They said they had 5 times the number of players on prime time a few months after the switch.
That's something completely different.
I am one of those "1.000.000" new players: I downloaded the game again (played it already 3 years ago for 2 months), I logged in 4 times over a period of 5 months and that's it.
Playing 10 hours for 5 months is not exactly gaining much to Turbine but I guess together with my brother (2 logs in), I can be counted towards those "active players".
DDO was down to what 20K players ? Times 5 is 100K. .... in its laucnhing period of the first 6 months.
If you do NOT pay you do NOT invest too much in it too and your playing will be interrupted the moment someone calls out "Booh" on the MMO market.
The only solution is offering interesting combo package to very good games, not the route of taking AAA developped titles and put a "free" sticker on it.
The content of "free" DDO was already prepared at launch: you can't develop content in 6 to 9 months time from scratch to finish.
And Turbine didn't publish any revenue either.
They actually said both. They had 5x revenue, 5x primetime concurrent and10x unique logins a month. And believe what you like. No matter what the numbers are the development team has been adding content at a much quicker pace since the change than before it. This is indicative of a game that is working not dying.
Facts and figures please from independant sources (like an audited financial report) would help. Unless you get that, it's the usual "good news" show of any new (re)launch.
And DDO play on Xfire is still not showing up in that top 50 of games played (I know Xfire is inaccurate, but I wouldn't call it a "massive" success either).
The bottom line is that they changed their model of a subs based game.
A game that was a subs based AAA title and goes free gains momentum of course, but I don't buy automaticcaly the long term 5x revenue fairy tale either.
There was a reason that game X was situated in the P2P market and trying to "solve" things by having camouflaged income from players is not a guarantee to success.
Adding various kinds of different players (free, subs paying, lifers, founders, content unlockers, buyers of expansion kits, ...) is really dividing those players even more:
Your middle and end game will consist of a very narrow bottleneck of player willing to pay to get more. While in the beginning levels, the masses of uninterested "looking around" kids will populate the show.
- The result will be LESS content for higher (divided) players in the long run.
And like I said: it takes MUCH longer to have a new content cycle than 6 to 9 months. That DDO content was prepared before the "free to play" model was launched, but they had to make a choice: launch it with the knowledge the game needed to close down OR become free to play.
The content launched had little to do with new income. It was planned to show the game was 'reborn".
I simply think it is the last straw of survival: players simply do not want to pay in not so excellent games (whatever their format).
Well as you probably already know this industry is not exactly open with its numbers. would love to be able to analyze subscription data and revenue from lots of different games, but the best I can get is guesses and conjecture. However, I will say a recent poll placed DDO as the 2nd or 3rd game that people who leave WoW play. That is an interesting data point in and of itself, but again it is all just conjecture from there.
I agree that this particular model is best when it is created out of a change and have said before that I doubt very much that it is a perfect model. I am interested in the APB model and seeing how it works out and also interested in seeing what DCUO ends up doing.
I also agree that this model will change what the development will go into. However, I don't think this is a bad thing. MMOs should focus on what their playerbase want.. The reason raids and "end game" make up such a strong base right now is because people who would like other models are driven away by a pricing scheme. Really endgame people in general seem to be a niche market as the whole.
No matter what though, it can not be denied that $15 a month is an outdated model and change needs to be made in order for the industry as a whole to survive in the long term. It just doesn't take into account the market that we see today.
They actually said both. They had 5x revenue, 5x primetime concurrent and10x unique logins a month. And believe what you like. No matter what the numbers are the development team has been adding content at a much quicker pace since the change than before it. This is indicative of a game that is working not dying.
Facts and figures please from independant sources (like an audited financial report) would help. Unless you get that, it's the usual "good news" show of any new (re)launch.
And DDO play on Xfire is still not showing up in that top 50 of games played (I know Xfire is inaccurate, but I wouldn't call it a "massive" success either).
If you start disbelieving comments and citations from companies themselves, then we should disbelieving them from them all. For example also questioning how reliable Blizzard's claim of 11.5 million subscribers to WoW is, or if it's still valid these days.
You can't just go believing one company because you happen to like it and the news they bring, and disbelieving another because you dislike it.
Another representative also stated a few days ago that their surveys indicated that DDO has a 8% share of the total MMO gamer market (probably only US/EU based), and LotrO 5%. That means that DDO has surpassed LotrO in some ways, even if LotrO show high in the XFire ranks (really, do ppl really depend on an X-Fire measurements?!?).
Which makes sense that Turbine wants to convert to a F2P hybrid model too, even if LotrO still scores high among the MMO's.
You may want to raise the flag and gloat and sing 'hallelujah' all you like while interpreting the going F2P as another MMO failing, and scorning the F2P model all you like, but the figures and statements of the people that are in the business say otherwise. So I wouldn't already start dancing on DDO's and LotrO's grave prematurely, it might bring you out of dancing balance when they appear to be healthily alive.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Like any other commercial company, most of the information that would tell us how well the revenue models are doing is commercially sensitive. Did Turbine make a big profit when it went F2P? It is hard to say, subscriptions went up, with F2P they always do. But how much extra income are those F2P players generating?
I do not believe that in the long run the F2P revenue model will give a triple AAA title the funds it needs. DDO was on the rocks, Lotro was not, this is about squeezing as much money from players as they can for the short term, not laying the foundation for investment in the long term.
I'm sorry but I'm going to have to disagree. P2P is in no danger of going anywhere.
WoW's still got subscriptions, Aion and EVE as well. It's nice to say that there are "rumours" that WoW is going f2p, but honestly I don't see it happening; they're just making too much money. Until there's some actual evidence for it, rumours are just wishful thinking.
I know for myself, and I'm sure a good deal of other people, games using the f2p model are seen as a sub-standard quality of game. If they're a top tier game, why do they not feel they can use a monthly subscription? Make no mistake about it, every company wishes they could have a monthly fee, but some of them simply can't sustain their game on the monthly fee alone. When a game switches from p2p to f2p, it's seen by many as a bad sign. It says to me that this company can't sustain the game in its current state, and thus need to waive the sub fee in order to get more players, which they can then try to force microtransactions out of.
Personally, I just can't respect a game that's f2p, usually it just doesn't feel like there's enough quality in the product.
"Because it's easier to nitpick something than to be constructive." -roach5000
I wouldn't cite EVE as an indicator of the health of sub games. EVE is as much or more of a cash shop game than it is a sub game. Players that want game currency buy game time codes and convert them into an in-game tradeable commodity. So the power players are not really subbing - they are making the greedy newbies pay their subscriptions.
I'm sorry but I'm going to have to disagree. P2P is in no danger of going anywhere.
WoW's still got subscriptions, Aion and EVE as well. It's nice to say that there are "rumours" that WoW is going f2p, but honestly I don't see it happening; they're just making too much money. Until there's some actual evidence for it, rumours are just wishful thinking.
I know for myself, and I'm sure a good deal of other people, games using the f2p model are seen as a sub-standard quality of game. If they're a top tier game, why do they not feel they can use a monthly subscription? Make no mistake about it, every company wishes they could have a monthly fee, but some of them simply can't sustain their game on the monthly fee alone. When a game switches from p2p to f2p, it's seen by many as a bad sign. It says to me that this company can't sustain the game in its current state, and thus need to waive the sub fee in order to get more players, which they can then try to force microtransactions out of.
Personally, I just can't respect a game that's f2p, usually it just doesn't feel like there's enough quality in the product.
That's really a silly bias based on a lot of outdated information and assumptions that F2P excludes subscriptions. DDO has so far shown huge increases in revenue and if that continues then there will be a major shift in the future. While you and some others may see alternative models as indicitave of a sub-standard game, there are a lot of people out there who don't play MMOs because of the payment model who will end up coming and playing them. In addition there are a lot of us long time MMO players who have seen what DDO can do with an alternative model and want to see how it works out on other MMOs.
While alternative models still have a climb ahead of them I would say that it is becoming more common these days to believe that alternative models aren't just for failing and asian MMOs any more. A lot of people who used to be on that side of the line (including myself) are going over as more and more MMOs experiment in their payment plans.
Well this is a good thing and it is actually showing us that the MMO market is changing. I have been paying my main game EQ2 since 2006 and at the moment I am tired of paying $15 a monthe for a game where I cannot acess lot of the content (due to me being a casual player), I want to pay less or anyother way of paying for what I use in game.
For me it is a huge gamebreaker that most of the game I pay for is not accessible to me, I do not want a dumbed down game like WoW but I want to pay for the time and the content I use in game. I guess that several other adult casual players feels the same way, I am tired of paying good money to keep the 8% of the gaming community that raids happy.
I love the idea of new ways of paying for content!!
there a lot of games that are f2p that are really good. its not all about wow you know. ive played wow a long time and turning over to f2p doesnt make any difference at all. i love the pvp, upgrades , events coz for me thats what an mmorpg is all about. rule and pawn em all. be the best and top one of everyone.
Well this is a good thing and it is actually showing us that the MMO market is changing. I have been paying my main game EQ2 since 2006 and at the moment I am tired of paying $15 a monthe for a game where I cannot acess lot of the content (due to me being a casual player), I want to pay less or anyother way of paying for what I use in game.
For me it is a huge gamebreaker that most of the game I pay for is not accessible to me, I do not want a dumbed down game like WoW but I want to pay for the time and the content I use in game. I guess that several other adult casual players feels the same way, I am tired of paying good money to keep the 8% of the gaming community that raids happy.
I love the idea of new ways of paying for content!!
If you want to play casually and do not want to pay then don't play EQ2. Why did you choose that game when clearly is not for you? There are a lot of f2p games out there.
If you want to play casually and do not want to pay then don't play EQ2. Why did you choose that game when clearly is not for you? There are a lot of f2p games out there.
Oh it was for me up to 2008 you could have great fun in EQ2 as a casual player after that they switched to "Soloquest 2" gameplay and the non inclusiveness of the TSO instances.
No there aren't and you thinking there are shows why the industry is going down the tubes. F2P is a dead end of sub par games.
Well, the discussion is 'goodbye to P2P' and the alternative of having other profitable paying models for AAA titles, so here are the examples: GW is non-P2P, DDO is non-P2P, LotrO will get a hybrid F2P model, and the hugely hyped and definitely AAA title Guild Wars will be non-P2P too.
So, in short: yay to non-P2P AAA titles!! Show us how it can be done as well.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
If P2P infests the entire market, then I will be moving on. I'd rather play no MMO than an MMO riddledwith RMT. Why? Because RMT destroys any sense of enjoyment I have for a game.
But I know I'm not the only one that feels this way, so hopefully there are enough other like minded players to give the industry a reason not to shift entirely.
I wouldn't cite EVE as an indicator of the health of sub games. EVE is as much or more of a cash shop game than it is a sub game. Players that want game currency buy game time codes and convert them into an in-game tradeable commodity. So the power players are not really subbing - they are making the greedy newbies pay their subscriptions.
It's worth remembering that regardless of the players interactions with each other, CCP only ever get 1 sub worth of real money per account. It's a subtle difference, but a significant one: the only item in their "cash shop" is game time. This means that they have no incentive to unbalance gameplay, unlike those games who's cash shops sell actual in-game items. In fact it means that they have every incentive to make the game more attractive, since they can only sell GTCs if people actually want to subscribe.
So yes, EVE can be considered a successful sub game, because every account is paid for with real money. There are no free accounts as far as CCP is concerned.
I wouldn't cite EVE as an indicator of the health of sub games. EVE is as much or more of a cash shop game than it is a sub game. Players that want game currency buy game time codes and convert them into an in-game tradeable commodity. So the power players are not really subbing - they are making the greedy newbies pay their subscriptions.
It's worth remembering that regardless of the players interactions with each other, CCP only ever get 1 sub worth of real money per account. It's a subtle difference, but a significant one: the only item in their "cash shop" is game time. This means that they have no incentive to unbalance gameplay, unlike those games who's cash shops sell actual in-game items. In fact it means that they have every incentive to make the game more attractive, since they can only sell GTCs if people actually want to subscribe.
So yes, EVE can be considered a successful sub game, because every account is paid for with real money. There are no free accounts as far as CCP is concerned.
To me, that just makes EVE a different type of hybrid model - one more akin to pyramid marketing. People jump in and (as it is with a lot of today's gamers) want to be instantly rich. How do they do so? By paying other player's sub's in exchange for in-game money. That still creates the same type of imbalance as any Cash Shop.
Facts and figures please from independant sources (like an audited financial report) would help. Unless you get that, it's the usual "good news" show of any new (re)launch.
And DDO play on Xfire is still not showing up in that top 50 of games played (I know Xfire is inaccurate, but I wouldn't call it a "massive" success either).
If you start disbelieving comments and citations from companies themselves, then we should disbelieving them from them all. For example also questioning how reliable Blizzard's claim of 11.5 million subscribers to WoW is, or if it's still valid these days.
You can't just go believing one company because you happen to like it and the news they bring, and disbelieving another because you dislike it.
Another representative also stated a few days ago that their surveys indicated that DDO has a 8% share of the total MMO gamer market (probably only US/EU based), and LotrO 5%.
The difference is that you can trace the financial results of Blizzard's MMO in an audited format every 3 months. It shows around 300 million dollars revenue for each quarter (the same in the last 2 years).
Never believe the statements from companies without the bottom line of financial results. And for DDO nobody saw a financial analysis or can give a link to an audited report in the last 6 months.
If you really believe the "usual" good news show of every new (re)launch, than you are either very naive or aren't very long in following this industry (perhaps it's the latter seeing the posts). The super millions and zillions of accounts created for every new game launched in the past would allow them to rocket to the moon.
Also simply ignoring the lacking Xfire results for DDO is a little too easy I am afraid: if DDO WOULD be the second most played MMO right now, it would not linger around place 60 in that poll. I can accept XFire is way off for accuracy, but being 1000% wrong is a little bit too much wishful thinking.
it is very logical when a P2P game goes FTP for the obvious reasons, it gains players in its first stages of relaunch: the question which is NOT answered if these gamers (this time) will stay and ... pay for further content. Unless that is proven with a financial bottom line, you are simply presuming things and fly high on the PR of Turbine. A company which really is standing with the back against the wall vs their new owners.
One can say that going FTP is the last resort for Turbine : it is either that or being scrapped by WB. What would you do if relaunching for a FTP model? Exactly: exaggerate with the results. The bottom line stays the same: people didn't come en masse to subscribe for DDO, will they pay now with a camouflaged system that divides even more its player base?
Its embarrassing when an NPC compliments you in an MMo, the only relevant, cool and epic things come from players whispering you Grtz, mate, we did it. copyright Pilnkplonk
I wouldn't cite EVE as an indicator of the health of sub games. EVE is as much or more of a cash shop game than it is a sub game. Players that want game currency buy game time codes and convert them into an in-game tradeable commodity. So the power players are not really subbing - they are making the greedy newbies pay their subscriptions.
It's worth remembering that regardless of the players interactions with each other, CCP only ever get 1 sub worth of real money per account. It's a subtle difference, but a significant one: the only item in their "cash shop" is game time. This means that they have no incentive to unbalance gameplay, unlike those games who's cash shops sell actual in-game items. In fact it means that they have every incentive to make the game more attractive, since they can only sell GTCs if people actually want to subscribe.
So yes, EVE can be considered a successful sub game, because every account is paid for with real money. There are no free accounts as far as CCP is concerned.
To me, that just makes EVE a different type of hybrid model - one more akin to pyramid marketing. People jump in and (as it is with a lot of today's gamers) want to be instantly rich. How do they do so? By paying other player's sub's in exchange for in-game money. That still creates the same type of imbalance as any Cash Shop.
It may create an imbalance, but it's nowhere near the same as with a cash shop. Whatever assets are being traded in exchange for the gametime have to actually be earned through ingame effort. One player is exchanging their playtime and effort to another player in exchange for that player to pay for their subscription.
RMT on the other hand... nothing is earned ingame, from anyone. Any such items are created entirely on the fly with no effort from the player involved aside from pulling out their credit card.
In the former scenario, yes, throwing around real cash can influence the game economy to an extent. However, it cannot do so more than the market can bear via trading gametime for assets.
The latter scenario however, the game can easily be destabalized from instantly generated RMT items flooding into it and creating severe disparities between players.
Only bye bye p2p to those that are griefers & scammers or like the griefers-scammers. Break TOS and you get banned, need to p2p again if that’s the model, loose cash, so griefers+scammers move on. Banned in f2p, no loss no harm, just make a new account and grief-n-scam all you want. At some point, GM’s don’t even bother any longer, too much of a repeating issue. Community suffers, loose most vets, rest of the community doesn’t care, will leave for the next f2p opportunity eventually.
P2P is for long-term players that like the community/socialization aspect of the game, that’s why there are still p2p MUD’s, they still survive as it’s a healthy filter.
It may create an imbalance, but it's nowhere near the same as with a cash shop. Whatever assets are being traded in exchange for the gametime have to actually be earned through ingame effort. One player is exchanging their playtime and effort to another player in exchange for that player to pay for their subscription.
RMT on the other hand... nothing is earned ingame, from anyone. Any such items are created entirely on the fly with no effort from the player involved aside from pulling out their credit card.
In the former scenario, yes, throwing around real cash can influence the game economy to an extent. However, it cannot do so more than the market can bear via trading gametime for assets.
The latter scenario however, the game can easily be destabalized from instantly generated RMT items flooding into it and creating severe disparities between players.
It really depends on the game doesn't it? I mean one model isn't necessarily the best for every game. What works for EVE isn't what is going to work for Everquest II and vice versa.
I really hope game developers don't jump on the Turbine bandwagon without considering how their games are built. And hopefully, as future games are released, we'll see better game design integrated with these revenue models. I'm sure you could think of several ways CCP could improve their Isk sales. I know I can think of ways SoE could improve their marketplace and how they offer digital content and services.
I'm not sure how it will be for LotrO, but DDO had the perfect structure for the hybrid. The online game closely resembles the real D&D in the "Adventure Packs". DDO just made those adventure areas premium items. A couple of classes are premium, and a couple of races.
Will that work for LotrO? I don't know since I haven't played it. Will that work for other games? Some, possibly. Most of them will just become a bigger mess than they already are.
As for the PLEX trading on EVE - money isn't an issue on there. You are completely channeled by the time it takes to train skills. To do much of worth, you need to invest multiple months of training, thus ensuring multiple months of sub's. If they ever sell training time buff items, then their CS will become OP
The difference is that you can trace the financial results of Blizzard's MMO in an audited format every 3 months. It shows around 300 million dollars revenue for each quarter (the same in the last 2 years).
Never believe the statements from companies without the bottom line of financial results. And for DDO nobody saw a financial analysis or can give a link to an audited report in the last 6 months.
If you really believe the "usual" good news show of every new (re)launch, than you are either very naive or aren't very long in following this industry (perhaps it's the latter seeing the posts). The super millions and zillions of accounts created for every new game launched in the past would allow them to rocket to the moon.
I'll put it very plain and simple: you are either very naive or biased when it comes to Blizzard, if you refuse to believe any statement about their business coming from Turbine's people but are willing to take statements by Activision Blizzard people at word value for truth.
To adopt your way of reasoning: you haven't given me any proof against disbelieving that Blizzard has 11.5 million subscribers now, nor that the initial statement made by them was an accurate one. Blizzard people already said themselves how hard it was to measure sub numbers, the way the paying model works in China (and possibly Korea too?).
That was my claim, in that you can't go around measuring with two different standards, because that's what you actually do, one company almost being too sacred to touch in your posts while regarding the other companies not believing anything that's being said about them that is positive or shows that they're doing well.
You came with a reference to Blizzard's revenues as a counter towards my claim, but that's no closing proof at all for the accuracy of Blizzard's 11.5 million subs, since they could gain that kind of money with a few million subs. If you cannot show me a direct, detailed link between the sub numbers and the financial revenue, than the 11.5 million-statement is questionable. I have only Blizzards' representatives words in the past to account for it, and why should they be believed while Turbine's representatives should be held under scrutiny? That would be naive and biased.
(TL;DR)
In short: numerous statements and articles are talking about the success story that DDO has become with going F2P, it's what has been accepted as a given in the game industry. You may dismiss all that evidence, maintain your beliefs that DDO is doing badly and F2P a failed experiment, that is your right. I've only shown you how biased that belief is, and that it's measuring with two different standards.
I think I've proven that with better examples and arguments than you came up with. That is my right, to claim that statement.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I honestly welcome the end of P2P MMOs from a financial perspective of a customer, but I am worried what will now become the standard. It would be ideal if developers looked up to Guild Wars' system (expansions released on regular basis) and not resort to microtransactions like overwhelming majority of all other F2P MMOs.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.
Pay to Play isn't nowhere near dying. All these low rent games going free to play means those developers with games worthy of a subscription will draw from the pool of people who refuse to be nickel and dimed, while all the free to plays will struggle to grab a small chunk of the free to play kiddies, cash shop whores, and "I'm a casual player so I shouldn't have to play the game to get my stuff, I want it NOW" people. Every new ftp game that comes out spreads those customers even further. Too many products and not enough people to play them all will be the downfall of free to play games. There's a reason the standard monthly sub came to be. Now you all have fun living in the past of AOL and Compuserve and the rest of us will stay here in the present, and move into the future, without you.
Awesome post.
F2P:
-lack of support
-bots
-no GMs
-pay to win
P2P:
-support team to help with your problems
-bots eliminated quickly
-GMs available 24/7
-everyone is equal you only get what you earn
The only reason the F2P market struggles to barely hang on is because its free. It appeals to poor lazy people and snobby rich people who want to show their superiority by dropping 1k a month into a game. The casuals should have no problems fitting into a P2P mmo hell that's why PVE servers were invented correct? Carebears ffs... I understand a game like FFXIV being PVE only iys because the battle system simply wouldn't work in a PVP environment. But playing on a PVE server on a game that is built around PVP is just idiotic.
It seems I've went a bit off topic here. Put simply the F2P system struggles to survive nontheless. I don't care if you have a job and work 8 hours a day bringing that money into a game and getting things you did not earn in-game will never appeal to me. Be it you end up leveling faster or anything of the like.
I understand paying $15 a month when you may only get to play for a few hours one month could be annoying. But devs should implenet a time based system.
2¢ a minute to play. Once your time hits the $15 mark it should cap an no longer charge you since you payed the sub. But playing less you don't end up wasting money on a game you were unable to play.
That being said I will not buy into this. Someone advancing faster in any way shape or form due to spending more money on the game is bs. A cash shop I'm fine with as long as the items are purely cosmetic. That is in a F2P mmo of course even cosmetic ones should be 100% in-game for a P2P one.
I honestly welcome the end of P2P MMOs from a financial perspective of a customer, but I am worried what will now become the standard. It would be ideal if developers looked up to Guild Wars' system (expansions released on regular basis) and not resort to microtransactions like overwhelming majority of all other F2P MMOs.
I think we'll see the whole range, from microtransactions and itemshops being used in a greedy kind of way and those examples where non-P2P paying models will be used in a sensible yet profitable way. I think ArenaNet's GW2 will rate among the better examples how it can be done.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
P2P isn't going anywhere. It may fail to be the dominant form of payment method for the western MMO, but it will never go away. There is far too large portion of the western playerbase who under no circumstance will play a tradition f2p mmo. By traditional i mean, non fluff items in the shops, i.e. buying new badass armor, weapons, etc.
What i find horribly amusing is the people trying to claim that what DOD and LOTRO are doing is actually f2p. Its not, they're simply limiting *access* to content, which is a lot like having to buy a bunch of small expansions, if you think about it. They're not allowing you to go out and buy the Uber Elf Slaying Sword of Awesomeness +2.
What i think will likely happen is that many western MMOs will still release as P2P, and will only revert to F2P "style" in the event of failure. At best, they will likely turn into what SOE has done, basically add item shops that allow you to buy fluff items, character slots, shit like that, but primarily the main source of income will be via subs.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
P2P isn't going anywhere. It may fail to be the dominant form of payment method for the western MMO, but it will never go away. There is far too large portion of the western playerbase who under no circumstance will play a tradition f2p mmo. By traditional i mean, non fluff items in the shops, i.e. buying new badass armor, weapons, etc.
What i find horribly amusing is the people trying to claim that what DOD and LOTRO are doing is actually f2p.
It's not.
Especially LotrO's future model looks to be a F2P hybrid.
I think that will be the future, all kinds of F2P hybrid models, where you can have something like a monthly sub/flat fee with all the extra benefits to enjoy without any bother, but where you can also opt to play F2P if that better suits your gaming taste.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Comments
Well as you probably already know this industry is not exactly open with its numbers. would love to be able to analyze subscription data and revenue from lots of different games, but the best I can get is guesses and conjecture. However, I will say a recent poll placed DDO as the 2nd or 3rd game that people who leave WoW play. That is an interesting data point in and of itself, but again it is all just conjecture from there.
I agree that this particular model is best when it is created out of a change and have said before that I doubt very much that it is a perfect model. I am interested in the APB model and seeing how it works out and also interested in seeing what DCUO ends up doing.
I also agree that this model will change what the development will go into. However, I don't think this is a bad thing. MMOs should focus on what their playerbase want.. The reason raids and "end game" make up such a strong base right now is because people who would like other models are driven away by a pricing scheme. Really endgame people in general seem to be a niche market as the whole.
No matter what though, it can not be denied that $15 a month is an outdated model and change needs to be made in order for the industry as a whole to survive in the long term. It just doesn't take into account the market that we see today.
If you start disbelieving comments and citations from companies themselves, then we should disbelieving them from them all. For example also questioning how reliable Blizzard's claim of 11.5 million subscribers to WoW is, or if it's still valid these days.
You can't just go believing one company because you happen to like it and the news they bring, and disbelieving another because you dislike it.
Another representative also stated a few days ago that their surveys indicated that DDO has a 8% share of the total MMO gamer market (probably only US/EU based), and LotrO 5%. That means that DDO has surpassed LotrO in some ways, even if LotrO show high in the XFire ranks (really, do ppl really depend on an X-Fire measurements?!?).
Which makes sense that Turbine wants to convert to a F2P hybrid model too, even if LotrO still scores high among the MMO's.
You may want to raise the flag and gloat and sing 'hallelujah' all you like while interpreting the going F2P as another MMO failing, and scorning the F2P model all you like, but the figures and statements of the people that are in the business say otherwise. So I wouldn't already start dancing on DDO's and LotrO's grave prematurely, it might bring you out of dancing balance when they appear to be healthily alive.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Like any other commercial company, most of the information that would tell us how well the revenue models are doing is commercially sensitive. Did Turbine make a big profit when it went F2P? It is hard to say, subscriptions went up, with F2P they always do. But how much extra income are those F2P players generating?
I do not believe that in the long run the F2P revenue model will give a triple AAA title the funds it needs. DDO was on the rocks, Lotro was not, this is about squeezing as much money from players as they can for the short term, not laying the foundation for investment in the long term.
I'm sorry but I'm going to have to disagree. P2P is in no danger of going anywhere.
WoW's still got subscriptions, Aion and EVE as well. It's nice to say that there are "rumours" that WoW is going f2p, but honestly I don't see it happening; they're just making too much money. Until there's some actual evidence for it, rumours are just wishful thinking.
I know for myself, and I'm sure a good deal of other people, games using the f2p model are seen as a sub-standard quality of game. If they're a top tier game, why do they not feel they can use a monthly subscription? Make no mistake about it, every company wishes they could have a monthly fee, but some of them simply can't sustain their game on the monthly fee alone. When a game switches from p2p to f2p, it's seen by many as a bad sign. It says to me that this company can't sustain the game in its current state, and thus need to waive the sub fee in order to get more players, which they can then try to force microtransactions out of.
Personally, I just can't respect a game that's f2p, usually it just doesn't feel like there's enough quality in the product.
"Because it's easier to nitpick something than to be constructive." -roach5000
I wouldn't cite EVE as an indicator of the health of sub games. EVE is as much or more of a cash shop game than it is a sub game. Players that want game currency buy game time codes and convert them into an in-game tradeable commodity. So the power players are not really subbing - they are making the greedy newbies pay their subscriptions.
That's really a silly bias based on a lot of outdated information and assumptions that F2P excludes subscriptions. DDO has so far shown huge increases in revenue and if that continues then there will be a major shift in the future. While you and some others may see alternative models as indicitave of a sub-standard game, there are a lot of people out there who don't play MMOs because of the payment model who will end up coming and playing them. In addition there are a lot of us long time MMO players who have seen what DDO can do with an alternative model and want to see how it works out on other MMOs.
While alternative models still have a climb ahead of them I would say that it is becoming more common these days to believe that alternative models aren't just for failing and asian MMOs any more. A lot of people who used to be on that side of the line (including myself) are going over as more and more MMOs experiment in their payment plans.
Well this is a good thing and it is actually showing us that the MMO market is changing. I have been paying my main game EQ2 since 2006 and at the moment I am tired of paying $15 a monthe for a game where I cannot acess lot of the content (due to me being a casual player), I want to pay less or anyother way of paying for what I use in game.
For me it is a huge gamebreaker that most of the game I pay for is not accessible to me, I do not want a dumbed down game like WoW but I want to pay for the time and the content I use in game. I guess that several other adult casual players feels the same way, I am tired of paying good money to keep the 8% of the gaming community that raids happy.
I love the idea of new ways of paying for content!!
Chi puo dir com'egli arde é in picciol fuoco.
He who can describe the flame does not burn.
Petrarch
i second the motion buddy
there a lot of games that are f2p that are really good. its not all about wow you know. ive played wow a long time and turning over to f2p doesnt make any difference at all. i love the pvp, upgrades , events coz for me thats what an mmorpg is all about. rule and pawn em all. be the best and top one of everyone.
If you want to play casually and do not want to pay then don't play EQ2. Why did you choose that game when clearly is not for you? There are a lot of f2p games out there.
Oh it was for me up to 2008 you could have great fun in EQ2 as a casual player after that they switched to "Soloquest 2" gameplay and the non inclusiveness of the TSO instances.
Chi puo dir com'egli arde é in picciol fuoco.
He who can describe the flame does not burn.
Petrarch
Well, the discussion is 'goodbye to P2P' and the alternative of having other profitable paying models for AAA titles, so here are the examples: GW is non-P2P, DDO is non-P2P, LotrO will get a hybrid F2P model, and the hugely hyped and definitely AAA title Guild Wars will be non-P2P too.
So, in short: yay to non-P2P AAA titles!! Show us how it can be done as well.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
If P2P infests the entire market, then I will be moving on. I'd rather play no MMO than an MMO riddledwith RMT. Why? Because RMT destroys any sense of enjoyment I have for a game.
But I know I'm not the only one that feels this way, so hopefully there are enough other like minded players to give the industry a reason not to shift entirely.
It's worth remembering that regardless of the players interactions with each other, CCP only ever get 1 sub worth of real money per account. It's a subtle difference, but a significant one: the only item in their "cash shop" is game time. This means that they have no incentive to unbalance gameplay, unlike those games who's cash shops sell actual in-game items. In fact it means that they have every incentive to make the game more attractive, since they can only sell GTCs if people actually want to subscribe.
So yes, EVE can be considered a successful sub game, because every account is paid for with real money. There are no free accounts as far as CCP is concerned.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
To me, that just makes EVE a different type of hybrid model - one more akin to pyramid marketing. People jump in and (as it is with a lot of today's gamers) want to be instantly rich. How do they do so? By paying other player's sub's in exchange for in-game money. That still creates the same type of imbalance as any Cash Shop.
Its embarrassing when an NPC compliments you in an MMo, the only relevant, cool and epic things come from players whispering you Grtz, mate, we did it. copyright Pilnkplonk
It may create an imbalance, but it's nowhere near the same as with a cash shop. Whatever assets are being traded in exchange for the gametime have to actually be earned through ingame effort. One player is exchanging their playtime and effort to another player in exchange for that player to pay for their subscription.
RMT on the other hand... nothing is earned ingame, from anyone. Any such items are created entirely on the fly with no effort from the player involved aside from pulling out their credit card.
In the former scenario, yes, throwing around real cash can influence the game economy to an extent. However, it cannot do so more than the market can bear via trading gametime for assets.
The latter scenario however, the game can easily be destabalized from instantly generated RMT items flooding into it and creating severe disparities between players.
Only bye bye p2p to those that are griefers & scammers or like the griefers-scammers. Break TOS and you get banned, need to p2p again if that’s the model, loose cash, so griefers+scammers move on. Banned in f2p, no loss no harm, just make a new account and grief-n-scam all you want. At some point, GM’s don’t even bother any longer, too much of a repeating issue. Community suffers, loose most vets, rest of the community doesn’t care, will leave for the next f2p opportunity eventually.
P2P is for long-term players that like the community/socialization aspect of the game, that’s why there are still p2p MUD’s, they still survive as it’s a healthy filter.
M59, UO, EQ1, WWIIOL, PS, EnB, SL, SWG. MoM, EQ2, AO, SB, CoH, LOTRO, WoW, DDO+ f2p's, Demos & indie alpha's.
I'm not sure how it will be for LotrO, but DDO had the perfect structure for the hybrid. The online game closely resembles the real D&D in the "Adventure Packs". DDO just made those adventure areas premium items. A couple of classes are premium, and a couple of races.
Will that work for LotrO? I don't know since I haven't played it. Will that work for other games? Some, possibly. Most of them will just become a bigger mess than they already are.
As for the PLEX trading on EVE - money isn't an issue on there. You are completely channeled by the time it takes to train skills. To do much of worth, you need to invest multiple months of training, thus ensuring multiple months of sub's. If they ever sell training time buff items, then their CS will become OP
I'll put it very plain and simple: you are either very naive or biased when it comes to Blizzard, if you refuse to believe any statement about their business coming from Turbine's people but are willing to take statements by Activision Blizzard people at word value for truth.
To adopt your way of reasoning: you haven't given me any proof against disbelieving that Blizzard has 11.5 million subscribers now, nor that the initial statement made by them was an accurate one. Blizzard people already said themselves how hard it was to measure sub numbers, the way the paying model works in China (and possibly Korea too?).
That was my claim, in that you can't go around measuring with two different standards, because that's what you actually do, one company almost being too sacred to touch in your posts while regarding the other companies not believing anything that's being said about them that is positive or shows that they're doing well.
You came with a reference to Blizzard's revenues as a counter towards my claim, but that's no closing proof at all for the accuracy of Blizzard's 11.5 million subs, since they could gain that kind of money with a few million subs. If you cannot show me a direct, detailed link between the sub numbers and the financial revenue, than the 11.5 million-statement is questionable. I have only Blizzards' representatives words in the past to account for it, and why should they be believed while Turbine's representatives should be held under scrutiny? That would be naive and biased.
(TL;DR)
In short: numerous statements and articles are talking about the success story that DDO has become with going F2P, it's what has been accepted as a given in the game industry. You may dismiss all that evidence, maintain your beliefs that DDO is doing badly and F2P a failed experiment, that is your right. I've only shown you how biased that belief is, and that it's measuring with two different standards.
I think I've proven that with better examples and arguments than you came up with. That is my right, to claim that statement.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I honestly welcome the end of P2P MMOs from a financial perspective of a customer, but I am worried what will now become the standard. It would be ideal if developers looked up to Guild Wars' system (expansions released on regular basis) and not resort to microtransactions like overwhelming majority of all other F2P MMOs.
Awesome post.F2P:
-lack of support
-bots
-no GMs
-pay to win
P2P:
-support team to help with your problems
-bots eliminated quickly
-GMs available 24/7
-everyone is equal you only get what you earn
The only reason the F2P market struggles to barely hang on is because its free. It appeals to poor lazy people and snobby rich people who want to show their superiority by dropping 1k a month into a game. The casuals should have no problems fitting into a P2P mmo hell that's why PVE servers were invented correct? Carebears ffs... I understand a game like FFXIV being PVE only iys because the battle system simply wouldn't work in a PVP environment. But playing on a PVE server on a game that is built around PVP is just idiotic.
It seems I've went a bit off topic here. Put simply the F2P system struggles to survive nontheless. I don't care if you have a job and work 8 hours a day bringing that money into a game and getting things you did not earn in-game will never appeal to me. Be it you end up leveling faster or anything of the like.
I understand paying $15 a month when you may only get to play for a few hours one month could be annoying. But devs should implenet a time based system.
2¢ a minute to play. Once your time hits the $15 mark it should cap an no longer charge you since you payed the sub. But playing less you don't end up wasting money on a game you were unable to play.
That being said I will not buy into this. Someone advancing faster in any way shape or form due to spending more money on the game is bs. A cash shop I'm fine with as long as the items are purely cosmetic. That is in a F2P mmo of course even cosmetic ones should be 100% in-game for a P2P one.
I think we'll see the whole range, from microtransactions and itemshops being used in a greedy kind of way and those examples where non-P2P paying models will be used in a sensible yet profitable way. I think ArenaNet's GW2 will rate among the better examples how it can be done.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
P2P isn't going anywhere. It may fail to be the dominant form of payment method for the western MMO, but it will never go away. There is far too large portion of the western playerbase who under no circumstance will play a tradition f2p mmo. By traditional i mean, non fluff items in the shops, i.e. buying new badass armor, weapons, etc.
What i find horribly amusing is the people trying to claim that what DOD and LOTRO are doing is actually f2p. Its not, they're simply limiting *access* to content, which is a lot like having to buy a bunch of small expansions, if you think about it. They're not allowing you to go out and buy the Uber Elf Slaying Sword of Awesomeness +2.
What i think will likely happen is that many western MMOs will still release as P2P, and will only revert to F2P "style" in the event of failure. At best, they will likely turn into what SOE has done, basically add item shops that allow you to buy fluff items, character slots, shit like that, but primarily the main source of income will be via subs.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
It's not.
Especially LotrO's future model looks to be a F2P hybrid.
I think that will be the future, all kinds of F2P hybrid models, where you can have something like a monthly sub/flat fee with all the extra benefits to enjoy without any bother, but where you can also opt to play F2P if that better suits your gaming taste.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."