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Why is every second featured article on mmorpg about how great f2p is?
karmath
Member UncommonPosts: 904
I dont get it. These always end up with the common consensus that the western players dont like it, dont want it and stfu about it. Yet these articles keep coming. I'm seriously edging on the side of believing the writers are taking an 'incentive' to talk about it in an positive light to change the communities mind.
Has anyone noticed this or am I just being a tin foil hat wearer?
Comments
No your right, there is a lot of cash being pumped into internet land in order to socially engineer this revenue model in to becoming acceptable to the masses in the West, but to say more is to get a warning.
Trust me, I know.
Just because some ignorant people on this forum have a bilnd hate for the words "Free to play" doenst mean that western players dont like it.
The poblem is that most F2P MMOs are crappy korean grinders.
But there are P2P MMOs that are crappy korean grinders aswell...
If WoW = The Beatles
and WAR = Led Zeppelin
Then LotrO = Pink Floyd
This is true. First I noticed Massively doing it, now this one.
F2P sucks. We do not like it. Every MMO forum, every article and mention of it is met with a majority of negative feedback. Yet somehow we get these "writers" that make it out to be the future of MMO's. Its not. Come down from the clouds. Just because it saved Turbine's DDO from shut down doesnt mean its the way of the future. What else can we expect, you look anywhere on any MMO site but the article and you got advertisement for any number of F2P MMO's. Sell outs! All of you!
The day that comes to pass (which I doubt!) is the day I quit playing MMO's. If anything subscription fees will become more expensive ($20-$25) given their increasing development costs and rising popularity.
the 'independant' opinion forming gaming sites were the first to be targeted, mainly because they are popular, reach a lot of the core market, and are cheap to subvert (for an industry with millions and millions at stake in profiteering).
Repeat the same propaganda enough times it then becomes fact.
WOW isnt great because it has 12 million players. WOW has 12 million players because its great.
Maybe cause they survive on f2p ad revenue?
It's not really hard to see why they keep pumping the "positive" reviews and "top 5" crud that floods these sites.
.. and even in Turbine's case their games are more an hybrid version than a standard F2P game.
I think a lot of players are just figuring out that F2P games generally end up being more expensive than P2P games.
well, Free to Play is a bit misleading in most cases anyway, the real deal is microtransactions, but i dont think its something that should be 'banned' per se, as some players do like those kinds of games, and while i might not be one of them, i dont mind reading about them from time to time, i think part of the problem is that there are so many F2P games from certain areas that give the genre as a whole, a bit of a bad name, if you can call it that, for their own market their probably pretty good, if they werent then surely they would have folded, its not the payment model itself that doesnt quite suit the western market though, but the games themselves. another part of the problem too is that so many of these 'free to play' games, are seen, and to a degree are, pay to win, i think that in order to gain more recognition in the west, these games would first have to find a level of microtransactions that is acceptable, and probably lose the pay to win options... and thats on top of creating a game that would appeal to the western market....
Yea, who brainwashed thoose who hate F2P into thinking that monthly sub should be the only way to play MMOs?
Its funny to see so many people hate something but cant give a reason why they dont like it!
If WoW = The Beatles
and WAR = Led Zeppelin
Then LotrO = Pink Floyd
For ~90% of the people in any given F2P that would be undeniably false.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I don't mind "Pay to go Faster" or "Pay to have silly costumes". The ones that do bug me are "Pay to Win".
I don't have any reason to believe there is a conspiracy, but I'm sick of the soap-boxy and repeated attempts to convince me f2p is cool...And I'm not strongly anti-F2P.
I resent companies using the term "free to play," because it is obvious BS. It is an insult to my intelligence. I would be happy to play a "free to do X, Y, Z, cash shop for A, B,C!"
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
The top 2 posters are correct. It mainly comes from that japanese fellow, I have little interest in F2P. F2P quality cannot match most top P2P games and you have to pay for content and since there is little regulation in the pricing of online goods some games charge top currency for your much needed shinies.
My feelings about F2P games exactly!
QFTW!!!!
Just one little modification.
If the game say takes about on average of 12 months to reach the max level without the cash shop and 7-8 months with the cash shop, that would be acceptable.
However, if the game takes you about 7-8 months on average to reach max level with cash shop but 15-20 months without that's pushing it and going to far even on the "Pay to go faster' route. It has to be possible for the average player to reach the maximum level and enjoy the end game for a few months before the game decides to increase the level cap.
Thats a major problem with F2P games. If you do go the free route and they do let you get to the max for free usually what happens is by the time you reach the level cap the game is almost always ready to increase it or close to it...so you end up never really enjoying being max level. If you want to do that you have to pay.
I can assure you that there is and never has been any kind of paid coverage at MMORPG.com - EVER. Unless my Editor and team is taking back-room bribes I am unaware of - which I really, really doubt is happening. Do we have a lot of F2P advertisers? Of course - let's face it like it or hate it these companies are fairly successful and have the money to keep advertising. We accept ads from any gaming company - but it does seem the F2P companies are now the majority.
However, I just looked over our recent feature list and I don't see anything backing up your claim:
Our Latest Features
Rift: Planes of Telara - PreviewsCharacter Creation
Mythos - Dev JournalsDeveloper Diary #1: Stonehill Grove
Guild Wars 2 - General ArticleNo Grind? Yes, Please!
Angela Webb: In Her Opinion - ColumnCreativity. Where is it?
Game Keys - Game KeysFairy Story Free Newbie Card Giveaway
What's Happening Now in DOMO - Blog EntryWelcome to Dream or Mirror Online (DOMO)
End of Nations - PreviewsGamer's Day Preview
The List - ColumnSome New MMO Settings
Richard Aihoshi's Free Zone - ColumnWhat's Wrong with Freedom of Choice?
The only what that really matches what you claim is Richard Aihoshi's weekly column, which is *always* about the pros of F2P - because this is what his column is about - this is what is background and beliefs are.
- MMORPG.COM Staff -
The dead know only one thing: it is better to be alive.
You want reasons? They've been stated many times.
Not really free at all, just a different model
Unfairness, those who spend more win more
Draws players who aren't willing to spend money, who don't care about the game, who tend to be anti social and grief minded
To be on equal footing, you have to spend right along with the the highest spenders. A "good" game will draw people willing to spend more, which is the game others would like to play in too, and be competitive in, thus costing more to keep up. Can easily get more expensive than a subscription model.
Games are tailored to make money from the sales, not from making a great game. When the choices are made to either improve the game play or to make more money, you can bet which one it'll be. Incentives of developers in the wrong place.
That's just off the top of my head. Not spending much time on this crap.
Once upon a time....
BTW... Iraq was behind 9/11
All Get Fuzzy joking aside (I got that line from a comic strip... don't hate me for it), I beileve the term "Don't bite the hand that feeds" is the reason we get so many writers in favor of the F2P/MT/Cash Shop games. Look at the marketting on the edges of this forum, splashed across the background of the front page, and even in the middle of some articles. How many of those advertisements are P2P? EvE and Fallen Earth are the only ones I can think of and they do it because they don't have a box in most gaming stores. As I type this, I'm staring at some A-sexual elf on a post-it note for Runes of Magic. Why would MMORPG.com and other such sites risk the loss of revenue and write the truth about these generic games? MMO players are a fickle enough bunch that if we weren't complaining about the F2P advertising (and believe me, that's what these "reports" are), we'd be complaining about the lack of acknowledgement our favor games were getting and that's why they have declining player bases.
If you don't like what the reporters are writing, then don't read the reports. Eventually the page hits will decline enough that F2P companies will stop pouring money into that brand of advertising. Until then it's what pays the bills here at MMORPG.com, and it doesn't hurt me because I don't play f2p and I don't read about f2p games.
Maybe I'm missing something, but looking through the last 20 articles only 1 was about f2p and that was by the sites f2p writer, where are the rest? (I didn't look past the last 20 on the featured articles so maybe they've slowed down?)
People who dislike an issue tend to be much more vocal than the people who like it so it's not really a common consensus that western players don't like it unlike there is study done on a statistically large sample of western players. As only the publishers of the games know how large their active populations are and since the publishers tend not to release those numbers, the only way to see if f2p is good (or not) is to wait. If the f2p business model isn't good in the western market, it will eventually die out and be replaced with a different one.
The funny thing is that when I work with F2P companies selling them advertising they are always complaining about how their games never get coverage on MMORPG.com or how they at least feel "second tier" to the AAA P2P games. I always tell them that Jon & team decides what we cover based on what they feel our community wants to read about.
I guess regardless of what side of the fence you are on you see things a different way. It is like the moderation - we get 20 letters a week telling us to get tougher on the forums and 20 letters telling us we are too hard and "mod nazis" - you just cannot win it seems
- MMORPG.COM Staff -
The dead know only one thing: it is better to be alive.
You sure the F2P advertisements and package/key/prize giveaways aren't skewing your opinion? THOSE are rampant, that's for sure.
A Modest Proposal for MMORPGs:
That the means of progression would not be mutually exclusive from the means of enjoyment.
The big AAA companies probably give them a lot more than the FtP industry, or at least a lot more of value.
Lets not be too unfair here. This is a business and they are caught in the middle of many angles. But you don't see me complaining that they don't have a Sandox-/-worldly weekly article.
Hmm, maybe I should apply for that.
Once upon a time....
I don't see what the OP is on about either...I do not see that many articles about the f2p business model on this site...I do see many many threads from both sides of the debate int he forums but that is the forum community not the site's staff and not the staff's repsonsibility.
Now I would agree that the articles on the subject that are written border on demogogy at times IMO as do the threads in the forums by both sides.
I personally don't like f2p. But there are plenty of people that like f2p, either they actually play for free, or they are some rich dude that like to spend thousands in a game.
we do seem to have drifted off on a tangent slightly... but as the admin guy pointed out, quite accurately too.. the number of articles isnt overly focused on F2P nor is it promoting them as being the next best thing to sliced bread, which is what the OP was suggesting - in a manner of speaking, so no matter what our own preferences are regarding F2P and this topic certainly is highlighting quite a few of them... i do think that the OP is perhaps seeing things that arent really there. Though some of it could perhaps be that the number of forum post updates is probably related to various F2P games, but as thats in the hands of us the people discussing these things, then its because its a hotly debated topic rather than the staff of MMORPG.com being particularly focused on these games.