Every time I bring up a mmo around friends or gamers i meet its always the same thing.
"I don't want to pay a monthly fee to play a game".
Yet I'll bet a lot of them pay a monthly or annual fee for online access to their favorite consoles, so the real issue is they'd rather spend their monthly fee over there instead of on a MMORPG.
Arenanet is about to launch the first fully featured B2P MMORPG with GW2 and we'll see if they can make it a finanical success. If so I suspect we'll see a lot more MMO's turn towards that model.
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
if i were to offer you a choice between free cable or subscription based cable and both were legal, which one would you choose?
The one that was credible, of course.
There's a very small difference between plausible and credible--but small differences can be crucial.
well swtor and guild wars 2 are both credible in my opinion, the only difference is that one is b2p and the other is subscription based. So what game do you think a person new to the mmorpg genre is more likely to pick up? both cable companies are credible they just have different business models. the answers is the more options you have the happier the customers.
I love the mmorpg genre but we can't deny that other than WoW the entire market is niche.
Every time I bring up a mmo around friends or gamers i meet its always the same thing.
"I don't want to pay a monthly fee to play a game".
What do you guys think? Would going completely B2p (like GW) help or hurt the genre?
B2P, btw, is just F2P that you have to buy the client for.
GW2 will be as much of a anomally in it's quality being a B2P game, IMO, as WoW is in it's success as a sub game for Blizz.
I have the strongest feeling when looking back in 10 years time at all the F2P crap that will be the only thing on offer (once all the AAA titles being converted have been worn out once and for all) that gamers will regret profoundly this industry shill led shift.
Most are too short sighted to see what I am talking about though.
Every time I bring up a mmo around friends or gamers i meet its always the same thing.
"I don't want to pay a monthly fee to play a game".
Yet I'll bet a lot of them pay a monthly or annual fee for online access to their favorite consoles, so the real issue is they'd rather spend their monthly fee over there instead of on a MMORPG.
Arenanet is about to launch the first fully featured B2P MMORPG with GW2 and we'll see if they can make it a finanical success. If so I suspect we'll see a lot more MMO's turn towards that model.
an online fee to play many games as you want online is alot different to an online fee of 15 bucks for one game you already paid 60 bucks for and cannot play that game unless you keep paying that subscription fee, you can play those console games offline anytme you like with no extra charge.
If the (rather incredibly low hourly rate, compared to other forms of entertainment) of a subscription bothers you, you should probably cancel your cable--it costs considerably more--and your phone. Possibly your ISP.
My cable and phone are available to all five members of my family. A monthly sub to just one game would be $75. Add in the fact that cable has multiple channels, which is the equivalent of multiple games, and cable is a significantly better bargain. The phone allows all of my family members to call multiple numbers, not just one. You don't pay $15 to play ANY mmo per month, you pay for ONE person to play ONE game. By that standard, mmos are quite pricey. I didn't even mention box prices, expansions, or cash shops. As to the original question, B2P or Freemium will draw far more players into a game. Look at the population/profit increases by games that have moved away from the monthly sub models. I like freemium because it allows the option of a monthly sub, but you can still revisit your characters if you don't sub. I also am looking forward to GW2. As a casual player, I will be able to buy the expansions when I am ready to play them, which will probably be at a slower rate than they are released.
Could it work? Sure, but we'd be seeing smaller games launching, and a lot of content held for expansions.
Why put out a game like SWTOR with a ton of planets and content when they could essentially give someone a B2P experience up to the the end of the first story arc when they could release a number of additional planets and expansions for another 20 dollars a piece? How much more money would they make in comparison?
People might not like paying for subscriptions, but in some cases it can come out cheaper, and in other cases, much more expensive, its all dependant on how much you play and how long you stay subbed. For the guy who's done with the game after 3 months it probably won't be a big deal. For the guy who plays constently for 2 years, that would be substantially more money. For the guy who buys the box and every expansion and available item in the B2P shop, again, pretty expensive. The guy who just buys the box and maybe 1 or 2 expansions eventually? Not so much.
When you run the numbers based on your individual playtime, you may find that B2P isn't any better.
I love the mmorpg genre but we can't deny that other than WoW the entire market is niche.
Every time I bring up a mmo around friends or gamers i meet its always the same thing.
"I don't want to pay a monthly fee to play a game".
Take a look around the net and you will find many gamers with that same opinion.
What if all of those P2p games went B2p? Its been proven gamers dont mind paying for a game box.
Imagine the untapped market of players that would come flocking too mmos if they only had to buy a game box and nothing else.
I strongly believe the mmorpg market is hurting itself by keeping with a payment model that (atleast in my opinion) the majority of the gaming community sees as taboo.
What do you guys think? Would going completely B2p (like GW) help or hurt the genre?
I love the mmorpg genre but we can't deny that other than WoW the entire market is niche.
Every time I bring up a mmo around friends or gamers i meet its always the same thing.
"I don't want to pay a monthly fee to play a game".
Take a look around the net and you will find many gamers with that same opinion.
What if all of those P2p games went B2p? Its been proven gamers dont mind paying for a game box.
Imagine the untapped market of players that would come flocking too mmos if they only had to buy a game box and nothing else.
I strongly believe the mmorpg market is hurting itself by keeping with a payment model that (atleast in my opinion) the majority of the gaming community sees as taboo.
What do you guys think? Would going completely B2p (like GW) help or hurt the genre?
One issue would be that they would most likely start to horde the new content for the next expansion, or a cash shop buy, while giving us less patches and content bonuses in game since they are not making the 180 dallors a month per person playing that you get now. A reduction of money coming in will reduce the money spent to update things till they have the money to do so, like when you put out a expansion. Also when you do not have people paying a sub to stay in game it wil have less need to keep the content up to date, compared to when people pay to play the game each month.
I love the mmorpg genre but we can't deny that other than WoW the entire market is niche.
Every time I bring up a mmo around friends or gamers i meet its always the same thing.
"I don't want to pay a monthly fee to play a game".
Take a look around the net and you will find many gamers with that same opinion.
What if all of those P2p games went B2p? Its been proven gamers dont mind paying for a game box.
Imagine the untapped market of players that would come flocking too mmos if they only had to buy a game box and nothing else.
I strongly believe the mmorpg market is hurting itself by keeping with a payment model that (atleast in my opinion) the majority of the gaming community sees as taboo.
What do you guys think? Would going completely B2p (like GW) help or hurt the genre?
I believe that there will be MMORPG's in the future that make they're income from advertising (watch this coke commercial as your instance loads) infact I'm surprised someone has not done this already.
Every time I bring up a mmo around friends or gamers i meet its always the same thing.
"I don't want to pay a monthly fee to play a game".
Yet I'll bet a lot of them pay a monthly or annual fee for online access to their favorite consoles, so the real issue is they'd rather spend their monthly fee over there instead of on a MMORPG.
Arenanet is about to launch the first fully featured B2P MMORPG with GW2 and we'll see if they can make it a finanical success. If so I suspect we'll see a lot more MMO's turn towards that model.
an online fee to play many games as you want online is alot different to an online fee of 15 bucks for one game you already paid 60 bucks for and cannot play that game unless you keep paying that subscription fee, you can play those console games offline anytme you like with no extra charge.
Well, you can't really play any games online on a console unless you keep shelling out the bucks to buy the game in the first place. Just bought three 60.00 titles for my son's XBox 360 and now I have to shell out 15 a month for his online access.
When you think about it, that's an even worse deal, 15.00 a month to actually play no games, at least not until you purchase a copy.
And as far as playing them offline ...eww...who'd want to, multi-player gaming is the only thing I really enjoy these days. (same for my son as well btw)
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
Every time I bring up a mmo around friends or gamers i meet its always the same thing.
"I don't want to pay a monthly fee to play a game".
Yet I'll bet a lot of them pay a monthly or annual fee for online access to their favorite consoles, so the real issue is they'd rather spend their monthly fee over there instead of on a MMORPG.
Arenanet is about to launch the first fully featured B2P MMORPG with GW2 and we'll see if they can make it a finanical success. If so I suspect we'll see a lot more MMO's turn towards that model.
an online fee to play many games as you want online is alot different to an online fee of 15 bucks for one game you already paid 60 bucks for and cannot play that game unless you keep paying that subscription fee, you can play those console games offline anytme you like with no extra charge.
Well, you can't really play any games online on a console unless you keep shelling out the bucks to buy the game in the first place. Just bought three 60.00 titles for my son's XBox 360 and now I have to shell out 15 a month for his online access.
When you think about it, that's an even worse deal, 15.00 a month to actually play no games, at least not until you purchase a copy.
Buy a year of Live at a time and it costs 3 bucks a month.
THis is how I would imagine a mmo working as a B2p.
Game releases.
Gamebox/client - 40-60 bucks
Bi monthly Content packs (DLC) 5-10 bucks
Bi yearly Expansions 20-30 bucks
Give the illusion that all the extra content is optional when in reality if you really love the game you will sell out the cash (just like they do with Sp games DLC).
Doing this will reduce one of the biggest issues mmorpgs have, Subscriber retention.
Think about those mmorpgs you paid for, how many of them would you have revisitied if you didnt have to resub to check out to see how they changed/improved?
i do feel your point....not a bad one i might add for MMO's.
As for single player games i realy cant put money in it......example:
Dirt 3 has soo many downloadable content i feel i just bought a half game for the price of a normal one.....i pay'd about 40€ for that game and half the special tracks and cars can only be unlocked with real money......sorry but i realy refuse to pay anything more to those thieves.......if they would have sold this game for 20€ i wouldnt mind putting another 20 into the game for content......but not paying 80+ euro's to have a complete single player game...sorry.
specialy EA and SOE are ALL about the cash......pay double and get half......f*** that
Not to be off topic but Racing games for some reason have become extreme money grabs. I swear there's a damn car pack upgrade released every week it seems.
I don't think you could get away with that in a mmo. what would they do charge for each individual quest? People would simply ignore it.
My cable and phone are available to all five members of my family. A monthly sub to just one game would be $75.
Assuming, of course, that you bought an individual sub for each and every family member...call me skeptical.
And I'm sorry, there's simply no way a per-person rate of fifty cents a day is "pricey" as entertainment goes. Have you priced football tickets? Two movies a month? A single concert? Bought a can of soda? Less than half a cup of coffee?
Mountains from molehills.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
My cable and phone are available to all five members of my family. A monthly sub to just one game would be $75.
Assuming, of course, that you bought an individual sub for each and every family member...call me skeptical.
And I'm sorry, there's simply no way a per-person rate of fifty cents a day is "pricey" as entertainment goes. Have you priced football tickets? Two movies a month? A single concert? Bought a can of soda? Less than half a cup of coffee?
Mountains from molehills.
It's not the price of the subscription fee that bothers people.
Its the fact that the game has a subscription at all.
I don't know how it would bring in a worse quality of players. I've seen communities in F2P games that were much more pleasant than I've found in the majority of P2P.
Is it good for the genre? I'm not from the future. Only time will tell.
I love the mmorpg genre but we can't deny that other than WoW the entire market is niche.
Every time I bring up a mmo around friends or gamers i meet its always the same thing.
"I don't want to pay a monthly fee to play a game".
Take a look around the net and you will find many gamers with that same opinion.
What if all of those P2p games went B2p? Its been proven gamers dont mind paying for a game box.
Imagine the untapped market of players that would come flocking too mmos if they only had to buy a game box and nothing else.
I strongly believe the mmorpg market is hurting itself by keeping with a payment model that (atleast in my opinion) the majority of the gaming community sees as taboo.
What do you guys think? Would going completely B2p (like GW) help or hurt the genre?
I think this is a great point -- you take a game like EQ, they put out a solid expac every year. Make it B2P, with a cash shop and your player base goes up, box sales go up -- cash shop sales go up -- win-win for all.
Its the fact that the game has a subscription at all.
Of course, everyone wants their goodies for free.
Don't worry, the market forces will take care of the problem in the end, regardless of what any of us believe.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
I love the mmorpg genre but we can't deny that other than WoW the entire market is niche.
Every time I bring up a mmo around friends or gamers i meet its always the same thing.
"I don't want to pay a monthly fee to play a game".
Take a look around the net and you will find many gamers with that same opinion.
What if all of those P2p games went B2p? Its been proven gamers dont mind paying for a game box.
Imagine the untapped market of players that would come flocking too mmos if they only had to buy a game box and nothing else.
I strongly believe the mmorpg market is hurting itself by keeping with a payment model that (atleast in my opinion) the majority of the gaming community sees as taboo.
What do you guys think? Would going completely B2p (like GW) help or hurt the genre?
I personally have never had a problem paying a monthly fee for my MMORPGs. A lot of people I know in the real world that do play these games, back in the UO, EQ days I should add, don't mind as well. I know a few people from the newer age of gaming, 2004+, that feel games should be free.
I would rather pay a monthly fee for access to all the game has to offer as opposed to being forced to buy content that by all rights should have come with the game to begin with.
I like the way Turbine does it with Lord of the Rings in that you can grind away to unlock all the areas and such, if that is what you want to do.
Unfortunately it seems that having to buy content out of cash shops is going to be the norm. I mean if 1 million people are willing to pay $50 a month so their Modern Warfare scores are linked to their Facebook accounts I guess there really is no getting away from it...
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!
My cable and phone are available to all five members of my family. A monthly sub to just one game would be $75.
Assuming, of course, that you bought an individual sub for each and every family member...call me skeptical.
And I'm sorry, there's simply no way a per-person rate of fifty cents a day is "pricey" as entertainment goes. Have you priced football tickets? Two movies a month? A single concert? Bought a can of soda? Less than half a cup of coffee?
Mountains from molehills.
I was responding to your comparison to cable and phone bills which cover my entire household. Compared to those specific services, mmos are very expensive. How much would access to 100 different mmos for just one person cost per month? $1500. How much is a cable plan with access to 100 channels? Probably less than $100. As for sporting events, concerts, etc, they fall under a different level of entertainment. MMOs are cheap in comparison to those, but that's like saying a Corvette is cheap compared to a Ferarri. It doesn't mean a Corvette is a practical value to the majority of car shoppers. I compare paying a sub to a game to paying a sub to listen to music I've already previously purchased. That is the reason most gamers have a problem with subs, especially if they only play any single game a few hours a month.
I love the mmorpg genre but we can't deny that other than WoW the entire market is niche.
Every time I bring up a mmo around friends or gamers i meet its always the same thing.
"I don't want to pay a monthly fee to play a game".
Take a look around the net and you will find many gamers with that same opinion.
What if all of those P2p games went B2p? Its been proven gamers dont mind paying for a game box.
Imagine the untapped market of players that would come flocking too mmos if they only had to buy a game box and nothing else.
I strongly believe the mmorpg market is hurting itself by keeping with a payment model that (atleast in my opinion) the majority of the gaming community sees as taboo.
What do you guys think? Would going completely B2p (like GW) help or hurt the genre?
Well, the possibility to make B2P MMOs have never been higher than now.
There is a reason all FPS games let the players host all games 15 years ago but now host most of them themselves instead, bandwidth and server space is a lot cheaper so the companies think it is worth less lagg and cheating.
I do think MMO would have more players if more of them were B2P, particularly parents don't like getting games with monthly fees for their kids. I am not sure that the companies making the games would earn more money on it though, even though they would get more players.
But I guess we will see what will happen later, right now is both ANET and Undead labs workinbg on B2P MMOs and if those go well the payment model might be a lot more common.
And it really ain't the 50 cents a day that is the problem with subscriptions, some people just don't enjoy to add more monthly bills to the ones they already have, particularly families. You usually don't think if you should buy a game until after you payed your bills so people with low income or many bills will only buy games on good months.
If the (rather incredibly low hourly rate, compared to other forms of entertainment) of a subscription bothers you, you should probably cancel your cable--it costs considerably more--and your phone. Possibly your ISP.
^this^
I agree completely with this statement! And to add something to it. I in my right mind cannot get over the fact that people think paying $15 a month, or 50 cents a day for a form of entertainment is wrong??
Do I have a problem with the B2P model? Not at all. B2P gamers just prefer to buy another box in 3-6 months for there game to be upgraded, addons new shiny's what have you. Where as most people with subs get some sort of either content upgrade or new shiny's monthly or atleast bi-monthly, and imo better support. Again just my opinion on the support part. Again I don't think were really wrong with either way we go. And lets face it, if they both didn't make money for the devs, then obviously this far into MMO creations. One would've been history by now!
What I am having a problem with is F2P model. Why I'm not against it all together, the ability to game hop with F2P completely hurts the community value in any game imho. The part about this is, if you truly love your F2P game, then you will spend money on it at some point in time. And lots of people probably spend more money on said "F2P" game, then most people do that are B2P or sub based.
I recently played two F2P games. One was CoH, the other WoT. I played CoH back in the beta and had been a while. So F2P why not give another shot? I did and being free I felt to restricted in what I could do. Sure I could spend "$14" and go premium to unlock this content. So in essence not really free right? Well I didn't find it appealing in beta, and I still didn't now. Log out, uninstall. And I played one toon to 20, another to 16 and one to 8. But, after playing that time, it was not enough to get me to commit money to it.
WoT is different. I think this game is stunning visually and if you have the rig to run it, is a great looking game. I have played it long enough, well, to get my attention. Premium users earn more credits and xp per battle. (high tier tanks are a duesy at F2P) I paid "$15" for premium. But, guess what? That only lasts 30 days. So again, when them 30 days are up, I would have to pony up more money. So my point not really free, none of them are. But, playing 6 games at once on F2P model, your sure not getting into your community or any really immersion factors out of a game that you play for 2 days and go to another one.
F2P has hurt the industry for retention and community far more then B2P or sub based (the two versions of how MMO's started) ever will! IMO!!
Personally, 15 bucks a month is pretty cheap to have a quality online experience with a fun game. I can see people not liking subscriptions if they're the kind that try and juggle 3 or 4 different MMO's and can't ever really settle on noe they like, but that is more of a personal problem than an MMO problem.
F2P not a very attractive model for me, however. I play games for immersion and being asked to enter a credit card number in order to accept a quest or whatever really ruins that. Content quality for F2P is usually very poor or infrequent compared to a game supported by subs.
Lastly, F2P games are incredibly cheap to design and build, aparently. Just look at the game list here on MMORPG.com and read about all of the generic F2P (usually asian or anime themed) games that look more like slot machine varieties than actual game experiences. In a lot of ways, F2P reminds me of the shareware model back in the 90's. You'd get a partial game for free that was fairly entertaining but you'd rarely ever actually pay to play more of it; it was a short term investment of your time, nothing else.
As for the "B2P" model, I think people really underestimate just how much it costs to opperate even a mildly successful MMO. Bandwith, hardware, and support staff to keep it all running aren't cheap. Worse yet those costs never really go away for the company, and the further they go from the initial release date the less revenue they have to work with. Developing further expansions requires yet more investment, and risk. All of that makes it hard for a studio to be able to predict how much they can expect to make invest on future expansions (these things tend to be planned out in advance rather than made on a whim, or when funds are available). So essentially, B2P might sound like a great deal for the comsumer (and it could be), but it creates a lot of uncertainty for the studio, which impacts their ability to greenlight all the projects they want.
I strongly believe the mmorpg market is hurting itself by keeping with a payment model that (atleast in my opinion) the majority of the gaming community sees as taboo.
You know it's funny, I feel that cash shops are a bigger hinderance and even more taboo than subscriptions are.
But whether it's subscriptions or cash shops, developers need to make their money somehow. Personally I'd rather pay a fixed amount and have the developers trying to keep me interested, playing, and paying. Rather than the alternative which is developers trying to figure out how to code new hinderences and limit content from me unless I open up my wallet.
And yes, B2P MMOs will suffer from cash shops. If you think that an MMO can remain profitable in the long run without nickle and diming through cash shops, frequent expansions, or other such DLC, you're delusional.
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Yet I'll bet a lot of them pay a monthly or annual fee for online access to their favorite consoles, so the real issue is they'd rather spend their monthly fee over there instead of on a MMORPG.
Arenanet is about to launch the first fully featured B2P MMORPG with GW2 and we'll see if they can make it a finanical success. If so I suspect we'll see a lot more MMO's turn towards that model.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
well swtor and guild wars 2 are both credible in my opinion, the only difference is that one is b2p and the other is subscription based. So what game do you think a person new to the mmorpg genre is more likely to pick up? both cable companies are credible they just have different business models. the answers is the more options you have the happier the customers.
B2P, btw, is just F2P that you have to buy the client for.
GW2 will be as much of a anomally in it's quality being a B2P game, IMO, as WoW is in it's success as a sub game for Blizz.
I have the strongest feeling when looking back in 10 years time at all the F2P crap that will be the only thing on offer (once all the AAA titles being converted have been worn out once and for all) that gamers will regret profoundly this industry shill led shift.
Most are too short sighted to see what I am talking about though.
an online fee to play many games as you want online is alot different to an online fee of 15 bucks for one game you already paid 60 bucks for and cannot play that game unless you keep paying that subscription fee, you can play those console games offline anytme you like with no extra charge.
My cable and phone are available to all five members of my family. A monthly sub to just one game would be $75. Add in the fact that cable has multiple channels, which is the equivalent of multiple games, and cable is a significantly better bargain. The phone allows all of my family members to call multiple numbers, not just one. You don't pay $15 to play ANY mmo per month, you pay for ONE person to play ONE game. By that standard, mmos are quite pricey. I didn't even mention box prices, expansions, or cash shops. As to the original question, B2P or Freemium will draw far more players into a game. Look at the population/profit increases by games that have moved away from the monthly sub models. I like freemium because it allows the option of a monthly sub, but you can still revisit your characters if you don't sub. I also am looking forward to GW2. As a casual player, I will be able to buy the expansions when I am ready to play them, which will probably be at a slower rate than they are released.Could it work? Sure, but we'd be seeing smaller games launching, and a lot of content held for expansions.
Why put out a game like SWTOR with a ton of planets and content when they could essentially give someone a B2P experience up to the the end of the first story arc when they could release a number of additional planets and expansions for another 20 dollars a piece? How much more money would they make in comparison?
People might not like paying for subscriptions, but in some cases it can come out cheaper, and in other cases, much more expensive, its all dependant on how much you play and how long you stay subbed. For the guy who's done with the game after 3 months it probably won't be a big deal. For the guy who plays constently for 2 years, that would be substantially more money. For the guy who buys the box and every expansion and available item in the B2P shop, again, pretty expensive. The guy who just buys the box and maybe 1 or 2 expansions eventually? Not so much.
When you run the numbers based on your individual playtime, you may find that B2P isn't any better.
Just what we need, WoW community X 50....
One issue would be that they would most likely start to horde the new content for the next expansion, or a cash shop buy, while giving us less patches and content bonuses in game since they are not making the 180 dallors a month per person playing that you get now. A reduction of money coming in will reduce the money spent to update things till they have the money to do so, like when you put out a expansion. Also when you do not have people paying a sub to stay in game it wil have less need to keep the content up to date, compared to when people pay to play the game each month.
Will it bring new players? Yes
Will it bring a worse quality of players? Likely
Is it a good idea for the genre? NO
I believe that there will be MMORPG's in the future that make they're income from advertising (watch this coke commercial as your instance loads) infact I'm surprised someone has not done this already.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
Well, you can't really play any games online on a console unless you keep shelling out the bucks to buy the game in the first place. Just bought three 60.00 titles for my son's XBox 360 and now I have to shell out 15 a month for his online access.
When you think about it, that's an even worse deal, 15.00 a month to actually play no games, at least not until you purchase a copy.
And as far as playing them offline ...eww...who'd want to, multi-player gaming is the only thing I really enjoy these days. (same for my son as well btw)
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Buy a year of Live at a time and it costs 3 bucks a month.
Not to be off topic but Racing games for some reason have become extreme money grabs. I swear there's a damn car pack upgrade released every week it seems.
I don't think you could get away with that in a mmo. what would they do charge for each individual quest? People would simply ignore it.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
Assuming, of course, that you bought an individual sub for each and every family member...call me skeptical.
And I'm sorry, there's simply no way a per-person rate of fifty cents a day is "pricey" as entertainment goes. Have you priced football tickets? Two movies a month? A single concert? Bought a can of soda? Less than half a cup of coffee?
Mountains from molehills.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
It's not the price of the subscription fee that bothers people.
Its the fact that the game has a subscription at all.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
I don't know how it would bring in a worse quality of players. I've seen communities in F2P games that were much more pleasant than I've found in the majority of P2P.
Is it good for the genre? I'm not from the future. Only time will tell.
My theme song.
I dont like it. I hate ITEMS in the world that characters have because they paid RL MONEY for even if its only cosmetic.
In addition, I hate being ADVERTISED to while Im playing my MMO of choice.
Sub-based games can allow a 14-DAY FREE trial so you can see if the sub-price is worth it.
I think this is a great point -- you take a game like EQ, they put out a solid expac every year. Make it B2P, with a cash shop and your player base goes up, box sales go up -- cash shop sales go up -- win-win for all.
Of course, everyone wants their goodies for free.
Don't worry, the market forces will take care of the problem in the end, regardless of what any of us believe.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
I personally have never had a problem paying a monthly fee for my MMORPGs. A lot of people I know in the real world that do play these games, back in the UO, EQ days I should add, don't mind as well. I know a few people from the newer age of gaming, 2004+, that feel games should be free.
I would rather pay a monthly fee for access to all the game has to offer as opposed to being forced to buy content that by all rights should have come with the game to begin with.
I like the way Turbine does it with Lord of the Rings in that you can grind away to unlock all the areas and such, if that is what you want to do.
Unfortunately it seems that having to buy content out of cash shops is going to be the norm. I mean if 1 million people are willing to pay $50 a month so their Modern Warfare scores are linked to their Facebook accounts I guess there really is no getting away from it...
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!
Assuming, of course, that you bought an individual sub for each and every family member...call me skeptical.
And I'm sorry, there's simply no way a per-person rate of fifty cents a day is "pricey" as entertainment goes. Have you priced football tickets? Two movies a month? A single concert? Bought a can of soda? Less than half a cup of coffee?
Mountains from molehills.
I was responding to your comparison to cable and phone bills which cover my entire household. Compared to those specific services, mmos are very expensive. How much would access to 100 different mmos for just one person cost per month? $1500. How much is a cable plan with access to 100 channels? Probably less than $100. As for sporting events, concerts, etc, they fall under a different level of entertainment. MMOs are cheap in comparison to those, but that's like saying a Corvette is cheap compared to a Ferarri. It doesn't mean a Corvette is a practical value to the majority of car shoppers. I compare paying a sub to a game to paying a sub to listen to music I've already previously purchased. That is the reason most gamers have a problem with subs, especially if they only play any single game a few hours a month.Well, the possibility to make B2P MMOs have never been higher than now.
There is a reason all FPS games let the players host all games 15 years ago but now host most of them themselves instead, bandwidth and server space is a lot cheaper so the companies think it is worth less lagg and cheating.
I do think MMO would have more players if more of them were B2P, particularly parents don't like getting games with monthly fees for their kids. I am not sure that the companies making the games would earn more money on it though, even though they would get more players.
But I guess we will see what will happen later, right now is both ANET and Undead labs workinbg on B2P MMOs and if those go well the payment model might be a lot more common.
And it really ain't the 50 cents a day that is the problem with subscriptions, some people just don't enjoy to add more monthly bills to the ones they already have, particularly families. You usually don't think if you should buy a game until after you payed your bills so people with low income or many bills will only buy games on good months.
^this^
I agree completely with this statement! And to add something to it. I in my right mind cannot get over the fact that people think paying $15 a month, or 50 cents a day for a form of entertainment is wrong??
Do I have a problem with the B2P model? Not at all. B2P gamers just prefer to buy another box in 3-6 months for there game to be upgraded, addons new shiny's what have you. Where as most people with subs get some sort of either content upgrade or new shiny's monthly or atleast bi-monthly, and imo better support. Again just my opinion on the support part. Again I don't think were really wrong with either way we go. And lets face it, if they both didn't make money for the devs, then obviously this far into MMO creations. One would've been history by now!
What I am having a problem with is F2P model. Why I'm not against it all together, the ability to game hop with F2P completely hurts the community value in any game imho. The part about this is, if you truly love your F2P game, then you will spend money on it at some point in time. And lots of people probably spend more money on said "F2P" game, then most people do that are B2P or sub based.
I recently played two F2P games. One was CoH, the other WoT. I played CoH back in the beta and had been a while. So F2P why not give another shot? I did and being free I felt to restricted in what I could do. Sure I could spend "$14" and go premium to unlock this content. So in essence not really free right? Well I didn't find it appealing in beta, and I still didn't now. Log out, uninstall. And I played one toon to 20, another to 16 and one to 8. But, after playing that time, it was not enough to get me to commit money to it.
WoT is different. I think this game is stunning visually and if you have the rig to run it, is a great looking game. I have played it long enough, well, to get my attention. Premium users earn more credits and xp per battle. (high tier tanks are a duesy at F2P) I paid "$15" for premium. But, guess what? That only lasts 30 days. So again, when them 30 days are up, I would have to pony up more money. So my point not really free, none of them are. But, playing 6 games at once on F2P model, your sure not getting into your community or any really immersion factors out of a game that you play for 2 days and go to another one.
F2P has hurt the industry for retention and community far more then B2P or sub based (the two versions of how MMO's started) ever will! IMO!!
Personally, 15 bucks a month is pretty cheap to have a quality online experience with a fun game. I can see people not liking subscriptions if they're the kind that try and juggle 3 or 4 different MMO's and can't ever really settle on noe they like, but that is more of a personal problem than an MMO problem.
F2P not a very attractive model for me, however. I play games for immersion and being asked to enter a credit card number in order to accept a quest or whatever really ruins that. Content quality for F2P is usually very poor or infrequent compared to a game supported by subs.
Lastly, F2P games are incredibly cheap to design and build, aparently. Just look at the game list here on MMORPG.com and read about all of the generic F2P (usually asian or anime themed) games that look more like slot machine varieties than actual game experiences. In a lot of ways, F2P reminds me of the shareware model back in the 90's. You'd get a partial game for free that was fairly entertaining but you'd rarely ever actually pay to play more of it; it was a short term investment of your time, nothing else.
As for the "B2P" model, I think people really underestimate just how much it costs to opperate even a mildly successful MMO. Bandwith, hardware, and support staff to keep it all running aren't cheap. Worse yet those costs never really go away for the company, and the further they go from the initial release date the less revenue they have to work with. Developing further expansions requires yet more investment, and risk. All of that makes it hard for a studio to be able to predict how much they can expect to make invest on future expansions (these things tend to be planned out in advance rather than made on a whim, or when funds are available). So essentially, B2P might sound like a great deal for the comsumer (and it could be), but it creates a lot of uncertainty for the studio, which impacts their ability to greenlight all the projects they want.
You make me like charity
You know it's funny, I feel that cash shops are a bigger hinderance and even more taboo than subscriptions are.
But whether it's subscriptions or cash shops, developers need to make their money somehow. Personally I'd rather pay a fixed amount and have the developers trying to keep me interested, playing, and paying. Rather than the alternative which is developers trying to figure out how to code new hinderences and limit content from me unless I open up my wallet.
And yes, B2P MMOs will suffer from cash shops. If you think that an MMO can remain profitable in the long run without nickle and diming through cash shops, frequent expansions, or other such DLC, you're delusional.