It's often said a large percentage of players in most F2P games actually pay very little or nothing at all. I will assume it is true for this discussion.
Games have to be paid for somehow so very often more onerous designs are implemented to encourage more to spend and some to spend big.
Monthly subs are great for gamers who put a lot of time in one or two games, but for those players who "hop" around between a lot of different games, not so much.
Few people enjoy paying for a service they might not ever use so I'm surprised we haven't seen game devs provide a "pay as you go model."
No, not the old pay by the minute plans like Genie or Compuserv had, but one where gamers could buy blocks of game time in advance, which could in turn be "spent" in smaller increments than monthly.
Optimally for the gamer these prepaid credits could be consumed by the minute much as is done with prepaid cell phones.
If that might be too much to manage for games perhaps consuming credits by the hour, day or week would be more cost effective while still being more attractive to hoppers than a monthly sub.
The players who don't pay keep the game viable for those who do.
There is no dilemma to solve. This was all calculated when companies started moving to F2P and B2P.
That's why we hear about "whales and freeloaders" all of the time.
You're overthinking things. It really is that simple.
If the players who don't pay anything leave for another game, those who do will leave because there will be almost no reason to play a dead MMORPG with only 10% of its original player base.
Games like Path of Exile would die if the "freeloaders" decided to stop playing, as the ecosystems around them dry up as well (content creators would leave, fan sites would shut down/re-purpose themselves, etc.).
The only thing these companies can do is try to monetize through cosmetics, but that is a very fickle business plan - as it depends on players caring about that kind of stuff... and that can be somewhat cyclical.
That's why you see basic QoL things moving into the monetized territory (Inventory/Stash space, Craft Bags, basic stats (like in Aion), etc.).
I have been involved in F2P gaming for decades now... and let me explain some of the underlying principals.
F2P was designed to compete with P2P... which is any game that asks for money upfront, before you can play (At the time this included purchase and/or sub). The reason that F2P works is because giving the game away for free gives you a much larger playerbase, at a much lower marketing spend. F2P is a way to lower the marketing cost of getting players into your game. Marketing a new game can often cost as much as actually building the game in the first place, and the ability to get a product to market quickly and cheaply after years of development, and a high fixed cost is very attractive. F2P was based on the SAAS model.
The largest revenue source for F2P for years (about 1 decade) was subscriptions. Without the money from subs, F2P would have died (just as P2P would have). It was not a good decade in that the online gaming market in general could support different monetization. F2P games were more adapt at adapting to this, and more commonly added things like cash shops, loot boxes, etc as they had a lot more flexibility in how they could monetize. P2P/B2P games followed once they saw that the market would support such changes.
Timecards (vs unlimited playtime subs) are still sold in various parts of the world. They are primarily sold because there are local laws that prohibit the amount of time spent playing online games, and allow the publisher to restrict access. Western markets have preferred the unlimited monthly sub (just as they do for phone plans) to the extent that it is generally not worth the effort for publishers to support multiple models. i.e. not enough people are willing to spend enough money on limited time play vs unlimited time play.
The monetization of F2P vs P2P games is really not significantly different. What is drastically different is how they are marketed (time, method, and money). P2P tends to lag behind F2P in implementing changes to monetization, as they work in different cycles (P2P has fixed cycles, F2P has flexible cycles).
I, personally, am a fan of pay as you go. That is because I do not have unlimited time to dedicate to gaming, and the time I do have can often be very sporadic. However, because of this, I am neither a steady source of revenue, nor am I a big enough spender to be attractive. Much of the older gaming market fits into this category... and as such is not directly sought after by game publishers. Publishers chase where the money IS... they dont try to find new pockets that might have money in them.
The players who don't pay keep the game viable for those who do.
There is no dilemma to solve. This was all calculated when companies started moving to F2P and B2P.
That's why we hear about "whales and freeloaders" all of the time.
You're overthinking things. It really is that simple.
If the players who don't pay anything leave for another game, those who do will leave because there will be almost no reason to play a dead MMORPG with only 10% of its original player base.
Games like Path of Exile would die if the "freeloaders" decided to stop playing, as the ecosystems around them dry up as well (content creators would leave, fan sites would shut down/re-purpose themselves, etc.).
EDIT: Spelling mistake.
I would say that it's the people who DO pay who keep the game viable.
Because that group isn't going to have a game to play if no one pays.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
If we use $15 for monthly sub as standard , then $9 for 100h ? or 60h ? or $4 for weekly sub ?
Before talking about it , the main problem with subbed MMORPG is : not everyone who play MMORPG have bank account .
They don't? How so?
F2P games don't require you give any credit information to make an account, and often the Cash Shop can be done through paypal or Steam, which allows you to use prepaid cards you can buy from Walmart, and not have an actual bank account.
Also, Some games like GW2, allowed you to buy gem cards directly right from Walmart, so you could just buy those with cash, and never have to give any bank info.
I guess what I'm trying to assess is how is it that some players don't have bank accounts?
Even someone who is under age, with an adult on the account, can have an account.
You can even get a prepaid "credit card."
Ok, now you are getting snippy, relax and realize it's a big world out there with a lot of different kinds of people, and each one of them dealing with their own issues, their own way.
I can tell you this as someone that works in construction, we cash a lot of paychecks in the office for our guys employees that don't have bank accounts, if we could not cash out in the office, we would take them to the bank the checks were drawn on so they could cash out without an account.
So, yes, people can and do function in our modern society without bank accounts and credit cards, not saying it's easy for them, but they get by.
for what it's worth, the most common reason I have heard of why they didn't have bank accounts is simply due to a bad credit score.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
If we use $15 for monthly sub as standard , then $9 for 100h ? or 60h ? or $4 for weekly sub ?
Before talking about it , the main problem with subbed MMORPG is : not everyone who play MMORPG have bank account .
They don't? How so?
F2P games don't require you give any credit information to make an account, and often the Cash Shop can be done through paypal or Steam, which allows you to use prepaid cards you can buy from Walmart, and not have an actual bank account.
Also, Some games like GW2, allowed you to buy gem cards directly right from Walmart, so you could just buy those with cash, and never have to give any bank info.
I guess what I'm trying to assess is how is it that some players don't have bank accounts?
Even someone who is under age, with an adult on the account, can have an account.
You can even get a prepaid "credit card."
Ok, now you are getting snippy, relax and realize it's a big world out there with a lot of different kinds of people, and each one of them dealing with their own issues, their own way.
I can tell you this as someone that works in construction, we cash a lot of paychecks in the office for our guys employees that don't have bank accounts, if we could not cash out in the office, we would take them to the bank the checks were drawn on so they could cash out without an account.
So, yes, people can and do function in our modern society without bank accounts and credit cards, not saying it's easy for them, but they get by.
for what it's worth, the most common reason I have heard of why they didn't have bank accounts is simply due to a bad credit score.
um nothing snippy about it just asking a question but you know, the interwebz so many people see an attacks in everything. *rolls eyes*
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
If we use $15 for monthly sub as standard , then $9 for 100h ? or 60h ? or $4 for weekly sub ?
Before talking about it , the main problem with subbed MMORPG is : not everyone who play MMORPG have bank account .
They don't? How so?
F2P games don't require you give any credit information to make an account, and often the Cash Shop can be done through paypal or Steam, which allows you to use prepaid cards you can buy from Walmart, and not have an actual bank account.
Also, Some games like GW2, allowed you to buy gem cards directly right from Walmart, so you could just buy those with cash, and never have to give any bank info.
I guess what I'm trying to assess is how is it that some players don't have bank accounts?
Even someone who is under age, with an adult on the account, can have an account.
You can even get a prepaid "credit card."
Ok, now you are getting snippy, relax and realize it's a big world out there with a lot of different kinds of people, and each one of them dealing with their own issues, their own way.
I can tell you this as someone that works in construction, we cash a lot of paychecks in the office for our guys employees that don't have bank accounts, if we could not cash out in the office, we would take them to the bank the checks were drawn on so they could cash out without an account.
So, yes, people can and do function in our modern society without bank accounts and credit cards, not saying it's easy for them, but they get by.
for what it's worth, the most common reason I have heard of why they didn't have bank accounts is simply due to a bad credit score.
You use the example of people not having a bank account because of bad credit score. Those people shouldn't be putting money into video games anyway, but should be using it to get their lives in order. So, really it's a win-win for the rest of society if those people can't pump tons of money they don't have into games.
mmm. prepaid "credit cards" require no credit check... and a lot of people who don't have official bank accounts have a prepaid card (or a few) for the purpose of paying bills etc. i worked for a winter in the redwoods area in CA... (front desk hotel type job) and i can't even begin to count the number of times i got the question "ok, so how much money was it i needed to put on the prepaid card so i can rent a room?"
you have 2 options for those things... a vanilla prepaid typically not reloadable... no personal info...buy it off a rack in walmart or family dollar or what-have-you, load it with whatever the face value on the package is (usually in amounts of $10, $25, $50, and $100) plus a loading fee between $5-10 or so..... and something that GreenDot brought into the public eye over 10 years ago... the reloadable prepaid card... yeah, you have to give them your info, but you get a "credit card" that you can use for bills and online transactions, tied to your name and info, that costs 5 bucks a month (cheaper than a lot of bank account fees)...
this model has become so popular and big that even WalMart has their own option now... you can walk into a WalMart with your paycheck, sign up for their prepaid reloadable card, and they'll get you set up with 3 bucks a month and direct deposit... all without having a real bank account.
not to mention the services in some department stores, and even WalMart (yes, WalMart again) where you can walk up to a desk, cash in hand, and pay your mortgage/rent/utility/medical/etc bills without any need for any card whatsoever.... altho this doesn't help people who wish to perform any sort of online transactions.
and as Ungood said... there are actually quite a lot of people without bank accounts, for various reasons. *usually* relating to poor scores on the ChexSystems database. write too many bad checks/too many overdraws/too much negative balance... boom, your account is closed, and now you can't open one anywhere else for 7 years (unless you pay off the outstanding balance plus whatever extra fees they may decide to tack on). plus there are a few out there who just don't trust banks... the "stuff the money in the mattress" kind.. altho they are, admittedly, few and far between.
Always amazing on these forums to see what people say, they continue to prove Einstein's theory right.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
You use the example of people not having a bank account because of bad credit score. Those people shouldn't be putting money into video games anyway, but should be using it to get their lives in order. So, really it's a win-win for the rest of society if those people can't pump tons of money they don't have into games.
Sometimes you have to grab happiness where you can.
There are many reasons people can have a bad credit score. I don't think keeping them from some relatively cheap entertainment is required.
Heck, when I was younger and just out of school I didn't make a lot of money and had to sadly plan to have late payments as it was all too much.
Years pass, I make more money, pay off school loans and now my credit is in the exceptional area.
People can turn it around.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
If all gaming heads toward mobile pay methods, gameplay, and hardware, then I can finally put a nail in my favorite hobby... Hopefully, these portals will stay around long enough to keep playing 'the old fashioned way.'
I'd say the most consumer friendly option is to offer all options in a game. F2P peeps can do their thing, sub peeps can do their thing, the world can rest in peace at last.
Plus, can we really fault people for not trusting banks from this past decade and decades before? What have they done to earn/keep our trust? I'd love to be able to live carefree without a bank if I could put up with the hassle.
When I play a F2P game, I always get this "cheap" quality feeling. Now is that because I'm a snob, who thinks people should have to pay to get access to the game like some privileged club, or because the quality of the overall game is lower as a result of it being F2P? I'd reckon if more than half the F2P games tried to be B2P they'd be laughed at because they're not really quality products.
When I want friends to try a B2P MMORPG I'm playing, but they're not willing to drop the cash just to try it, I wish it was F2P. When I'm playing a F2P game and I'm bombarded by cash shop advertisements or notifications every one to a few levels, I wish it was B2P.
I like the sound of LotRO's model that has been brought up in this thread, something like that could work. Try the base game, buy the content beyond it. Don't want to buy all of it? Buy parts of it at a time.
You use the example of people not having a bank account because of bad credit score. Those people shouldn't be putting money into video games anyway, but should be using it to get their lives in order. So, really it's a win-win for the rest of society if those people can't pump tons of money they don't have into games.
Sometimes you have to grab happiness where you can.
There are many reasons people can have a bad credit score. I don't think keeping them from some relatively cheap entertainment is required.
Heck, when I was younger and just out of school I didn't make a lot of money and had to sadly plan to have late payments as it was all too much.
Years pass, I make more money, pay off school loans and now my credit is in the exceptional area.
People can turn it around.
Was not exactly what I meant.
My point was, if you don't have a bank account because of money problems, you shouldn't be pouring money you don't have into video games. My comment largely relates to Americans who have become accustom to piling up mounds of debt with little to no regard for the societal problems it causes for all of us. I suppose that isn't just an American problem though.
It's often said a large percentage of players in most F2P games actually pay very little or nothing at all. I will assume it is true for this discussion.
Games have to be paid for somehow so very often more onerous designs are implemented to encourage more to spend and some to spend big.
Monthly subs are great for gamers who put a lot of time in one or two games, but for those players who "hop" around between a lot of different games, not so much.
Few people enjoy paying for a service they might not ever use so I'm surprised we haven't seen game devs provide a "pay as you go model."
No, not the old pay by the minute plans like Genie or Compuserv had, but one where gamers could buy blocks of game time in advance, which could in turn be "spent" in smaller increments than monthly.
Optimally for the gamer these prepaid credits could be consumed by the minute much as is done with prepaid cell phones.
If that might be too much to manage for games perhaps consuming credits by the hour, day or week would be more cost effective while still being more attractive to hoppers than a monthly sub.
The players who don't pay keep the game viable for those who do.
There is no dilemma to solve. This was all calculated when companies started moving to F2P and B2P.
That's why we hear about "whales and freeloaders" all of the time.
You're overthinking things. It really is that simple.
If the players who don't pay anything leave for another game, those who do will leave because there will be almost no reason to play a dead MMORPG with only 10% of its original player base.
Games like Path of Exile would die if the "freeloaders" decided to stop playing, as the ecosystems around them dry up as well (content creators would leave, fan sites would shut down/re-purpose themselves, etc.).
The only thing these companies can do is try to monetize through cosmetics, but that is a very fickle business plan - as it depends on players caring about that kind of stuff... and that can be somewhat cyclical.
That's why you see basic QoL things moving into the monetized territory (Inventory/Stash space, Craft Bags, basic stats (like in Aion), etc.).
EDIT: Spelling mistake.
I played POE and I don't see in any way how the freeloaders are a benefit to the game.
Sure, perhaps in a more open world setting at least the freeloaders can serve as cheap content, but in POE, totally useless.
Content creators? Pffft, game would be just fine with the ones who also pay to play the game.
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
My point was, if you don't have a bank account because of money problems, you shouldn't be pouring money you don't have into video games. My comment largely relates to Americans who have become accustom to piling up mounds of debt with little to no regard for the societal problems it causes for all of us. I suppose that isn't just an American problem though.
to be fair... once you tank your rating on ChexSystems, you're pretty much screwed for 7 years, as they're notorious for keeping your rating in the "risk" range even after you clear up any outstanding debts... so it is entirely possible to have a small amount of completely disposable income to blow on your favorite hobby...and still be without an official bank account..
My point was, if you don't have a bank account because of money problems, you shouldn't be pouring money you don't have into video games. My comment largely relates to Americans who have become accustom to piling up mounds of debt with little to no regard for the societal problems it causes for all of us. I suppose that isn't just an American problem though.
to be fair... once you tank your rating on ChexSystems, you're pretty much screwed for 7 years, as they're notorious for keeping your rating in the "risk" range even after you clear up any outstanding debts... so it is entirely possible to have a small amount of completely disposable income to blow on your favorite hobby...and still be without an official bank account..
ask me how i know that... >.>
Totally agree and don't mean to lump every person into one category. However, people have become accustomed to thinking that amassing debt (often times high amounts) is "normal". We are slightly off course from the original reason I posted about that anyway....
My point was, if you don't have a bank account because of money problems, you shouldn't be pouring money you don't have into video games. My comment largely relates to Americans who have become accustom to piling up mounds of debt with little to no regard for the societal problems it causes for all of us. I suppose that isn't just an American problem though.
to be fair... once you tank your rating on ChexSystems, you're pretty much screwed for 7 years, as they're notorious for keeping your rating in the "risk" range even after you clear up any outstanding debts... so it is entirely possible to have a small amount of completely disposable income to blow on your favorite hobby...and still be without an official bank account..
ask me how i know that... >.>
Totally agree and don't mean to lump every person into one category. However, people have become accustomed to thinking that amassing debt (often times high amounts) is "normal". We are slightly off course from the original reason I posted about that anyway....
Sometimes it has more to do with trusting the wrong people than it has to do with your income or how much money you have on hand. We all make mistakes and it's best not to judge anyone else simply because you are not in their boat.. because if the day comes when you are, you won't want to be judged.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
I never buy in a free to play game because I consider them not worth it and usually they don't last long to commit and pay for them vs sub games for example FF11 been paying/playing it since 2003 and FF14 since 2010. So as I always say f2p is trash and not lasting why even invest in them. I play f2p mostly to try them never long term.
F2p would be ok if the developers were not so greedy.F2p was originally coined as an OPTION for players,however when a cash shop adds up to maybe 1500 bucks,it is not an option it is pure greed. There is no game on this planet whereby i should have to pay a thousand bucks or more to acquire all the assets.IDC about cosmetic or NEED,i should be able to buy a COMPLETE 100% of a game for under a 100 bucks.
Math works for scummy devs because math does not work for a LOT of people as they are easily fooled by terms used by sneaky devs.To this day Arena.net has been the lamest in using terms...ahem BS to promote and sell their product and perhaps the scummiest of them all in terms of blatant greed has been Kings Isle.
Smedley has become one of the leaders in the f2p industry to watch out for,he would sell you a dirty wash cloth for 100 bucks.Some would argue,good for him,if people are stupid enough to buy it,good,well if that is how you want the industry to work then yeah no wonder it works.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
The players who don't pay keep the game viable for those who do.
There is no dilemma to solve. This was all calculated when companies started moving to F2P and B2P.
That's why we hear about "whales and freeloaders" all of the time.
You're overthinking things. It really is that simple.
If the players who don't pay anything leave for another game, those who do will leave because there will be almost no reason to play a dead MMORPG with only 10% of its original player base.
Games like Path of Exile would die if the "freeloaders" decided to stop playing, as the ecosystems around them dry up as well (content creators would leave, fan sites would shut down/re-purpose themselves, etc.).
EDIT: Spelling mistake.
I would say that it's the people who DO pay who keep the game viable.
Because that group isn't going to have a game to play if no one pays.
Conversely, the ones who pay aren't going to stick around if the world is empty of players. F2P players are, for all intents and purposes, content. They;re fodder for PvP games, and they're entertainment for PvE in things like RP, grouping, having someone to interact with, etc.
I see people say this, but I have not seen any evidence that there is any truth to this.
There is ample proof that if the people that are paying into the game quit the game dies regardless of how populated it may have been, money makes the game stay on. This an absolute. The closest anything has come to challenging this is the revival of City of Heros.
Anyway, getting back to the players that do not pay.
I want to be clear, there is no dis to anyone directly with what I am going to say, but, let's be honest, other players are generally not good content. I mean unless they are the people running new player invite guilds and being the "good guy greg" of the game world, overall most players very between irrelevant to annoying.
Now lets look at the F2P player, just using this forum as a sample, we can see that the F2P players make a fuss about how they don't spend money, voice disdain for Item shops and all the people that use them, blaming them for this pox on gaming called F2P/Item Malls, and to think they will all suddenly start to sing the praise the people that use Item malls and embrace their position as nothing more than content for the players that are paying to keep the lights on .. that is never gonna happen.
Now, imagine, if you are a paying player, and a bunch of people that to be honest never helped you anyway suddenly left, you have less than zero motive to join them on their walk out, and even less motive to follow them if they were the kind people that had a gripe against Item Shops, when you liked them.
In fact, really, unless the people walking out were your close friends, or at the very least people that enabled you to enjoy the game, like for example, if your raid group left, you have no reason to even care if they left or not, reality is, outside the very close players that directly affected your game experience, everyone else's departure is vastly irrelevant to a net positive, depending on their public personally.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
F2p would be ok if the developers were not so greedy.F2p was originally coined as an OPTION for players,however when a cash shop adds up to maybe 1500 bucks,it is not an option it is pure greed. There is no game on this planet whereby i should have to pay a thousand bucks or more to acquire all the assets.IDC about cosmetic or NEED,i should be able to buy a COMPLETE 100% of a game for under a 100 bucks.
Math works for scummy devs because math does not work for a LOT of people as they are easily fooled by terms used by sneaky devs.To this day Arena.net has been the lamest in using terms...ahem BS to promote and sell their product and perhaps the scummiest of them all in terms of blatant greed has been Kings Isle.
Smedley has become one of the leaders in the f2p industry to watch out for,he would sell you a dirty wash cloth for 100 bucks.Some would argue,good for him,if people are stupid enough to buy it,good,well if that is how you want the industry to work then yeah no wonder it works.
I am going to start off by saying I am not defending or justifying the underhanded tactics of some game companies and how they prey upon their players under the disguise of F2P. You have a valid point, and I agree with what you said about Smedly.
However, something to think about, just to toss out some academia, if you played WoW, from Launch to Today, you would have spent, the Box Fee (roughly $50), Eight Expansions at roughly $50 dollars each (I am just guessing), as well as a $15 a month sub fee, over the course of 14 years.
So, roughly $450 for the Box Game and Expansions and $2,520 in Sub Fees, so, to have been a Loyal WoW player, you would have invested $2970 Dollars in the game to date, and you still would need to pay that $15 next month if you wanted to keep playing.
Just something to think about.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Which makes we wonder, if Anet simply put aSub into GW2, for say, a reasonable modern cost to run an MMO of $20 a month.
Over the course of the last 8 years, they would have collected $1,920 dollars from every player that had been with the game since the start in Subs alone, not including Box Costs and both their Expansions, which would have been upwards to $50 for the Box and $100 for each expansion.
So, to date, each starting player would have had an expected ROI of $2,170
I have been playing for almost 6 years, which means my projected ROI should have been at around $1,440 + Box and Expansions. I wish I kept track of my spending so I could have known how close to that mark I hit. I wager it started off strong and then tapered off, and finally ended when they pissed me off with their new game direction, but it would have been novel to see the actual numbers.
But, I wonder how close they hit to that for their long term players, did they do much better, or much worse, but I imagine due to their layoffs and other issues with finances, I think it ended up being worse.
... just thoughts.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
I like the sound of LotRO's model that has been brought up in this thread, something like that could work. Try the base game, buy the content beyond it. Don't want to buy all of it? Buy parts of it at a time.
Yep, that's why I still quote it as my favourite model, it has flexibility.
Though it seems for the "current gamers" this approach of buy parts of it as you go is not acceptable, just look at the recent thread with "for a new player the entry [LOL] fee is too high, because expansions"
The
goal of this system was that instead of committing to a subscription,
you just bought the content piecemeal according to your own budget. It
would cost you more in the long run to buy the content this way, instead
of subscribing, but you got the convienience of being in control of
your spending and you didn't have to spend any money up front, so if you
hated the game, no worries as you're not out of pocket.
Just a small correction, it costs you less on the long run. More on the short run (can only get 2 zones tops, from the $15 which would give you a month of sub), but less on the long run since you get those zones forever. Same goes with all other unlocks. That's how I've barely spent anything on LotRO in the recent years, while I have the "full game", and don't plan to, either. (Besides maybe 1 month subs when I want to check back on the legendary servers)
Sure, I don't have Morgul yet, since none of my characters are there yet - a concept these "new players complaining about high entry cost" can't seem to understand...
And of course I don't have a lot of steed skins, and cosmetics either, since I don't aim for owning everything from the store, just to have a sub-equal gameplay, even if I don't sub.
In LotRO, you can. On the long run it's even cheaper (by a lot) than the sub.
Mobile games figured out and solved every issue being discussed in this thread and makes everyone here right which is crazy when you think about it. PC gaming got fked bad by a few vision-less people when really it should have just been starting off in life. Those same people are still hanging around ___ slapping the genre and the damage they did/do will stay around for quite a while but don't worry you can move over to mobile where all the PC problems don't exist.
I was going to list all the topics being discussed that mobile worked out but the list got too long so will just say that it solved all of them and leave it at that for now.
Which makes we wonder, if Anet simply put aSub into GW2, for say, a reasonable modern cost to run an MMO of $20 a month.
Over the course of the last 8 years, they would have collected $1,920 dollars from every player that had been with the game since the start in Subs alone, not including Box Costs and both their Expansions, which would have been upwards to $50 for the Box and $100 for each expansion.
So, to date, each starting player would have had an expected ROI of $2,170
I have been playing for almost 6 years, which means my projected ROI should have been at around $1,440 + Box and Expansions. I wish I kept track of my spending so I could have known how close to that mark I hit. I wager it started off strong and then tapered off, and finally ended when they pissed me off with their new game direction, but it would have been novel to see the actual numbers.
But, I wonder how close they hit to that for their long term players, did they do much better, or much worse, but I imagine due to their layoffs and other issues with finances, I think it ended up being worse.
... just thoughts.
20$ is a bit steep. I think I read somewhere GW2 make roughly 4 million per month. (Or at least used to make 4 million dollar per month)
4,000,000/15$ = 266,666
GW2 is making roughly the same as 266,666 players paying 15$ per month.
Comments
There is no dilemma to solve. This was all calculated when companies started moving to F2P and B2P.
That's why we hear about "whales and freeloaders" all of the time.
You're overthinking things. It really is that simple.
If the players who don't pay anything leave for another game, those who do will leave because there will be almost no reason to play a dead MMORPG with only 10% of its original player base.
Games like Path of Exile would die if the "freeloaders" decided to stop playing, as the ecosystems around them dry up as well (content creators would leave, fan sites would shut down/re-purpose themselves, etc.).
The only thing these companies can do is try to monetize through cosmetics, but that is a very fickle business plan - as it depends on players caring about that kind of stuff... and that can be somewhat cyclical.
That's why you see basic QoL things moving into the monetized territory (Inventory/Stash space, Craft Bags, basic stats (like in Aion), etc.).
EDIT: Spelling mistake.
F2P was designed to compete with P2P... which is any game that asks for money upfront, before you can play (At the time this included purchase and/or sub). The reason that F2P works is because giving the game away for free gives you a much larger playerbase, at a much lower marketing spend. F2P is a way to lower the marketing cost of getting players into your game. Marketing a new game can often cost as much as actually building the game in the first place, and the ability to get a product to market quickly and cheaply after years of development, and a high fixed cost is very attractive. F2P was based on the SAAS model.
The largest revenue source for F2P for years (about 1 decade) was subscriptions. Without the money from subs, F2P would have died (just as P2P would have). It was not a good decade in that the online gaming market in general could support different monetization. F2P games were more adapt at adapting to this, and more commonly added things like cash shops, loot boxes, etc as they had a lot more flexibility in how they could monetize. P2P/B2P games followed once they saw that the market would support such changes.
Timecards (vs unlimited playtime subs) are still sold in various parts of the world. They are primarily sold because there are local laws that prohibit the amount of time spent playing online games, and allow the publisher to restrict access. Western markets have preferred the unlimited monthly sub (just as they do for phone plans) to the extent that it is generally not worth the effort for publishers to support multiple models. i.e. not enough people are willing to spend enough money on limited time play vs unlimited time play.
The monetization of F2P vs P2P games is really not significantly different. What is drastically different is how they are marketed (time, method, and money). P2P tends to lag behind F2P in implementing changes to monetization, as they work in different cycles (P2P has fixed cycles, F2P has flexible cycles).
I, personally, am a fan of pay as you go. That is because I do not have unlimited time to dedicate to gaming, and the time I do have can often be very sporadic. However, because of this, I am neither a steady source of revenue, nor am I a big enough spender to be attractive. Much of the older gaming market fits into this category... and as such is not directly sought after by game publishers. Publishers chase where the money IS... they dont try to find new pockets that might have money in them.
Because that group isn't going to have a game to play if no one pays.
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
I can tell you this as someone that works in construction, we cash a lot of paychecks in the office for our guys employees that don't have bank accounts, if we could not cash out in the office, we would take them to the bank the checks were drawn on so they could cash out without an account.
So, yes, people can and do function in our modern society without bank accounts and credit cards, not saying it's easy for them, but they get by.
for what it's worth, the most common reason I have heard of why they didn't have bank accounts is simply due to a bad credit score.
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
you have 2 options for those things... a vanilla prepaid typically not reloadable... no personal info...buy it off a rack in walmart or family dollar or what-have-you, load it with whatever the face value on the package is (usually in amounts of $10, $25, $50, and $100) plus a loading fee between $5-10 or so..... and something that GreenDot brought into the public eye over 10 years ago... the reloadable prepaid card... yeah, you have to give them your info, but you get a "credit card" that you can use for bills and online transactions, tied to your name and info, that costs 5 bucks a month (cheaper than a lot of bank account fees)...
this model has become so popular and big that even WalMart has their own option now... you can walk into a WalMart with your paycheck, sign up for their prepaid reloadable card, and they'll get you set up with 3 bucks a month and direct deposit... all without having a real bank account.
not to mention the services in some department stores, and even WalMart (yes, WalMart again) where you can walk up to a desk, cash in hand, and pay your mortgage/rent/utility/medical/etc bills without any need for any card whatsoever.... altho this doesn't help people who wish to perform any sort of online transactions.
and as Ungood said... there are actually quite a lot of people without bank accounts, for various reasons. *usually* relating to poor scores on the ChexSystems database. write too many bad checks/too many overdraws/too much negative balance... boom, your account is closed, and now you can't open one anywhere else for 7 years (unless you pay off the outstanding balance plus whatever extra fees they may decide to tack on). plus there are a few out there who just don't trust banks... the "stuff the money in the mattress" kind.. altho they are, admittedly, few and far between.
Always amazing on these forums to see what people say, they continue to prove Einstein's theory right.
There are many reasons people can have a bad credit score. I don't think keeping them from some relatively cheap entertainment is required.
Heck, when I was younger and just out of school I didn't make a lot of money and had to sadly plan to have late payments as it was all too much.
Years pass, I make more money, pay off school loans and now my credit is in the exceptional area.
People can turn it around.
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
I'd say the most consumer friendly option is to offer all options in a game. F2P peeps can do their thing, sub peeps can do their thing, the world can rest in peace at last.
Plus, can we really fault people for not trusting banks from this past decade and decades before? What have they done to earn/keep our trust? I'd love to be able to live carefree without a bank if I could put up with the hassle.
Gut Out!
What, me worry?
When I want friends to try a B2P MMORPG I'm playing, but they're not willing to drop the cash just to try it, I wish it was F2P. When I'm playing a F2P game and I'm bombarded by cash shop advertisements or notifications every one to a few levels, I wish it was B2P.
I like the sound of LotRO's model that has been brought up in this thread, something like that could work. Try the base game, buy the content beyond it. Don't want to buy all of it? Buy parts of it at a time.
My point was, if you don't have a bank account because of money problems, you shouldn't be pouring money you don't have into video games. My comment largely relates to Americans who have become accustom to piling up mounds of debt with little to no regard for the societal problems it causes for all of us. I suppose that isn't just an American problem though.
Sure, perhaps in a more open world setting at least the freeloaders can serve as cheap content, but in POE, totally useless.
Content creators? Pffft, game would be just fine with the ones who also pay to play the game.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"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
ask me how i know that... >.>
So as I always say f2p is trash and not lasting why even invest in them.
I play f2p mostly to try them never long term.
There is no game on this planet whereby i should have to pay a thousand bucks or more to acquire all the assets.IDC about cosmetic or NEED,i should be able to buy a COMPLETE 100% of a game for under a 100 bucks.
Math works for scummy devs because math does not work for a LOT of people as they are easily fooled by terms used by sneaky devs.To this day Arena.net has been the lamest in using terms...ahem BS to promote and sell their product and perhaps the scummiest of them all in terms of blatant greed has been Kings Isle.
Smedley has become one of the leaders in the f2p industry to watch out for,he would sell you a dirty wash cloth for 100 bucks.Some would argue,good for him,if people are stupid enough to buy it,good,well if that is how you want the industry to work then yeah no wonder it works.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
There is ample proof that if the people that are paying into the game quit the game dies regardless of how populated it may have been, money makes the game stay on. This an absolute. The closest anything has come to challenging this is the revival of City of Heros.
Anyway, getting back to the players that do not pay.
I want to be clear, there is no dis to anyone directly with what I am going to say, but, let's be honest, other players are generally not good content. I mean unless they are the people running new player invite guilds and being the "good guy greg" of the game world, overall most players very between irrelevant to annoying.
Now lets look at the F2P player, just using this forum as a sample, we can see that the F2P players make a fuss about how they don't spend money, voice disdain for Item shops and all the people that use them, blaming them for this pox on gaming called F2P/Item Malls, and to think they will all suddenly start to sing the praise the people that use Item malls and embrace their position as nothing more than content for the players that are paying to keep the lights on .. that is never gonna happen.
Now, imagine, if you are a paying player, and a bunch of people that to be honest never helped you anyway suddenly left, you have less than zero motive to join them on their walk out, and even less motive to follow them if they were the kind people that had a gripe against Item Shops, when you liked them.
In fact, really, unless the people walking out were your close friends, or at the very least people that enabled you to enjoy the game, like for example, if your raid group left, you have no reason to even care if they left or not, reality is, outside the very close players that directly affected your game experience, everyone else's departure is vastly irrelevant to a net positive, depending on their public personally.
However, something to think about, just to toss out some academia, if you played WoW, from Launch to Today, you would have spent, the Box Fee (roughly $50), Eight Expansions at roughly $50 dollars each (I am just guessing), as well as a $15 a month sub fee, over the course of 14 years.
So, roughly $450 for the Box Game and Expansions and $2,520 in Sub Fees, so, to have been a Loyal WoW player, you would have invested $2970 Dollars in the game to date, and you still would need to pay that $15 next month if you wanted to keep playing.
Just something to think about.
Over the course of the last 8 years, they would have collected $1,920 dollars from every player that had been with the game since the start in Subs alone, not including Box Costs and both their Expansions, which would have been upwards to $50 for the Box and $100 for each expansion.
So, to date, each starting player would have had an expected ROI of $2,170
I have been playing for almost 6 years, which means my projected ROI should have been at around $1,440 + Box and Expansions. I wish I kept track of my spending so I could have known how close to that mark I hit. I wager it started off strong and then tapered off, and finally ended when they pissed me off with their new game direction, but it would have been novel to see the actual numbers.
But, I wonder how close they hit to that for their long term players, did they do much better, or much worse, but I imagine due to their layoffs and other issues with finances, I think it ended up being worse.
... just thoughts.
4,000,000/15$ = 266,666
GW2 is making roughly the same as 266,666 players paying 15$ per month.