Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
What Ever Happened To The F2P Cash Shop?
Scot
Member LegendaryPosts: 22,955
I have seen a few threads recently, talking about the huge amounts being spent and the play to win aspect of MMOs. The baulk of cash shop games are like this, but I am sure our old timers can remember what used to be said about F2P games, indeed we still get this today:
"F2P means you play for free, not like subscription!"
"With subscription you are paying even when you don't go online!"
"Subscription is unfair anyway as players who put more time in get all the rewards!"
"It is only a tiny percentage of whales who pay the vast majority pay nothing!"
...and here we are today, I had better laugh or I would cry.
Now we have cash shops where you pay every which way; from the pre-order/kickstarter through AAA released-to-soon/early access and ending in the gold club/season pass 'blah blah' lets have some more money. And lets face it, this is not new, I am just pointing out how much worse this situation is than five years ago. 'F2P' MMOs are a never ending stream of innovative ideas to give you reasons to buy more and more...and more.
Free to Play games are so venal they make a mockery of the name, sure if you want to grind your life away you can accomplish something but never as much as someone paying even a modest amount. Compared to subscriptions they create an unfair playing field, distort gameplay and if you are the sort of person who pays more than £10 a month in a F2P game you are certainly paying more.
Also we are told the proportion who pay is tiny, so you can under stand my puzzlement that we get so many comments about bad cash shops in F2P games and what people have paid. I have even done so myself a couple of times, anyone can get suckered in. So I recon one or maybe a few payments are far more common than players think, hence the poll. Lets see how many minnows are swimming with the whales.
"F2P means you play for free, not like subscription!"
"With subscription you are paying even when you don't go online!"
"Subscription is unfair anyway as players who put more time in get all the rewards!"
"It is only a tiny percentage of whales who pay the vast majority pay nothing!"
...and here we are today, I had better laugh or I would cry.
Now we have cash shops where you pay every which way; from the pre-order/kickstarter through AAA released-to-soon/early access and ending in the gold club/season pass 'blah blah' lets have some more money. And lets face it, this is not new, I am just pointing out how much worse this situation is than five years ago. 'F2P' MMOs are a never ending stream of innovative ideas to give you reasons to buy more and more...and more.
Free to Play games are so venal they make a mockery of the name, sure if you want to grind your life away you can accomplish something but never as much as someone paying even a modest amount. Compared to subscriptions they create an unfair playing field, distort gameplay and if you are the sort of person who pays more than £10 a month in a F2P game you are certainly paying more.
Also we are told the proportion who pay is tiny, so you can under stand my puzzlement that we get so many comments about bad cash shops in F2P games and what people have paid. I have even done so myself a couple of times, anyone can get suckered in. So I recon one or maybe a few payments are far more common than players think, hence the poll. Lets see how many minnows are swimming with the whales.
Have you ever put money into a F2P game?
- Have you ever put money into a F2P game?39 votes
- Yes, I have made a payment to a F2P game.84.62%
- No, I have not made a payment to a F2P game.15.38%
![[Deleted User]](http://wb.vanillicon.com/v2/b042f574a71f25b1e273e00ad1b9afa7.svg)
Comments
Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.
"At one point technology meant making tech that could get to the moon, now it means making tech that could get you a taxi."
It doesnt mean they are necessarily all p2win or p2progress or free 2 progress.
I like f2p model as it is a nice way to try out games without forking over cash.
I generally dont play p2w games as im not into pvp that much and dont care, but i do play p2progress and cosmetic games because i am fine with it.
P2progress gives you control of the grind and honestly if you play a f2p game for like 5 to 10 hours, you owe it to the company to at least fork something over. They need to be paid for their product.
With war thunder, i have no real desire to speed up my progression as i enjoy the game as is and dont mind the grind.
Overall, each monetization scheme has its pros and cons, a buy 2 play game may suck balls and you are left with a sour taste in your mouth like bless or atlas or NMS in the beginning.
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
Essentially, if they buy it more will come. So they did, and so it has. Classic vicious circle.
So long as consumers support this expansion trend it will continue.
***Currently 100% of those who answered the poll have paid into a F2P game before, I guess we are expected to believe they are all whales? This is what I am getting at, many minnows are paying with the whales, F2P is not just funded by those with enormous pockets.***
I understand some players like F2P, but I will never "accept it" as normal, having bought whole games from the start for me. The "risk vs reward" of due diligence before buying the game I accept. I do miss free trials and demos, though.
KnightFalz was right. We have this system because it works for the companies. I guess video game players are so flush with cash that spending, many times more money on a game through a cash shop than a subscription, seems negligible. I no longer believe (no proof) that "only whales" keep F2P games afloat. $1000 or more a month is a rarity where the $20-$80 a month is the norm.
Also, if I may, "Pay to Win" totally depends on what that player seeks "to win." The best house? By it for a "win." The best costume/outfit? Buy it to "win." The best weapon? Buy it to "win." Being "unique" (in a game of many thousands)? Buy it to "win." Server first? Buy it to "win." It all depends on what that player thinks, not some hard and fast arbitrary mega-weapon or armor, though that could also be P2W. Heck, if I played a game with PvP in it would it be P2W for me if I never partook in PvP, just played the PvE side?
Now let the "I pay nothing and enjoy it!" responses come in. There are some, but they are not the norm.
PS: "Only cosmetics" (or "only anything") is NOT OK with me
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
How right they were, but the analogy implies gamers sliding downhill with little to no control which isn't really accurate.
@TimEisen once wrote there was no monetization "hill" gamers weren't willing to climb, and I think its been proven many willingly embrace the different ways developers have found to separate them from their cash.
"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
I tend to think of this as more to do with the gamers who have joined us since then, after all when we were told we were doomsayers It was by people saying "I pay nothing its free, FREE" not by people saying "I love paying for cash shop goodies and P2W stuff!".
Trubine, (which no longer makes MMOs),broke into the F2P arena with a new idea of selling the game into parts as opposed to selling power, IE: Buying character slots, classes, content, dungeons, etc.
This sparked a lot of other MMO's to rethink how they could sell their game, but of course Turbines model worked for the way their game was set up, it would not work for how a game like say Aion or GW2 was set up, so they needed a new way to sell players stuff.
Again, Bag Space, Cosmetics, Access to special places, Classes, Races, in short they sold things they knew players would want to augment their game experience.
Personally, I think the Cash Shops have been getting better over the years, becoming more optional than mandatory. But this is also dependent upon the game, not every game is the same, not every shop is the same.
Some are more benign than others.
But overall I think we are still at a good place with the Cash Shops.
Many games (ESO, AA, BDO) also have designs meant to hamper and / or annoy players into paying an "optional" monthly patron fee.
But it is true, in general gamers are loath to pay even a small amount of money on a sub if it "forces" them to play, or worse, they might not play at all.
Yet if its something they absolutely want, the sky is the limit for many, just human nature I suppose.
"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
I mean, when you really break it down, which I did with PoF and pondering GW2's cash shop, it came out to something like an average of 5 dollars a player per month. Which, to be honest is 1/3 what they could have made with a 15 a month sub.
I did this, just to see at the time where I fell spending around $40 a month on the game, and apparently with just that little bit put me in the top 10% of people spending money on the game. Well, they needed to target where they thought was best, apparently my demographic was not it. Such is, what it is.
So, anyway, going F2P is not a means to get more money per player, it is purely a means to get more out of your players that are willing to spend money. It also gives them more in return, after all, with a Sub, all you got was the privilege to access their game, which, as it turns out, was not enough to get people to keep shelling out 15 a month.
/facepalm
You can't sell what people won't buy.
If gamers chose not to buy into f2p in those early days the concept would have had a quick and easy death. Instead they bought into it with such fervour it became the dominant MMORPG marketing model to the extent subscription only games are virtually extinct.
The state of things now is the responsibility of provider and consumer both.
I think there has been a process, not just of new players coming in who did not have our ethos but of older players slowly being lured in by the changing gameplay. It is either play or get out of the kitchen. In MMORPG guilds I have been in we talk about playing on in spite of the changes, that includes the P2W elements brought in by cash shops.
It is the sheer volumne of new ways to pay that got me to make this thread Phry, it is just neverending. From bringing back subscriptions under new names like season passes and gold membership to the loot boxes, the early access and all the money raking I have forgot to mention. Cash shops themselves have been on a journey leading MMORPG's to 'games as a service' that is so removed from what they once were as the subscription model was from the original cash shop 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
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/