a F2P game, those make a Freemium at best, Pay to Win at worse, game).

    Clarification: Inhibiting the core gameplay experience is gating or restricting access to features behind paywalls. This is not free to play, this is as mentioned above either freemium or pay to win (eternal crusade will use a freemium system for example but that game is not free to play). 

    Your words: "I've played DDO" (for free)
     
    Do we really need to say anything more?
    • It's objective truth that free to play games are free to play.
    • It's subjective opinion that you dislike it.
    Opinion doesn't change the truth.  That's not how it works.

    "What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver

  • KonfessKonfess Member RarePosts: 1,667
    Do you actually believe you are meant to play these games for free?   If you are playing these games you are meant to pay for your play time, in the cash shop.

    Pardon any spelling errors
    Konfess your cyns and some maybe forgiven
    Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
    Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
    As if it could exist, without being payed for.
    F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
    Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
    It costs money to play.  Therefore P2W.

  • EmbororEmboror Member Posts: 8
    12500 $  ??? That sounds more like a helluva scam than... anything else. Graz if they manage to milk some fools so much money.
  • maplestonemaplestone Member UncommonPosts: 3,099
    Originally posted by Axehilt

    What I'm saying is perfectly rational period, not just in my own mind.  The game is free to play.  You can play the game for free.

    And yet, I still disagree with you.  I'd like to believe we've had enough pleasant conversations that this should raise some alarm bells that perhaps there's another angle to this discussion.

    You appear to be focused on the individual and the idea of what an individual can theoretically budget. That's a fair way to look at the world, consistent with a philosophy of strict individual responsibility and what you say is competely reasonable within that context.  The problem is that I don't look at the world and my place in it that way.

    I'm focused on the whole community and counting myself as just one random piece of it until my decisions and resolve are actually tested.   The average revenue per player is not $0.  Therefore, in my mind, it's not free.  It might end up being free.  It might end up that the highly paid analysts will actually find the guantlet of carrots and sticks that changes my mind and breaks my resolve.  I have the humility to accept that I do not have perfect willpower.  And my estimate of the cost of the game is weighted by not just what I *intend* to pay, but also all the possible moments of weakness that might occur along the way.  And that's where I begin to look at the term "F2P" with emotions varying from suspicion to outright disgust.

    I'm not saying that you have to look at the world my way.  I'm not saying you have to agree that my way is even a good way to look at it.  But if you don't respect the fact that I look at it this way instead of your way, then I'm going to take some offense.

     

  • jesadjesad Member UncommonPosts: 882

    F2P games compared to the old demos that they used to put out are like the one time when I told my grandma that a loaf of bread cost $1.57 and she started talking some non-sense about a nickle.

    No one ever said it was "Free to play and possibly win".  I thought most of us understood that.

    image
  • TwoThreeFourTwoThreeFour Member UncommonPosts: 2,155
    Originally posted by Emboror
    12500 $  ??? That sounds more like a helluva scam than... anything else. Graz if they manage to milk some fools so much money.

    Lol?

     

    People are forgetting that there are wealthy people that would like to support Path of Exile because they love the game. It is far more of a large donation than an item mall buy and the customer knows it. 

  • DihoruDihoru Member Posts: 2,731
    Originally posted by Axehilt
    Originally posted by Dihoru

    Incorrect, for a developer you certainly can't differentiated between playing the core game in its uninhibited form and playing it in a crippled form. Arguably in the latter you're not actually playing the game even with experience playing to core gameplay experience (ex: I've played DDO until I started hitting paywalls and gated content at which point I quite because those in my opinion do not make a F2P game, those make a Freemium at best, Pay to Win at worse, game).

    Clarification: Inhibiting the core gameplay experience is gating or restricting access to features behind paywalls. This is not free to play, this is as mentioned above either freemium or pay to win (eternal crusade will use a freemium system for example but that game is not free to play). 

    Your words: "I've played DDO" (for free)
     
    Do we really need to say anything more?
    • It's objective truth that free to play games are free to play.
    • It's subjective opinion that you dislike it.
    Opinion doesn't change the truth.  That's not how it works.

    You are aware you're also stating an opinion right? I also did not play DDO in the real sense of the word because I did not get to enjoy the whole game uninhibited.

    I can dismantle your arguments very simply btw with this:

    Game

    Noun- form of play or sport, esp. a competitive one played according to rules and decided by skill, strength, or luck.

    A Free to Play game follows that definition in as much as allowing skill, strength or luck to decide the outcome of any interaction within it because the game is free to play. A Freemium or Pay to Win game does not because luck and skill are partially or completely supplanted by paying player exclusive enhancements (strength possibly as well depending if the respective game uses a vertical progression system or not).

    image
  • MightykingMightyking Member UncommonPosts: 235

    People still seem to want make a distinction between F2P and P2W, but I don't think there is one.

    Faster mounts, XP potions, scrolls that give you more currency, Cooldown reducements, Fast-travel options, all these things do give you benefits over someone who doesn't pay, or can not pay. It's like stepping into a casino, and because you have more money, you get to pick an extra card. The game is not equal for everyone and by definition the competitve aspects of the game become imbalanced.

    Even current games who are praised for their cash shop currently, risk going this path. When at the end of the year the economy department tell the technical department that the financial situation needs drastic measures, then there's two things to do: 1. pull the plug, 2. make those items that really sell.

    Don't get me wrong, I've played some F2P games. I am really impressed by Rift's model, where you don't even notice the game is free to play, except for a tiny little button. I supported the game by spending 50 euro's to buy some bag slots and the souls (character), which is basically paying for the expansion. Yet, this decision does give me an advantage over someone else.

    The better F2P games will spend a lot of effort in finding out how to get money from their clients in the same way we are used to in real life. Is that really what we want? Smell enhancers at the bakery, music to stimulate sales, colour palettes to make things look better, or making someone stand in a town wearing all the bling one could buy and "he looks so cool".

    I don't know, I still prefer to pay for the real value online games offer, and that is one fee to pay the game, and a monthly fee that is used for development and maintenance of the systems.

  • crasset15crasset15 Member UncommonPosts: 194
    Games can be completely F2P without any monetisation, but it isn't common. America's Army 2 for example, a FPS with quite a large following back in the day, was completely free for the players, because it was funded by the US taxpayers/government.
  • jesadjesad Member UncommonPosts: 882
    Star Wars makes you pay for an extra hotbar LOL.  Just throwing that out there.  But still, I have never seen Final Fantasy in any form because Square Enix doesn't support free to play, demo, free trial, or anything.  Heck, I couldn't even find the website for the MMO itself for the longest time, and thus that game went ignored.

    image
  • stayBlindstayBlind Member UncommonPosts: 512
    Originally posted by TwoThreeFour
    Originally posted by Emboror
    12500 $  ??? That sounds more like a helluva scam than... anything else. Graz if they manage to milk some fools so much money.

    Lol?

     

    People are forgetting that there are wealthy people that would like to support Path of Exile because they love the game. It is far more of a large donation than an item mall buy and the customer knows it. 

    QFT

    I find it all the posts about "OMG there are starving people in the world that could use that money. Whoever spends that much on a game is an idiot" posts ridiculous.

    How much a week do the people who say such things spend on things that they do not NEED.

    Little forum boys with their polished cyber toys: whine whine, boo-hoo, talk talk.

  • SagasaintSagasaint Member UncommonPosts: 466

    I remember a thread in TERA forums about an arabian guy, I think either he or his family was into the petrol thingy or something like that

    amazingly rich by anyone's standards, he was asking the devs for some crappy ingame bling for thousands of dollars, just to be appart form the rest of peasants...mind you, it was something completly non gamebreaking, like having his char's names on orange and similar!

     

    he even posted RL pictures of him with the obliged "<3 tera forums" +date in a piece of paper he was holding, pics of his hou...scratch that, MANSION, his rig where he was playing TERA (and possibly launching NASA shuttles into space) and his bank account's balance to prove beyond reasonable doubt he was serious

     

    so yep, OP, you have to accept that people like that really exists. peeps that have SO MUCH money that they dont mind throwing it left and right on something they enjoy.

    that being a fleet of luxury cars or a MMO, doesnt matter. they do it because they can

     

  • AxehiltAxehilt Member RarePosts: 10,504
    Originally posted by maplestone

    And yet, I still disagree with you.  I'd like to believe we've had enough pleasant conversations that this should raise some alarm bells that perhaps there's another angle to this discussion.

    You appear to be focused on the individual and the idea of what an individual can theoretically budget. That's a fair way to look at the world, consistent with a philosophy of strict individual responsibility and what you say is competely reasonable within that context.  The problem is that I don't look at the world and my place in it that way.

    I'm focused on the whole community and counting myself as just one random piece of it until my decisions and resolve are actually tested.   The average revenue per player is not $0.  Therefore, in my mind, it's not free.  It might end up being free.  It might end up that the highly paid analysts will actually find the guantlet of carrots and sticks that changes my mind and breaks my resolve.  I have the humility to accept that I do not have perfect willpower.  And my estimate of the cost of the game is weighted by not just what I *intend* to pay, but also all the possible moments of weakness that might occur along the way.  And that's where I begin to look at the term "F2P" with emotions varying from suspicion to outright disgust.

    I'm not saying that you have to look at the world my way.  I'm not saying you have to agree that my way is even a good way to look at it.  But if you don't respect the fact that I look at it this way instead of your way, then I'm going to take some offense.

    I'm focused on the individual because "free to play" can always be true of the individual.  Anything else is irrelevant.

    If a car's list price is $40,000 and 95% of people buy it at that price but some people get additional packages which drive the price up to $50,000, does the average cost per vehicle even matter?  Of course not.  The list price accurately reflects the basic price of the car.  The price tag isn't wrong just because some people choose to pay more.
     
    The same is true when the price starts out free.
     
    You're free to have the opinion of disliking free to play games for the reasons you've stated.  But these games can be played for free, and you can't really dispute that truth, or the accuracy of calling them "free to play" if in a typical game 95% of people play for free (in many cases more than 95%.)

    "What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver

  • maplestonemaplestone Member UncommonPosts: 3,099
    Originally posted by Axehilt
    You're free to have the opinion of disliking free to play games for the reasons you've stated.

    I've said my peace as well as I think I can, so if you don't mind II think I'll resist nitpicking your portayal of car salesmen as paragons of honesty and just focus on this line, thank you, and bow out of the conversation.

  • AxehiltAxehilt Member RarePosts: 10,504
    Originally posted by Dihoru

    You are aware you're also stating an opinion right? I also did not play DDO in the real sense of the word because I did not get to enjoy the whole game uninhibited.

    I can dismantle your arguments very simply btw with this:

    Game

    Noun- form of play or sport, esp. a competitive one played according to rules and decided by skill, strength, or luck.

    A Free to Play game follows that definition in as much as allowing skill, strength or luck to decide the outcome of any interaction within it because the game is free to play. A Freemium or Pay to Win game does not because luck and skill are partially or completely supplanted by paying player exclusive enhancements (strength possibly as well depending if the respective game uses a vertical progression system or not).

    If you didn't play DDO, what did you do to the game?

    The "free to play games aren't even games" part of your post is wrong to such a degree where I'm not sure if you're actually being serious.  Skill is still involved, whether you purchase nothing, with lateral purchases, or with vertical purchases.  In all cases of actual F2P games which exist, these games are still games, even if the genuinely bad designs (vertical purchases) completely ruin the quality of their gameplay by selling those veritcal power increases.

    In nearly all cases (95%+ players never pay, and the most popular F2P games use lateral purchases) the skill element is completely intact.

    "What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver

  • KyleranKyleran Member LegendaryPosts: 43,435
    Wish I had more rich friends who could afford to pay these amounts, maybe they'd pay the same for me as well.

    "True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde 

    "I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant

    Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm

    Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

    Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™

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  • CaldrinCaldrin Member UncommonPosts: 4,505

    I have been playing POE on and off since launch and have not paid a penny...  I ahve also played the other games you listed and not paid a penny..

     

    There are currenty 2 f2p games i spend money on World of tanks and War Thunder and I just pay for premium every month so i can skill up a bit faster, but I am currently not playing anything else so I dont mind spending a bit of my entertainment.

  • AxehiltAxehilt Member RarePosts: 10,504
    Originally posted by maplestone

    I've said my peace as well as I think I can, so if you don't mind II think I'll resist nitpicking your portayal of car salesmen as paragons of honesty and just focus on this line, thank you, and bow out of the conversation.

    Since you got completely sidetracked by the car salesman example:

    • A charm bracelet's pricetag says $1.  Just because you can buy additional $1 charms to put on it doesn't make the bracelet's pricetag wrong.
    • A Playstation 3 with God of War is $299.99.  Just because you can purchase additional games doesn't make the PS3's pricetag wrong.
    • Coffee at a rest stop is free.  You may choose to donate to those nice people providing it, but that doesn't mean the coffee isn't free.
    Stuff costs what it costs.  Free to play games cost nothing.

    "What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver

  • Po_ggPo_gg Member EpicPosts: 5,749
    Originally posted by crasset15
    Games can be completely F2P without any monetisation, but it isn't common. America's Army 2 for example, a FPS with quite a large following back in the day, was completely free for the players, because it was funded by the US taxpayers/government.

    Not the most accurate example since the AA series are more like an ad campaign for the military and not a real game... but if we stick to the analogy then what's wrong with f2p games free for the players, funded by the whales? :) (just kidding)

  • uplink4242uplink4242 Member UncommonPosts: 258
    Did you have to pay any money to start playing, or to continue playing? No. That's exactly what F2P means.
  • Loke666Loke666 Member EpicPosts: 21,441
    Originally posted by InsaneDalek

    Uhh, maybe because paying anything at all for them is completely voluntary, and not at all required to enjoy the game?

    But yes, how DARE they give people the OPTION to pay for something they enjoy! The NERVE of these people, honestly!

    If people would start focusing on what they're spending their own money on, and less on how / what other people are purchasing with theirs, maybe we'd have less folks in dire financial straits these days. Oh, but that's just crazy talk. Everybody knows that people aren't responsible for their own fuck-ups anymore...

    You are right in most cases but in some games you do need to spend far more than the old 15 bucks a month subscription would cost if you want to be competetive at endgame level.

    If people want to pay 12500 bucks for fluff, extra bankspace, some cool extra races and stuff like that they are for all means free to do so.

    If on the other hand you need to pay to be able to use the cool item you just looted, you can buy endgame gear for money and you have to pay to unlock the raids and dungeons the game really is on a slippery slope and I will avoid it. Then again if others wants to play a game like that they are free to do so.

  • uplink4242uplink4242 Member UncommonPosts: 258
    Originally posted by Loke666
    Originally posted by InsaneDalek

    Uhh, maybe because paying anything at all for them is completely voluntary, and not at all required to enjoy the game?

    But yes, how DARE they give people the OPTION to pay for something they enjoy! The NERVE of these people, honestly!

    If people would start focusing on what they're spending their own money on, and less on how / what other people are purchasing with theirs, maybe we'd have less folks in dire financial straits these days. Oh, but that's just crazy talk. Everybody knows that people aren't responsible for their own fuck-ups anymore...

    You are right in most cases but in some games you do need to spend far more than the old 15 bucks a month subscription would cost if you want to be competetive at endgame level.

    If people want to pay 12500 bucks for fluff, extra bankspace, some cool extra races and stuff like that they are for all means free to do so.

    If on the other hand you need to pay to be able to use the cool item you just looted, you can buy endgame gear for money and you have to pay to unlock the raids and dungeons the game really is on a slippery slope and I will avoid it. Then again if others wants to play a game like that they are free to do so.

    And what you're descbiring here is something commonly refered as "P2W". The game was still free to play, wether you feel it's relevant to play for free or not. 

    The original question makes no sense. F2P does not imply you can be happy forever playing for free, it simply means you don't have to payto be able to access the game. I think it's very easy to understand. If you can't avoid spending $12.5 k on every game you play, the OP should try to find help instead of debating about this. 

  • SamuraiXIVSamuraiXIV Member Posts: 354
    Originally posted by Robokapp
    Originally posted by Torvaldr
    Originally posted by Robokapp
    Originally posted by Axehilt
    Originally posted by Attend4455

    Mind blown, how can you call these game free-to-play when they allow this?

    Can you play the game?  For free?

    Well then...

    but can you play the game for free? or just fragments of it ?

    you let this one out and this is where the dissagreements are.

    we're all agreeing on the two words you highlighted. not on the one I did.

    Uh oh, someone isn't getting enough for free.  I smell entitlement working its way in here.

    I translated the green part we're disagreeing about.

    are you using the cash shop nose or the freebie one ? that might explain the problem.

     

    see my sig for future details.

    I saw your sig and I want to join TEAM SUBSCRIPTION :)

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  • AyulinAyulin Member Posts: 334
    Originally posted by MindTrigger

    The reason cash shops and premium memberships exist, is because there are people who are willing to pay, and there are deadbeats who aren't.  

    What business *ever*, would create a product that takes millions or tens of millions of dollars to create, and then just hand it over to consumers for free, with no expectation of making money at all?

    [mod edit]

    So wait...

    F2P MMO devs go out of their way to emphasize, as often as possible, in as large a font size as they can, that their game is FREE TO PLAY!!! "NEVER PAY A DIME!!".

    The developers are the ones putting all that effort into convincing that they are, indeed, "spending tens of millions of dollars to create a MMO so they can hand it over to consumers for free, with no expectations of makin money at all".

    They're the ones insisting - in ads, in interviews, in PR releases, and in other ways - that you can fully play and enjoy their game without ever having to spend a dime.

    Yet here you are, making apologist arguments for those developers, and calling those who don't pay "deadbeats".

    I think you've got the story backwards here, sir.

    The thing is, you're right. F2P developers do want to make money. In fact, they want to make even more money than they could make with box sales and subs alone. That's why they switch to F2P, or choose it in the first place. The potential to earn far more revenue is there once you remove the hard ceiling of a sub-fee and start populating your cash shop with enough shiny trinkets, convenience items, and other items proven to be popular sellers.

    However, it's worth noting that they still recognize the value and popularity of a flat monthly sub, which is why those that switch to F2P (except for L2 and Aion, to my knowledge - both NCSoft products) maintain a sub option; many people still prefer subs to microtransactions.

    What makes the F2P model so fundamentally dishonest, on a number of levels begins with the very pretense these developers and Publishers put forth in their PR: "That they want you to play their game for absolutely free", that "Play Free Forever!" is really what they intend. No they don't. They want you to spend. And they want you spend a lot. The biggest lie of F2P MMOs is revealed before you've even installed the client.  Yet, it's amazing how the gullible will see the PR, see the flashy, animated ads and insist, "Well, obviously they want us to play their game for nothing! What an awesome developer!".

    The "FREE!" part is only intended to get warm bodies through the door. After that it becomes a numbers game. The more people they can get through the door, the more people they'll get willing to open their wallets. The more people they get willing to open their wallets, the more so-called "whales" they'll find among them. The more "whales" they find among them, the more potential revenue they make.

    On the other hand, if you're the one that they seem to be targeting with all their ads and PR - the one who wants to "play and enjoy the entire game without ever spending a dime!" - you are not their target market. You are not the ones they're targeting. Your status never ascends beyond "warm body". You're there to help make the game seem more populated so others trying out the game will see other players, believe the game to be popular, and stick around... so that they might perhaps become a paying customer. If you're a warm body who decides to leave the game.... believe me, they don't miss you. Since you didn't spend any money in the shop, they probably didn't even know you were there, and it's better that you're gone. It frees up the bandwidth for someone else who might become a new "whale" for them to milk.

    They let you through the door for free not in hopes that you'll "play for free forever, see all their MMO offers and have the time of your life". No. They let you in for free in hopes you'll become a spender - sooner rather than later - and ideally a big spender. Again, it's a numbers game.

    The issues inherent in the F2P/MT model are myriad, and they run the gamut from almost innocuous to downright disgusting. I'm talking tapping into and exploiting known aspects of human psychology, all in the service of milking as much $$$ as they can out of every single person logging in. While some attempt to play it "sleek and sneaky", others are pretty much up-front and blatant about it.

    Here's a quick story to illustrate just why F2P works. It's a true story based on a conversation I had just last night. I was on a voice chat with some people, and the discussion turned to the game being F2P. One of the people says "Hell yes, it's F2P! What are you going to do, pay $14 to play WoW?", and then they let out a derisive "snort". They continued "I will never pay a subscription fee again. It's not worth it, and it's always a rip off. Cash Shops all the way!!". They then proudly stated, "I will happily support a MMO with a Cash Shop. In fact, I've already spent between $150 and $200 in this game (Rift) in under two weeks! It's awesome!".

    I said "You realize you've spent a year's worth of sub fees, and then some, within 2 weeks time?"

    No that's not a made-up story. Yes, that's pretty much verbatim what they said.

    30 days of all-you-can-eat access to an entire game is a "rip-off". But $150-$200 on individual items and trinkets is an amazing value.

    This is why F2P/Cash Shops work. Because there are people out there whose sense of value is completely ass-backwards. "A Sucker born every minute".

     

     

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