Because the publishers make even more money, players have more choice and get to decide how much to spend or if they will spend at all and the quality and updates are just as common with the community being exactly the same.
Sounds like win win to me.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
I notice a majority of people on here "Waiting for it to go F2P". As in they think the game is going to fail, and go F2P. If a failed mmo is F2P and a majority of people want to play failed games.
There is your answer, people want and expect very little to waste their sad little lives.
I don't believe anyone actually wants the game to fail because they don't like the company. The ones who want it to fail are those who would like to see a more open world style games with less or no quests and instances. Games that are not aimed at those who have only a little time to spend in game or only want to spend a little time in game.
I notice a majority of people on here "Waiting for it to go F2P". As in they think the game is going to fail, and go F2P. If a failed mmo is F2P and a majority of people want to play failed games.
There is your answer, people want and expect very little to waste their sad little lives.
I get a kick out of these posts Irony is always funny to me though.
Games used to have communities - people nerded out in a friendly area where being a nerd was ok. I'm telling you that people had manners, please, thank you, grammar nazis, all of it and no question was too dumb.
Because when MMOs started, the only people who had the hardware and high speed access tended to be the nerds, therefore, those are the people who the earliest games catered to. That is the only reason MMOs were the way they were early on.
Then WOW became mainstream. It hit the right chords for people. It was easy to run on any computer, it walked you through all the steps, and it was well polished so you didn't have to do a lot of UI reloading or be any sort of programmer to try logical things like.... if I logout surely I'll reset some variables... I'll try that for a fix for this problem. It wasn't super polished day 1 but over time it got better and better because they threw manpower at it and dug in. I don't remember ever having to report a bugged quest in WOW ever and I was around up until Burning Crusade but not from the start - a few years in there.
WoW hit at the time where broadband Internet was first widely available and most people had computers powerful enough to play the game. Blizzard had a well-built game and advertised, that's the only reason that WoW became a phenomenon. It just happened to appear at the right time and in the right place. However, the marketplace now wasn't comprised of nerds, it was comprised of common people who didn't have the same interests as the nerds. Common people had more money collectively than the nerds so games stopped catering to the nerds and followed the money, just like they had always done.
Because wow became mainstream it brought in people who didn't want to grind, explore, or have a community. These are people not normally into roleplaying games. They snicker when they saw it done. I was on an RP/PVP server and even there in WOW people would get laughed at. They saw things like Barrens chat as normal. They didn't remember when every question you ask was answered 5 ways and people were willing to meet up with you and help instead of being a jock about it saying STFU noob. Now, WOW endgame is PVP and getting the highest tier gear. Since PVP was what you "did" once you got all your high level gear, it brought in more of the people from FPS games because they were quick on the keyboard and found their ways to dominate such a soft crowd as RPG players or nublet gamers. So, what you have is a core group that changed from having the story be the mainstay (or the imagining of the story) to the end-game being the whole of the game.
There are still plenty of communities in MMOs including WoW. What happened was that there were more than the single nerd community, MMOs developed dozens of communities that had very little in common with each other outside of the game. Where once you couldn't find a group that couldn't quote Monty Python's Holy Grail from memory, after games went mainstream, people often had nothing to talk about in groups because they were drawing members from multiple communities.
That's why games go free to play so quickly, they couldn't satisfy or bring in enough RPGers to satisfy their goals so they send out their feelers for the majority of players - the content locusts and casuals who have no personal investment in the game. It's just a game to them, one of many available. It's not just about competition to me, it's about competence from a team. You have to offer a grand world now with new things to explore than we've seen to make people desire to sub if they aren't interested in building a community. That would be offering something proprietary (at least if your engine is unique) or creating scarcity for your product making the desire to be you as the only source of the product so you set the price. That takes lots of hours to do and the easiest path is just to introduce more tiers from a programming standpoint instead of testing new mechanics and finding out all the possible combinations to break it. Games are going free to play because there isn't incentive to build a new world for a company when building a world like another one already has code well defined and is a proven system.
There just aren't that many "RPGers" playing games these days. They make up a minuscule percentage of the overall MMO marketplace. The vast majority of people who played these games had no use for the mechanics that the nerds liked and honestly, most of the nerds had no lives outside of games anyhow so they could devote vast amounts of time to moving pixels around a screen. Most people are not like that. Most people who live for games have serious issues and probably need professional help.
Today companies are still following WOW religiously, ESO released with a cash shop because WOW did it. WOW for all its warts really changed MMOs. Because so many people were there it was hard to get people to even try your game unless you had a free trial - a free trial just turned into a free long trial. Make no mistake though, many games have tried to go free to play to save them and it didn't. Even some now who claimed great success are learning that there is a finite amount people will spend so they ramp up that cash shop more and more as they introduce more populist players then wonder why no one makes videos of their games or fan sites or writes guides. They lose those core RPG folks that were nerdarific at proselytizing for them and now what you hear about them is how they are pay to win and how much is blocked and how the population is dwindling. No surprise because being a free game isn't anything to hold people tightly when they feel like they have to buy their way ahead and another free game is coming up which won't be in that phase until later. They churn like madmen but they know it and accept the fluctuating income for the hopes that with 150m of us gaming, all they've got to do is get us all to try the game once and offer up x dollars in the time it takes them to build a new game and start all over with the "look at me, I'm new and improved" schtick. If you want to see proof of it - go look at the free to play companies and watch them - they are always working on a new game because they have no intention of supporting the other game other than what is the minimum in programming cost meaning a few new models here and there and some +1s to things.
Of course they are, WoW makes a ton of money and all companies are in business to make a profit. UO was in business to make a profit. EQ was in business to make a profit. They just had a different player base to make a profit off of. That has changed. Get used to it.
There just aren't that many "RPGers" playing games these days. They make up a minuscule percentage of the overall MMO marketplace. The vast majority of people who played these games had no use for the mechanics that the nerds liked and honestly, most of the nerds had no lives outside of games anyhow so they could devote vast amounts of time to moving pixels around a screen. Most people are not like that. Most people who live for games have serious issues and probably need professional help.
I wouldn't say there aren't many RPGers left. Some of the most funded Kickstarter are for RPG games.
As you mention, companies are in it for profit. If these people are willing to give money to see projects come to fruition, what more is in those deep pockets. There are around 70k people just in those Kickstarters that rank high. They could be duplicate people but not everyone funds things there, I don't and I'm RPG friendly. I think it's charming to find people doing it though I've never done it wholeheartedly making a character with a back history and the like. More people gave them money than gave money for Ouya and that one was topping the charts in interest level.
I hope you don't think there are just a few thousand RPG people out there, Kickstarter shows us it isn't the case because those are people going out of their way to pay for things to be made. I'd think any MMO these days could be content with 1m regular players if we guessed wildly that 70% of gamers supported games on Kickstarter which I imaging to be really high.
While i agree with you for the most part about there still being a healthy number of 'RPGers' left, it must be stated that the term RPG is such an open-ended concept nowadays when applied to games that almost every game can be thought of as an RPG unless its a clearly defined niche(like an fps or sports game)
Now count how many actual people are contributing and compare that to the millions of people playing WoW or other MMOs. There just aren't that many.
As you mention, companies are in it for profit. If these people are willing to give money to see projects come to fruition, what more is in those deep pockets. There are around 70k people just in those Kickstarters that rank high. They could be duplicate people but not everyone funds things there, I don't and I'm RPG friendly. I think it's charming to find people doing it though I've never done it wholeheartedly making a character with a back history and the like. More people gave them money than gave money for Ouya and that one was topping the charts in interest level.
You're still stuck with people paying chump change for Kickstarters. Most modern MMOs cost tens or hundreds of millions of dollars and many years to develop. How much are these RPG fans contributing? A couple of million at best?
I hope you don't think there are just a few thousand RPG people out there, Kickstarter shows us it isn't the case because those are people going out of their way to pay for things to be made. I'd think any MMO these days could be content with 1m regular players if we guessed wildly that 70% of gamers supported games on Kickstarter which I imaging to be really high.
I can't say for sure who needs to get a life and has serious issues that isn't gaming.
One person I know attends church all the time and each visit garners a new donation. Another person is obsessed with their truck, modding it and going to vehicle shows and participating in forums for it. Other people are foodies who have a great interest in anything food related and spend money on exotic foods. Millions of people do gardening and some of their plants die yearly yet they go buy more and start over each season. Just because people spend time in games it's no different than other things that define people and consume their time and money. Then there are people who can tell you everything that happened on Breaking Bad like it's their life or will drone on and on about celebrities or TV series shows.
Why is a game a problem but other things aren't, I sometimes wonder. Gaming isn't a sickness, it's a thing people enjoy doing like all that other crap that is socially acceptable. Gamers aren't all social rejects and neither are RPG gamers.
Fanaticism is a sickness, people who are wholly invested in one thing to the exclusion of all else is a sickness. It doesn't matter if it's a religion or a truck or a game, people whose entire lives revolve around a hobby have some problems.
I notice a majority of people on here "Waiting for it to go F2P". As in they think the game is going to fail, and go F2P. If a failed mmo is F2P and a majority of people want to play failed games.
There is your answer, people want and expect very little to waste their sad little lives.
The obvious solution is that F2P does not make a MMO fail. In fact, there are many highly successful F2P games including LoL, WoT, and TOR (yes, TOR, any game that makes $200+M in 2013 is successful .. even if not at the level of WoW).
I think it's fairly obvious why MMOs go F2P. They do it to expose themselves to the largest possible amount of potential players to try and maximize their potential profits. Some games do it because they aren't making enough off of subs, others do it simply because they want more money, there's no mystery to it.
The better, and more interesting, question is: Why do MMOs still launch sub only?
For the same reason. $60 a box + 6-12 months of subs will bring in more money than f2p ( short term ) because of all the must have new game hype bull shit. When a game switches to f2p, sites like this are all over it covering the game again and it's like you just launched the game again. It's the "new" thing everyone wants to play all over again.
The ability to switch offers the best of both payment types.
Originally posted by Viadric F2P so fast? It's like a sub based mmo comes out and than 6-8 months later it becomes F2P usually with restrictions.
mainly because they have made a bad game/themepark clnoe that everyone has seen before so after the initial few months people realise and go back to wow..
I mean at the end of the day why play a copy of wow when you can play the real thing..
That is such a lame argument! Then again maybe WoW is all you really know so you have no other reference point...?
Originally posted by DamonVile Originally posted by StizzledI think it's fairly obvious why MMOs go F2P. They do it to expose themselves to the largest possible amount of potential players to try and maximize their potential profits. Some games do it because they aren't making enough off of subs, others do it simply because they want more money, there's no mystery to it.The better, and more interesting, question is: Why do MMOs still launch sub only?
For the same reason. $60 a box + 6-12 months of subs will bring in more money than f2p ( short term ) because of all the must have new game hype bull shit. When a game switches to f2p, sites like this are all over it covering the game again and it's like you just launched the game again. It's the "new" thing everyone wants to play all over again.
The ability to switch offers the best of both payment types.
I think MMOs go F2P because their publishers don't understand their market. And, in some cases like ESO, they don't want to build the game properly, or support the game once its released, so they drive customers away. Then when their prized game turns from a Baby Ruth into a smelly turd they get desperate.
Personally, from playing Rift and GW2, I'd say there is a happy medium between purely F2P and the Subscription model. But in end the companies have to really "think things through" and the people in charge aren't capable. Their just "suits" and when they won't listen to customers they can't help but fumble from one mistake to another. Its a wonder more of these companies don't go bankrupt.
I think it's intentional, a consequence of the consumer side of the MMO market being dominated by single-player gamers wanting to play in a persistent shared world. They play their MMOs like single player games, which means that unlike the 5000 hours people invested in WoW or EQ back in the day, players play for 200 or whatever hours and move on to other games. Subs capture a good chunk of money while those players are playing, and F2P allows the game to remain viable afterwards.
Comments
Sounds like win win to me.
I don't believe anyone actually wants the game to fail because they don't like the company. The ones who want it to fail are those who would like to see a more open world style games with less or no quests and instances. Games that are not aimed at those who have only a little time to spend in game or only want to spend a little time in game.
I get a kick out of these posts
Irony is always funny to me though.
Because when MMOs started, the only people who had the hardware and high speed access tended to be the nerds, therefore, those are the people who the earliest games catered to. That is the only reason MMOs were the way they were early on.
WoW hit at the time where broadband Internet was first widely available and most people had computers powerful enough to play the game. Blizzard had a well-built game and advertised, that's the only reason that WoW became a phenomenon. It just happened to appear at the right time and in the right place. However, the marketplace now wasn't comprised of nerds, it was comprised of common people who didn't have the same interests as the nerds. Common people had more money collectively than the nerds so games stopped catering to the nerds and followed the money, just like they had always done.
There are still plenty of communities in MMOs including WoW. What happened was that there were more than the single nerd community, MMOs developed dozens of communities that had very little in common with each other outside of the game. Where once you couldn't find a group that couldn't quote Monty Python's Holy Grail from memory, after games went mainstream, people often had nothing to talk about in groups because they were drawing members from multiple communities.
There just aren't that many "RPGers" playing games these days. They make up a minuscule percentage of the overall MMO marketplace. The vast majority of people who played these games had no use for the mechanics that the nerds liked and honestly, most of the nerds had no lives outside of games anyhow so they could devote vast amounts of time to moving pixels around a screen. Most people are not like that. Most people who live for games have serious issues and probably need professional help.
Of course they are, WoW makes a ton of money and all companies are in business to make a profit. UO was in business to make a profit. EQ was in business to make a profit. They just had a different player base to make a profit off of. That has changed. Get used to it.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
While i agree with you for the most part about there still being a healthy number of 'RPGers' left, it must be stated that the term RPG is such an open-ended concept nowadays when applied to games that almost every game can be thought of as an RPG unless its a clearly defined niche(like an fps or sports game)
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
Now count how many actual people are contributing and compare that to the millions of people playing WoW or other MMOs. There just aren't that many.
You're still stuck with people paying chump change for Kickstarters. Most modern MMOs cost tens or hundreds of millions of dollars and many years to develop. How much are these RPG fans contributing? A couple of million at best?
Fanaticism is a sickness, people who are wholly invested in one thing to the exclusion of all else is a sickness. It doesn't matter if it's a religion or a truck or a game, people whose entire lives revolve around a hobby have some problems.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
The obvious solution is that F2P does not make a MMO fail. In fact, there are many highly successful F2P games including LoL, WoT, and TOR (yes, TOR, any game that makes $200+M in 2013 is successful .. even if not at the level of WoW).
For the same reason. $60 a box + 6-12 months of subs will bring in more money than f2p ( short term ) because of all the must have new game hype bull shit. When a game switches to f2p, sites like this are all over it covering the game again and it's like you just launched the game again. It's the "new" thing everyone wants to play all over again.
The ability to switch offers the best of both payment types.
That is such a lame argument! Then again maybe WoW is all you really know so you have no other reference point...?
Why? What Greenreen said.
The ability to switch offers the best of both payment types.
This too.
I think MMOs go F2P because their publishers don't understand their market. And, in some cases like ESO, they don't want to build the game properly, or support the game once its released, so they drive customers away. Then when their prized game turns from a Baby Ruth into a smelly turd they get desperate.
Personally, from playing Rift and GW2, I'd say there is a happy medium between purely F2P and the Subscription model. But in end the companies have to really "think things through" and the people in charge aren't capable. Their just "suits" and when they won't listen to customers they can't help but fumble from one mistake to another. Its a wonder more of these companies don't go bankrupt.
I think it's intentional, a consequence of the consumer side of the MMO market being dominated by single-player gamers wanting to play in a persistent shared world. They play their MMOs like single player games, which means that unlike the 5000 hours people invested in WoW or EQ back in the day, players play for 200 or whatever hours and move on to other games. Subs capture a good chunk of money while those players are playing, and F2P allows the game to remain viable afterwards.