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Tired of F2P Games suck refrain.
Warwicklion
Member UncommonPosts: 15
in Aura Kingdom
According to some people F2P is the greatest evial in gaming. Truth is there are many great F2P games out there that people have enjoyed for years. In fact I think at least half of MMO players are here because of the F2P model. Subs are a bargin if you play more than 20 hours a week, but if it is more like 5-10 a week it may seem a bit much. And how many games have been saved by going F2P, This means many developers jobs have been saved by this model, and this is a games they are passionate about. While some people pay big bucks to these games the vast majority pay little or nothing to enjoy these games. The claim is these are all pay to win, but if you are PVE focused this is usually not the case. Just because someone it has +10 armor to my +3 does not ruin the game as long as I can still do all ,the quests. F2P has several advantages; it brings in more new players and keeps the early zones more populated, it keeps players around since they do not have to worry about a sub, and provides extra revenue for the game. It is interesting to note that the guy who defended the sub model basicly admitted his game would go F2P at some point. As for Zyngia and facebook games they are only meant to be played for 5 to 10 minutes. If you want to pay for more time that is your problem. If you want sub games then go for it. But F2P has been a huge boon to the MMO market and is here to stay.
Comments
OP F2P is here to stay of that there is no doubt, there will always be people to cheap to pay for their entertainment or simply want it free and to have others pay for their entertainment (ie whales). However I can really think of any good F2P games, and by that I mean not B2P or sub games that went F2P Lets face it there are simply no big budget F2P games and for the most part the best current F2P games never would have been made or would have been a lot more shallow with more pay walls if they didn't start out with the healthy/stable funding a subscription gives for their first 6 months to several years (ie EQ2, LoTRO etc).
Lets take Neverwinter for example. A OK F2P game but it only started with 4 classes(?!) and now over a year later has still only added (however it has added a lot of useless F2P stuff like a sexy farie companion. Had this game started with the plan of being subscription I'd wager they would have had more classes, and put in more depth. Instead they went with a fairly simplistic action fluff game ment to be played for short periods as pretty much all real F2P games are. Maybe someday the developers that make F2P games will try and make a decent (not just light gaming fluff) MMO , but currently it seems the only thing powering F2P games is decent (but not great) sub based MMO's that have changed to F2P because people will put up with a lot more when they think they are getting a bargain. (ie that MMO may not be the most fun but its free, compared to that's games a bit more fun and has a bit bit more content but durn it, it cost $15 a month. Which MMO is the cheap player gomna play?) Thus the cycle is Developers for F2P games know they can get away with a poorer game because in theory its free (and 99% of the time low budget) and players expect so much less form a F2P game because will its free (in theory) and we all tend to put up with lower quality from cheaper things.
Its the nature of the beast and one of the reason F2P games will always be inferior. (if only because so much of the design budget has to be sunk into new and imaginative ways to part players from their cash like Neverwinters 7-9 different coin types (ie gold, trade bars, crystals, etc etc) rather then simply making fun and straight forward content.