My guess is that this has little to do with the MMO genre doing badly and everything with more and more subbed MMO's going to an F2P hybrid model.
From what I read in the article, the MMO's using an F2P/micro transaction model, which former P2P MMO's like DDO, EQ2 and LotrO take part in too (and now AoC as well), has seen a significant increase in revenues.
Personally I still think that an 'a la carte' system would work best, where you can choose the payment model that fits you best at a current moment of time.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Yeah article is bit biased. Subscription overall revenue dropped because some games went F2P and apart of Rift there weren't any AAA or decent sub game in long time.
Try to shift few popular F2P games into P2P model and you will have less MT revenue and more sub revenue , it is that simple.
Situation in article is merely reflection of some game companies decision and not becasue suddenly sub games are going down
Yeah article is bit biased. Subscription overall revenue dropped because some games went F2P and apart of Rift there weren't any AAA or decent sub game in long time.
Try to shift few popular F2P games into P2P model and you will have less MT revenue and more sub revenue , it is that simple.
Situation in article is merely reflection of some game companies decision and not becasue suddenly sub games are going down
Going forward in the future it's going to be harder and harder to distinguish between the two models, with most titles employing some sort of hybrid.
Take EQ 2 Extended, is it a F2P game? Yes, you can go with a bronze sub and only do cash shop purchases. But wait, you can buy a gold sub and pay a monthly 15.00 fee. In fact, don't most other recent F2P conversions such as LOTRO also offer a sub model? So where exactly do their revenues fall?
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™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
90% of F2P models can just go off the deep end. Nearly every time I touch a micro-transaction game all I find is hackers, exploiters, people who dont speak english, etc. How that's supposed to 'drive' the MMO economy I will never understand. Not until GameGuard and Punkbuster die in a fire.
Or they could do whatever LoL is doing. Never met a hacker/etc. there. o.O
My guess is that this has little to do with the MMO genre doing badly and everything with more and more subbed MMO's going to an F2P hybrid model.
From what I read in the article, the MMO's using an F2P/micro transaction model, which former P2P MMO's like DDO, EQ2 and LotrO take part in too (and now AoC as well), has seen a significant increase in revenues.
Personally I still think that an 'a la carte' system would work best, where you can choose the payment model that fits you best at a current moment of time.
My question here is, these games that went P2P and saw significan increases, compared to what?
They were doing poorly, i would assume, and thats why they went P2P. Was the increased revenue attempt a "desperate" stab to save their game? Most of the games (i believe) you mentioned were originally subbed based, but (obviously) didn't live up to the developers expectations, they needed to do something.
This is more of a question than a statement. I don't really know the ins and outs of P2P, but when i see a game go from sub, to P2P, it never really seems like its a "succesful" game doing it.
As someone said earlier, give me a game worth paying $15 (or $20 for that matter) a month for, and I'll be more than happy to pay it. This is of course personal opinion only, theresmore than a few games out there doing ok with their sub base (obviously).
The current numbers may suggest otherwise, but I don't believe that it is "the future" just yet. The economy is shit, and more people are looking at another monthly P2P fee on top of their cell phone, gas, loan payments, etc. as more fat that can be trimmed. F2P MT-based systems are designed like any other impulse purchasing system: to take advantage of people that aren't smart with money and deceive them into thinking that it costs less in the long run because it isn't on a schedule.
Like any other case of fraud, the common player will start to see through it eventually. There will always be a contingent of stupid people that continue to fall for it, but in the long run I don't see it becoming the norm.
bigpoint and gameforge are making their money mainly with browsergames and these games aren't typical old school mmorpgs, even if they are getting close with some of the new titles like battlestar galatica or drakensang. also the majority of the current browsergames players didn't play any client based mmo yet, but they are potential customers.
and, sorry to say, months ago i pointed out that this 'f2p hype' and the numbers reports are showing us are based on the revenues browser games and especially companies like bigpoint and gameforge are generating. every big report in the last 2 years counted the browsergames into the mmo-genre.
so it seams to be a good idea if we talk about the business and the payment model of mmogs in the future, we should differentiate between client based and browser based mmogs.
bigpoint and gameforge are making their money mainly with browsergames and these games aren't typical old school mmorpgs, even if they are getting close with some of the new titles like battlestar galatica or drakensang. also the majority of the current browsergames players didn't play any client based mmo yet, but they are potential customers.
and, sorry to say, months ago i pointed out that this 'f2p hype' and the numbers reports are showing us are based on the revenues browser games and especially companies like bigpoint and gameforge are generating. every big report in the last 2 years counted the browsergames into the mmo-genre.
so it seams to be a good idea if we talk about the business and the payment model of mmogs in the future, we should differentiate between client based and browser based mmogs.
I wasnt aware that there were even this many browser based MMO's until I checked into those two game companies. I agree with this poster though that these browser based games should not be included or there should be a second report that does not include them. It skews the facts a bit when you have all of these f2p browser based games and almost zero P2P browser based games.
The current economic climate is showing decline in revenue for pretty much all non-essential goods & services (except tobacco & alcohol which always see an upswing during economic decline). It just is what it is right now and I think the decline has a lot to do with that more than anything else.
That said I do tend to think subscription only games are a dying breed, hopefully replaced by buy 2 play & pay 4 convenience rather than pay 2 win models.
it's as if players said these games suck, make better games devs and then the devs say no we will just nickle and dime you in an MT store and not charge you a sub. Wait...
I will not play a game with a cash shop ever again. A dev job should be to make the game better not make me pay so it sucks less.
oh!! finally some actual research demonstrateing how shit mmo's have become over th epast few years. maybe now the developers will pay attention to what they are creating rather than putting pretty wrappers and ribbons around dog shit and expecting us to buy it.
thats right! some of us gamers are aware that your reselling old trash to us in a new skin that isnt really that new. im one of those declinees. i will not play another mmo until one of qaulity depth and effort is released and no!! swtor is not one of them. infact swtor is the same trash as all the rest just with a sw skin. what a surprise eh!! they just gave you more trash for your money is all.
games of today are so bad infact ive pulled my zx-spectrum out of the loft and im playing a few of my childhood favourites. .. and im loving fond memmories of manic miner, paper boy, pole posistion,commando,jet set willy,cyclone one of my all time faves, these games are simple not much programmer not very good graphics but so so so so so much more fun than any recent game release in the last 4 years or so. retro games rule.
Now you can say ''Hey that game is P2W Im not playing that!'' because we have options, in a few years we dont have those options and its either pay 100$ a month to be viable or dont play MMO's.
Well then i wont play mmos and lots of people do the same i guess.
Well I would take any of this with a grain of salt. I mean really, we've been in a rescission for what now 2-3 years and just about every state but a handful have had high unemployment for almost the same amount of time. No industry is making nearly as much money as they did before all this hit the fan. It just makes sense that the hobby/entertanment sectors are the hardest hit. Just look at the money from the theater/movie industry and how low its dropped compare to previous years. As someone that works in retail this is no surprise at all.
When you have millions unemployed and millions more praying they are still employed by the time the holidays come around like the about 100k plus from the post office that may or may not have jobs come christmas and the fact that some mmo devs came up 5% short this year seems silly at the least. I love my hobby. I've been an avid gamer since before some of these posters were even born but if I had to pick anyone to lose money it would have to be the gaming industry. There are just way too many other things to be worried about right now and other places where my money can be better spent.
There isnt a single F2P game out there worth paying a dime for. I dont count former P2P games converted over, since they all still have a sub option and are worth paying for even still. The difference is that ALL F2P games are designed to annoy you, and the solution throw money at it, problem is there are more annoyances then one can afford.. P2P games are NOT designed from this persepective so they.........dont annoy you.
Didn't a good portion of previously sub only games switch to FTP models? thereby decreasing how many games even HAVE a subscription based income? This is a misleading article. If it said that the companies themselves were losing money than it would make sense to even talk about this, but since they aren't and seem to be making more money when adopting microtransactions, this "report" comes about as trying to push the microtransaction model even more.
This is one sided and silly, games are going f2p so of course subs are down, not to mention no games worthy of a sub have came out in a while other than Rift. Why not show MMO market revenue and see if that's on a decline or if it's sky rocketing due to cash shops.
"Sometimes people say stuff they don''t mean, but more often then that they don''t say things they do mean"
I would agree with other's assessments regarding the "why" subs have gone down.
We haven't had a great "new" game in a while and the content for our current games has been slow coming so people stop subbing for a bit. Also, the Economy sucks and though $15 isn't a lot, if people hold 2 or 3 subs they might reconsider those subs.
On top of that, some games have added a f2p component so many players, for a variety of reasons will drop the sub and just go free to play. The alternative in some cases allowing them to pay nothing for a bit. I know I did that with LOTRO and just now restarted my sub for the expansion.
So, bad economy, not a lot of new games with subs, already established games adding f2p component, subs go down.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
The funny part of this article is and also ironic that in all these so called F2P titles, the best option is to still stick to monthly sub option otherwise you will be paying out of your nose and mouth for conten unlocks. So these are P2P titles disguised as F2P.
Originally posted by Supersoups The funny part of this article is and also ironic that in all these so called F2P titles, the best option is to still stick to monthly sub option otherwise you will be paying out of your nose and mouth for conten unlocks. So these are P2P titles disguised as F2P.
We don't know how that income was reported. Was it reported as a micro-transaction or as a subscription? Also, just because it's the most efficient or economical option, doesn't mean it's the option that everyone uses. Some people might go with a cheaper option because they won't use everything that's in the subscription.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
The EQ and UO generation has grown up (hardcore era), started working and paying WoW (casual era), and in retirement shall smite thee with the power of money (hybrid era offering the value subscription for the new people or the whale food), though there are many that notice how the monopoly will not bring any new content to customers, if anything, less value than ever as you notice progression starts officially taking a form measured in credit card along wth time/skill.
Much to the hater's shagrin the F2P model is growing because of the success of the shops, just because games have a shop doesn't instantly make them pay 2 win and hackers and exploiters are on every single game (most of which were originally sub only). So we have a game model thats fun, that brings in revenue, that actually gives more money to the devs so they can churn out more content instead of the Fail sub model. The majority has spoken, we like F2P it's here to stay. End of Line.
The result of which, hopefully, will be switch from a focus on revenue to focusing on gameplay. Gameplay sells a good game and keeps it running, not a bloody cash shop.
----- Pay-to-Win / F2P will be the death of real gaming, Boycott it !!
brings in revenue, that actually gives more money to the devs so they can churn out more content
You meant, even more cash shop items instead of a real content.
If its a subscription model, devs need to put gameplay content in order for people to be interested and pay subscription.
If it's a F2P, devs add more and more cash shop items instead of a game world content, because it's cash shop items that make money in f2p, not a subsriptions
Show some self control and you won't be the suckers feeding the money machines for these tittles. WoWs glowy mount, for $25 US, comes to mind. The monthly subscription is $10 less @ $15 a month (if you pay 1 month at a time). Why anyone would pay $25 US is beyond me, but Blizzard made millions off that horse. Some people on my server bought several, one for each character. I have read reports saying they sold 80,000 in the first 4 hours. 2 million dollars in 4 hours. With profits like that it's only a logical step to move towards micro transactions. Old link to follow:
The terms F2P and/or Subscription based, aren't really acurate. If you asked most people they would say that WoW is a subscrition based game, and DDO is a F2P model. In fact WoW and DDO are indeed, both subscription based and Item mall games. WoW will continue to offer items for sale, DDO will continue to offer Subscriptions. They have slightly different versions, but both offer subscriptions and items/services for sale.
These type models are here to stay until they figure out some way to make even more monies.
Speaking of more monies: See also Blizzards next attempt to make even more money. The RL dollar AH. They make money when you post. They make money when you sell. They make money when you cash out. There is a really good chance that this will catch on. The major up side to this is that it will likely lower the demand from the player base for 3rd party sites selling, hacking and exploiting the game and markets.
Comments
My guess is that this has little to do with the MMO genre doing badly and everything with more and more subbed MMO's going to an F2P hybrid model.
From what I read in the article, the MMO's using an F2P/micro transaction model, which former P2P MMO's like DDO, EQ2 and LotrO take part in too (and now AoC as well), has seen a significant increase in revenues.
Personally I still think that an 'a la carte' system would work best, where you can choose the payment model that fits you best at a current moment of time.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Yeah article is bit biased. Subscription overall revenue dropped because some games went F2P and apart of Rift there weren't any AAA or decent sub game in long time.
Try to shift few popular F2P games into P2P model and you will have less MT revenue and more sub revenue , it is that simple.
Situation in article is merely reflection of some game companies decision and not becasue suddenly sub games are going down
Going forward in the future it's going to be harder and harder to distinguish between the two models, with most titles employing some sort of hybrid.
Take EQ 2 Extended, is it a F2P game? Yes, you can go with a bronze sub and only do cash shop purchases. But wait, you can buy a gold sub and pay a monthly 15.00 fee. In fact, don't most other recent F2P conversions such as LOTRO also offer a sub model? So where exactly do their revenues fall?
"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™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
90% of F2P models can just go off the deep end. Nearly every time I touch a micro-transaction game all I find is hackers, exploiters, people who dont speak english, etc. How that's supposed to 'drive' the MMO economy I will never understand. Not until GameGuard and Punkbuster die in a fire.
Or they could do whatever LoL is doing. Never met a hacker/etc. there. o.O
My question here is, these games that went P2P and saw significan increases, compared to what?
They were doing poorly, i would assume, and thats why they went P2P. Was the increased revenue attempt a "desperate" stab to save their game? Most of the games (i believe) you mentioned were originally subbed based, but (obviously) didn't live up to the developers expectations, they needed to do something.
This is more of a question than a statement. I don't really know the ins and outs of P2P, but when i see a game go from sub, to P2P, it never really seems like its a "succesful" game doing it.
As someone said earlier, give me a game worth paying $15 (or $20 for that matter) a month for, and I'll be more than happy to pay it. This is of course personal opinion only, theresmore than a few games out there doing ok with their sub base (obviously).
The current numbers may suggest otherwise, but I don't believe that it is "the future" just yet. The economy is shit, and more people are looking at another monthly P2P fee on top of their cell phone, gas, loan payments, etc. as more fat that can be trimmed. F2P MT-based systems are designed like any other impulse purchasing system: to take advantage of people that aren't smart with money and deceive them into thinking that it costs less in the long run because it isn't on a schedule.
Like any other case of fraud, the common player will start to see through it eventually. There will always be a contingent of stupid people that continue to fall for it, but in the long run I don't see it becoming the norm.
bigpoint and gameforge are making their money mainly with browsergames and these games aren't typical old school mmorpgs, even if they are getting close with some of the new titles like battlestar galatica or drakensang. also the majority of the current browsergames players didn't play any client based mmo yet, but they are potential customers.
and, sorry to say, months ago i pointed out that this 'f2p hype' and the numbers reports are showing us are based on the revenues browser games and especially companies like bigpoint and gameforge are generating. every big report in the last 2 years counted the browsergames into the mmo-genre.
so it seams to be a good idea if we talk about the business and the payment model of mmogs in the future, we should differentiate between client based and browser based mmogs.
I wasnt aware that there were even this many browser based MMO's until I checked into those two game companies. I agree with this poster though that these browser based games should not be included or there should be a second report that does not include them. It skews the facts a bit when you have all of these f2p browser based games and almost zero P2P browser based games.
I had to abort my plans of going to study abroad (as an adult) when the world economy crashed and alot of ppl lost their jobs and cash...
...yep, i totally blame F2P models for decreasing MMO subs...
The current economic climate is showing decline in revenue for pretty much all non-essential goods & services (except tobacco & alcohol which always see an upswing during economic decline). It just is what it is right now and I think the decline has a lot to do with that more than anything else.
That said I do tend to think subscription only games are a dying breed, hopefully replaced by buy 2 play & pay 4 convenience rather than pay 2 win models.
it's as if players said these games suck, make better games devs and then the devs say no we will just nickle and dime you in an MT store and not charge you a sub. Wait...
I will not play a game with a cash shop ever again. A dev job should be to make the game better not make me pay so it sucks less.
oh!! finally some actual research demonstrateing how shit mmo's have become over th epast few years. maybe now the developers will pay attention to what they are creating rather than putting pretty wrappers and ribbons around dog shit and expecting us to buy it.
thats right! some of us gamers are aware that your reselling old trash to us in a new skin that isnt really that new. im one of those declinees. i will not play another mmo until one of qaulity depth and effort is released and no!! swtor is not one of them. infact swtor is the same trash as all the rest just with a sw skin. what a surprise eh!! they just gave you more trash for your money is all.
games of today are so bad infact ive pulled my zx-spectrum out of the loft and im playing a few of my childhood favourites. .. and im loving fond memmories of manic miner, paper boy, pole posistion,commando,jet set willy,cyclone one of my all time faves, these games are simple not much programmer not very good graphics but so so so so so much more fun than any recent game release in the last 4 years or so. retro games rule.
Well then i wont play mmos and lots of people do the same i guess.
Well I would take any of this with a grain of salt. I mean really, we've been in a rescission for what now 2-3 years and just about every state but a handful have had high unemployment for almost the same amount of time. No industry is making nearly as much money as they did before all this hit the fan. It just makes sense that the hobby/entertanment sectors are the hardest hit. Just look at the money from the theater/movie industry and how low its dropped compare to previous years. As someone that works in retail this is no surprise at all.
When you have millions unemployed and millions more praying they are still employed by the time the holidays come around like the about 100k plus from the post office that may or may not have jobs come christmas and the fact that some mmo devs came up 5% short this year seems silly at the least. I love my hobby. I've been an avid gamer since before some of these posters were even born but if I had to pick anyone to lose money it would have to be the gaming industry. There are just way too many other things to be worried about right now and other places where my money can be better spent.
http://money.cnn.com/2011/08/12/news/economy/post_office_layoffs/index.htm
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/06/05/eveningnews/main20069136.shtml
This,
There isnt a single F2P game out there worth paying a dime for. I dont count former P2P games converted over, since they all still have a sub option and are worth paying for even still. The difference is that ALL F2P games are designed to annoy you, and the solution throw money at it, problem is there are more annoyances then one can afford.. P2P games are NOT designed from this persepective so they.........dont annoy you.
^^^^ this ^^^^
This is one sided and silly, games are going f2p so of course subs are down, not to mention no games worthy of a sub have came out in a while other than Rift. Why not show MMO market revenue and see if that's on a decline or if it's sky rocketing due to cash shops.
"Sometimes people say stuff they don''t mean, but more often then that they don''t say things they do mean"
I would agree with other's assessments regarding the "why" subs have gone down.
We haven't had a great "new" game in a while and the content for our current games has been slow coming so people stop subbing for a bit. Also, the Economy sucks and though $15 isn't a lot, if people hold 2 or 3 subs they might reconsider those subs.
On top of that, some games have added a f2p component so many players, for a variety of reasons will drop the sub and just go free to play. The alternative in some cases allowing them to pay nothing for a bit. I know I did that with LOTRO and just now restarted my sub for the expansion.
So, bad economy, not a lot of new games with subs, already established games adding f2p component, subs go down.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
The funny part of this article is and also ironic that in all these so called F2P titles, the best option is to still stick to monthly sub option otherwise you will be paying out of your nose and mouth for conten unlocks. So these are P2P titles disguised as F2P.
We don't know how that income was reported. Was it reported as a micro-transaction or as a subscription? Also, just because it's the most efficient or economical option, doesn't mean it's the option that everyone uses. Some people might go with a cheaper option because they won't use everything that's in the subscription.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
The EQ and UO generation has grown up (hardcore era), started working and paying WoW (casual era), and in retirement shall smite thee with the power of money (hybrid era offering the value subscription for the new people or the whale food), though there are many that notice how the monopoly will not bring any new content to customers, if anything, less value than ever as you notice progression starts officially taking a form measured in credit card along wth time/skill.
Much to the hater's shagrin the F2P model is growing because of the success of the shops, just because games have a shop doesn't instantly make them pay 2 win and hackers and exploiters are on every single game (most of which were originally sub only). So we have a game model thats fun, that brings in revenue, that actually gives more money to the devs so they can churn out more content instead of the Fail sub model. The majority has spoken, we like F2P it's here to stay. End of Line.
Here's hoping F2P, i.e P2W, dies a quick death...
The result of which, hopefully, will be switch from a focus on revenue to focusing on gameplay. Gameplay sells a good game and keeps it running, not a bloody cash shop.
-----
Pay-to-Win / F2P will be the death of real gaming, Boycott it !!
You meant, even more cash shop items instead of a real content.
If its a subscription model, devs need to put gameplay content in order for people to be interested and pay subscription.
If it's a F2P, devs add more and more cash shop items instead of a game world content, because it's cash shop items that make money in f2p, not a subsriptions
Show some self control and you won't be the suckers feeding the money machines for these tittles. WoWs glowy mount, for $25 US, comes to mind. The monthly subscription is $10 less @ $15 a month (if you pay 1 month at a time). Why anyone would pay $25 US is beyond me, but Blizzard made millions off that horse. Some people on my server bought several, one for each character. I have read reports saying they sold 80,000 in the first 4 hours. 2 million dollars in 4 hours. With profits like that it's only a logical step to move towards micro transactions. Old link to follow:
http://www.1up.com/news/fancy-horse-blizzard-2-million
The terms F2P and/or Subscription based, aren't really acurate. If you asked most people they would say that WoW is a subscrition based game, and DDO is a F2P model. In fact WoW and DDO are indeed, both subscription based and Item mall games. WoW will continue to offer items for sale, DDO will continue to offer Subscriptions. They have slightly different versions, but both offer subscriptions and items/services for sale.
These type models are here to stay until they figure out some way to make even more monies.
Speaking of more monies: See also Blizzards next attempt to make even more money. The RL dollar AH. They make money when you post. They make money when you sell. They make money when you cash out. There is a really good chance that this will catch on. The major up side to this is that it will likely lower the demand from the player base for 3rd party sites selling, hacking and exploiting the game and markets.