Yep: the "play to see further content" is like some wall for most players and it will only result in very populated beginning levels and the higher "paid content" you go to, the less players you'll see.
It will be more like a steeple chase with every hurdle thinning out the player base further. In the mid game you'll have 10%, in the end game the few idiots that paid to the end. Have fun with a 1 % player base in which you paid and invested this much.
Same result as in P2P in the long run but this time with a very unstable money flow. Terrible for a long term investment both for investors as players.
Well we don’t really make long-term plans in the West compared to other areas of the world, anyway.
Funny they released this info now, I mean just this week I uninstalled DDO *shrugs*
It is a big mistake. I wont be playing Lotro now. Pity, its a nice game.
If something is Free then its not worth anything. Its just that simple
Not true! I know playing poker can be exciting because of the cost, but I'm totally a fan of Spades. I know you can bet books in it, but you know they don't hit your wallet.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
But chances are they won't be long-term players. And those that do spend any money, it'll be very little. Those that did sub, will probably look for another game at some point, as the community factor is diluted and then fails. Then the game will fail, won't even have enough to pay electricity bills.
That is your guess. No one says you need long term players. A constant influx of new players are just as good. The world is pretty big to have new players last for YEARS. DDO is a good example of how much this model is successful. Their revenue increase by 500%!!! You can't argue with business results like that.
But chances are they won't be long-term players. And those that do spend any money, it'll be very little. Those that did sub, will probably look for another game at some point, as the community factor is diluted and then fails. Then the game will fail, won't even have enough to pay electricity bills.
That is your guess. No one says you need long term players. A constant influx of new players are just as good. The world is pretty big to have new players last for YEARS. DDO is a good example of how much this model is successful. Their revenue increase by 500%!!! You can't argue with business results like that.
/agree
if any of you ever listen to developer discussions, interviews especially GDC panels.. you would know that long term subscribers (we're talking over 1 year of active subscription) make up only a fraction of an MMO's player base.
MMO tourists are the main target audience in MMO's. I know its hard to believe, but these developers have a much better understanding as to where they are making the most money and theyre finding out its not in the actual monthy subscription. Theyre making a LOT more money from microtransactions and box sales then they do from subscribers.
Funny thng is, a lot of the people here asked for it. You can go back through these boards year after year and people were practically asking game developers to raise the price of their subscriptions: "would you pay $20 a month for Star Wars: The Old republic?" "I would pay $18 a month for FFXIV". Dont expect subscriptions to go up any time soon, the game developers have found a much more lucrative payment model in microtransactions. Learn to accept it.
In this world, anything that's free probably isn't very good.
I don't begrudge them for trying to get more people in the door but it definitely tells you something...
I find your mix of words and AoC banner to be very interesting since AoC has a half-butt F2p model with the Forever free levels 1 - 20 Tortage only.
The difference being that LOTR wasn't good enough to keep me playing. In AOC I've already got 5 characters over level 20.
I'm not like you. I'm not a fanboy with a horse in this race. If a MMO isn't fun and engaging, making it free to play won't change that.
Now this is the statement you should have used at the beginning since it is 100% absolutely true.
As far as being a Fanboy (that's the first time anyone's ever said that ever about me!) with a horse in this race.......Sorry no Kiepi Doll for you. Actually I'm a AoC paid sub'er with a toon on Set and 3 test toon's on a free trial account on various servers. The paid and 1 of the trials are over lvl 20.
I stopped playing LotRO 3 months after I started so it ended last August. It's a decent enough game, didn't have any problems with the mechanic's etc..... I just found it to be too indepth? detailed? overwhealming? The quests just kept piling up, it was hard to take it in bite sized chunks. Prior to LotRO I had played DDO and dropped it too. For both it came down to them not meeting my 'Am I getting $15.00 worth of fun a month?' factor. Both good games, both fun to play, but not worth a steady wallet drain.
Since DDO went F2p I picked it back up. Same game, same mechanic's, same fun but now it doesn't cost. I'm hoping for the same out of LotRO. When asked elsewhere, I compared the two as if you only had an hour to play and wanted to feel like you accomplished something - then jump on DDO, do a dungeon, get your reward and log. If you wanted to spend a day or weekend on a project - go on LotRO, between moving to a new quest site, getting sidetracked on the way by MOB's or resources or the view and then arriving and doing something you've pretty much chewed up a day's worth of play. From a paying point of view, I didn't like that, but as a free one it will allow me to have something on my rig as a change of pace.
AoC kind of falls between those two extremes; shorter missions, closer quest givers, the mature plot lines in the quests all make it fun. What's not fun is the higher load requirements I need to properly play it. I can play SWG, LotRO, DDO etc.... max'd out, but have to run AoC on the lowest settings to get playable FPS. So as much as I like it, it waviers on the fun vs $ factor. I'm putting money into something I can't fully enjoy and the only way I could fully enjoy it is to put more money into it (via a rig upgrade).
As the father of 2 sons (1 a teenager) and a wife my spare cash fund to spend on me isn't the largest so I have to pick and choose wisely where to spend it.
But chances are they won't be long-term players. And those that do spend any money, it'll be very little. Those that did sub, will probably look for another game at some point, as the community factor is diluted and then fails. Then the game will fail, won't even have enough to pay electricity bills.
That is your guess. No one says you need long term players. A constant influx of new players are just as good. The world is pretty big to have new players last for YEARS. DDO is a good example of how much this model is successful. Their revenue increase by 500%!!! You can't argue with business results like that.
DDO and LOTRO aren’t the same games. DDO’s new payment system is just that, new. Both cases, their underliningly bad games, I mean crap. Adding a f2p system isn’t going to make them good games. It’s like when I was a teen, I had lots of GF’s, the newness of each new GF was great! But then I grew up.
But anyway, my post was best understood in it's entirety in this case. So I'll say it again, it's just an effort to get WoW players, it's really what they set out to do in the first place. They are just taking another approach. Sure WoW players will play their game as they wait for the next expansion, but any sudden revenue will dry up in time as that newness wears off and they choose another game to play next time they are waiting for a content driven WoW expansion.
But chances are they won't be long-term players. And those that do spend any money, it'll be very little. Those that did sub, will probably look for another game at some point, as the community factor is diluted and then fails. Then the game will fail, won't even have enough to pay electricity bills.
That is your guess. No one says you need long term players. A constant influx of new players are just as good. The world is pretty big to have new players last for YEARS. DDO is a good example of how much this model is successful. Their revenue increase by 500%!!! You can't argue with business results like that.
/agree
if any of you ever listen to developer discussions, interviews especially GDC panels.. you would know that long term subscribers (we're talking over 1 year of active subscription) make up only a fraction of an MMO's player base.
MMO tourists are the main target audience in MMO's. I know its hard to believe, but these developers have a much better understanding as to where they are making the most money and theyre finding out its not in the actual monthy subscription. Theyre making a LOT more money from microtransactions and box sales then they do from subscribers.
Funny thng is, a lot of the people here asked for it. You can go back through these boards year after year and people were practically asking game developers to raise the price of their subscriptions: "would you pay $20 a month for Star Wars: The Old republic?" "I would pay $18 a month for FFXIV". Dont expect subscriptions to go up any time soon, the game developers have found a much more lucrative payment model in microtransactions. Learn to accept it.
I am one of those. I don't have time to play more than 1 MMO for "real" but i certainly want to sample. The F2P model is perfect for me.
But chances are they won't be long-term players. And those that do spend any money, it'll be very little. Those that did sub, will probably look for another game at some point, as the community factor is diluted and then fails. Then the game will fail, won't even have enough to pay electricity bills.
That is your guess. No one says you need long term players. A constant influx of new players are just as good. The world is pretty big to have new players last for YEARS. DDO is a good example of how much this model is successful. Their revenue increase by 500%!!! You can't argue with business results like that.
DDO and LOTRO aren’t the same games. DDO’s new payment system is just that, new. Both cases, their underliningly bad games, I mean crap. Adding a f2p system isn’t going to make them good games. It’s like when I was a teen, I had lots of GF’s, the newness of each new GF was great! But then I grew up.
Bad for you. Great for their following. I played the LOTRO trial .. it is not bad. I am not going to pay $15 a month for it .. but free?? Certainly.
And DDO expands its player base tremendous and increases its revenue by 500%. I get that you don't like it. But from the developer's point of view, it is a huge success. I also play the game a bit. It is not bad. Not as good as WOW (less attention to details and less clean) but good enough for a side game.
if any of you ever listen to developer discussions, interviews especially GDC panels.. you would know that long term subscribers (we're talking over 1 year of active subscription) make up only a fraction of an MMO's player base.
MMO tourists are the main target audience in MMO's. I know its hard to believe, but these developers have a much better understanding as to where they are making the most money and theyre finding out its not in the actual monthy subscription. Theyre making a LOT more money from microtransactions and box sales then they do from subscribers.
Funny thng is, a lot of the people here asked for it. You can go back through these boards year after year and people were practically asking game developers to raise the price of their subscriptions: "would you pay $20 a month for Star Wars: The Old republic?" "I would pay $18 a month for FFXIV". Dont expect subscriptions to go up any time soon, the game developers have found a much more lucrative payment model in microtransactions. Learn to accept it.
You know what games make more money from tourists than from subs? The shitty games. Because these games are not good enough to keep the players in the game. So they make money from those who come and go. Let's milk these peoples before they realise how crappy this game is.
And about that learn to accept it. If I have a choice in all this f2p thing going on is the choice to not accept it at all and move away.
Yes, certainly. And that is why in the long run, it won't work. Not unless we switch over to communism and the government takes away people property and implements slave labor to support it. But even the long run of that…
Yes, certainly. And that is why in the long run, it won't work. Not unless we switch over to communism and the government takes away people property and implements slave labor to support it. But even the long run of that…
Then explain how DDO saw a 500% increase in revenue by switching to F2P. Also some of the highest grossing MMOs on the planet are F2P games. F2P is the future of MMOs... Even Blizzard is discussing switching WOW to a F2P model. It's coming whether people on this site want to admit it or not. By 2015 P2P MMOs will be few and far between.
I was under the impression that LOTRO was doing very well. I've never been a fan of this game though. I found it to be too theme park for me and still probably won't play it even though it is going to eventually be F2P. However, I didn't think it would ever take this course.
Saw this coming I suppose.. The game has been bleeding subs for awhile now. There was a spike when MoM released but it has been in steady decline since and the Mirkwood "expansion" didnt help either. Thats pretty much why they made so much of the Book quests soloable as there very few people if any to do the group required steps.
I quit because I grew tired of the clunky combat and seeing that they were no longer taking the lore seriously.
I am sure this move will make the game popular again but I am not so sure if their revenure will increase.. Not everyone who plays F2P keeps playing nor do they buy things.
Then explain how DDO saw a 500% increase in revenue by switching to F2P. Also some of the highest grossing MMOs on the planet are F2P games. F2P is the future of MMOs... Even Blizzard is discussing switching WOW to a F2P model. It's coming whether people on this site want to admit it or not. By 2015 P2P MMOs will be few and far between.
Bren
The answer is simple really. Free 2 play actually costs more than pay 2 play subscriptions. Yes it costs MORE. Where do you think that 500% revenue increase came from? It came from the players paying more than they were paying before. It is no wonder companies are falling over themselves to offer f2p gaming.
Originally posted by VooDoo_Papa
Funny thng is, a lot of the people here asked for it. You can go back through these boards year after year and people were practically asking game developers to raise the price of their subscriptions: "would you pay $20 a month for Star Wars: The Old republic?" "I would pay $18 a month for FFXIV". Dont expect subscriptions to go up any time soon, the game developers have found a much more lucrative payment model in microtransactions. Learn to accept it.
No I will never learn to accept it. I can accept higher subscription rate $18/mo or $20/mo or $30/mo but I will never accept cash shops. Cash shops change the game play form something skill/time/dedication based to he who pays the most has the most advantage. That ruins the game play making the game worth less all the while paying more for it.
Yes, certainly. And that is why in the long run, it won't work. Not unless we switch over to communism and the government takes away people property and implements slave labor to support it. But even the long run of that…
Then explain how DDO saw a 500% increase in revenue by switching to F2P. Also some of the highest grossing MMOs on the planet are F2P games. F2P is the future of MMOs... Even Blizzard is discussing switching WOW to a F2P model. It's coming whether people on this site want to admit it or not. By 2015 P2P MMOs will be few and far between.
Bren
First we have to know how much DDO was making in the first place.. very little is all we know. A 500% increase of very little isnt much of an increase now is it? Thats why they used percentages instead of real numbers because it makes it sound more impressive than the gain really was.
There's little doubt that going F2P was successful for DDO or they wouldn't br trying the same with LotRo, arguing about the exact size of the success is somewhat academic.
Whether LotRO will have the same success is less certain in my opinion. DDO was well suited to the switch because the game is very modular and had never gained much traction in the P2P market anyway. The change to F2P was more or less a relaunch of a game that failed as P2P. LotRo is a lot higher profile and has already had moderate success so this is quite a different situation.
If the F2P switch is a runaway success for LotRO aswell then yeah, this really could be the writing on the wall for the monthly subscription model but at the moment I think it is more of a ploy for games that have been around a while and levelled off in terms of subscription growth.
No I will never learn to accept it. I can accept higher subscription rate $18/mo or $20/mo or $30/mo but I will never accept cash shops. Cash shops change the game play form something skill/time/dedication based to he who pays the most has the most advantage. That ruins the game play making the game worth less all the while paying more for it.
except that in ddo and I presume lotro, if I'm a hardcore player then I will get everything I want regardless of how much some other person spends i the cash shop.
the only difference is that he is paying through the nose to equal what I'm getting through my sub. he will be paying quite a lot of money for things that I get in game through my regular play.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Comments
Well we don’t really make long-term plans in the West compared to other areas of the world, anyway.
Funny they released this info now, I mean just this week I uninstalled DDO *shrugs*
M59, UO, EQ1, WWIIOL, PS, EnB, SL, SWG. MoM, EQ2, AO, SB, CoH, LOTRO, WoW, DDO+ f2p's, Demos & indie alpha's.
Not true! I know playing poker can be exciting because of the cost, but I'm totally a fan of Spades. I know you can bet books in it, but you know they don't hit your wallet.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
The difference being that LOTR wasn't good enough to keep me playing. In AOC I've already got 5 characters over level 20.
I'm not like you. I'm not a fanboy with a horse in this race. If a MMO isn't fun and engaging, making it free to play won't change that.
My youtube MMO gaming channel
But chances are they won't be long-term players. And those that do spend any money, it'll be very little. Those that did sub, will probably look for another game at some point, as the community factor is diluted and then fails. Then the game will fail, won't even have enough to pay electricity bills.
That is your guess. No one says you need long term players. A constant influx of new players are just as good. The world is pretty big to have new players last for YEARS. DDO is a good example of how much this model is successful. Their revenue increase by 500%!!! You can't argue with business results like that.
/agree
if any of you ever listen to developer discussions, interviews especially GDC panels.. you would know that long term subscribers (we're talking over 1 year of active subscription) make up only a fraction of an MMO's player base.
MMO tourists are the main target audience in MMO's. I know its hard to believe, but these developers have a much better understanding as to where they are making the most money and theyre finding out its not in the actual monthy subscription. Theyre making a LOT more money from microtransactions and box sales then they do from subscribers.
Funny thng is, a lot of the people here asked for it. You can go back through these boards year after year and people were practically asking game developers to raise the price of their subscriptions: "would you pay $20 a month for Star Wars: The Old republic?" "I would pay $18 a month for FFXIV". Dont expect subscriptions to go up any time soon, the game developers have found a much more lucrative payment model in microtransactions. Learn to accept it.
Now this is the statement you should have used at the beginning since it is 100% absolutely true.
As far as being a Fanboy (that's the first time anyone's ever said that ever about me!) with a horse in this race.......Sorry no Kiepi Doll for you. Actually I'm a AoC paid sub'er with a toon on Set and 3 test toon's on a free trial account on various servers. The paid and 1 of the trials are over lvl 20.
I stopped playing LotRO 3 months after I started so it ended last August. It's a decent enough game, didn't have any problems with the mechanic's etc..... I just found it to be too indepth? detailed? overwhealming? The quests just kept piling up, it was hard to take it in bite sized chunks. Prior to LotRO I had played DDO and dropped it too. For both it came down to them not meeting my 'Am I getting $15.00 worth of fun a month?' factor. Both good games, both fun to play, but not worth a steady wallet drain.
Since DDO went F2p I picked it back up. Same game, same mechanic's, same fun but now it doesn't cost. I'm hoping for the same out of LotRO. When asked elsewhere, I compared the two as if you only had an hour to play and wanted to feel like you accomplished something - then jump on DDO, do a dungeon, get your reward and log. If you wanted to spend a day or weekend on a project - go on LotRO, between moving to a new quest site, getting sidetracked on the way by MOB's or resources or the view and then arriving and doing something you've pretty much chewed up a day's worth of play. From a paying point of view, I didn't like that, but as a free one it will allow me to have something on my rig as a change of pace.
AoC kind of falls between those two extremes; shorter missions, closer quest givers, the mature plot lines in the quests all make it fun. What's not fun is the higher load requirements I need to properly play it. I can play SWG, LotRO, DDO etc.... max'd out, but have to run AoC on the lowest settings to get playable FPS. So as much as I like it, it waviers on the fun vs $ factor. I'm putting money into something I can't fully enjoy and the only way I could fully enjoy it is to put more money into it (via a rig upgrade).
As the father of 2 sons (1 a teenager) and a wife my spare cash fund to spend on me isn't the largest so I have to pick and choose wisely where to spend it.
SWG (pre-cu) - AoC (pre-f2p) - PotBS (pre-boarder) - DDO - LotRO (pre-f2p) - STO (pre-f2p) - GnH (beta tester) - SWTOR - Neverwinter
DDO and LOTRO aren’t the same games. DDO’s new payment system is just that, new. Both cases, their underliningly bad games, I mean crap. Adding a f2p system isn’t going to make them good games. It’s like when I was a teen, I had lots of GF’s, the newness of each new GF was great! But then I grew up.
But anyway, my post was best understood in it's entirety in this case. So I'll say it again, it's just an effort to get WoW players, it's really what they set out to do in the first place. They are just taking another approach. Sure WoW players will play their game as they wait for the next expansion, but any sudden revenue will dry up in time as that newness wears off and they choose another game to play next time they are waiting for a content driven WoW expansion.
M59, UO, EQ1, WWIIOL, PS, EnB, SL, SWG. MoM, EQ2, AO, SB, CoH, LOTRO, WoW, DDO+ f2p's, Demos & indie alpha's.
I am one of those. I don't have time to play more than 1 MMO for "real" but i certainly want to sample. The F2P model is perfect for me.
Bad for you. Great for their following. I played the LOTRO trial .. it is not bad. I am not going to pay $15 a month for it .. but free?? Certainly.
And DDO expands its player base tremendous and increases its revenue by 500%. I get that you don't like it. But from the developer's point of view, it is a huge success. I also play the game a bit. It is not bad. Not as good as WOW (less attention to details and less clean) but good enough for a side game.
You know what games make more money from tourists than from subs? The shitty games. Because these games are not good enough to keep the players in the game. So they make money from those who come and go. Let's milk these peoples before they realise how crappy this game is.
And about that learn to accept it. If I have a choice in all this f2p thing going on is the choice to not accept it at all and move away.
Yes, certainly. And that is why in the long run, it won't work. Not unless we switch over to communism and the government takes away people property and implements slave labor to support it. But even the long run of that…
M59, UO, EQ1, WWIIOL, PS, EnB, SL, SWG. MoM, EQ2, AO, SB, CoH, LOTRO, WoW, DDO+ f2p's, Demos & indie alpha's.
Then explain how DDO saw a 500% increase in revenue by switching to F2P. Also some of the highest grossing MMOs on the planet are F2P games. F2P is the future of MMOs... Even Blizzard is discussing switching WOW to a F2P model. It's coming whether people on this site want to admit it or not. By 2015 P2P MMOs will be few and far between.
Bren
while(horse==dead)
{
beat();
}
I was under the impression that LOTRO was doing very well. I've never been a fan of this game though. I found it to be too theme park for me and still probably won't play it even though it is going to eventually be F2P. However, I didn't think it would ever take this course.
Saw this coming I suppose.. The game has been bleeding subs for awhile now. There was a spike when MoM released but it has been in steady decline since and the Mirkwood "expansion" didnt help either. Thats pretty much why they made so much of the Book quests soloable as there very few people if any to do the group required steps.
I quit because I grew tired of the clunky combat and seeing that they were no longer taking the lore seriously.
I am sure this move will make the game popular again but I am not so sure if their revenure will increase.. Not everyone who plays F2P keeps playing nor do they buy things.
The answer is simple really. Free 2 play actually costs more than pay 2 play subscriptions. Yes it costs MORE. Where do you think that 500% revenue increase came from? It came from the players paying more than they were paying before. It is no wonder companies are falling over themselves to offer f2p gaming.
No I will never learn to accept it. I can accept higher subscription rate $18/mo or $20/mo or $30/mo but I will never accept cash shops. Cash shops change the game play form something skill/time/dedication based to he who pays the most has the most advantage. That ruins the game play making the game worth less all the while paying more for it.
First we have to know how much DDO was making in the first place.. very little is all we know. A 500% increase of very little isnt much of an increase now is it? Thats why they used percentages instead of real numbers because it makes it sound more impressive than the gain really was.
There's little doubt that going F2P was successful for DDO or they wouldn't br trying the same with LotRo, arguing about the exact size of the success is somewhat academic.
Whether LotRO will have the same success is less certain in my opinion. DDO was well suited to the switch because the game is very modular and had never gained much traction in the P2P market anyway. The change to F2P was more or less a relaunch of a game that failed as P2P. LotRo is a lot higher profile and has already had moderate success so this is quite a different situation.
If the F2P switch is a runaway success for LotRO aswell then yeah, this really could be the writing on the wall for the monthly subscription model but at the moment I think it is more of a ploy for games that have been around a while and levelled off in terms of subscription growth.
except that in ddo and I presume lotro, if I'm a hardcore player then I will get everything I want regardless of how much some other person spends i the cash shop.
the only difference is that he is paying through the nose to equal what I'm getting through my sub. he will be paying quite a lot of money for things that I get in game through my regular play.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo