Let's repeat it again. F2P is much more than a monetization model, it changes the entire game from core to detail (and not for the better). The sooner f2p dies, the sooner you can get good games again.
It won't die too profitable to die because people keep buying after claiming they don't.
Exactly. The only reason to NOT do F2P is for the players. No one is going to do that
- 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
In fact, one would argue that the developers/publishers are becoming more aggressive with invasive and manipulative methods to "convince" people to spend as much money as possible.
MTX have become so bad that governments started to intervene. It won't be long before calls for restricting F2P monetization will be requested to be put in place.
Especially since things seem to move to the mobile space.
Let's repeat it again. F2P is much more than a monetization model, it changes the entire game from core to detail (and not for the better). The sooner f2p dies, the sooner you can get good games again.
It won't die too profitable to die because people keep buying after claiming they don't.
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
Let's repeat it again. F2P is much more than a monetization model, it changes the entire game from core to detail (and not for the better). The sooner f2p dies, the sooner you can get good games again.
It won't die too profitable to die because people keep buying after claiming they don't.
Just like porn.
I'm a twitch subscriber. I should probably swap it with pornhub.
Let's repeat it again. F2P is much more than a monetization model, it changes the entire game from core to detail (and not for the better). The sooner f2p dies, the sooner you can get good games again.
Would you really want to pay $15 a month for every single game you play? We did it back in the early 2000s because we had no other choice and there were only a handful of games, but in 2019 we have many choices. Also just because you pay a monthly doesn't aurtomatically make the game better.
Let's repeat it again. F2P is much more than a monetization model, it changes the entire game from core to detail (and not for the better). The sooner f2p dies, the sooner you can get good games again.
Would you really want to pay $15 a month for every single game you play? We did it back in the early 2000s because we had no other choice and there were only a handful of games, but in 2019 we have many choices. Also just because you pay a monthly doesn't aurtomatically make the game better.
for mmos? I would. now design is all about getting all the money upfront by influencing people to spend cash to bypass timegates. while in yester-year player retention was actually a thing.
FTP has always been about companies maximize profits and has never had the gamer's interests at heart. It is/was a very well spun narrative I will give the suits that.
Let's repeat it again. F2P is much more than a monetization model, it changes the entire game from core to detail (and not for the better). The sooner f2p dies, the sooner you can get good games again.
Would you really want to pay $15 a month for every single game you play? We did it back in the early 2000s because we had no other choice and there were only a handful of games, but in 2019 we have many choices. Also just because you pay a monthly doesn't aurtomatically make the game better.
You get a full game for the cost of 15 a month. At this point and considering how barebone and chopped the F2P games are, this became an amazing deal. Personally I'm willing to give double that or even more to completely negate the presence of a cash shop. Unfortunately I seem to be among the minority that looks at the true cost over time, instead of only at the upfront cost.
For example, when developers intentionally put grinds into the game so that you by the 'half the grind' scroll in the shop. To me, it is obvious that the cash shop would give the studio incentive to make some things suck so that you buy the key that fixes the problem. That is BAD for players.
I have to laugh at people that wince at a $20 sub but then go on to spend 3x that in the cash shop.
...as opposed to case when developers intentionally put grinds into the game so that they bleed you not only for subscription fees but ton of your time on top.
Let's repeat it again. F2P is much more than a monetization model, it changes the entire game from core to detail (and not for the better). The sooner f2p dies, the sooner you can get good games again.
Would you really want to pay $15 a month for every single game you play? We did it back in the early 2000s because we had no other choice and there were only a handful of games, but in 2019 we have many choices. Also just because you pay a monthly doesn't aurtomatically make the game better.
You get a full game for the cost of 15 a month. At this point and considering how barebone and chopped the F2P games are, this became an amazing deal. Personally I'm willing to give double that or even more to completely negate the presence of a cash shop. Unfortunately I seem to be among the minority that looks at the true cost over time, instead of only at the upfront cost.
Theocritus how long are you playing this hypothetical subscription only game for? I was in ESO for about elven months had no problems with a sub. But many players in that sort of MMO might be in it for only four months, that's not a huge amount of money.
Also I only play one MMORPG at a time so its not like we would need to pay five subs at once. It is because of F2P you play five MMOs at once, never really get into or enjoy any of them. If I am wrong say so, do you think you would enjoy one well made MMO to your liking (ESO may have not been for you) more than five also rans?
I have seen lots of people say they are prepared to pay what I think of as a 'whale subscription' just to be shot of the cash shop, I would too. Look at some of those classic servers where you need to pay a subscription in a F2P MMO to play them and how well they were received. There is a market for subscription, and on principle I would have no issues with a cosmetics only cash shop with bind on purchase items. The only problem there is you know once they have a cash shop games always start on a journey that ends as P2W, the only way to be sure that does not happen is no cash shop.
There I was when the first F2P hit the western market and Im going how stupid does someone have to be to think F2P games are going to be good in the long term. And there is the wave of short sighted penniless gamers arguing with me about how great it was. And some writer on this very site, don't remember who he was, telling everyone F2P games were the future of gaming and the western market was behind the times. everyone wins he says.
Then later when they realized they do have to spend some money to have any chance at having a normal playing experience, the argument was, but I only spend money when I need it, Im in control. Okay buddy whatever you say.
Then the same group realizes they are spending WAY more then they ever would have on a sub game that gave you everything, and they still don't have anything close to everything on the "one" character they can afford to spend money on.
And now guess what, I don't hear them defending F2P games anymore.
I hate to say it.. but when I was playing GW2, I used to get a bit of a joy hearing people cry about the price of things in the cash shop, when, spending a pitiful $20 a paycheck I never had an issue buying what I wanted.
In the endm, if I am having fun playing a game, I want to spend money on it to support it, and a cash shop is a neat way for me to do just that, without feeling obligated to pay a sub. If one month, I am off contract, and need to live on the savings, ok.. I don't spend.. next month, I am back on contract, and I might splurge and spend a c-note, in many ways I am in complete control.
If I don't like the game, for whatever reasons, I don't spend money on it.. I also stop playing it and try to find a game I will enjoy.. and F2P, well.. allows me to play a game for a bit and make that decision, sometimes, I might make an account, make a character, log in .. and get distracted by something else.. like a Walking Dead marathon leading up to Spoiler, which kills ALL my free time, and not go back to the game for a month, so a "free trial" does not work for someone like me.
In the end.. whoever said F2P was the future of games.. they were in fact right.
I doubt anyone back then envisioned "FTP" games generating $3B a year....
Someone is spending big money on silly stuff....just not me
I hate to say it.. but some of us were in fact watching this trend unfold, and at first, one of the biggest things we saw was that the on average numbers were better for F2P.
Where a Sub at the time would get $15 a month per player, F2P games were generating $24 a month per player, which is why a lot of games jumped over to the "Item Shop" model, it was in every way, more profitable.
It had also been proven that F2P games had a much higher return rate than sub games, since it did not cost anyone any money to come back, players were in fact taking breaks and returning to F2P games far more frequently than they did Sub based games.
So while Whales do get a lot of attention, there were far more reasons to go F2P than simply someone spending big bucks, as many games today could in fact make theoricially make more with a Sub than going F2P, it is just at this point, not competitive to the market.
Case in point, GW2, made roughly 20 million last quarter, with potentially 1.5 million players, if they had a 15 dollar sub and those same 1.5 million players, they could have made 65 million a quarter, just to give an idea of the current discrepancy.
But at the same time, if they tried to put in a sub, there is a better than good chance they would not have 1.5 million players willing to shell it out, purely for the privilege of playing their game. TERA, and a few other games have proved this a few times over.
Players now want something more than a game to play for $15 a month.
As for the 3 billion. Keep in mind, at its height, WoW was making 150 Million a Month on subs alone, couple that with expansions, which would have been another, roughly, 450 million, which means WoW alone made 2.2 Billion in one Year, and that is ONE game.
So the money has always been out there.. MMO's have proven to be a multi-billion dollar industry, is simply a matter of how to harvest it.. currently the Item Mall/F2P seems to be working.
What will come next.. who knows.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Let's repeat it again. F2P is much more than a monetization model, it changes the entire game from core to detail (and not for the better). The sooner f2p dies, the sooner you can get good games again.
Would you really want to pay $15 a month for every single game you play? We did it back in the early 2000s because we had no other choice and there were only a handful of games, but in 2019 we have many choices. Also just because you pay a monthly doesn't aurtomatically make the game better.
Wouldn't bother me, I only play one game at a time and once "done" with it rarely return.
Not paying for subs is more of a game hopper issue.
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'll try any game once. FTP makes it easy to try them.
I've only given money for games I truly enjoyed playing for more than a few weeks.
Path of exile is an excellent example. I think I've spent less than 20 dollars there, but I thought after playing it extensively that they deserved a few of my dollars.
DDO is a different example. I go back and play that once in a while and I just automatically sign up for one month of premium time. It opens up the whole game instead of their piecemeal FTP approach.
I play a lot of MWO because blowing up Mechs is awesome. They have moved past the rough beginning they had and it's a great game. They only thing money does for you in MWO is buying custom MECH appearances. Yes, there are a few MECHS of every variety that can only be bought with real money MC points, but you don't need them. You can make a very similar loadout with the in game "gold" bought Mechs. They just have custom appearances for the most part.
I play the Snit out of MWO so I support them. I also pre ordered Mechwarrior 5 and they gave me a boatload of free stuff in MWO. Well worth the money in my book.
( Note to self-Don't say anything bad about Drizzt.)
Ungood Said: It had also been proven that F2P games had a much higher return rate than sub games.
--------------------------------------------
I don't doubt this; however, I do have a question about it.
Do we have a triple AAA title out there that is FTP and delivers the quality of content of the subscription triple AAA titles of the past?
While I'm sure the FTP is generating a ton of money, and may in fact be keeping the doors open on failing sub-based titles - is the huge cash influx resulting in new, high quality content?
It seems to me that a subscription implies 'more content coming soon'. Good story telling and all that sort of thing. FTP seems to be more about 'more shop items coming soon' - do FTP games (with cash shop, no sub) get the high quality content of the past?
I ask this because IMHO, I think there is room out there for a $25.00 per month sub provided it is high quality with frequent updates - an absolutely no cash shop. I think people are willing to pay for a high end experience.
I am not exactly sure how to gauge this question, and to the best of what I could figure out, neither does any of the Data collection agencies that I frequent.
Keep in mind, this is a hard question, as "AAA titles of the past" typically only provided new content in the form of expansions, which were a box fee and a sub fee to access, and currently a lot of F2P MMO's also use expansions for direct content updates.
There are outliers, but as far as I can tell, not enough to really get a hard metric on this kind of question.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Let's repeat it again. F2P is much more than a monetization model, it changes the entire game from core to detail (and not for the better). The sooner f2p dies, the sooner you can get good games again.
Would you really want to pay $15 a month for every single game you play? We did it back in the early 2000s because we had no other choice and there were only a handful of games, but in 2019 we have many choices. Also just because you pay a monthly doesn't aurtomatically make the game better.
Wouldn't bother me, I only play one game at a time and once "done" with it rarely return.
Not paying for subs is more of a game hopper issue.
As it was noted, at least in a few articles I read on this subject, that it was more a burn out issue, since beating an MMO is near impossible, players would "take a break" from the game (for whatever reason), and since they had to pay to return.. they just wouldn't.
Expansions often functioned as a means to bring a lot of these burned out players back, at least, for a time, but not 100% effective, and the loss was noted.
I mean, just keep in mind, when people say that WoW had 100 million players over the course of its life, that 97 million opted to leave and not return.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
My attitude is I will play and pay how I want regardless of what anyone else does. If I like the game, I will play. If there are things in the shop that are worth buying (worth it to me) then I will pay for them.
I have played games where I spent many hours and never spent a single dime on it because it wasn't worth it to me. (League of Legends)
I have played games where I spent a small amount of money in the shop because something caught my attention. (Path of Exile)
I have played games where I spent way too much real money in the shop because I thought they had many neat things I wanted. (Everquest 1)
The point is value is subjective. Play and pay your way and don't worry about what anyone else is doing.
All it takes for people to purchase items in a cash shop is enjoying the game. To pay $15 extra just so they can continue playing a game they already paid for they expect frequent content updates or they just play a game that offer something similar where they don't have to pay a premium.
Iselin: And the next person who says "but it's a business, they need to make money" can just go fuck yourself.
Comments
- 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
MTX have become so bad that governments started to intervene. It won't be long before calls for restricting F2P monetization will be requested to be put in place.
Especially since things seem to move to the mobile space.
"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
FTP has always been about companies maximize profits and has never had the gamer's interests at heart. It is/was a very well spun narrative I will give the suits that.
Because that is actually GOOD for players.
/facepalm
Also I only play one MMORPG at a time so its not like we would need to pay five subs at once. It is because of F2P you play five MMOs at once, never really get into or enjoy any of them. If I am wrong say so, do you think you would enjoy one well made MMO to your liking (ESO may have not been for you) more than five also rans?
I have seen lots of people say they are prepared to pay what I think of as a 'whale subscription' just to be shot of the cash shop, I would too. Look at some of those classic servers where you need to pay a subscription in a F2P MMO to play them and how well they were received. There is a market for subscription, and on principle I would have no issues with a cosmetics only cash shop with bind on purchase items. The only problem there is you know once they have a cash shop games always start on a journey that ends as P2W, the only way to be sure that does not happen is no cash shop.
Where a Sub at the time would get $15 a month per player, F2P games were generating $24 a month per player, which is why a lot of games jumped over to the "Item Shop" model, it was in every way, more profitable.
It had also been proven that F2P games had a much higher return rate than sub games, since it did not cost anyone any money to come back, players were in fact taking breaks and returning to F2P games far more frequently than they did Sub based games.
So while Whales do get a lot of attention, there were far more reasons to go F2P than simply someone spending big bucks, as many games today could in fact make theoricially make more with a Sub than going F2P, it is just at this point, not competitive to the market.
Case in point, GW2, made roughly 20 million last quarter, with potentially 1.5 million players, if they had a 15 dollar sub and those same 1.5 million players, they could have made 65 million a quarter, just to give an idea of the current discrepancy.
But at the same time, if they tried to put in a sub, there is a better than good chance they would not have 1.5 million players willing to shell it out, purely for the privilege of playing their game. TERA, and a few other games have proved this a few times over.
Players now want something more than a game to play for $15 a month.
As for the 3 billion. Keep in mind, at its height, WoW was making 150 Million a Month on subs alone, couple that with expansions, which would have been another, roughly, 450 million, which means WoW alone made 2.2 Billion in one Year, and that is ONE game.
So the money has always been out there.. MMO's have proven to be a multi-billion dollar industry, is simply a matter of how to harvest it.. currently the Item Mall/F2P seems to be working.
What will come next.. who knows.
Not paying for subs is more of a game hopper issue.
"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
If Elite Dangerous was F2P, there is a good chance that i would have tried it. Perhaps, i would have gotten addicted to it and then spent money.
You can see my sci-fi/WW2 book recommendations.
I've only given money for games I truly enjoyed playing for more than a few weeks.
Path of exile is an excellent example. I think I've spent less than 20 dollars there, but I thought after playing it extensively that they deserved a few of my dollars.
DDO is a different example. I go back and play that once in a while and I just automatically sign up for one month of premium time. It opens up the whole game instead of their piecemeal FTP approach.
I play a lot of MWO because blowing up Mechs is awesome. They have moved past the rough beginning they had and it's a great game. They only thing money does for you in MWO is buying custom MECH appearances. Yes, there are a few MECHS of every variety that can only be bought with real money MC points, but you don't need them. You can make a very similar loadout with the in game "gold" bought Mechs. They just have custom appearances for the most part.
I play the Snit out of MWO so I support them. I also pre ordered Mechwarrior 5 and they gave me a boatload of free stuff in MWO. Well worth the money in my book.
( Note to self-Don't say anything bad about Drizzt.)
An acerbic sense of humor is NOT allowed here.
Keep in mind, this is a hard question, as "AAA titles of the past" typically only provided new content in the form of expansions, which were a box fee and a sub fee to access, and currently a lot of F2P MMO's also use expansions for direct content updates.
There are outliers, but as far as I can tell, not enough to really get a hard metric on this kind of question.
Expansions often functioned as a means to bring a lot of these burned out players back, at least, for a time, but not 100% effective, and the loss was noted.
I mean, just keep in mind, when people say that WoW had 100 million players over the course of its life, that 97 million opted to leave and not return.
I have played games where I spent many hours and never spent a single dime on it because it wasn't worth it to me. (League of Legends)
I have played games where I spent a small amount of money in the shop because something caught my attention. (Path of Exile)
I have played games where I spent way too much real money in the shop because I thought they had many neat things I wanted. (Everquest 1)
The point is value is subjective. Play and pay your way and don't worry about what anyone else is doing.