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Why do MMO go for P2P
AxelVinz
Member Posts: 14
Just want to ask.. Why does all good MMO games have to go for P2P. They will attract all players with their free game then after that, If many people joined in they will make it P2P. why what could be their reasons????
Comments
Well first off, they dont make it "free" then switch to Pay to Play. The so called free period is simply a period where they need a big number of people to test the game to catch as many of the bugs as possible. This is not a period where they bring people on to show them the game to make them buy it, although a lot of people think so. Honestly, a lot of beta testers are the ones that usually get jaded and leave the game a few months into live, mostly due to the fact that they've seen the game in an unfinished state, as well as the gameplay they get used to changes when the game goes live, whereas new people havent seen what the game was like before, so they come in thinking that's the way the game was always like.
As for why companies go for P2P, it's simple: profit. Making a MMO is not easy. In fact, compared to a normal game, a MMO can cost between 2 Million to 30 Million dollars to develop, and is usually about 30 times more complex than a singleplayer or multiplayer game. The costs to maintain servers alone could be a staggering $60,000 a month. So basically to support themselves and actually turn a profit, they need to offer a subscription plan to cover the costs. Of course, a tidy profit is in mind, with about 25 to 40% net profit with 250,000 subscribers, and even 10% net profit with 50,000 subscribers. This is usually about $39 million per year from subscription fees alone, with another $19 million a year in retail sales.
However, Guild Wars is interesting, as they create a MMO-like game, but just like Diablo, they let private citizens and companies run the server, cutting their costs enough to where they dont have to offer a P2P plan.
So until development and maintenance costs for MMOs go down, we'll continue to see a P2P subscription plan for these types of games.
That is actually incorrect TigerRei. Arena.Net and NCSoft have been trying to dispel these rumors for a long time, and while truely a very brilliant post you have posted on these forums, the information above is not true.
Neither private citizens nor private companies run servers on Guild Wars. Instanced areas are entirely served on Arena.Net and NCSoft servers. Please refrain from comparing Guild Wars to Diablo 2 as well, as the games are very different. If you do want a game to compare to Diablo 2, please wait for Hellgate: London.
Actually, what I mean is, while the servers are advertised under Arena.Net, they actually hire other companies to do the hosting for them, rather than run the servers themselves. This saves them the bandwidth cost, which is drastically high, and hiring the maintenance staff, who not only have to be paid for work done, but a salary as well. It's sort of the same thing America's Army does, with HomeLAN.
By the way, go look at some of these places where they run servers. I know the ones that run Neocron are actually in an underground facility, huuuuuge o.o
You almost put out misinformation, but thanks a lot for not coming back to me as hostile as I anticipated. Most people don't act kindly to those who "lurk," you could say. If you can tell me where I can find lists of Arena.Net servers or how you came up with that kind of information, I would greatly appreciate it. While I am a fan of the game, the only true information I have is what I've acquired as a Guild Wars fan. You may have a different level of knowledge on the situation at a company level.
Although, from the information that has been given to me throughout my time as a Guild Wars player, all I've heard is that NCsoft and Arena.Net are running the servers -- but more directly an NCSoft employee speaking about how all the servers are hosted by them as far as I can remember.
I'll look for the quote again in the meantime if you plan on replying.
The number one reason to answer the original question is the primary law of capitalism:
Whatever the market will bear.
Well I could be wrong. Since I'm not an employee myself I dont have any way of confirming that, other than calling them and asking.
But either way, they're dramatically lowering their cost to run than a standard MMO, which is why they do not have a monthly fee. However, from what I hear, they plan on releasing regular expansions which should boost the level cap, meaning that people will still have to pay periodically for new expansions as they come out. Totally preferential, but who wants to be left out of new stuff? :P
P2P used to mean peer to peer long before it ever meant pay to play. I get mad when I hear one abbreviation meaning two different things.
Well the main reason is, the cost to run an MMO tends to be about 50-80% of the subscription price of each player.
Marketing costs... Bandwidth costs... Customer service reps with 24/7 coverage... New content teams... New hardware to replace worn out bits... Network admins... Managers to keep the whole thing running... These things cost money, and the more players you have, generally the more most of these things cost.
If you had a game with no content upgrades, no CSRs, and streamlined the management a lot, you could REDUCE costs a ton. But you'd still have to charge players, since you still use bandwidth. A game like Guildwars, for instance, will still *effectively* charge players for playing the game; instead of monthly fees, they will release several expansions a year that players will "have" to buy to stay competitive.
If it's online, hosted client-server style, it costs money to operate. Fact of life.
Owyn
Commander, Defenders of Order
http://www.defendersoforder.com
That's something to consider. How many expansions a year? What cost for those expansions? If you had 3 expansions a year at $50 each then it comes out to be $12.50 a month which is around the cost of a monthly subscription fee. Even lowering the cost to $30 would still mean around $7.50 a month.
The objection could be made that players will not *need* to buy any of the expansions. If that is true then you face a problem. Since most people will want to games like Guild Wars so they do not have to pay a monthly fee these people might be cheap enough so that they do not buy the expansions. This means that developers will need to make each expansion a must have item so that most players will buy it.
So it would appear that all games like Guild Wars have done is simply switch from a monthly fee to a quarterly fee you pay at the store. So its real benefit is increase the number of people under 18 playing the game and make some people feel as though it is a great game because they are not money grubbing developers that are charging them a monthly fee.
Wow. You get mad about stupid things like that? You must live a rather carefree life.