I'm comfortable paying for the content developed and then for the game time. I can see why those things are moneytized. If you make a good game and price it right people will buy it and play it. That should be enough for moneytizing imo.
Talking about games where thousands of players exist simultaneously in a single instance and mechanics related to such games.
Most MMORPG players agree on what the business model should be: only someone else should have to pay, but they shouldn't get any advantage from doing so.
That's just cutesy cynical crap that passes as old fart wisdom around here.
Pay for the game because it's the type of game you enjoy (with or without grind,) pay a reasonable monthly fee because you want to keep playing it and everyone pays no more and no less.
That would be ideal from a game player's perspective.
Of course people can put their wannabe game capitalist hat on and praise ingenious, seductive schemes that produce ever increasing ROIs... maybe there should be a separate forum for them?
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
I still feel the most comfortable with the model WoW has. You pay the box price, you pay the sub, the devs dont design the game around pulling the money from your pocket but around keeping you playing. Problem is... you need a pretty damn good game to be profitable with that model and even then youll get people saying 'oh, I wont pay a sub on top of the box price' and going off to play b2p and f2p games which will make their gameplay miserable until they end up spending 3x as much as theyd have spent on the sub game.
A good example would be ArcheAge, many loved the game but people left in droves because of the monetization. If the game just had a box and a sub I wonder how many people would be playing and loving the game.
Separating the MMO business from shareholders is a good start.
This is really the first step. The second you have shareholders, then you have a group of people who:
Have zero interest in any part of the game mechanics, game play or anything else associated with the finer details of what makes a game "fun".
Are only interested in whether the game is profitable, how profitable and how to make it more profitable.
By removing these blind, greedy suits from the process and funding the game by any other means necessary, then you retain control over point one and can make a game that people will enjoy playing.
These RNG loot boxes that are becoming the rage in games recently, for instance, are all in response to point two. They are a despicable means of drawing cash out of gamers by preying on the randomness of gambling.
Personally, I prefer my MMO style games to have a flat subscription and no cash shop whatsoever. I want to pay my monthly fee and have everything that's in the game be earned through in-game means. I don't like shortcuts or exclusives in any way at all.
This isnt true , I have been a major shareholder with ATVI , EA , FCMKF, Sqnx, etc.. for many many years .. Got involved because i love games ...
I will tell you this , None of them have ever , ever in anyway asked for input on Game direction , development or monetization...
I invest in many as well but what I think Hourglass is saying is the publisher answers to the shareholders looking for a positive ROI on their investments which in turn puts the publishers in a situation where they feel the need to pressure the developers. When ever you add layers of accountability to a process it becomes overly complicated and influences the product.
Most of the better games are run by Publishers that are publicly owned , the privatley owned games are the more agrievous cashshop games with less success long term....
That has been the case but moving forward I do not think that will be the case. I think private Indie companies are the future for the genre in the West.
Todays indie dev is tomorrow's money grubbing, soul sucking, mega corporation.
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
Separating the MMO business from shareholders is a good start.
This is really the first step. The second you have shareholders, then you have a group of people who:
Have zero interest in any part of the game mechanics, game play or anything else associated with the finer details of what makes a game "fun".
Are only interested in whether the game is profitable, how profitable and how to make it more profitable.
By removing these blind, greedy suits from the process and funding the game by any other means necessary, then you retain control over point one and can make a game that people will enjoy playing.
These RNG loot boxes that are becoming the rage in games recently, for instance, are all in response to point two. They are a despicable means of drawing cash out of gamers by preying on the randomness of gambling.
Personally, I prefer my MMO style games to have a flat subscription and no cash shop whatsoever. I want to pay my monthly fee and have everything that's in the game be earned through in-game means. I don't like shortcuts or exclusives in any way at all.
This isnt true , I have been a major shareholder with ATVI , EA , FCMKF, Sqnx, etc.. for many many years .. Got involved because i love games ...
I will tell you this , None of them have ever , ever in anyway asked for input on Game direction , development or monetization...
I invest in many as well but what I think Hourglass is saying is the publisher answers to the shareholders looking for a positive ROI on their investments which in turn puts the publishers in a situation where they feel the need to pressure the developers. When ever you add layers of accountability to a process it becomes overly complicated and influences the product.
Most of the better games are run by Publishers that are publicly owned , the privatley owned games are the more agrievous cashshop games with less success long term....
That has been the case but moving forward I do not think that will be the case. I think private Indie companies are the future for the genre in the West.
Todays indie dev is tomorrow's money grubbing, soul sucking, mega corporation.
Even EA was small at one point
EA was always different. Sure they had their own games before they started buying things up. Games like M.U.L.E., Archon, etc.
But I remember their early ads in magazines like Computer Gaming World. They always portrayed themselves as being above the fray and not your typical garage developer. Games as business was always their thing right from the start.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Separate monetization from game play. After that, charge a fair price for the service. It's not hard.....really, it's not.
What seems to be hard is creating a game where players want to keep returning to.
your second statement is the reason the first doesn't work. It does seem to be that hard to make a good game and figure out the finances around keeping it operating at a profit. It really isn't that easy in the end to have a profitable company doing well most of the time.
People act like it is easy but it is actually very hard. For every one business even in this industry succeeding there are prob 10 failing or failed. Just my shitty opinion but I know a lot of people with failed ventures.
Separating the MMO business from shareholders is a good start.
This is really the first step. The second you have shareholders, then you have a group of people who:
Have zero interest in any part of the game mechanics, game play or anything else associated with the finer details of what makes a game "fun".
Are only interested in whether the game is profitable, how profitable and how to make it more profitable.
By removing these blind, greedy suits from the process and funding the game by any other means necessary, then you retain control over point one and can make a game that people will enjoy playing.
These RNG loot boxes that are becoming the rage in games recently, for instance, are all in response to point two. They are a despicable means of drawing cash out of gamers by preying on the randomness of gambling.
Personally, I prefer my MMO style games to have a flat subscription and no cash shop whatsoever. I want to pay my monthly fee and have everything that's in the game be earned through in-game means. I don't like shortcuts or exclusives in any way at all.
This isnt true , I have been a major shareholder with ATVI , EA , FCMKF, Sqnx, etc.. for many many years .. Got involved because i love games ...
I will tell you this , None of them have ever , ever in anyway asked for input on Game direction , development or monetization...
I invest in many as well but what I think Hourglass is saying is the publisher answers to the shareholders looking for a positive ROI on their investments which in turn puts the publishers in a situation where they feel the need to pressure the developers. When ever you add layers of accountability to a process it becomes overly complicated and influences the product.
Most of the better games are run by Publishers that are publicly owned , the privatley owned games are the more agrievous cashshop games with less success long term....
That has been the case but moving forward I do not think that will be the case. I think private Indie companies are the future for the genre in the West.
Todays indie dev is tomorrow's money grubbing, soul sucking, mega corporation.
Even EA was small at one point
I didn't like EA when they were small, either. I've been avoiding their games for well over 20 years now, precisely because I didn't like their antics way back when they were small, and they haven't done anything to convince me to drop that view since then.
Sub based MMO's were the only way to go. No stupid ass cash shop that only exists to try to force you to buy everything so they don't go out of business. Which then makes the game only produce quality content for the cash shop. Leaving the actual game to stagnant and die.
Subs were fine, you get everything for 15 bucks. 24/7 with no hidden costs or cash shop bullshit, and the company gets paid.
The reason why subs died is because blood sucking companies rushed out unfinished messes to try to rape us for our money.
They abandoned subs when they realized Korea was making a killing with f2p cash shop games. So they convinced everyone that f2p was the new messiah and was to the benefit of us gamers.
In actuality it is just easier for them to farm our money.
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.
I think that the ideal, albeit thoroughly impractical, system would go something like this. You pay $30/month or so for a universal gaming subscription that gets you unlimited access to all video games in existence--console, PC, mobile, everything. Each month, you'd decide which developers should get the money you paid into the system on the basis of which games you enjoyed that month. It could be all $30 to one company, or divided however you want among several, or whatever. Only games that you actually played a substantial amount that month would be eligible, however.
That way, if you pick up a game, play for a few days, and decide you don't like it, the developer gets nothing. He didn't make a game you liked, so he gets nothing and instead you give the money to those who made games you do like. But if you love a game and play it solidly for a year, the developer of that game that you loved can get hundreds of dollars from you.
Alas, this is completely impossible. Quite apart from the impracticality of setting up such a system, it would also break down because there are so many ways to cheat the system and developers would try to convince you to give them money for reasons other than because you liked the games they made.
Most MMORPG players agree on what the business model should be: only someone else should have to pay, but they shouldn't get any advantage from doing so.
That's just cutesy cynical crap that passes as old fart wisdom around here.
Pay for the game because it's the type of game you enjoy (with or without grind,) pay a reasonable monthly fee because you want to keep playing it and everyone pays no more and no less.
That would be ideal from a game player's perspective.
Of course people can put their wannabe game capitalist hat on and praise ingenious, seductive schemes that produce ever increasing ROIs... maybe there should be a separate forum for them?
That's a bit harsh and glosses over all the problems and baggage that system carries that I mentioned earlier. Gross advantages for those with a lot more time to spend or account sharing, third party rmt gold sales, etc.
Why do we need a monthly fee? In what world did we convince ourselves that renting access to games was a good idea? That might be ideal for some gamers, but the larger gaming populace has not agreed that this is the best or subs + box fees wouldn't have failed.
"Fail" is relative though isn't it? Dark Age of Camelot is still going with a sub fee today last time I looked. Does box + sub make as much money as F2P + cash shop and all the mixes of the two systems? Obviously not. FB and the app store have shown that.
There's fail as in "we can't pay salaries anymore and have to shut down" and there's faux-fail as in "we can make more money doing it the other way" and that's without even getting into the forum troll's use of "fail."
Time factor? Yeah... that argument again. It's just part of simulated 24/7 worlds. Never was a type of game for everyone.
Gold sellers and buyers? Yup. Used to be just a shady underground thing right along with bots and hacks. All of those will always be with us. It took a while for some companies to adopt it as part of their BM (SOE was first in the West I believe) but eventually they did... some of us even defend it as a good thing now.
Harsh reply to Quiz? Well I do get tired of seeing that thrown around here as truth. No I don't think players are freeloaders that want others to pay. Some I'm sure are, just like there are gold buyers, botters, hackers, etc. But you don't use that to dismiss all gamers and their opinions about what feels fair... emphasis on feel.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
@syriinx I think there are drawbacks to paying annually and it doesn't save that much. The four subs I have right now are all at 3 months blocks of time except WoW (that's a month to month sub). I don't like committing to 12 months at a time. It's risky. It's also a large chunk of change to drop all at once.
I disagree that all content has gotten worse/less frequent for games that have transitioned from sub to hybrid. WoW is a sub game and has an abysmal track record for updates. FF14 was great for the first year but then has dropped off on the content updates since then. ESO has picked up on the pace and quality of updates. I think SWTOR is a better game now than ever before and it still gets consistent updates.
Well so much for not writing a novel lol......
Im talking about the games that had extended lives as sub games before transitioning. Games like EQ2, LOTRO, and Rift all saw significant decreases in both quantity and quality after their transition. ESO and SWtOR both launched as sub games, but shifted to freemium model before regular content updates really began. I cant speak for ESO but its not like SWtOR has released this significant chunk of content over the last few years.
Nothing today comes close to EQ in its heyday of course, but thats probably because graphics are the enemy of MMORPG content design.
Just give me a box fee and a sub. Make the sub a reasonable number to sustain the game. Don't be afraid to crack the $14.99 barrier. Charge $25 a month (or more). I'd pay $50 a month sub for a great game without blinking an eyelash.
And it would be FAIR... nobody buying advantages...
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Most people claim they want the fair model but the reality is that 5% of the players are happily dishing out 90% of the games income on pay to win purchases.
I think in the current environment the best way to run an MMO may very well be paid classes. As in you can pay for free with a selection of normal classes but if you want to pay an extra X a month or X up front, you can now be a Knight class or you come with your own land, status, reputation, NPC army etc. Your character is actually a semi-permanent part of the game and other players can utilize you for quest rewards or something. (you and your land/castle can be removed or made abandoned without being game breaking if you stop paying)
If you want to be King of a region its thousands of dollars or hundreds a month.
You will never get around the reality of the big money players in games, you should really try to embrace it and make them a part of the game without simply making them higher level, hit harder, super weapons. You should instead allow them to rule or be responsible for small to big parts of the game depending on how much money they want to throw into it.
p2p mmorpgs are FORCED to give u updates , and keep the game fresh , and thats awesome (well wow is the outlier , since woltk it has always 1 year of no content )
b2p-f2p? doesnt have to update if they dont want to , but then players will gear up , get bored and quit , so updating the game and adding some lvls or higher ilvls gear is a fast way to force ppl to enchant , gem , farm and buy those overpriced failsafe stones on the cash shop
cosmetics are "ok" , but there is a line that must no be crossed and thats having half your artist team working on cash shop only items....or putting ingame horrible sets and cool sets on cash shop , thats lame and a fast way to make ppl rage quit
i miss the times of paying my sub and having acces to EVERYTHING (mounts , gear , pets )
dont get me started on overpriced crap like name , sex , race , server ect changes Blizz is the worse on that by miles ....oh dont forget the LEVEL BOOST to max ....in a p2p come on now...
Most people claim they want the fair model but the reality is that 5% of the players are happily dishing out 90% of the games income on pay to win purchases.
I think in the current environment the best way to run an MMO may very well be paid classes. As in you can pay for free with a selection of normal classes but if you want to pay an extra X a month or X up front, you can now be a Knight class or you come with your own land, status, reputation, NPC army etc. Your character is actually a semi-permanent part of the game and other players can utilize you for quest rewards or something. (you and your land/castle can be removed or made abandoned without being game breaking if you stop paying)
If you want to be King of a region its thousands of dollars or hundreds a month.
You will never get around the reality of the big money players in games, you should really try to embrace it and make them a part of the game without simply making them higher level, hit harder, super weapons. You should instead allow them to rule or be responsible for small to big parts of the game depending on how much money they want to throw into it.
Yes this is the Buy to King model found in Chronicles of Elyria. Taking P2W to new heights...
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Most MMORPG players agree on what the business model should be: only someone else should have to pay, but they shouldn't get any advantage from doing so.
That's just cutesy cynical crap that passes as old fart wisdom around here.
Pay for the game because it's the type of game you enjoy (with or without grind,) pay a reasonable monthly fee because you want to keep playing it and everyone pays no more and no less.
That would be ideal from a game player's perspective.
Of course people can put their wannabe game capitalist hat on and praise ingenious, seductive schemes that produce ever increasing ROIs... maybe there should be a separate forum for them?
That's a bit harsh and glosses over all the problems and baggage that system carries that I mentioned earlier. Gross advantages for those with a lot more time to spend or account sharing, third party rmt gold sales, etc.
Why do we need a monthly fee? In what world did we convince ourselves that renting access to games was a good idea? That might be ideal for some gamers, but the larger gaming populace has not agreed that this is the best or subs + box fees wouldn't have failed.
"Fail" is relative though isn't it? Dark Age of Camelot is still going with a sub fee today last time I looked. Does box + sub make as much money as F2P + cash shop and all the mixes of the two systems? Obviously not. FB and the app store have shown that.
There's fail as in "we can't pay salaries anymore and have to shut down" and there's faux-fail as in "we can make more money doing it the other way" and that's without even getting into the forum troll's use of "fail."
Time factor? Yeah... that argument again. It's just part of simulated 24/7 worlds. Never was a type of game for everyone.
Gold sellers and buyers? Yup. Used to be just a shady underground thing right along with bots and hacks. All of those will always be with us. It took a while for some companies to adopt it as part of their BM (SOE was first in the West I believe) but eventually they did... some of us even defend it as a good thing now.
Harsh reply to Quiz? Well I do get tired of seeing that thrown around here as truth. No I don't think players are freeloaders that want others to pay. Some I'm sure are, just like there are gold buyers, botters, hackers, etc. But you don't use that to dismiss all gamers and their opinions about what feels fair... emphasis on feel.
Outside of whales, most people's perceptions of what is fair skews toward themselves paying less and others paying more. For example:
1. People who want to play betas and early access sometimes get upset about being charged more to play early. People who wait until well after launch often think it's fair that people who want to be first to play should pay more for it.
2. People who play for 30 or 40 hours per week tend to think it's fair if everyone pays a flat subscription fee. People who only play a few hours per month commonly think it's unfair that they should have to pay just as much for that as someone who plays vastly more.
3. People who like the leveling process and avoid endgames don't particularly mind if the endgame is heavily pay to win. People who want to rush to endgame and get the best gear and so forth tend to be far more upset about models that heavily favor whales at endgame.
4. People who don't care what they look like tend to favor pushing monetization of purely cosmetic things. People who love to decorate their characters with many different outfits get upset if they have to pay vastly more than everyone else just because they like to look good.
I really like the way LOTRO has done it. You can earn in game currency to buy what you need. YES it takes a really long time. Or you can subscribe. You have many options. Subscribe while you are playing often and don't when you aren't.
Sub-only with a possible cosmetic-only cash shop is the only fair thing for players.
Blizzard built an empire on it. FFXIV is doing fine using it. To say it's no longer financially viable is innacurate imo.
Of course, the game actually has to be good enough to warrant remaining subscribed, too, which is a big pain in the butt for devs. They have to bother with things like creating engaging content over long periods of time. What a pain!
BDO is by far the worst monetized MMO I've ever seen. From the ground-up, it's designed to push you to the shop (the most expensive shop ever envisioned). Starting from the fact that it's a grinding game forcing you to buy 4 pets to simulate an "auto-loot" feature, it's chock full of institutionalized inconvenience that can only be alleviated through the cash shop. For example, for the first time ever in an MMO, your gear doesn't change looks much as you get new gear. Want to have a new look? That's $30.
This is the exact opposite of what we should be looking for in an MMO. Instead of coming up with new ways to interest us, Devs are spending time and energy devising new ways to annoy us, and then selling the remedy in the shop.
This was somewhat excusable since at least the game was not p2w until recently. But with the new soft-subscription and p2w, there's no way it can possibly be tolerated.
Most MMORPG players agree on what the business model should be: only someone else should have to pay, but they shouldn't get any advantage from doing so.
That's just cutesy cynical crap that passes as old fart wisdom around here.
Pay for the game because it's the type of game you enjoy (with or without grind,) pay a reasonable monthly fee because you want to keep playing it and everyone pays no more and no less.
That would be ideal from a game player's perspective.
Of course people can put their wannabe game capitalist hat on and praise ingenious, seductive schemes that produce ever increasing ROIs... maybe there should be a separate forum for them?
That's a bit harsh and glosses over all the problems and baggage that system carries that I mentioned earlier. Gross advantages for those with a lot more time to spend or account sharing, third party rmt gold sales, etc.
Why do we need a monthly fee? In what world did we convince ourselves that renting access to games was a good idea? That might be ideal for some gamers, but the larger gaming populace has not agreed that this is the best or subs + box fees wouldn't have failed.
"Fail" is relative though isn't it? Dark Age of Camelot is still going with a sub fee today last time I looked. Does box + sub make as much money as F2P + cash shop and all the mixes of the two systems? Obviously not. FB and the app store have shown that.
There's fail as in "we can't pay salaries anymore and have to shut down" and there's faux-fail as in "we can make more money doing it the other way" and that's without even getting into the forum troll's use of "fail."
Time factor? Yeah... that argument again. It's just part of simulated 24/7 worlds. Never was a type of game for everyone.
Gold sellers and buyers? Yup. Used to be just a shady underground thing right along with bots and hacks. All of those will always be with us. It took a while for some companies to adopt it as part of their BM (SOE was first in the West I believe) but eventually they did... some of us even defend it as a good thing now.
Harsh reply to Quiz? Well I do get tired of seeing that thrown around here as truth. No I don't think players are freeloaders that want others to pay. Some I'm sure are, just like there are gold buyers, botters, hackers, etc. But you don't use that to dismiss all gamers and their opinions about what feels fair... emphasis on feel.
Outside of whales, most people's perceptions of what is fair skews toward themselves paying less and others paying more. For example:
1. People who want to play betas and early access sometimes get upset about being charged more to play early. People who wait until well after launch often think it's fair that people who want to be first to play should pay more for it.
2. People who play for 30 or 40 hours per week tend to think it's fair if everyone pays a flat subscription fee. People who only play a few hours per month commonly think it's unfair that they should have to pay just as much for that as someone who plays vastly more.
3. People who like the leveling process and avoid endgames don't particularly mind if the endgame is heavily pay to win. People who want to rush to endgame and get the best gear and so forth tend to be far more upset about models that heavily favor whales at endgame.
4. People who don't care what they look like tend to favor pushing monetization of purely cosmetic things. People who love to decorate their characters with many different outfits get upset if they have to pay vastly more than everyone else just because they like to look good.
I'm not sure where you're digging up these "people" from
1. People getting upset about paying more to play in betas is a a bit of legacy thing since monetizing betas has only become common in the past few years. Before betas were done by invitation only, then they added it as a perk of pre-ordering and now it's a full-on additional costs even with tiers of access. People complain about THAT.
2. I've never heard anyone complain about that, tbh, although the Korean "labor point" system could be seen as a form of that. Can't say I care one way or the other. I'm sure some people get more out of their Netflix sub than I do... doesn't bother me in the least.
3. Most people dislike P2W...period.
4. I've never heard cosmetic junkies whine about paying for it... c'mon surely you made that one up.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
B2P + 12-14 $/€ Sub. with NO shop of any kind. And I am willed to pay for full Expansion extra.
In Addition ever subscriber with more than 3 month playtime will get a free 7 Day welcome back period after he didnt had a sub in the last 3-6 month.
Thats the largest problem in sub games, bc ppl that left are not willing to sub for a full month just to have a look what changed.
Currently most games are designed to be free 2 play. Hit the market, grab what you can and then milking the whales. They dont expect that their players will stick more than 6 month with their game.
------------------------------------- Playing: Overwatch, Genshin Impact, Black Desert Mobile, Hundred Soul, Cyberpunk 2077 Inactive: WAR, DAoC, RIFT, GW1/2, TSW, Age of Wulin, Black Desert, Blade & Soul, Skyforge
B2P + 12-14 $/€ Sub. with NO shop of any kind. And I am willed to pay for full Expansion extra.
In Addition ever subscriber with more than 3 month playtime will get a free 7 Day welcome back period after he didnt had a sub in the last 3-6 month.
Thats the largest problem in sub games, bc ppl that left are not willing to sub for a full month just to have a look what changed.
Currently most games are designed to be free 2 play. Hit the market, grab what you can and then milking the whales. They dont expect that their players will stick more than 6 month with their game.
B2P and sub .................................. thats a new one ..
Comments
Pay for the game because it's the type of game you enjoy (with or without grind,) pay a reasonable monthly fee because you want to keep playing it and everyone pays no more and no less.
That would be ideal from a game player's perspective.
Of course people can put their wannabe game capitalist hat on and praise ingenious, seductive schemes that produce ever increasing ROIs... maybe there should be a separate forum for them?
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
Todays indie dev is tomorrow's money grubbing, soul sucking, mega corporation.
Even EA was small at one point
"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
But I remember their early ads in magazines like Computer Gaming World. They always portrayed themselves as being above the fray and not your typical garage developer. Games as business was always their thing right from the start.
http://www.filfre.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Anzeige_Can_a_computer_make_you_cry.jpg
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
your second statement is the reason the first doesn't work. It does seem to be that hard to make a good game and figure out the finances around keeping it operating at a profit. It really isn't that easy in the end to have a profitable company doing well most of the time.
People act like it is easy but it is actually very hard. For every one business even in this industry succeeding there are prob 10 failing or failed. Just my shitty opinion but I know a lot of people with failed ventures.
Subs were fine, you get everything for 15 bucks. 24/7 with no hidden costs or cash shop bullshit, and the company gets paid.
The reason why subs died is because blood sucking companies rushed out unfinished messes to try to rape us for our money.
They abandoned subs when they realized Korea was making a killing with f2p cash shop games. So they convinced everyone that f2p was the new messiah and was to the benefit of us gamers.
In actuality it is just easier for them to farm our money.
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.
That way, if you pick up a game, play for a few days, and decide you don't like it, the developer gets nothing. He didn't make a game you liked, so he gets nothing and instead you give the money to those who made games you do like. But if you love a game and play it solidly for a year, the developer of that game that you loved can get hundreds of dollars from you.
Alas, this is completely impossible. Quite apart from the impracticality of setting up such a system, it would also break down because there are so many ways to cheat the system and developers would try to convince you to give them money for reasons other than because you liked the games they made.
There's fail as in "we can't pay salaries anymore and have to shut down" and there's faux-fail as in "we can make more money doing it the other way" and that's without even getting into the forum troll's use of "fail."
Time factor? Yeah... that argument again. It's just part of simulated 24/7 worlds. Never was a type of game for everyone.
Gold sellers and buyers? Yup. Used to be just a shady underground thing right along with bots and hacks. All of those will always be with us. It took a while for some companies to adopt it as part of their BM (SOE was first in the West I believe) but eventually they did... some of us even defend it as a good thing now.
Harsh reply to Quiz? Well I do get tired of seeing that thrown around here as truth. No I don't think players are freeloaders that want others to pay. Some I'm sure are, just like there are gold buyers, botters, hackers, etc. But you don't use that to dismiss all gamers and their opinions about what feels fair... emphasis on feel.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Nothing today comes close to EQ in its heyday of course, but thats probably because graphics are the enemy of MMORPG content design.
And it would be FAIR... nobody buying advantages...
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Most people claim they want the fair model but the reality is that 5% of the players are happily dishing out 90% of the games income on pay to win purchases.
I think in the current environment the best way to run an MMO may very well be paid classes. As in you can pay for free with a selection of normal classes but if you want to pay an extra X a month or X up front, you can now be a Knight class or you come with your own land, status, reputation, NPC army etc. Your character is actually a semi-permanent part of the game and other players can utilize you for quest rewards or something. (you and your land/castle can be removed or made abandoned without being game breaking if you stop paying)
If you want to be King of a region its thousands of dollars or hundreds a month.
You will never get around the reality of the big money players in games, you should really try to embrace it and make them a part of the game without simply making them higher level, hit harder, super weapons. You should instead allow them to rule or be responsible for small to big parts of the game depending on how much money they want to throw into it.
http://baronsofthegalaxy.com/ An MMO game I created, solo. It's live now and absolutely free to play!
b2p-f2p? doesnt have to update if they dont want to , but then players will gear up , get bored and quit , so updating the game and adding some lvls or higher ilvls gear is a fast way to force ppl to enchant , gem , farm and buy those overpriced failsafe stones on the cash shop
cosmetics are "ok" , but there is a line that must no be crossed and thats having half your artist team working on cash shop only items....or putting ingame horrible sets and cool sets on cash shop , thats lame and a fast way to make ppl rage quit
i miss the times of paying my sub and having acces to EVERYTHING (mounts , gear , pets )
dont get me started on overpriced crap like name , sex , race , server ect changes Blizz is the worse on that by miles ....oh dont forget the LEVEL BOOST to max ....in a p2p come on now...
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
1. People who want to play betas and early access sometimes get upset about being charged more to play early. People who wait until well after launch often think it's fair that people who want to be first to play should pay more for it.
2. People who play for 30 or 40 hours per week tend to think it's fair if everyone pays a flat subscription fee. People who only play a few hours per month commonly think it's unfair that they should have to pay just as much for that as someone who plays vastly more.
3. People who like the leveling process and avoid endgames don't particularly mind if the endgame is heavily pay to win. People who want to rush to endgame and get the best gear and so forth tend to be far more upset about models that heavily favor whales at endgame.
4. People who don't care what they look like tend to favor pushing monetization of purely cosmetic things. People who love to decorate their characters with many different outfits get upset if they have to pay vastly more than everyone else just because they like to look good.
Blizzard built an empire on it. FFXIV is doing fine using it. To say it's no longer financially viable is innacurate imo.
Of course, the game actually has to be good enough to warrant remaining subscribed, too, which is a big pain in the butt for devs. They have to bother with things like creating engaging content over long periods of time. What a pain!
BDO is by far the worst monetized MMO I've ever seen. From the ground-up, it's designed to push you to the shop (the most expensive shop ever envisioned). Starting from the fact that it's a grinding game forcing you to buy 4 pets to simulate an "auto-loot" feature, it's chock full of institutionalized inconvenience that can only be alleviated through the cash shop. For example, for the first time ever in an MMO, your gear doesn't change looks much as you get new gear. Want to have a new look? That's $30.
This is the exact opposite of what we should be looking for in an MMO. Instead of coming up with new ways to interest us, Devs are spending time and energy devising new ways to annoy us, and then selling the remedy in the shop.
This was somewhat excusable since at least the game was not p2w until recently. But with the new soft-subscription and p2w, there's no way it can possibly be tolerated.
1. People getting upset about paying more to play in betas is a a bit of legacy thing since monetizing betas has only become common in the past few years. Before betas were done by invitation only, then they added it as a perk of pre-ordering and now it's a full-on additional costs even with tiers of access. People complain about THAT.
2. I've never heard anyone complain about that, tbh, although the Korean "labor point" system could be seen as a form of that. Can't say I care one way or the other. I'm sure some people get more out of their Netflix sub than I do... doesn't bother me in the least.
3. Most people dislike P2W...period.
4. I've never heard cosmetic junkies whine about paying for it... c'mon surely you made that one up.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
In Addition ever subscriber with more than 3 month playtime will get a free 7 Day welcome back period after he didnt had a sub in the last 3-6 month.
Thats the largest problem in sub games, bc ppl that left are not willing to sub for a full month just to have a look what changed.
Currently most games are designed to be free 2 play. Hit the market, grab what you can and then milking the whales. They dont expect that their players will stick more than 6 month with their game.
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Playing: Overwatch, Genshin Impact, Black Desert Mobile, Hundred Soul, Cyberpunk 2077
Inactive: WAR, DAoC, RIFT, GW1/2, TSW, Age of Wulin, Black Desert, Blade & Soul, Skyforge
Ya know, like just as you come up to a boss fight....
"Now for a message from our sponsors"
I'm in my 50's, I've got tons of disposable income and these game companies just keep pushing me further away.
Think I'll go buy myself a muscle car.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee