Originally posted by GrumpyMel2 I also find it rather ironic that as I read this article the advert below it is for a F2P game that uses the bi-line "Battle for Sexy Angels" . Clearly F2P is about producing quality gameplay experiences and not at all about preying on the hormones of 14 year old boys to run up charges on their parents credit cards so they can buy softcore anime porn with micro-transactions.
The game may be F2P, but the ad surely is not. Welcome to the world of advertising, where everything is sold for a price.
This guy is seriously missing the point. The argument is NOT whether a P2W model is sustainable. Thats like arguing ( a bit attenuated ) that global warming IS indeed bad.. we all know it is. The question is whether our actions indeed are causing global warming.
Simiilarly, everyone knows P2W is not sustainable.. the topic hot button topic is What consitutes a P2W game? Or is this or is this NOT a P2W game. Saying that P2W games suck is merely a truism.
Thanks David "cpt. obvious" Georgson
Probably the ideal situation for a Developer is to have a P2W game that is not PERCEIVED as P2W..... that way they have the easiest route to push the player into spending behavior without having the negative stigma of "being P2W" which will drive potential customers away. That's why I take pieces on this site that try to present that such and such is not "really" pay to win with a very large grain of salt.
Obviously what constitutes "P2W" and what doesn't is entirely subjective. However, Developers have a vested interest in trying to convince gamers that almost nothing is P2W and to spread the perception that such is a common sentiment and you are merely an outlier if you do not share it. They could literally sell you an "I Win!" button and you'll see an article crop up here or elsewhere trying to present the opinion that is not "P2W".
Which will not make it p2w if they could pass it off as not P2Win.
F2p has killed AAA mmos. = in a bad way-their maintnance and updates are far in between. i dont blame them with their small staff.
B2p is ok= with purchasable DLC.
Sub is best = by a long shot! with alternate models.
I disagree. If anything, F2P saved many MMO's, and it's sustaining the genre itself. Sorry, but WoW, FFXIV, and EvE, aren't going to keep the genre afloat much longer, especially as time goes on.
AoC, Lotro, EQ2, Swtor, Rift, Tera, Aion, etc..
All of these started off as subscription based models, then went F2P to save themselves. MMO vets need to concede that subscription based models were always fleecing them for a monthly rate, without providing quality content. If sub models were so great, people would've stayed around. At least with a F2P game, you can spend your money when you want, and not be charged a flat fee.
F2P = great for casual players, bad for committed players
F2P killed good MMORPGs, I totally agree. F2P may work for MOBAs or other genres, but not for MMORPGs. Even if microtransactions don't break game balance (they do most of the times even when the average player thinks they don't) in terms of pvp, influence of external real money in any aspect of the game harms its economy. Both P2W and Pay for convenience are cancer for the game quality and community but definitely a great deal for the company.
I find ridiculous how in forums like this, most of us agree with Pay to Play > Free to play, but then when it comes to reality people lose their minds hearing the word "free" and just blame the fact of "having to pay monthly". Most of the people don't even know why is that monthly payment. They ignore the continuous work in an MMORPG of bringing new content, fixing and balancing, maintenance, etc. Many people is working behind and people just want to play for free (even if they throw millions of cash on hats after that).
F2P makes the company focus on develop and release cash-shop content, while the actual game doesn't grow. P2P asures you that the company will exclusively work in the actual game, and you know, hacker, gold sellers, rude kids will mostly step away from monthly fees.
TLDR: Pay to play > F2P, and if you think F2P is better then you're either a money-milking games company or an ignorant.
I prefer a subscription model, but I don't look down on a good F2P game. I think DayBreak has a great thing with their All Access and microtransactions. I just wish the game that do have a subscription kill their microtransaction store. If I'm paying for the game, just give it all to me. Kay?
Adding free gamers to a game, is like filling the game world with sewage. They are hostile and abusive to paying customer, and drive them off over time. Paying customers don’t want to play in a game world with free gamers. And free gamers don’t want to play in a game world with paying customers.
P2W == game is not absolutely free. Free gamers believe F2P games must be free of any remuneration.
If a game can’t hold subscribers, and a free trial doesn’t entice new customers. Then the product is bad, and that fact must be addressed.
Pardon any spelling errors
Konfess your cyns and some maybe forgiven Boy: Why can't I talk to Him? Mom: We don't talk to Priests. As if it could exist, without being payed for. F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing. Even telemarketers wouldn't think that. It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
F2P killed nothing. F2P filled a gap left by flagging interest in MMOs and unfairly gets blamed for being the cause.
If anything F2P has kept MMOs alive by providing such variety and so many different scenarios.
Ooo, wrong and just wrong. F2P is a diluted form of an MMORPG that attracts those with short attentions spans for the most part. They are famous for playing them for 3 months then chucking them and moving onto the next thing. As the number of consoles has increased and as such a certain type of player so has the F2P model along with games that can be maxed in 1 week. (Or about as long as someone rents a game at their video store) It neither helps development nor the survival of its genre which I question that most of these games should be called MMORPGs anyway.
First PC Game: Pool of Radiance July 10th, 1990. First MMO: Everquest April 23, 1999
F2P is a cancer on the mmo genre. I hated it when it first infected the western market from the eastern market, and I still hate it today. The only good thing about it at all is being able to play the game right away, which doesn't say much.
The cash shops take all content updates, and since it is the only source of revenue all the best shit the dev teams make go straight to it. SWTOR is a great example of this. They promised new "Iconic" armor sets for months after everyone shit all over their WoW in space armor sets. Then they purposely held them back until after the F2P conversion, and shoved them into the cash shop. Now every single awesome armor anyone wanted is in the shop. And to top it off, most of the more desired parts are locked inside RNG gamble boxes.
Which brings up the second worst part of F2P. RNG BOXES!!! What a fucking scam. You pay real money to play a fucking slot machine for one item you actually want. That has a .000001% chance of dropping and is usually just cosmetic. Instead of putting the item into the game that you can earn from some epic quest or killing a dungeon boss, you have to blow real cash. Biggest fucking bullshit feature I've ever seen in any game.
And this "pay wall" everyone cries about now is what helps actually keep the shit birds from flooding the game. If the dev team actually knows how to ban people of course. Some teams it seems just let people flagrantly hack, cheat, and bot. Like ArcheAge for example. But if the team puts their foot down, like ESO, they can get rid of the problem. ESO was a nightmare at launch, but since it is a sub game after a few months they finally got the ban hammer right. And now the game is pretty clean and your chat doesn't explode with BUY MY BIKE!! adds every second by username AWIRATNLHGH.
As for the pay wall keeping new players out, that is bullshit. All sub games have/had free trials. You want to try the game with your friend? Download the fucking game then! Play it for 10 or 20 levels and get the feel for what it is. If you like it, then sub up! If you don't, then carry on! I never had any issues never getting to "try" the game before F2P cancer appeared. Any game my friend moved to had a buddy key or free trial. I'd get in, try it out, and decide from there. And guess what?! There was no cash shops! So anything badass in the game I saw I could acquire by just playing the game! WHAAAA!!?! This actually used to exist?! YES!
The only reason, ONLY REASON, why sub models went the way of the dinosaurs is because game companies got bat shit greedy. Instead of focusing on making a quality game and beta test to polish and prep for a good launch. They focused on beta testing for PR purposes and preorders. And rushed games out the door that were broken as fuck and still years away from being launch ready. So people being excited for the product would buy them up, play, then realize they got bamboozled. If gaming companies, like EA and Trion, weren't fucking snakes and actually tried to make their games work we wouldn't need F2P.
F2P, especially now, is a cash grab. WoW clones and the recent batch of "hey were not WoW clones!... Ok we actually are but we skinned it to not be to noticable" games are the worst offenders. They launch as subs, are completely broken, say they will never go F2P, then 6 months later go F2P. And design their game to be as restrictive as possible to free players so they are forced to then subscribe. Which defeats the entire purpose of F2P, like SWTOR and soon to be ESO (even though it's B2P). Speaking of ESO, a game that should really stay sub based. They said over and over and over they weren't changing models, then bam! model change! Even though the "pay wall" is still intact there will be a cash shop. Which means that all future cool content will get funneled through the cash shop. Any new awesome mounts, armors, weapons, etc. will be in the cash shop. And the game itself will become stale as fuck. But they won't give a shit, because as George said, the first few months are going to be great for the company! SO MUCH MONIES!!!!! Then the community that actually were loyal to the game will all leave. And the F2P crowd, which are nomadic and have zero loyalty to any games, will leave after they consume what they wanted and they game will die.
F2P is going to kill this genre, it isn't sustainable and it isn't made for the best interests of the players. It is to generate quick cash for greedy corporate pigs.
Playing: Smite, Marvel Heroes Played: Nexus:Kingdom of the Winds, Everquest, DAoC, Everquest 2, WoW, Matrix Online, Vangaurd, SWG, DDO, EVE, Fallen Earth, LoTRo, CoX, Champions Online, WAR, Darkfall, Mortal Online, Guild Wars, Rift, Tera, Aion, AoC, Gods and Heroes, DCUO, FF14, TSW, SWTOR, GW2, Wildstar, ESO, ArcheAge Waiting On: Nothing. Mmorpg's are dead.
F2P is the future because there are just too many options. Devs have to try to get people into their game. Sure you can have a $30 million dollar AAA MMO, but unless you can get people to buy it and subscribe for awhile in an already super competetive market, you won't make any money.
ESO could not even keep a sub model, despite the quality, the IP, and the hype. Guild Wars 2 started off as a B2P which is essentially a "Pay wall" and that is how it STARTS. forget about getting to try it or see what the game has to offer, this is $$ required to even try it. And new expansion? Another paywall.
Secret World charges for content too and started as Sub, but had to toss it. Same with Rift.
Required Sub is not profitable in today's market.
Now Playing: Bless / Summoners War Looking forward to: Crowfall / Lost Ark / Black Desert Mobile
F2P is the future because there are just too many options. Devs have to try to get people into their game. Sure you can have a $30 million dollar AAA MMO, but unless you can get people to buy it and subscribe for awhile in an already super competetive market, you won't make any money.
ESO could not even keep a sub model, despite the quality, the IP, and the hype. Guild Wars 2 started off as a B2P which is essentially a "Pay wall" and that is how it STARTS. forget about getting to try it or see what the game has to offer, this is $$ required to even try it. And new expansion? Another paywall.
Secret World charges for content too and started as Sub, but had to toss it. Same with Rift.
Required Sub is not profitable in today's market.
No, F2P is just more lucrative in a market where your audience has the attention span of a pea. Simple economics.
F2P is the future because there are just too many options. Devs have to try to get people into their game. Sure you can have a $30 million dollar AAA MMO, but unless you can get people to buy it and subscribe for awhile in an already super competetive market, you won't make any money.
Yes, we've been hearing how "subs are dead" and "F2P is the future" for several years now. All those people were wrong, and continue to be.
It was predicted by John Smedley, an industry vet who's been around since pretty much the beginning, that SWTOR would be the last AAA MMO to release with the subscription model. He was wrong.
I suspect 5 years from now, we'll still see people proclaiming P2P as "dead" and "F2P is the future!".
Subs will continue to be profitable so long as they meet one very key requirement, which I touch upon in correcting your statement below...
Required Sub is not profitable in today's market if your game isn't well enough designed to maintain enough subscribers and remain viable.
FFXI, FFXIV, Eve, WoW, DAoC... and others I can't remember at the moment are all still going quite well with subs. Why? Because they're good enough games that offer a value deemed worth a monthly sub to an adequate number of people to support their continued development and support.
Most all MMORPGs that started as P2P but switched to F2P maintain a monthly membership option... Lineage 2 is the only one I know of that hasn't. Why do you think that is? Why would they retain the option for a revenue model so many deem "dead" or "dying" or "not viable" (albeit entirely on the anti-P2P side, of course)? Hint: It's not because "subs are dead".
One of the strongest... if not the strongest example which directly refutes your claim... FFXIV.
Despite a horribly failed first attempt, in a genre whose customers are famously unforgiving of failure, and there are no second chances... at a time where a successful P2P MMO is the exception, not the rule.... at a time people, like yourself, keep chanting this mantra of how "P2P can't work, and F2P is the future"... SE managed to not only successfully rebuild and re-release FFXIV they exceededtheir own expectations. FFXIV continues to do quite well for SE... as a P2P MMO, in the current market. Against all odds... with a lot going against it, and very little going for it... FFXIV has succeeded wonderfully.
And before someone says "but but... FFXIV added a cash shop! They can't do it on subs alone!" Wrong. They added the cash shop because people requested it. It's something that was touched upon back when ARR was still in development. Yoshi-P was asked if the game would have a cash shop.
Yoshi-P's response was basically that they didn't have any immediate plans to add one, but if enough people were interested, that they would certainly consider adding it. Well, people asked... and SE accomodated them. Remember... FFXIV has been doing better than they expected. Per the article I linked above, they've been making more money since ARR's launch... before adding a cash shop was even mentioned. Those facts might be inconvenient to an anti-P2P'er's narrative.. but they're the facts regardless.
So, you and those like you can post on here, declaring "required sub is not profitable in today's market!" all day long... You're wrong. Or if I'm being charitable... you're missing a huge part of the picture. It absolutely can work, and it absolutely does work.... if the game is good enough.
Now, because I know some folks on these forums likes to say "but FFXI, Eve, etc.. are old games that paid off their development already" - I'll just address that now. It's a non-sequitur.
Older MMOs may have paid off their initial investment. The expenses don't just "disappear", though. They continue to run. They continue to receive support, updates, new content, etc. It's not like all expense of running a MMO stops once development costs are paid up. They continue to cost their developers money, and hence they must continue to earn their developers money. So yeah.. please don't waste my time with that BS.
At the very least, use your brains and think through these arguments a bit more before clicking that reply button. Make sure you're thinking through all sides of the situation... not just the side you happen to favor.
Reading this topic make me feel filthy. Really. Its like diving in a nest full of hate spewing oozes that cant left anything untouched. Im feel ashamed to be in the same group (gamers) as some of those who posted it. Never, in any game, in any moba i have not find so much self centered, so ignorant and just stupid people than on this site. Maybe MMORPG writers just wanted to create a nest for them in this topic and kill them with fire? Dunno. Sounds reasonable. Before they lay eggs...
Seeing responses to the F2P model i get that people just dont really know what it is. Latest subscribtion games show us they are maked only to milk idiots who play subb, but yet, the F2P is maked by greedy corporate pigs. And it cost more than subscribption to play one, which is funny because i dont spend any money on RIFT but hell i WANT TO. Im not compeled to that to have good experience. Just want to buy some fancy suit and give devs a push "Hey. great job!".
Im lost my fate in humanity, and those who posted really disgust me. Not because truth they stand for but because of bitterness, ignorance and play stupidity. Its like dark ages all over again.
Reading this topic make me feel filthy. Really. Its like diving in a nest full of hate spewing oozes that cant left anything untouched. Im feel ashamed to be in the same group (gamers) as some of those who posted it. Never, in any game, in any moba i have not find so much self centered, so ignorant and just stupid people than on this site. Maybe MMORPG writers just wanted to create a nest for them in this topic and kill them with fire? Dunno. Sounds reasonable. Before they lay eggs...
Seeing responses to the F2P model i get that people just dont really know what it is. Latest subscribtion games show us they are maked only to milk idiots who play subb, but yet, the F2P is maked by greedy corporate pigs. And it cost more than subscribption to play one, which is funny because i dont spend any money on RIFT but hell i WANT TO. Im not compeled to that to have good experience. Just want to buy some fancy suit and give devs a push "Hey. great job!".
Im lost my fate in humanity, and those who posted really disgust me. Not because truth they stand for but because of bitterness, ignorance and play stupidity. Its like dark ages all over again.
Believe it or not lots of gamers want to have the option to enjoy all that a game has to offer even if every possible stone isn't turned (completionists are a separate breed bordering on if not OCD. And I do not use the term OCD lightly). For gamers of this mindset "F2P" boils down to less for more; it corrupts everything that a game is about right at it's foundation.
Don't lose your faith, find your senses and perhaps a sprinkle of foresight.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
FFXI, FFXIV, Eve, WoW, DAoC... and others I can't remember at the moment are all still going quite well with subs. Why? Because they're good enough games that offer a value deemed worth a monthly sub to an adequate number of people to support their continued development and support.
I dont think EvE qualifies to be among the subscription games that are still going strong. Yes it has a subscription, but In my very personal opinion (i could be wrong) EvE is going strong because a number of its subscribers pay thousands of dollars for in game items like ships.
The player doesn’t have to pay before trying the game.
F2P means that the curious or the friend-recommended can easily download and try the game without risk.
Generally increased game revenue.
The F2P Pros listed above...oh boy...
1. A game doesn't need to be F2P to allow a player to try it before buying it, have a Free Trial.
2. This is a repeat of #1 made into a second one to make the list longer and seem equal to the cons which it isn't...not even close.
3. Will only increase game revenue for a garbage game that cannot retain players via a subscription. Make a good game, people will continue to pay to play it. It really is that simple as can be seen by so many old games that still have people paying to play them.
F2P is a poison to the consumer and a boon to game makers not making a quality product.
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
Of course he views F2P with rose tinted glasses. He's on the inside, where they get much more benefit from this model than do the players who foot the more sizeable bill. He fails to point out that someone HAS to foot that bill or they'd not have their lovely games and that F2P games tend to spread the greater burden on a smaller portion of their audience. At least in P2P, everyone shares the burden and the benefit and the game design reflects that.
I liken F2P games to slot machines, they're entertaining if you like to gamble. I'm here to play games, not subject myself to a gambling simulator. Gambling is notorious for being slanted in the house's favor, not the gambler's.
F2P killed nothing. F2P filled a gap left by flagging interest in MMOs and unfairly gets blamed for being the cause.
If anything F2P has kept MMOs alive by providing such variety and so many different scenarios.
F2P propped up a style of gameplay that wasn't sustainable by P2P at the cost of the integrity of the games themselves. Basically, WoW clones that aren't built to have long term customers. While it didn't kill MMORPGs, it prevented constructive changes to the genre. If WoW clones were allowed to fail there would have been corrective course in the genre.
Originally posted by SpottyGekko I find it incredibly ironic that I now spend more time trying to calculate the "true" cost of playing a F2P game than I ever did back in the days when there was only a single monthly sub payment required !
The problem I have with many MMOs is they're just another level grind. However some get away from it especially in the free to play space where innovation seems to be greater (a good thing!).
The down side is most of the non-traditional "free to play" games end up being money pits if you get into them heavily, especially anything involving PvP which potentially adds a lot of dynamism but generally ends up being pay to win.
For me it's simple. If I enjoy the game it doesn't matter what the model is as long as it doesn't interfere with my fun. I also don't care much what other players are doing as long as it doesn't interfere with me having fun playing a game. Just keep the bugs under control and don't go crazy with the nerf hammer and don't force me to play the game one way only and I'm a happy camper.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
This probably wouldn't have been an issue if companies hadn't started to try to rape people with a $15 buck a month price tag on top of hefty buy in prices. $35 and $7.99 a month is what I started with. At the most it should maybe be a $50 buy in with maybe $9.99 to 10.99 a month rent after that. Anymore than that is asking way to much for the entertainment. It isn't like anyone has came out with anything groundbreaking in years.
Comments
The game may be F2P, but the ad surely is not. Welcome to the world of advertising, where everything is sold for a price.
Which will not make it p2w if they could pass it off as not P2Win.
I disagree. If anything, F2P saved many MMO's, and it's sustaining the genre itself. Sorry, but WoW, FFXIV, and EvE, aren't going to keep the genre afloat much longer, especially as time goes on.
AoC, Lotro, EQ2, Swtor, Rift, Tera, Aion, etc..
All of these started off as subscription based models, then went F2P to save themselves. MMO vets need to concede that subscription based models were always fleecing them for a monthly rate, without providing quality content. If sub models were so great, people would've stayed around. At least with a F2P game, you can spend your money when you want, and not be charged a flat fee.
I don't know, I like the box price + paying for the DLC I want model.
Encourages devs to get more DLC out, and to make it quality stuff.
Well, unless you're Ubisoft.
Or anything involved with EA.
F2P = great for casual players, bad for committed players
F2P killed good MMORPGs, I totally agree. F2P may work for MOBAs or other genres, but not for MMORPGs. Even if microtransactions don't break game balance (they do most of the times even when the average player thinks they don't) in terms of pvp, influence of external real money in any aspect of the game harms its economy. Both P2W and Pay for convenience are cancer for the game quality and community but definitely a great deal for the company.
I find ridiculous how in forums like this, most of us agree with Pay to Play > Free to play, but then when it comes to reality people lose their minds hearing the word "free" and just blame the fact of "having to pay monthly". Most of the people don't even know why is that monthly payment. They ignore the continuous work in an MMORPG of bringing new content, fixing and balancing, maintenance, etc. Many people is working behind and people just want to play for free (even if they throw millions of cash on hats after that).
F2P makes the company focus on develop and release cash-shop content, while the actual game doesn't grow. P2P asures you that the company will exclusively work in the actual game, and you know, hacker, gold sellers, rude kids will mostly step away from monthly fees.
TLDR: Pay to play > F2P, and if you think F2P is better then you're either a money-milking games company or an ignorant.
Adding free gamers to a game, is like filling the game world with sewage. They are hostile and abusive to paying customer, and drive them off over time. Paying customers don’t want to play in a game world with free gamers. And free gamers don’t want to play in a game world with paying customers.
P2W == game is not absolutely free. Free gamers believe F2P games must be free of any remuneration.
If a game can’t hold subscribers, and a free trial doesn’t entice new customers. Then the product is bad, and that fact must be addressed.Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
Ooo, wrong and just wrong. F2P is a diluted form of an MMORPG that attracts those with short attentions spans for the most part. They are famous for playing them for 3 months then chucking them and moving onto the next thing. As the number of consoles has increased and as such a certain type of player so has the F2P model along with games that can be maxed in 1 week. (Or about as long as someone rents a game at their video store) It neither helps development nor the survival of its genre which I question that most of these games should be called MMORPGs anyway.
First PC Game: Pool of Radiance July 10th, 1990. First MMO: Everquest April 23, 1999
F2P is a cancer on the mmo genre. I hated it when it first infected the western market from the eastern market, and I still hate it today. The only good thing about it at all is being able to play the game right away, which doesn't say much.
The cash shops take all content updates, and since it is the only source of revenue all the best shit the dev teams make go straight to it. SWTOR is a great example of this. They promised new "Iconic" armor sets for months after everyone shit all over their WoW in space armor sets. Then they purposely held them back until after the F2P conversion, and shoved them into the cash shop. Now every single awesome armor anyone wanted is in the shop. And to top it off, most of the more desired parts are locked inside RNG gamble boxes.
Which brings up the second worst part of F2P. RNG BOXES!!! What a fucking scam. You pay real money to play a fucking slot machine for one item you actually want. That has a .000001% chance of dropping and is usually just cosmetic. Instead of putting the item into the game that you can earn from some epic quest or killing a dungeon boss, you have to blow real cash. Biggest fucking bullshit feature I've ever seen in any game.
And this "pay wall" everyone cries about now is what helps actually keep the shit birds from flooding the game. If the dev team actually knows how to ban people of course. Some teams it seems just let people flagrantly hack, cheat, and bot. Like ArcheAge for example. But if the team puts their foot down, like ESO, they can get rid of the problem. ESO was a nightmare at launch, but since it is a sub game after a few months they finally got the ban hammer right. And now the game is pretty clean and your chat doesn't explode with BUY MY BIKE!! adds every second by username AWIRATNLHGH.
As for the pay wall keeping new players out, that is bullshit. All sub games have/had free trials. You want to try the game with your friend? Download the fucking game then! Play it for 10 or 20 levels and get the feel for what it is. If you like it, then sub up! If you don't, then carry on! I never had any issues never getting to "try" the game before F2P cancer appeared. Any game my friend moved to had a buddy key or free trial. I'd get in, try it out, and decide from there. And guess what?! There was no cash shops! So anything badass in the game I saw I could acquire by just playing the game! WHAAAA!!?! This actually used to exist?! YES!
The only reason, ONLY REASON, why sub models went the way of the dinosaurs is because game companies got bat shit greedy. Instead of focusing on making a quality game and beta test to polish and prep for a good launch. They focused on beta testing for PR purposes and preorders. And rushed games out the door that were broken as fuck and still years away from being launch ready. So people being excited for the product would buy them up, play, then realize they got bamboozled. If gaming companies, like EA and Trion, weren't fucking snakes and actually tried to make their games work we wouldn't need F2P.
F2P, especially now, is a cash grab. WoW clones and the recent batch of "hey were not WoW clones!... Ok we actually are but we skinned it to not be to noticable" games are the worst offenders. They launch as subs, are completely broken, say they will never go F2P, then 6 months later go F2P. And design their game to be as restrictive as possible to free players so they are forced to then subscribe. Which defeats the entire purpose of F2P, like SWTOR and soon to be ESO (even though it's B2P). Speaking of ESO, a game that should really stay sub based. They said over and over and over they weren't changing models, then bam! model change! Even though the "pay wall" is still intact there will be a cash shop. Which means that all future cool content will get funneled through the cash shop. Any new awesome mounts, armors, weapons, etc. will be in the cash shop. And the game itself will become stale as fuck. But they won't give a shit, because as George said, the first few months are going to be great for the company! SO MUCH MONIES!!!!! Then the community that actually were loyal to the game will all leave. And the F2P crowd, which are nomadic and have zero loyalty to any games, will leave after they consume what they wanted and they game will die.
F2P is going to kill this genre, it isn't sustainable and it isn't made for the best interests of the players. It is to generate quick cash for greedy corporate pigs.
Playing: Smite, Marvel Heroes
Played: Nexus:Kingdom of the Winds, Everquest, DAoC, Everquest 2, WoW, Matrix Online, Vangaurd, SWG, DDO, EVE, Fallen Earth, LoTRo, CoX, Champions Online, WAR, Darkfall, Mortal Online, Guild Wars, Rift, Tera, Aion, AoC, Gods and Heroes, DCUO, FF14, TSW, SWTOR, GW2, Wildstar, ESO, ArcheAge
Waiting On: Nothing. Mmorpg's are dead.
F2P is the future because there are just too many options. Devs have to try to get people into their game. Sure you can have a $30 million dollar AAA MMO, but unless you can get people to buy it and subscribe for awhile in an already super competetive market, you won't make any money.
ESO could not even keep a sub model, despite the quality, the IP, and the hype. Guild Wars 2 started off as a B2P which is essentially a "Pay wall" and that is how it STARTS. forget about getting to try it or see what the game has to offer, this is $$ required to even try it. And new expansion? Another paywall.
Secret World charges for content too and started as Sub, but had to toss it. Same with Rift.
Required Sub is not profitable in today's market.
Looking forward to: Crowfall / Lost Ark / Black Desert Mobile
No, F2P is just more lucrative in a market where your audience has the attention span of a pea. Simple economics.
FFXI, FFXIV, Eve, WoW, DAoC... and others I can't remember at the moment are all still going quite well with subs. Why? Because they're good enough games that offer a value deemed worth a monthly sub to an adequate number of people to support their continued development and support.
Most all MMORPGs that started as P2P but switched to F2P maintain a monthly membership option... Lineage 2 is the only one I know of that hasn't. Why do you think that is? Why would they retain the option for a revenue model so many deem "dead" or "dying" or "not viable" (albeit entirely on the anti-P2P side, of course)? Hint: It's not because "subs are dead".
One of the strongest... if not the strongest example which directly refutes your claim... FFXIV.
Despite a horribly failed first attempt, in a genre whose customers are famously unforgiving of failure, and there are no second chances... at a time where a successful P2P MMO is the exception, not the rule.... at a time people, like yourself, keep chanting this mantra of how "P2P can't work, and F2P is the future"... SE managed to not only successfully rebuild and re-release FFXIV they exceeded their own expectations. FFXIV continues to do quite well for SE... as a P2P MMO, in the current market. Against all odds... with a lot going against it, and very little going for it... FFXIV has succeeded wonderfully.
And before someone says "but but... FFXIV added a cash shop! They can't do it on subs alone!" Wrong. They added the cash shop because people requested it. It's something that was touched upon back when ARR was still in development. Yoshi-P was asked if the game would have a cash shop.
Yoshi-P's response was basically that they didn't have any immediate plans to add one, but if enough people were interested, that they would certainly consider adding it. Well, people asked... and SE accomodated them. Remember... FFXIV has been doing better than they expected. Per the article I linked above, they've been making more money since ARR's launch... before adding a cash shop was even mentioned. Those facts might be inconvenient to an anti-P2P'er's narrative.. but they're the facts regardless.
So, you and those like you can post on here, declaring "required sub is not profitable in today's market!" all day long... You're wrong. Or if I'm being charitable... you're missing a huge part of the picture. It absolutely can work, and it absolutely does work.... if the game is good enough.
Now, because I know some folks on these forums likes to say "but FFXI, Eve, etc.. are old games that paid off their development already" - I'll just address that now. It's a non-sequitur.
Older MMOs may have paid off their initial investment. The expenses don't just "disappear", though. They continue to run. They continue to receive support, updates, new content, etc. It's not like all expense of running a MMO stops once development costs are paid up. They continue to cost their developers money, and hence they must continue to earn their developers money. So yeah.. please don't waste my time with that BS.
At the very least, use your brains and think through these arguments a bit more before clicking that reply button. Make sure you're thinking through all sides of the situation... not just the side you happen to favor.
Reading this topic make me feel filthy. Really. Its like diving in a nest full of hate spewing oozes that cant left anything untouched. Im feel ashamed to be in the same group (gamers) as some of those who posted it. Never, in any game, in any moba i have not find so much self centered, so ignorant and just stupid people than on this site. Maybe MMORPG writers just wanted to create a nest for them in this topic and kill them with fire? Dunno. Sounds reasonable. Before they lay eggs...
Seeing responses to the F2P model i get that people just dont really know what it is. Latest subscribtion games show us they are maked only to milk idiots who play subb, but yet, the F2P is maked by greedy corporate pigs. And it cost more than subscribption to play one, which is funny because i dont spend any money on RIFT but hell i WANT TO. Im not compeled to that to have good experience. Just want to buy some fancy suit and give devs a push "Hey. great job!".
Im lost my fate in humanity, and those who posted really disgust me. Not because truth they stand for but because of bitterness, ignorance and play stupidity. Its like dark ages all over again.
"I don’t personally have anything against pay-to-win games. I’ve played several good ones and lots of smaller ones for research purposes. "
heh, looking at things on the internet for "research purposes", heh
Believe it or not lots of gamers want to have the option to enjoy all that a game has to offer even if every possible stone isn't turned (completionists are a separate breed bordering on if not OCD. And I do not use the term OCD lightly). For gamers of this mindset "F2P" boils down to less for more; it corrupts everything that a game is about right at it's foundation.
Don't lose your faith, find your senses and perhaps a sprinkle of foresight.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
I dont think EvE qualifies to be among the subscription games that are still going strong. Yes it has a subscription, but In my very personal opinion (i could be wrong) EvE is going strong because a number of its subscribers pay thousands of dollars for in game items like ships.
F2P is a poison to the consumer and a boon to game makers not making a quality product.
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster
http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
Of course he views F2P with rose tinted glasses. He's on the inside, where they get much more benefit from this model than do the players who foot the more sizeable bill. He fails to point out that someone HAS to foot that bill or they'd not have their lovely games and that F2P games tend to spread the greater burden on a smaller portion of their audience. At least in P2P, everyone shares the burden and the benefit and the game design reflects that.
I liken F2P games to slot machines, they're entertaining if you like to gamble. I'm here to play games, not subject myself to a gambling simulator. Gambling is notorious for being slanted in the house's favor, not the gambler's.
F2P propped up a style of gameplay that wasn't sustainable by P2P at the cost of the integrity of the games themselves. Basically, WoW clones that aren't built to have long term customers. While it didn't kill MMORPGs, it prevented constructive changes to the genre. If WoW clones were allowed to fail there would have been corrective course in the genre.
what he said
The problem I have with many MMOs is they're just another level grind. However some get away from it especially in the free to play space where innovation seems to be greater (a good thing!).
The down side is most of the non-traditional "free to play" games end up being money pits if you get into them heavily, especially anything involving PvP which potentially adds a lot of dynamism but generally ends up being pay to win.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey