Originally posted by Admin 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
Tell those F2P companies to stop releasing garbage and we'll start clamoring for more info for their new no garbage awesome games.
It's a cycle, and they are the ones that need to start it.
As for the topic on hand, I am not categorically against F2P as a business model (though I still prefer P2P), I am categorically against 3rd world games from 3rd world countries.
I have not been here as long as some but I knew that a long time ago.
“It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot - it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better.”
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
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.
Do you have a column by someone who's background and beliefs are in supporting and pushing pay to play as a revenue model? Or does he ever investigate the cons of F2P, seeing as he knows so much about it?
For balance, fair representation, and stuff, I mean?
Umm can anyone of you point out a F2P game that force you to constantly pay out cash to them to get far? The F2P games I have played and playing now, I only gave them $10 for about 6 buffs that last me for 30days added with the ingame items like 7day bags I get for free by way of quest equal 37days of bag space of over 100 slots. Now Funcom just charge me for $15 for AoC and I can play that for another month but look at what cost me less to play.
Yes I have played some crappy ass F2P mmo and one of them was Conquer Online. Now that game is true P2P mmo, I wasted over $300 on that shit and got no where, trying to keep up with the rich people in that game and lost lol... I paid for 50 dragonballs vs the others that paid for over 1k of dragonballs.
(The bad graphics are not thw worst part of the game, its the economy. The economy consists of a few people that spend $5000 rl and selling in-game items for ridiiiiiiiicoooooluousssssssnesss prices.
Ex 1/ Player A plays 2 hours a day for a year, buys 100 dbs and sell them for 40 mill each. Player A earns 4,000,000,000 for ~$300 USD. What is the result of 2 hours a day for a year and $300 USD? A level 120 reborn with average items. That character can beat alot of players, however, will get severly owned by people who played for 3 months and pay $ 1,000.
Ex 2/ Player B plays 3 hours a day for a year and a half, and never buys dbs. since dbs costs 40 mill each and it takes 1 hour to earn 1 mill, it is impossible for player A to get dbs, therefore poor equips. Result: A level 110 reborn with horrible items. That character will not be able to beat the average player 20 levels lower than him, this is the result of not paying rl cash.
Summary: This used to be a good game, however, recent patches that support db buyers made it go downhill, dont play this game.
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
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.
Do you have a column by someone who's background and beliefs are in supporting and pushing pay to play as a revenue model? Or does he ever investigate the cons of F2P, seeing as he knows so much about it?
For balance, fair representation, and stuff, I mean?
Just outta interest.
No we don't - but we absolutely would if such a writer/opportunity comes along. I guess before today I really had never thought about it. In the western markets F2P is "the new kid on the block" in terms of billing structures so it is the more interesting topic I guess. I personally am not a fan of it as a gamer - I would rather pay one reasonable fee and know all is well for 30 days, but that is just me. Maybe I should write the column! Oh yeah, I am a crap writer - lol ;-)
This is something to ping off Mr Wood's head though...thanks for the feedback!
I think one thing to look at and consider though is this whole F2P thing is really shaking the MMO tree and in the end it might end up in a better model than P2P/F2P - I think the way Guild Wars 2 is shaping up it might really change the playing field for MMORPG games being entirely free and yet still offering a dynamic persistent experience.
- MMORPG.COM Staff -
The dead know only one thing: it is better to be alive.
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
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.
Do you have a column by someone who's background and beliefs are in supporting and pushing pay to play as a revenue model? Or does he ever investigate the cons of F2P, seeing as he knows so much about it?
For balance, fair representation, and stuff, I mean?
Just outta interest.
No we don't - but we absolutely would if such a writer/opportunity comes along. I guess before today I really had never thought about it.
Thats cool and all, but isnt Richard capable of objectivity in his writing? He can't write about pros AND cons of this model?
I think thats the issue for most here. It just seems very one sided, and thats worrying in the wider push we are seeing across different sites, especially when we know there is a lot of money sloshing around out there from interested parties with millions at stake who want to see this rev model take root.
I think most would see that as proper journalism from what is, after all, an unaffiliated commercial site that we trust to be neutral.
This is something to ping off Mr Wood's head though...thanks for the feedback!
Nps, glad you are talking about it rather tthen throwing out the warnings for daring to challenge site policy
Simple. Revenue. The web site gets paid to host advertising. Otherwise, why put up just f2p games? Put up food or snacks, or beverages. They say they aren't getting paid? Then who pays for the website and the software? Websites like this just don't run from thin air. They might tell you that they aren't getting paid....but this, like all other media, host advertising for revenue.
Why don't they advertise vehicles here? Simple. The people here are a demographic. Advertisements are here FOR that demographic. And since there are more than ONE f2p game out there, I'm sure they are paying some good money to be on the home page.
Simple. Revenue. The web site gets paid to host advertising. Otherwise, why put up just f2p games? Put up food or snacks, or beverages. They say they aren't getting paid? Then who pays for the website and the software? Websites like this just don't run from thin air. They might tell you that they aren't getting paid....but this, like all other media, host advertising for revenue.
Why don't they advertise vehicles here? Simple. The people here are a demographic. Advertisements are here FOR that demographic. And since there are more than ONE f2p game out there, I'm sure they are paying some good money to be on the home page.
The articles being discussed are not a paid advertisement though, right?
Simple. Revenue. The web site gets paid to host advertising. Otherwise, why put up just f2p games? Put up food or snacks, or beverages. They say they aren't getting paid? Then who pays for the website and the software? Websites like this just don't run from thin air. They might tell you that they aren't getting paid....but this, like all other media, host advertising for revenue.
Why don't they advertise vehicles here? Simple. The people here are a demographic. Advertisements are here FOR that demographic. And since there are more than ONE f2p game out there, I'm sure they are paying some good money to be on the home page.
The articles being discussed are not a paid advertisement though, right?
No, there is no way to get paid for articles/content/etc on MMORPG.com - the only thing you can buy is advertising. We isolate our advertising (me) and content teams entirely. I have no idea what Jon & team are planning and they don't know what ad clients I am booking with. From my understanding we are one of few sites in our genre left that keep this kind of separation - but as long as I own this site it will always remain this way. Trust me, we get odd propositions from time to time where companies "hint" at ad campaigns and then try to tie in site content with it - but they get shown the door every time.
Do we sell advertising to pay for the site? Of course...but that was not the accusations here...people are trying to say that we were somehow paid or compensated to write glowing stories about F2P games and we were NOT.
- MMORPG.COM Staff -
The dead know only one thing: it is better to be alive.
No we don't - but we absolutely would if such a writer/opportunity comes along. I guess before today I really had never thought about it.
Thats cool and all, but isnt Richard capable of objectivity in his writing? He can't write about pros AND cons of this model?
I think thats the issue for most here. It just seems very one sided, and thats worrying in the wider push we are seeing across different sites, especially when we know there is a lot of money sloshing around out there from interested parties with millions at stake who want to see this rev model take root.
I think most would see that as proper journalism from what is, after all, an unaffiliated commercial site that we trust to be neutral.
This is something to ping off Mr Wood's head though...thanks for the feedback!
Nps, glad you are talking about it rather tthen throwing out the warnings for daring to challenge site policy
His articles seem to lean more toward pointing out flaws in topics of discussion. Such as his article on western bias toward F2p, and later his more recent articles debunking P2W and misconceptions etc..
That seems to be his style, more so than something that's done out of financial gain. I don't even look at it as selling the pro's over the cons as much as it's saying some of what you hear is true, but a lot of it is not. Which I really don't see a problem with.
It's not like his points don't have merit, even if you disagree surely you see that much.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Repeat the same propaganda enough times it then becomes fact.
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!
Heres a few reasons. Money used to create cash shop items instead of content. What content is created is designed to encourage use of the cash shops such as grindy content and potions to alleviate it. LOTRO's new upcoming "xpac" is a good example of the shoddy content additions. Any bets to how grindy the new "xpac" will be? The EQ2 F2P model is extreme to say the least.
Community is always an issue with F2P games. The freeloaders have nothing invested and do not care about the game and act accordiingly, not all, but it doesnt take many to ruin the experience. Let us know how things work out on Landroval for the roleplayers after the freebs invade the Prancing Pony in Bree.
FInally. While some do not start out being P2W sooner or later the temptation to push the cash shop envelope becomes to great and the truth is known. Whether the frogs are too far gone to jump out at this point is a matter of personal awareness.
That's a quite unfair generalization of people who do not pay to play. World of Warcraft has a terrible community, and it's not free to play. If the community in f2p games is worse than p2p, perhaps it's simply that any attempt to keep kids out of the game is impossible, since you're whatever age you want to be online if you don't have to use a bank card to access your game of choice.
When I play a game without putting money in it, I don't think to myself, "Hm, I have nothing to lose here, time to be a raging asshole!" I'm my usual bratty but endearing self in every game I play. (Well, actually, I'm generally quiet and will run away if you so much as look like you're going to invite me to team, but either way, I'm not running around in general chat praising Nazism and spewing other such sewage!)
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
Simple. Revenue. The web site gets paid to host advertising. Otherwise, why put up just f2p games? Put up food or snacks, or beverages. They say they aren't getting paid? Then who pays for the website and the software? Websites like this just don't run from thin air. They might tell you that they aren't getting paid....but this, like all other media, host advertising for revenue.
Why don't they advertise vehicles here? Simple. The people here are a demographic. Advertisements are here FOR that demographic. And since there are more than ONE f2p game out there, I'm sure they are paying some good money to be on the home page.
The articles being discussed are not a paid advertisement though, right?
No, there is no way to get paid for articles/content/etc on MMORPG.com - the only thing you can buy is advertising. We isolate our advertising (me) and content teams entirely. I have no idea what Jon & team are planning and they don't know what ad clients I am booking with. From my understanding we are one of few sites in our genre left that keep this kind of separation - but as long as I own this site it will always remain this way. Trust me, we get odd propositions from time to time where companies "hint" at ad campaigns and then try to tie in site content with it - but they get shown the door every time.
Do we sell advertising to pay for the site? Of course...but that was not the accusations here...people are trying to say that we were somehow paid or compensated to write glowing stories about F2P games and we were NOT.
Of course they don't get paid to write stories for payment. BUT, this website exists to MAKE money. And how do you make money? By getting people to click, or follow a link from THIS website. The more you encourage that to happen, the MORE your website makes. Again, as I previously stated: it's revenue.
You can deftly tread around that by firmly stating they don't get paid to write, but they can be freely encouraged to make advertisers happy. Ergo: spend more advertising money here.
.. 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.
For ~90% of the people in any given F2P that would be undeniably false.
90% of the people in any give F2P game dont play said F2P game, they just try it for awhile then hop onto another one.
Thats hardly "playing for free", more like "waste your time downloading something that you will uninstall in a matter of hours/days, rinse, repeat"
How is that differnt from free trial for P2P games?
its different in the sense that when the trial runs out in a P2P game, trialists might have not subbed, not only because they didnt like the game, but also because:
a) they cant pay the monthly fee altho they wish they could
b) they arent interested in the game for that price, but would be for a lower price
its quite simple, when you add a fee to a game, you are adding another variable to weight if its worth your time: money.
giving up on a product that is essentially free speaks volumes about its absolute lack of quality, dont you think?
and anyway we arent discussing trials here. Lokofeit argumented that 90% people play for free, I counter-argumented that they hardly reach the stages where they are actually playing the game.
afaik P2P games never even bother mentioning the number of trialists they have had, those are simply ignored. If they were taken into account (like they are for F2P games in Lokofeit's argument) I guess we would easily see that the P2P model is widely more successful because more people played P2P games...
Simple. Revenue. The web site gets paid to host advertising. Otherwise, why put up just f2p games? Put up food or snacks, or beverages. They say they aren't getting paid? Then who pays for the website and the software? Websites like this just don't run from thin air. They might tell you that they aren't getting paid....but this, like all other media, host advertising for revenue.
Why don't they advertise vehicles here? Simple. The people here are a demographic. Advertisements are here FOR that demographic. And since there are more than ONE f2p game out there, I'm sure they are paying some good money to be on the home page.
The articles being discussed are not a paid advertisement though, right?
No, there is no way to get paid for articles/content/etc on MMORPG.com - the only thing you can buy is advertising. We isolate our advertising (me) and content teams entirely. I have no idea what Jon & team are planning and they don't know what ad clients I am booking with. From my understanding we are one of few sites in our genre left that keep this kind of separation - but as long as I own this site it will always remain this way. Trust me, we get odd propositions from time to time where companies "hint" at ad campaigns and then try to tie in site content with it - but they get shown the door every time.
Do we sell advertising to pay for the site? Of course...but that was not the accusations here...people are trying to say that we were somehow paid or compensated to write glowing stories about F2P games and we were NOT.
ok, I will trust you, and I do appreciate the frank discussion.
It would be nice to see some balance in the future though on the subject, but you have already acknowledged that so fair enough.
I think the problem comes from that a lot of us see our games under siege by an industry wanting to push them into virtual markets because that makes them more money from a smaller investment. It's becoming more about profiteering then about games, and that can't be a good thing for the genre.
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?
This site is very fair with its articles and reviews either FTP or not , I have never seen any example of what you are implying ...
its seems they are damned if they do and Damned if they dont by certain members of this community ... " sigh "
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?
This site is very fair with its articles and reviews either FTP or not , I have never seen any example of what you are implying ...
its seems they are damned if they do and Damned if they dont by certain members of this community ... " sigh "
I have, and i quote:
"Now that we know who is playing, we run into the biggest fallacy regarding F2P -- that of the Über item. I’m sure you’ve heard/read this: “I’m never going to play a F2P game because other players can just buy awesome Über gear… I worked for my gear”. You see this type of comment on forums a lot. What is interesting though is that it’s simply not true.
I can’t think of a single F2P MMO (although I’m sure there are some) that allows players to buy awesome gear with real money. And I can think of dozens that don’t. These elusive Über items are exactly that – extremely elusive. Elusive to the point of virtually not existing."
seriously, has been Justin Webb fired yet? If this isnt a clear proof of the so called "back-room bribes" that Admin talked about in page 1, i dont know what it is.
Hey Justin, I can give you a list of 100 F2P games. I challenge you to find 10 of them that dont offer superb gear enhancements thru their cash shop, and put high spenders on a godlike status compared to freeloaders.
edit: I think I set the bar unfairly high. I challenge you to find 3.
Simple. Revenue. The web site gets paid to host advertising. Otherwise, why put up just f2p games? Put up food or snacks, or beverages. They say they aren't getting paid? Then who pays for the website and the software? Websites like this just don't run from thin air. They might tell you that they aren't getting paid....but this, like all other media, host advertising for revenue.
Why don't they advertise vehicles here? Simple. The people here are a demographic. Advertisements are here FOR that demographic. And since there are more than ONE f2p game out there, I'm sure they are paying some good money to be on the home page.
The articles being discussed are not a paid advertisement though, right?
No, there is no way to get paid for articles/content/etc on MMORPG.com - the only thing you can buy is advertising. We isolate our advertising (me) and content teams entirely. I have no idea what Jon & team are planning and they don't know what ad clients I am booking with. From my understanding we are one of few sites in our genre left that keep this kind of separation - but as long as I own this site it will always remain this way. Trust me, we get odd propositions from time to time where companies "hint" at ad campaigns and then try to tie in site content with it - but they get shown the door every time.
Do we sell advertising to pay for the site? Of course...but that was not the accusations here...people are trying to say that we were somehow paid or compensated to write glowing stories about F2P games and we were NOT.
I definitely do not think that the mmorpg 'company' is doing anything underhanded at all, paid advertising by whom ever is perfectly ok regardless of what type of mmo is being advertised. I'm actually impressed that mmorpg has ads mainly relating mmo's and online games rather than random ads that offered the most money.
What I'm worried about is people taking a non disclosed personal kickback to underhandedly promote and change peoples opinion. While I may be totally off as I have stated, its just a trend I'm seeing. The users mainly saying they don’t like it while staff saying its great and you should get apart of the 'movement' as I have seen it quoted as.
Don't get me wrong I do not totally hate f2p at all, I want to pay to make a game successful and give the developers my money for their product. But it seems a so called f2p games and being ran in a dodgy manner and you end up paying a heck of alot more than a standard sub. Such dodgy behavior to their customers makes it believable that doing the above is something they wouldnt think twice about doing.
Pretty easy to guess why, because there are so many of them. For every p2p game there are probably 10 f2p games. No wonder there are so many articles on them. Of course you are seeing a lot of them fold.
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?
This site is very fair with its articles and reviews either FTP or not , I have never seen any example of what you are implying ...
its seems they are damned if they do and Damned if they dont by certain members of this community ... " sigh "
I have, and i quote:
"Now that we know who is playing, we run into the biggest fallacy regarding F2P -- that of the Über item. I’m sure you’ve heard/read this: “I’m never going to play a F2P game because other players can just buy awesome Über gear… I worked for my gear”. You see this type of comment on forums a lot. What is interesting though is that it’s simply not true.
I can’t think of a single F2P MMO (although I’m sure there are some) that allows players to buy awesome gear with real money. And I can think of dozens that don’t. These elusive Über items are exactly that – extremely elusive. Elusive to the point of virtually not existing."
seriously, has been Justin Webb fired yet? If this isnt a clear proof of the so called "back-room bribes" that Admin talked about in page 1, i dont know what it is.
Hey Justin, I can give you a list of 100 F2P games. I challenge you to find 10 of them that dont offer superb gear enhancements thru their cash shop, and put high spenders on a godlike status compared to freeloaders.
edit: I think I set the bar unfairly high. I challenge you to find 3.
I cant see how you can relate this to to so called" Back Room bribes or Incentives" , when it is obviously just the writers observation and opinions ... and why do you a have a desire to see a perfectly decent journalist fired ?
You have to remember, these sites cover MMORPGs... They have to prop up any non-WOW game just to keep the genre semi-open so they have a function.
For instance, look at the website mmo-champion.com It was similar to this site and massively, but somewhere along the way it realized that 90% of it's readers were only interested in WOW and stopped covering other games.
For right now, f2p is kinda the anti-wow movement. All these great games with 20+ million in development costs are now going to be free and keep players interested, thus giving sites like MMORPG something to talk about besides WOW.
BTW.. my hunch is that these games will ultimately fail. DDO did great because it was the only major p2p game that went f2p... players flocked to a former AAA title that is now free. Now that there are 4-5 of these AAA titles that are free, players will spread out between them, and probably none will get near to what DDO had the first few months. There is also the 'endgame' mindset in mmorpg nowadays.. players are probably only going to start buying stuff after they are capped.. which means months and months.
For a developer/owner, the real difference between f2p and a monthly subscription is predictability. Blizzard knows exactly how much they will make next month.. F2P games hope that a cash shop item 'catches on'. It can't be a healthy feeling to be a developer with one of these games and not know what will happen with your job next month, or if it depends on how many celesital steeds sell in the item shop
If you guys didn't have f2p games to bash and hate and bitch about, then this website would primarily turn into another cookiecutter forum that rotates around hating WoW.
You have to spread around your negativity and blind hatred of things, and not let it get too focused, or you'll get bored waaay too quickly.
New f2p games give you something different to hate and troll. They're the variety and spice of life around here.
Is it an independent company? Haha! Excellent. Now you can hate it for 'not' being like WoW.
Is it a WoW clone? Better still! Now you can gloat and jerk each other off as you guffaw and copy-paste the same thing you said about the last 5 clones that 'died'.
Is it a 'known' company trying something different? Pah! You snort and brush the dorito crumbs off of your shirt as you viciously attack them for doing the same exact thing as the last game, even though you haven't even seen the screenshots of this new game yet.
This is why I love you all, and keep coming back here
Trolling is an artform, and you all keep striving so hard to be the #1 artist!
Comments
Tell those F2P companies to stop releasing garbage and we'll start clamoring for more info for their new no garbage awesome games.
It's a cycle, and they are the ones that need to start it.
As for the topic on hand, I am not categorically against F2P as a business model (though I still prefer P2P), I am categorically against 3rd world games from 3rd world countries.
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I have not been here as long as some but I knew that a long time ago.
--John Ruskin
Sometimes it seems some of the writers have this weird agenda to convince us all the f2p don't suck.
Do you have a column by someone who's background and beliefs are in supporting and pushing pay to play as a revenue model? Or does he ever investigate the cons of F2P, seeing as he knows so much about it?
For balance, fair representation, and stuff, I mean?
Just outta interest.
Umm can anyone of you point out a F2P game that force you to constantly pay out cash to them to get far? The F2P games I have played and playing now, I only gave them $10 for about 6 buffs that last me for 30days added with the ingame items like 7day bags I get for free by way of quest equal 37days of bag space of over 100 slots. Now Funcom just charge me for $15 for AoC and I can play that for another month but look at what cost me less to play.
Yes I have played some crappy ass F2P mmo and one of them was Conquer Online. Now that game is true P2P mmo, I wasted over $300 on that shit and got no where, trying to keep up with the rich people in that game and lost lol... I paid for 50 dragonballs vs the others that paid for over 1k of dragonballs.
(The bad graphics are not thw worst part of the game, its the economy. The economy consists of a few people that spend $5000 rl and selling in-game items for ridiiiiiiiicoooooluousssssssnesss prices.
Ex 1/ Player A plays 2 hours a day for a year, buys 100 dbs and sell them for 40 mill each. Player A earns 4,000,000,000 for ~$300 USD. What is the result of 2 hours a day for a year and $300 USD? A level 120 reborn with average items. That character can beat alot of players, however, will get severly owned by people who played for 3 months and pay $ 1,000.
Ex 2/ Player B plays 3 hours a day for a year and a half, and never buys dbs. since dbs costs 40 mill each and it takes 1 hour to earn 1 mill, it is impossible for player A to get dbs, therefore poor equips. Result: A level 110 reborn with horrible items. That character will not be able to beat the average player 20 levels lower than him, this is the result of not paying rl cash.
Summary: This used to be a good game, however, recent patches that support db buyers made it go downhill, dont play this game.
marsrock6116
)
I have no problem playing F2P because I do not issue out more than $20 now.
No we don't - but we absolutely would if such a writer/opportunity comes along. I guess before today I really had never thought about it. In the western markets F2P is "the new kid on the block" in terms of billing structures so it is the more interesting topic I guess. I personally am not a fan of it as a gamer - I would rather pay one reasonable fee and know all is well for 30 days, but that is just me. Maybe I should write the column! Oh yeah, I am a crap writer - lol ;-)
This is something to ping off Mr Wood's head though...thanks for the feedback!
I think one thing to look at and consider though is this whole F2P thing is really shaking the MMO tree and in the end it might end up in a better model than P2P/F2P - I think the way Guild Wars 2 is shaping up it might really change the playing field for MMORPG games being entirely free and yet still offering a dynamic persistent experience.
- MMORPG.COM Staff -
The dead know only one thing: it is better to be alive.
Simple. Revenue. The web site gets paid to host advertising. Otherwise, why put up just f2p games? Put up food or snacks, or beverages. They say they aren't getting paid? Then who pays for the website and the software? Websites like this just don't run from thin air. They might tell you that they aren't getting paid....but this, like all other media, host advertising for revenue.
Why don't they advertise vehicles here? Simple. The people here are a demographic. Advertisements are here FOR that demographic. And since there are more than ONE f2p game out there, I'm sure they are paying some good money to be on the home page.
The articles being discussed are not a paid advertisement though, right?
No, there is no way to get paid for articles/content/etc on MMORPG.com - the only thing you can buy is advertising. We isolate our advertising (me) and content teams entirely. I have no idea what Jon & team are planning and they don't know what ad clients I am booking with. From my understanding we are one of few sites in our genre left that keep this kind of separation - but as long as I own this site it will always remain this way. Trust me, we get odd propositions from time to time where companies "hint" at ad campaigns and then try to tie in site content with it - but they get shown the door every time.
Do we sell advertising to pay for the site? Of course...but that was not the accusations here...people are trying to say that we were somehow paid or compensated to write glowing stories about F2P games and we were NOT.
- MMORPG.COM Staff -
The dead know only one thing: it is better to be alive.
His articles seem to lean more toward pointing out flaws in topics of discussion. Such as his article on western bias toward F2p, and later his more recent articles debunking P2W and misconceptions etc..
That seems to be his style, more so than something that's done out of financial gain. I don't even look at it as selling the pro's over the cons as much as it's saying some of what you hear is true, but a lot of it is not. Which I really don't see a problem with.
It's not like his points don't have merit, even if you disagree surely you see that much.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
That's a quite unfair generalization of people who do not pay to play. World of Warcraft has a terrible community, and it's not free to play. If the community in f2p games is worse than p2p, perhaps it's simply that any attempt to keep kids out of the game is impossible, since you're whatever age you want to be online if you don't have to use a bank card to access your game of choice.
When I play a game without putting money in it, I don't think to myself, "Hm, I have nothing to lose here, time to be a raging asshole!" I'm my usual bratty but endearing self in every game I play. (Well, actually, I'm generally quiet and will run away if you so much as look like you're going to invite me to team, but either way, I'm not running around in general chat praising Nazism and spewing other such sewage!)
I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.
~Albert Einstein
90% of the people in any give F2P game dont play said F2P game, they just try it for awhile then hop onto another one.
Thats hardly "playing for free", more like "waste your time downloading something that you will uninstall in a matter of hours/days, rinse, repeat"
How is that differnt from free trial for P2P games?
If WoW = The Beatles
and WAR = Led Zeppelin
Then LotrO = Pink Floyd
Of course they don't get paid to write stories for payment. BUT, this website exists to MAKE money. And how do you make money? By getting people to click, or follow a link from THIS website. The more you encourage that to happen, the MORE your website makes. Again, as I previously stated: it's revenue.
You can deftly tread around that by firmly stating they don't get paid to write, but they can be freely encouraged to make advertisers happy. Ergo: spend more advertising money here.
its different in the sense that when the trial runs out in a P2P game, trialists might have not subbed, not only because they didnt like the game, but also because:
a) they cant pay the monthly fee altho they wish they could
b) they arent interested in the game for that price, but would be for a lower price
its quite simple, when you add a fee to a game, you are adding another variable to weight if its worth your time: money.
giving up on a product that is essentially free speaks volumes about its absolute lack of quality, dont you think?
and anyway we arent discussing trials here. Lokofeit argumented that 90% people play for free, I counter-argumented that they hardly reach the stages where they are actually playing the game.
afaik P2P games never even bother mentioning the number of trialists they have had, those are simply ignored. If they were taken into account (like they are for F2P games in Lokofeit's argument) I guess we would easily see that the P2P model is widely more successful because more people played P2P games...
ok, I will trust you, and I do appreciate the frank discussion.
It would be nice to see some balance in the future though on the subject, but you have already acknowledged that so fair enough.
I think the problem comes from that a lot of us see our games under siege by an industry wanting to push them into virtual markets because that makes them more money from a smaller investment. It's becoming more about profiteering then about games, and that can't be a good thing for the genre.
This site is very fair with its articles and reviews either FTP or not , I have never seen any example of what you are implying ...
its seems they are damned if they do and Damned if they dont by certain members of this community ... " sigh "
I have, and i quote:
"Now that we know who is playing, we run into the biggest fallacy regarding F2P -- that of the Über item. I’m sure you’ve heard/read this: “I’m never going to play a F2P game because other players can just buy awesome Über gear… I worked for my gear”. You see this type of comment on forums a lot. What is interesting though is that it’s simply not true.
I can’t think of a single F2P MMO (although I’m sure there are some) that allows players to buy awesome gear with real money. And I can think of dozens that don’t. These elusive Über items are exactly that – extremely elusive. Elusive to the point of virtually not existing."
seriously, has been Justin Webb fired yet? If this isnt a clear proof of the so called "back-room bribes" that Admin talked about in page 1, i dont know what it is.
Hey Justin, I can give you a list of 100 F2P games. I challenge you to find 10 of them that dont offer superb gear enhancements thru their cash shop, and put high spenders on a godlike status compared to freeloaders.
edit: I think I set the bar unfairly high. I challenge you to find 3.
I definitely do not think that the mmorpg 'company' is doing anything underhanded at all, paid advertising by whom ever is perfectly ok regardless of what type of mmo is being advertised. I'm actually impressed that mmorpg has ads mainly relating mmo's and online games rather than random ads that offered the most money.
What I'm worried about is people taking a non disclosed personal kickback to underhandedly promote and change peoples opinion. While I may be totally off as I have stated, its just a trend I'm seeing. The users mainly saying they don’t like it while staff saying its great and you should get apart of the 'movement' as I have seen it quoted as.
Don't get me wrong I do not totally hate f2p at all, I want to pay to make a game successful and give the developers my money for their product. But it seems a so called f2p games and being ran in a dodgy manner and you end up paying a heck of alot more than a standard sub. Such dodgy behavior to their customers makes it believable that doing the above is something they wouldnt think twice about doing.
Pretty easy to guess why, because there are so many of them. For every p2p game there are probably 10 f2p games. No wonder there are so many articles on them. Of course you are seeing a lot of them fold.
I cant see how you can relate this to to so called" Back Room bribes or Incentives" , when it is obviously just the writers observation and opinions ... and why do you a have a desire to see a perfectly decent journalist fired ?
Because Guild Wars 2 is the next big thing and on everyones mind...
You have to remember, these sites cover MMORPGs... They have to prop up any non-WOW game just to keep the genre semi-open so they have a function.
For instance, look at the website mmo-champion.com It was similar to this site and massively, but somewhere along the way it realized that 90% of it's readers were only interested in WOW and stopped covering other games.
For right now, f2p is kinda the anti-wow movement. All these great games with 20+ million in development costs are now going to be free and keep players interested, thus giving sites like MMORPG something to talk about besides WOW.
BTW.. my hunch is that these games will ultimately fail. DDO did great because it was the only major p2p game that went f2p... players flocked to a former AAA title that is now free. Now that there are 4-5 of these AAA titles that are free, players will spread out between them, and probably none will get near to what DDO had the first few months. There is also the 'endgame' mindset in mmorpg nowadays.. players are probably only going to start buying stuff after they are capped.. which means months and months.
For a developer/owner, the real difference between f2p and a monthly subscription is predictability. Blizzard knows exactly how much they will make next month.. F2P games hope that a cash shop item 'catches on'. It can't be a healthy feeling to be a developer with one of these games and not know what will happen with your job next month, or if it depends on how many celesital steeds sell in the item shop
If you guys didn't have f2p games to bash and hate and bitch about, then this website would primarily turn into another cookiecutter forum that rotates around hating WoW.
You have to spread around your negativity and blind hatred of things, and not let it get too focused, or you'll get bored waaay too quickly.
New f2p games give you something different to hate and troll. They're the variety and spice of life around here.
Is it an independent company? Haha! Excellent. Now you can hate it for 'not' being like WoW.
Is it a WoW clone? Better still! Now you can gloat and jerk each other off as you guffaw and copy-paste the same thing you said about the last 5 clones that 'died'.
Is it a 'known' company trying something different? Pah! You snort and brush the dorito crumbs off of your shirt as you viciously attack them for doing the same exact thing as the last game, even though you haven't even seen the screenshots of this new game yet.
This is why I love you all, and keep coming back here
Trolling is an artform, and you all keep striving so hard to be the #1 artist!