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.
I am not even discussing the number of subs. Meaningless in this discussion.
I am saying that the audited financial results of a company shows how a game is doing in revenue: that's $300 million per quarter for the MMO part of Blizzard.
Unless you can show me the audited (meaning controlled by an independant 3rd party) financial result (and so impact) of DDO since it ran FTP, you can't make a claim the FTP move was even succesful.
And it certainly wasn't shown on Xfire, let alone "all" those new players would be buying new content and potions. because ... people can play "for free".
I don't maintain it is a failure: you just can't give a proof it is a financial success either.
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
Yes, it is sad but true. P2P is slowly losing out to F2P.
I never thought it would come to this but it is. I was in for a shock when I started working for a free to play company as a GM.
The real shock came not from the fact that I saw how shitty the games being produced were. No, the real shock came from the fact that people were actually PAYING us money to PLAY a below average, shitty game.
Ah, but supposedly F2P games are starting to get better. Asia is excited as shit for dragon ball online.
Yes, it is sad but true. P2P is slowly losing out to F2P.
I never thought it would come to this but it is. I was in for a shock when I started working for a free to play company as a GM.
The real shock came not from the fact that I saw how shitty the games being produced were. No, the real shock came from the fact that people were actually PAYING us money to PLAY a below average, shitty game.
Ah, but supposedly F2P games are starting to get better. Asia is excited as shit for dragon ball online.
The market is a cash cow.
It is not because some failing P2P games found themselves with their backs against the walls: read shut down or change the business model that overall P2P is losing ground.
On the contrary. A P2P model that changes to F2P is simply a failing game subscription wise. And Turbine found itself in a very difficult situation with their new owner.
I highly doubt the long term "success" of DDO. It is enough a new FTP games comes along and the bunch of players will head out that way. It's how it works: people jump out of these F2P games because they lack real investments.
The sad part is that when you want to stay in those games, you pay more than you think with an ever decreasing and thinned out public in the higher regions.
The good part is that everyone learns his lesson sooner or later. And as there is pratically no end game (remember the player pops get thinned out with each new paid content patch), these models only work for lower (free) content.
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
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.
I am not even discussing the number of subs. Meaningless in this discussion.
I am saying that the audited financial results of a company shows how a game is doing in revenue: that's $300 million per quarter for the MMO part of Blizzard.
Unless you can show me the audited (meaning controlled by an independant 3rd party) financial result (and so impact) of DDO since it ran FTP, you can't make a claim the FTP move was even succesful.
And it certainly wasn't shown on Xfire, let alone "all" those new players would be buying new content and potions. because ... people can play "for free".
I don't maintain it is a failure: you just can't give a proof it is a financial success either.
Since Turibne was an independant company that info isnt available but maybe we will seem them in future reports from WB. So we have to go by the numbers we are given.
500% revenue increase
more than doubled monthly subscribers
8% market share (which probably puts DDO in the top 5 of most played MMOs in the west since LotrO is 8th with 5%))
And Xfire showed a HUGE increase since going F2P and have been relativly steady (and xfire is a very bad way of showing how succesfull a MMO is)
And the biggest proof is: If DDO wasnt finacialy sucesfull why would they do the same with LotrO? You think they want to loose money?
But since your other post shows that you havent even read what the buisness model is about I guess its pointless discussing it with you.
If WoW = The Beatles and WAR = Led Zeppelin Then LotrO = Pink Floyd
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.
I am not even discussing the number of subs. Meaningless in this discussion.
No, you're not discussing it because you realised the financial example you provided didn't prove Blizzard's sub numbers, even more, they very likely proved the contrary. That's different than meaningless.
If you think Turbine's representatives shouldn't be believed when they say DDO's revenues have grown to 500% (which isn't that farfetched to believe in) and their active players have increased ten times, then also all companies like for example Blizzard's representatives shouldn't be taken seriously when they claim Blizzard has 11.5 million subs.
Unless you can show me the audited (meaning controlled by an independant 3rd party) financial result (and so impact) of DDO since it ran FTP, you can't make a claim the FTP move was even succesful.
Unless you can show me that it wasn't, you too can't make a claim the F2P move was not successful.
When it comes to believing the statements of Turbine that their DDO revenues have grown 500 %, a statement that has even been accepted by the professional gaming media, or believing you who has no evidence at all to prove the contrary, then it's not hard to choose who to believe.
And it certainly wasn't shown on Xfire, let alone "all" those new players would be buying new content and potions. because ... people can play "for free".
I thought player numbers weren't important to you, only revenue statements. Do you really want to use XFire as proof for player population numbers? Besides they were talking about increases in active player numbers and concurrent users. As someone already mentioned, XFire showed this by having an increase in player numbers too compared to the situation before giong F2P.
I don't maintain it is a failure: you just can't give a proof it is a financial success either.
See above: you can't prove that it hasn't been a (financial) success, and gaming media and the statements of Turbine themself are convinced that the F2P move for DDO is a success.
In short: if you wanted to claim that companies hype their games and that media add to this, don't bother, we all know that all companies do that and that they sometimes play with the truth to make things look good, no exceptions.
If you wanted to claim that Turbine is lying in all their continuous statements they make that DDO has been a succes financially and population wise, then you might as well forget it: you make yourself look ridiculous, until you come up with equally hard proof that states your claims.
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."
Since Turibne was an independant company that info isnt available but maybe we will seem them in future reports from WB. So we have to go by the numbers we are given.
500% revenue increase
more than doubled monthly subscribers
8% market share (which probably puts DDO in the top 5 of most played MMOs in the west since LotrO is 8th with 5%))
And Xfire showed a HUGE increase since going F2P and have been relativly steady (and xfire is a very bad way of showing how succesfull a MMO is)
And the biggest proof is: If DDO wasnt finacialy sucesfull why would they do the same with LotrO? You think they want to loose money?
But since your other post shows that you havent even read what the buisness model is about I guess its pointless discussing it with you.
500% revenu from what? Links please?
Doubled their montlhy subscribers ??? It is free to play ...How do you define a subscriber? Someone who bought a potion?
8% market share, from which market? The FTP one, the overall one? Links please.
Now your final question: WHY would they follow with the same model in LOTRO.
Here is my theory: DDO had perhaps 15K_20K players still: it was a failing subscription game.
They saw indeed an increase of 500% (free) players that's NOT the quivalent of 500 revenue increase btw: result 75K- 100K now. (could even be on par with what Xfire shows)
So they come up with around 75-100K players now, most playing "free" and very casual.
So a "bright" mind now thinks : Hey ! by using the same model for Lotro we'll breach the 1.000.000 western "free" players dude ! Going from 200K to 1M.
But like all those other F2P games: RoM etc... the "millions accounts " are there, but not always in the money bag.
The end result is the same: they didn't get enough paying subs so they try to tric now people by using camouflaged pricing.
Like all those other F2P games: it doesn't always work in the end: the money end.
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
On horison looms a MMO giant Guild Wars 2 , easily the most anticipated MMO ( yes even more than SWTOR according to mmorpg.com) - a mmo with no subscription costs whatsoever.
Your logic is flawed, as of today (6/8/10) Guild Wars 2 has a higher hype rating at 8.54, however you neglected to mention that is from only 1022 people... vs SWTOR's hype rating of 8.28, but it has 2914 votes.
" Several interesting changes have come about in the past year: former World of Warcraft players are turning to different games than they have in the past, the subscription model is a lot less popular these days, and Dungeons and Dragons Online has knocked Guild Wars out of the comfy #3 spot it enjoyed for the two previous years."
"30% of the participants are currently playing WoW, with RuneScape holding the number two spot at 10%. The next spot, however, is where the numbers start to get interesting. In 2008 and 2009, Guild Wars held easily to the third position with 7% while DDO languished somewhere below Disney's Toontown Online at 4%. As of this January, Guild Wars held steady with that number, but DDO doubled its numbers and took over the number three spot.
An additional question regarding "What former World of Warcraft players are currently playing" gave the same results: 11% turned to DDO in 2009, again knocking GW out of the number two position. RuneScape has been the favored second choice for a long time and still is, but the game's popularity took a sharp drop this year, with 13% of former WoW players turning to it. In 2008 that number was 20%. [note: DDO is 11 % against Runescape's 13 % and GW's 9%] "
"So why the big change? The answer is obvious, but a peek at yet another part of the survey confirms it: preferred method of payment. In 2008, the monthly sub model was vastly preferred with 30% of gamers naming it as their preferred method. In the current survey that number has dropped to 18% while the free-to-play with microtransactions model is climbing"
And about the hybrid F2P model being successful, also financially as DDO proved:
"[regarding DDO] the peak CCU (peak concurrent users, the maximum number of players online at any given time) have gone up by five times since the subscription days, monthly active players have gone up by ten times, and monthly revenues have risen by five times"
Hybrid model meaning btw that they implemented F2P features and options while maintaining the sub option for those who wanted it.
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."
Since Turibne was an independant company that info isnt available but maybe we will seem them in future reports from WB. So we have to go by the numbers we are given.
500% revenue increase
more than doubled monthly subscribers
8% market share (which probably puts DDO in the top 5 of most played MMOs in the west since LotrO is 8th with 5%))
And Xfire showed a HUGE increase since going F2P and have been relativly steady (and xfire is a very bad way of showing how succesfull a MMO is)
And the biggest proof is: If DDO wasnt finacialy sucesfull why would they do the same with LotrO? You think they want to loose money?
But since your other post shows that you havent even read what the buisness model is about I guess its pointless discussing it with you.
500% revenu from what? Links please?
Doubled their montlhy subscribers ??? It is free to play ...How do you define a subscriber? Someone who bought a potion?
8% market share, from which market? The FTP one, the overall one? Links please.
Now your final question: WHY would they follow with the same model in LOTRO.
Here is my theory: DDO had perhaps 15K_20K players still: it was a failing subscription game.
They saw indeed an increase of 500% (free) players that's NOT the quivalent of 500 revenue increase btw: result 75K- 100K now. (could even be on par with what Xfire shows)
So they come up with around 75-100K players now, most playing "free" and very casual.
So a "bright" mind now thinks : Hey ! by using the same model for Lotro we'll breach the 1.000.000 western "free" players dude ! Going from 200K to 1M.
But like all those other F2P games: RoM etc... the "millions accounts " are there, but not always in the money bag.
The end result is the same: they didn't get enough paying subs so they try to tric now people by using camouflaged pricing.
Like all those other F2P games: it doesn't always work in the end: the money end.
This just proves you have no idea what you are talking about... do you even know what the words Revenue and monthly subscriber mean?
If WoW = The Beatles and WAR = Led Zeppelin Then LotrO = Pink Floyd
The survey was made in ... January. A few weeks/months after the free to play introduction of DDO.
I would like to see the "HUGE successes" of WAR and AOC surveys 2 months after they launched...
Neither of these links answer my question: the financial results behind it.
500% player increase? : No doubt. 500% income increase for a free to play game with no subs in that same period?
No references up until now.
The same could be said about Runes of Magic in their launching months.
It appears Cyphers didn't experience too much launches.
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
Since Turibne was an independant company that info isnt available but maybe we will seem them in future reports from WB. So we have to go by the numbers we are given.
500% revenue increase
more than doubled monthly subscribers
8% market share (which probably puts DDO in the top 5 of most played MMOs in the west since LotrO is 8th with 5%))
And Xfire showed a HUGE increase since going F2P and have been relativly steady (and xfire is a very bad way of showing how succesfull a MMO is)
And the biggest proof is: If DDO wasnt finacialy sucesfull why would they do the same with LotrO? You think they want to loose money?
But since your other post shows that you havent even read what the buisness model is about I guess its pointless discussing it with you.
500% revenu from what? Links please?
Doubled their montlhy subscribers ??? It is free to play ...How do you define a subscriber? Someone who bought a potion?
8% market share, from which market? The FTP one, the overall one? Links please.
Now your final question: WHY would they follow with the same model in LOTRO.
Here is my theory: DDO had perhaps 15K_20K players still: it was a failing subscription game.
They saw indeed an increase of 500% (free) players that's NOT the quivalent of 500 revenue increase btw: result 75K- 100K now. (could even be on par with what Xfire shows)
So they come up with around 75-100K players now, most playing "free" and very casual.
So a "bright" mind now thinks : Hey ! by using the same model for Lotro we'll breach the 1.000.000 western "free" players dude ! Going from 200K to 1M.
But like all those other F2P games: RoM etc... the "millions accounts " are there, but not always in the money bag.
The end result is the same: they didn't get enough paying subs so they try to tric now people by using camouflaged pricing.
Like all those other F2P games: it doesn't always work in the end: the money end.
This just proves you have no idea what you are talking about... do you even know what the words Revenue and monthly subscriber mean?
Name calling already. What about giving explanations why you would defend failed subscription based games that come back as camouflaged free to play offerings anyway?
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
Doubled their montlhy subscribers ??? It is free to play ...How do you define a subscriber? Someone who bought a potion?
DDO still has subsribers but they are called VIP members . The DDO model isn't really totally free to play more a hybrid model . I think of the free content as more of an extended free trial . Beyond that point it is possible to play free if you have the time to grind a lot to gain access to it but I would think most players that reach that point decide to either pay a monthly subscription or if they play it in a more casual manner pay for individual adventure packs . I went back and had a look at it recently . When free to play was first introduced there were a lot of idiots coming on and spamming the chat channels but that appears to have settled down now .
Doubled their montlhy subscribers ??? It is free to play ...How do you define a subscriber? Someone who bought a potion?
DDO still has subsribers but they are called VIP members . The DDO model isn't really totally free to play more a hybrid model . I think of the free content as more of an extended free trial . Beyond that point it is possible to play free if you have the time to grind a lot to gain access to it but I would think most players that reach that point decide to either pay a monthly subscription or if they play it in a more casual manner pay for individual adventure packs . I went back and had a look at it recently . When free to play was first introduced there were a lot of idiots coming on and spamming the chat channels but that appears to have settled down now .
Ok thanks for the statement. Your last sentence, does that relate to the fact the 500% increase of new players is less or are these new players suddenly more intelligent and less idiot.
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 just point out to the most obvious and important one liner in your link:
"... Turbine did not attach a dollar value to its revenue claims..."
Meaning The turbine message the article referred to didn't even have a dollar value (let alone a standard audited financial report).
Conclusion;: it is PR talk not backed up by any dollar value.
The media swallows it up as usual.
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.
No, actually it doesn't. because you can't just "buy win" in EVE, and because property is very destructable.
In theory a brand new player could spend a few thousand dollars on PLEX, and use the ISK to buy the best Officer modules... but what then? He can only fly a little frigate, and the best items just aren't that much better. There's a good chance he'll lose them every time he undocks, either from lack of knowledge, or from simply being a highly attractive gank target.
Older, more experiened players have the skill and experience to take advantage of the ISK that selling loads of PLEX would bring, yet almost none of them do. In fact they tend to be the biggest consumers of PLEX. You might wonder why - it is because skillfull, powerful players can generate ISK in large quantities anyway. I myself just made enough ISK to buy 7 months worth of PLEX in 4 days with no great difficulty and I'm by no means in the top tier when it comes to doing this.
The typical PLEX seller is a mid-ranking PvPer who can only play a few hours a week, and doesn't wish to spend his time making ISK. He just wants to buy a couple of ships for a weekend of fighting. It is extremely difficult to abuse PLEX to the point of affecting someone else's game, because ISK simply isn't enough. You need skill, experience and above all lots of friends. These things are much harder to get than ISK
The survey was made in ... January. A few weeks/months after the free to play introduction of DDO.
I would like to see the "HUGE successes" of WAR and AOC surveys 2 months after they launched...
Neither of these links answer my question: the financial results behind it.
500% player increase? : No doubt. 500% income increase for a free to play game with no subs in that same period?
No references up until now.
The same could be said about Runes of Magic in their launching months.
It appears Cyphers didn't experience too much launches.
Heh, nice try, but it appears you refuse to accept any evidence that contradict your belief patterns. As I'd expected :-)
I say (blind) 'belief', because that's what it is if you haven't anything to prove your point: you may claim that all the statements about DDO's success don't mean a thing, but you haven't even provided a shred of evidence to support your statement. In my book, that diminishes your credibility regarding this discussion even more.
I could go on about proving my suspicion that you're in fact measuring with two standards, declaring anything related to Blizzard/WoW as holy (that's what believers do) and seeing all other MMO's and their companies with suspicions of doubt, making your credibility a laughing stock - but that's not for this thread.
I don't know where you get the idea that those articles all are in january, but when you look at the dates of the articles they are in March and May. The F2P model started somewhere in September (?), I believe. In any case quite a lot more months than the first 2,3 months after a launch. To add to that, Warner Interactive president Martin Tremblay declared a few days ago that DDO's current market share now is 8% of the market, compared to 5% for LotrO's market share.
Nice result for a MMO that was dwindling away a short year ago.
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."
Cut the usual suspect part (which has nothing to do with the topic)
I don't know where you get the idea that those articles all are in january, but when you look at the dates of the articles they are in March and May. The F2P model started somewhere in September (?), I believe. In any case quite a lot more months than the first 2,3 months after a launch. To add to that, Warner Interactive president Martin Tremblay declared a few days ago that DDO's current market share now is 8% of the market, compared to 5% for LotrO's market share.
Nice result for a MMO that was dwindling away a short year ago.
I said the survey was finished in January: Perhaps you should read your own links first:
"....They surveyed nearly 19,000 gamers of all ages in January of this year, looking at every aspect from hours played per week"...
The "current market of 8% of what exactly ? Players? So why are there around a dozen other MMo's showing up their face on Xfire in front of DDO?
8% of market in dollars perhaps? I have seen not one dollar sign that accompanied the "500% growth" either in an official statement.
500% of what? 10 dollars, 10.000 dollars, 10.0000.00000000 dollars ?
here is the catch: I even think it was a good idea to relaunch DDO as a so called "free to play" game.
I just think it is not the huge and fantastic money maker they talk about: it has been done numurous times before and it will happen numurous times after ANY launch.
That's the core discussion of this thread : Bye Bye P2P. I don't believe it one yota.
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
The "current market of 8% of what exactly ? Players? So why are there around a dozen other MMo's showing up their face on Xfire in front of DDO?
I have no idea why it doesn't show, maybe a survey should be made of XFire, what demographics of players use it, if it's more used in US and Europe than in Asia, if more players of one MMO use XFire more than players from another MMO etc.
8% of market in dollars perhaps? I have seen not one dollar sign that accompanied the "500% growth" either in an official statement.
True, but hello, not that strange, a lot of companies don't tell their revenue statement into specifics. What they release differs per company: Blizzard doesn't release its current sub numbers per region, DDO doesn't release its financial details. All companies release the figures that makes their product look good.
That doesn't mean they're lying if they make claims: you're nuts if you believe that the abundant statements Turbine - and now the Warner Interactive president more recently - that DDO is successful doesn't have any backing in real, grounded figures. That companies don't always feel the need to reveal those backings is a given, nothing unusual about it, happens all the time. Besides I found the detailing as it was done in one of the links I posted before deeper than most MMO companies do.
500% of what? 10 dollars, 10.000 dollars, 10.0000.00000000 dollars ?
here is the catch: I even think it was a good idea to relaunch DDO as a so called "free to play" game.
I just think it is not the huge and fantastic money maker they talk about: it has been done numurous times before and it will happen numurous times after ANY launch.
That's the core discussion of this thread : Bye Bye P2P. I don't believe it one yota.
Nope, P2P will stay, at least for a while.
But what will happen is that more and more MMO companies will veer towards a hybrid model, where the best of both worlds will unite. DDO has it, LotrO will have it, and I suspect others will follow too if it also happens to be a success for LotrO.
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."
Obviously Free Trial does not sound as good as Free to Play. And players are such morons that they never even look at what is in reality actually free. Sounding better is unfortuantly selling better in this world of consumer sheep.
People who promote these type of threads are generally ones on low incomes, poorly educated, and spend far too much time in games that they won't spend a cent on the F2P title anyway.
Project Entropia has been F2P for a long time, and it just doesn't work. Think titles that make a difference will go F2P? Never! F2P games only work when there are no plans for long term development of the title - ie, its dead in the water. They will throw a dev or two at it when something needs to be fixed or to add a very basic amount of content. You cannot run an evolving title on a F2P model. Anyone who graduate from high school would understand this.
So you F2P trolls, go finish school or stop working in retail where you have no idea about how a proper business works. F2P will never be successful for a strong, well developed and supproted title. Go back in your caves and keep living in the dark.
And saying anything NCSoft produce since Lineage 2 is good is just stupid.
You're actually the one sounding uneducated about the industry right now. I have subscrptions to a few MMOs and a lifetime subscription to LotRO, but I also understand that subscriptions can not be it forever. The current pricing model of $15 a month was created over 10 years ago. When it wass made no one could have predicted that it would eventually become the industry standard that it is today. Really $15 a month was a way to allow for this type of niche gaming and to keep the servers up while they did it.
However, it has become the industry standard and there is huge problem with it. It has no room for change. Competition keeps the price from ever going above $15 a month or else players will not play the game with the higher price. Investors meanwhile, generally keep the price from going lower which means they lose out on a market that resfues to pay that much money. In short, the subscription fee does not suit our current market. There is nearly nothing else in this economy that does not offer different payment models for different services.
Everything you have said about F2P systems is rhetoric that is continuously spread by the ignorant who know little of current MMO production. First of all you seem to lump all alternative payment models in with some system where everything is run by item malls. This is not what most people are talking about nowadays. Right now there are a lot of alternative models out there that do not rely 100% on a subscription fee.
First, there is the Guild Wars model. This model requires you to buy the disk, but is free after that. Then there is the DDO/LotRO model. Which this type of payment plan the game keeps a subscription fee as an option. It also has a free to play option that is limited, but can be bought off through microtransactions. Finally, there is the APB model which has a subscription fee for a month of unlimited access or allows you to buy hours like a pay as you go cell phone.
Two of the above are usually considered F2P by a lot of people becaue of the fact that there is a way to play without any payment, however restricted it may be in some cases. However people like to only think of things based on a model usually used by Korean games. The same can be said about Item Malls. A lot of people when they hear Item Mall jump on the idea that it means you need to pay to win. However, as DDO has proven, this is not always the case. In DDO players can not buy the best gear in the game in any way, shape or form.
Finally, there is this ignorant idea that having an alternative payment model is only usable by those MMOs that are dying or dead and that no development ever gets done on those. This has been used as a basis for arguments stating that by switching to a new model LotRO must be dying. This has again been proven false. Since the switch in models DDO has seen a huge increase in players and revenue. In point of fact, it now gets over 5x as much revenue as before thanks to its new model. This, in turn. has increased the scheduel for producing content. Compared to before the switch, DDO has seen a huge ammount of content released over a short amount of time since the new model.
Now are any of these perfect models? Doubtful. It will take time to come up with the perfect model, even if one can be found. However, it seems to be becoming obvious that the current model that is used is far from perfect itself. While you may denounce those who don't want to pay for a subscription fee, the truth is that those people would bring in money through alternative systems and there are a lot of them out there.
Right now there is a major shift occuring in MMOs. $15 a month can not remain the standard forever. It just doesn't take into account the market we live in. Those who deny this have as little sense about business as those who think MMOs should be entirely free. Instead of insulting others and thinking that they have to finish high school in order to understand, you should focus on analyzing the actual situation of what's going on in the industry.
Actually, I work in the gaming industry in the SEAsia/Australia region - more specifically the area focused around data centre and infrastructure management to support MMOG (F2P and P2P) and other mass distribution clutering efforts. I know intrinsically what it costs to run an MMOG. Given you've dedicated a lot of time to current "subscriptions" (proper term for your F2P fetish would be accounts), I doubt you even understand the business aspects of the two models. Fact of the matter is, every title that goes F2P has a massive reduction (over 90%) in the ongoing support agreements. Their specific vendor agreements are for routine break fix maintence as their equipment is beyond last sale date and pushing towards EOSL. The companies themselves have stated that the title is now dead and they are milking it for more $ - which is not as much as you profess: A person with an education would understand the economics of a P2P vs F2P model. I'm not going to explain Micro Economics 101 here.
P2P models, far from your ignorant view of how they work, in reality, are fully funded from conception to completion - this includes ongoing support and development costs for generally two-three years after launch. Revenue from a generally predictable income stream is geared towards return on investment. F2P models are dumped on sub-standard, resource dry, hardware, haev no plans for serious development, with very small ongoing operation costs. They have minimal development costs. They live on micro transactions fed by less than 10% of the active community. Just because they might have large populations does not mean they are all spending money. It's a very very small percentage that buy regularly (less then 2%), then a chunk who will make one off purchases (5-10%). The rest leech off it being free and spam forums with these type of stupid threads how everything should be free to play.
Either way, industry experience > gamer hearsay/belief. I have yet to read a logical arguement based on fact that makes a F2P model a sustainable way to run business. Unless you are a developer who just has millions of spare $ lying around to burn on a great, well managed and developed, title, and don't mind running it at a substantial loss, then F2P will never work.
To the OP, I say that it would be very very VERY stupid for Blizzard to make WoW and F2P game. The reason is mainly because they would lose a lot of money. The king of MMO's should always be a P2P MMO just because the only reason F2P MMO's are going to be good for the reason that people don't want to subscribe to WoW and another MMO.
When you have a F2P MMO, you buy it and play it for free. You have a choice to spend money to level faster or experience more content. In P2P MMOs, you are spending your $15 and mainly the reason is because it's your "main" MMO.
The reason Turbine is doing the switch is not because it is in jeopardy, but because it is a famous title and has a beautiful world that people need to experience first hand before joining the game as a paying subscriber. It might have to also do with the fact that a lot of people just buy the Lifetime Subscription and over a long run Turbine don't get the revenue.... but i think that is very doubtful.
The fact is, Turbine knows what it's doing and other MMO's like WAR or AoC would be very wise to follow. WAR already started with a free unlimited trial, might as well get some cash later on from a F2P style payment.
Purpose in life is not to gain things, but experience. - Rover64dd
People who promote these type of threads are generally ones on low incomes, poorly educated, and spend far too much time in games that they won't spend a cent on the F2P title anyway.
Project Entropia has been F2P for a long time, and it just doesn't work. Think titles that make a difference will go F2P? Never! F2P games only work when there are no plans for long term development of the title - ie, its dead in the water. They will throw a dev or two at it when something needs to be fixed or to add a very basic amount of content. You cannot run an evolving title on a F2P model. Anyone who graduate from high school would understand this.
So you F2P trolls, go finish school or stop working in retail where you have no idea about how a proper business works. F2P will never be successful for a strong, well developed and supproted title. Go back in your caves and keep living in the dark.
And saying anything NCSoft produce since Lineage 2 is good is just stupid.
You're actually the one sounding uneducated about the industry right now. I have subscrptions to a few MMOs and a lifetime subscription to LotRO, but I also understand that subscriptions can not be it forever. The current pricing model of $15 a month was created over 10 years ago. When it wass made no one could have predicted that it would eventually become the industry standard that it is today. Really $15 a month was a way to allow for this type of niche gaming and to keep the servers up while they did it.
However, it has become the industry standard and there is huge problem with it. It has no room for change. Competition keeps the price from ever going above $15 a month or else players will not play the game with the higher price. Investors meanwhile, generally keep the price from going lower which means they lose out on a market that resfues to pay that much money. In short, the subscription fee does not suit our current market. There is nearly nothing else in this economy that does not offer different payment models for different services.
Everything you have said about F2P systems is rhetoric that is continuously spread by the ignorant who know little of current MMO production. First of all you seem to lump all alternative payment models in with some system where everything is run by item malls. This is not what most people are talking about nowadays. Right now there are a lot of alternative models out there that do not rely 100% on a subscription fee.
First, there is the Guild Wars model. This model requires you to buy the disk, but is free after that. Then there is the DDO/LotRO model. Which this type of payment plan the game keeps a subscription fee as an option. It also has a free to play option that is limited, but can be bought off through microtransactions. Finally, there is the APB model which has a subscription fee for a month of unlimited access or allows you to buy hours like a pay as you go cell phone.
Two of the above are usually considered F2P by a lot of people becaue of the fact that there is a way to play without any payment, however restricted it may be in some cases. However people like to only think of things based on a model usually used by Korean games. The same can be said about Item Malls. A lot of people when they hear Item Mall jump on the idea that it means you need to pay to win. However, as DDO has proven, this is not always the case. In DDO players can not buy the best gear in the game in any way, shape or form.
Finally, there is this ignorant idea that having an alternative payment model is only usable by those MMOs that are dying or dead and that no development ever gets done on those. This has been used as a basis for arguments stating that by switching to a new model LotRO must be dying. This has again been proven false. Since the switch in models DDO has seen a huge increase in players and revenue. In point of fact, it now gets over 5x as much revenue as before thanks to its new model. This, in turn. has increased the scheduel for producing content. Compared to before the switch, DDO has seen a huge ammount of content released over a short amount of time since the new model.
Now are any of these perfect models? Doubtful. It will take time to come up with the perfect model, even if one can be found. However, it seems to be becoming obvious that the current model that is used is far from perfect itself. While you may denounce those who don't want to pay for a subscription fee, the truth is that those people would bring in money through alternative systems and there are a lot of them out there.
Right now there is a major shift occuring in MMOs. $15 a month can not remain the standard forever. It just doesn't take into account the market we live in. Those who deny this have as little sense about business as those who think MMOs should be entirely free. Instead of insulting others and thinking that they have to finish high school in order to understand, you should focus on analyzing the actual situation of what's going on in the industry.
Actually, I work in the gaming industry in the SEAsia/Australia region - more specifically the area focused around data centre and infrastructure management to support MMOG (F2P and P2P) and other mass distribution clutering efforts. I know intrinsically what it costs to run an MMOG. Given you've dedicated a lot of time to current "subscriptions" (proper term for your F2P fetish would be accounts), I doubt you even understand the business aspects of the two models. Fact of the matter is, every title that goes F2P has a massive reduction (over 90%) in the ongoing support agreements. Their specific vendor agreements are for routine break fix maintence as their equipment is beyond last sale date and pushing towards EOSL. The companies themselves have stated that the title is now dead and they are milking it for more $ - which is not as much as you profess: A person with an education would understand the economics of a P2P vs F2P model. I'm not going to explain Micro Economics 101 here.
P2P models, far from your ignorant view of how they work, in reality, are fully funded from conception to completion - this includes ongoing support and development costs for generally two-three years after launch. Revenue from a generally predictable income stream is geared towards return on investment. F2P models are dumped on sub-standard, resource dry, hardware, haev no plans for serious development, with very small ongoing operation costs. They have minimal development costs. They live on micro transactions fed by less than 10% of the active community. Just because they might have large populations does not mean they are all spending money. It's a very very small percentage that buy regularly (less then 2%), then a chunk who will make one off purchases (5-10%). The rest leech off it being free and spam forums with these type of stupid threads how everything should be free to play.
Either way, industry experience > gamer hearsay/belief. I have yet to read a logical arguement based on fact that makes a F2P model a sustainable way to run business. Unless you are a developer who just has millions of spare $ lying around to burn on a great, well managed and developed, title, and don't mind running it at a substantial loss, then F2P will never work.
Oh are we playing the "look at my industry experience" cards now? I didn't realize that we were even going to bother with such idiotic formalities. First of all I said subscriptions because I have followed and been a part of MMOs since I began playing EQ over 10 years ago. I said subscriptions because I meant the word. So please do not assume to know anything about me and that includes my education and experience in the game industry. You see unlike you I base my arguments on the issues rather than trying to prove I'm better by saying what I have done in the industry.
You on the other hand have said that you understand the industry and then go on to completely ignore the actual arguments. I love how you made up me saying that P2P game weren't fully funded or whatever it was I supposedly said to elicit that 2nd paragraph. What I believe you must be replying to is that $15 a month is not supposed to be the industry standard and that a combination of factors are keeping studios from charging more which causes problems in our current market. You then go on to make up statistics about how many people pay for MTs based on no real data whatsoever. Sorry let me change that, you might have gotten data based on a model that is not what we are talking about at all. Everything you seem to say implies that you are still talking about a completely F2P system based entirely around item shops. What most of us are talking about are hybrid systems and other alternative payment models.
The main MMO that we do have information about that made this switch gets around 20% of its player based spending money at their item shop. A lot of what the money they make through those shops are the items that tend to be rebought. But I guess you must have missed those actual numbers in all of your "research".
Either way, actual research into new alternative models > tired rhetoric and baseless acusations. Of course you will now go on to spout how F2P will never work because even though I use the words alternative models time and again you will latch onto the idea that everything labeled F2P is the exact same and ignore the crux of the argument.
Comments
I am not even discussing the number of subs. Meaningless in this discussion.
I am saying that the audited financial results of a company shows how a game is doing in revenue: that's $300 million per quarter for the MMO part of Blizzard.
Unless you can show me the audited (meaning controlled by an independant 3rd party) financial result (and so impact) of DDO since it ran FTP, you can't make a claim the FTP move was even succesful.
And it certainly wasn't shown on Xfire, let alone "all" those new players would be buying new content and potions. because ... people can play "for free".
I don't maintain it is a failure: you just can't give a proof it is a financial success either.
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
Yes, it is sad but true. P2P is slowly losing out to F2P.
I never thought it would come to this but it is. I was in for a shock when I started working for a free to play company as a GM.
The real shock came not from the fact that I saw how shitty the games being produced were. No, the real shock came from the fact that people were actually PAYING us money to PLAY a below average, shitty game.
Ah, but supposedly F2P games are starting to get better. Asia is excited as shit for dragon ball online.
The market is a cash cow.
It is not because some failing P2P games found themselves with their backs against the walls: read shut down or change the business model that overall P2P is losing ground.
On the contrary. A P2P model that changes to F2P is simply a failing game subscription wise. And Turbine found itself in a very difficult situation with their new owner.
I highly doubt the long term "success" of DDO. It is enough a new FTP games comes along and the bunch of players will head out that way. It's how it works: people jump out of these F2P games because they lack real investments.
The sad part is that when you want to stay in those games, you pay more than you think with an ever decreasing and thinned out public in the higher regions.
The good part is that everyone learns his lesson sooner or later. And as there is pratically no end game (remember the player pops get thinned out with each new paid content patch), these models only work for lower (free) content.
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
Since Turibne was an independant company that info isnt available but maybe we will seem them in future reports from WB. So we have to go by the numbers we are given.
500% revenue increase
more than doubled monthly subscribers
8% market share (which probably puts DDO in the top 5 of most played MMOs in the west since LotrO is 8th with 5%))
And Xfire showed a HUGE increase since going F2P and have been relativly steady (and xfire is a very bad way of showing how succesfull a MMO is)
And the biggest proof is: If DDO wasnt finacialy sucesfull why would they do the same with LotrO? You think they want to loose money?
But since your other post shows that you havent even read what the buisness model is about I guess its pointless discussing it with you.
If WoW = The Beatles
and WAR = Led Zeppelin
Then LotrO = Pink Floyd
See above: you can't prove that it hasn't been a (financial) success, and gaming media and the statements of Turbine themself are convinced that the F2P move for DDO is a success.
In short: if you wanted to claim that companies hype their games and that media add to this, don't bother, we all know that all companies do that and that they sometimes play with the truth to make things look good, no exceptions.
If you wanted to claim that Turbine is lying in all their continuous statements they make that DDO has been a succes financially and population wise, then you might as well forget it: you make yourself look ridiculous, until you come up with equally hard proof that states your claims.
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."
500% revenu from what? Links please?
Doubled their montlhy subscribers ??? It is free to play ...How do you define a subscriber? Someone who bought a potion?
8% market share, from which market? The FTP one, the overall one? Links please.
Now your final question: WHY would they follow with the same model in LOTRO.
Here is my theory: DDO had perhaps 15K_20K players still: it was a failing subscription game.
They saw indeed an increase of 500% (free) players that's NOT the quivalent of 500 revenue increase btw: result 75K- 100K now. (could even be on par with what Xfire shows)
So they come up with around 75-100K players now, most playing "free" and very casual.
So a "bright" mind now thinks : Hey ! by using the same model for Lotro we'll breach the 1.000.000 western "free" players dude ! Going from 200K to 1M.
But like all those other F2P games: RoM etc... the "millions accounts " are there, but not always in the money bag.
The end result is the same: they didn't get enough paying subs so they try to tric now people by using camouflaged pricing.
Like all those other F2P games: it doesn't always work in the end: the money end.
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
Here you go:
DDO jumps to third-most-popular spot in MMO survey (link)
An interesting quote from it:
" Several interesting changes have come about in the past year: former World of Warcraft players are turning to different games than they have in the past, the subscription model is a lot less popular these days, and Dungeons and Dragons Online has knocked Guild Wars out of the comfy #3 spot it enjoyed for the two previous years."
"30% of the participants are currently playing WoW, with RuneScape holding the number two spot at 10%. The next spot, however, is where the numbers start to get interesting. In 2008 and 2009, Guild Wars held easily to the third position with 7% while DDO languished somewhere below Disney's Toontown Online at 4%. As of this January, Guild Wars held steady with that number, but DDO doubled its numbers and took over the number three spot.
An additional question regarding "What former World of Warcraft players are currently playing" gave the same results: 11% turned to DDO in 2009, again knocking GW out of the number two position. RuneScape has been the favored second choice for a long time and still is, but the game's popularity took a sharp drop this year, with 13% of former WoW players turning to it. In 2008 that number was 20%. [note: DDO is 11 % against Runescape's 13 % and GW's 9%] "
"So why the big change? The answer is obvious, but a peek at yet another part of the survey confirms it: preferred method of payment. In 2008, the monthly sub model was vastly preferred with 30% of gamers naming it as their preferred method. In the current survey that number has dropped to 18% while the free-to-play with microtransactions model is climbing"
And about the hybrid F2P model being successful, also financially as DDO proved:
TenTonHammer's recapitulation of Turbine's facts and figures
and
Login 2010: How Turbine Supercharged DDO by adopting a hybrid business model
A quote:
"[regarding DDO] the peak CCU (peak concurrent users, the maximum number of players online at any given time) have gone up by five times since the subscription days, monthly active players have gone up by ten times, and monthly revenues have risen by five times"
Hybrid model meaning btw that they implemented F2P features and options while maintaining the sub option for those who wanted it.
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."
This just proves you have no idea what you are talking about... do you even know what the words Revenue and monthly subscriber mean?
If WoW = The Beatles
and WAR = Led Zeppelin
Then LotrO = Pink Floyd
The survey was made in ... January. A few weeks/months after the free to play introduction of DDO.
I would like to see the "HUGE successes" of WAR and AOC surveys 2 months after they launched...
Neither of these links answer my question: the financial results behind it.
500% player increase? : No doubt. 500% income increase for a free to play game with no subs in that same period?
No references up until now.
The same could be said about Runes of Magic in their launching months.
It appears Cyphers didn't experience too much launches.
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
Name calling already. What about giving explanations why you would defend failed subscription based games that come back as camouflaged free to play offerings anyway?
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
DDO still has subsribers but they are called VIP members . The DDO model isn't really totally free to play more a hybrid model . I think of the free content as more of an extended free trial . Beyond that point it is possible to play free if you have the time to grind a lot to gain access to it but I would think most players that reach that point decide to either pay a monthly subscription or if they play it in a more casual manner pay for individual adventure packs . I went back and had a look at it recently . When free to play was first introduced there were a lot of idiots coming on and spamming the chat channels but that appears to have settled down now .
Ok thanks for the statement. Your last sentence, does that relate to the fact the 500% increase of new players is less or are these new players suddenly more intelligent and less idiot.
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
From the end of february
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/27416/Going_Free_Boosts_Turbines_DDO_Revenues_500_Percent.php
From june
http://www.gamepro.com/article/features/215346/turbines-lord-of-the-rings-online-goes-free-to-play/
If WoW = The Beatles
and WAR = Led Zeppelin
Then LotrO = Pink Floyd
I just point out to the most obvious and important one liner in your link:
"... Turbine did not attach a dollar value to its revenue claims..."
Meaning The turbine message the article referred to didn't even have a dollar value (let alone a standard audited financial report).
Conclusion;: it is PR talk not backed up by any dollar value.
The media swallows it up as usual.
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
No, actually it doesn't. because you can't just "buy win" in EVE, and because property is very destructable.
In theory a brand new player could spend a few thousand dollars on PLEX, and use the ISK to buy the best Officer modules... but what then? He can only fly a little frigate, and the best items just aren't that much better. There's a good chance he'll lose them every time he undocks, either from lack of knowledge, or from simply being a highly attractive gank target.
Older, more experiened players have the skill and experience to take advantage of the ISK that selling loads of PLEX would bring, yet almost none of them do. In fact they tend to be the biggest consumers of PLEX. You might wonder why - it is because skillfull, powerful players can generate ISK in large quantities anyway. I myself just made enough ISK to buy 7 months worth of PLEX in 4 days with no great difficulty and I'm by no means in the top tier when it comes to doing this.
The typical PLEX seller is a mid-ranking PvPer who can only play a few hours a week, and doesn't wish to spend his time making ISK. He just wants to buy a couple of ships for a weekend of fighting. It is extremely difficult to abuse PLEX to the point of affecting someone else's game, because ISK simply isn't enough. You need skill, experience and above all lots of friends. These things are much harder to get than ISK
Give me liberty or give me lasers
Heh, nice try, but it appears you refuse to accept any evidence that contradict your belief patterns. As I'd expected :-)
I say (blind) 'belief', because that's what it is if you haven't anything to prove your point: you may claim that all the statements about DDO's success don't mean a thing, but you haven't even provided a shred of evidence to support your statement. In my book, that diminishes your credibility regarding this discussion even more.
I could go on about proving my suspicion that you're in fact measuring with two standards, declaring anything related to Blizzard/WoW as holy (that's what believers do) and seeing all other MMO's and their companies with suspicions of doubt, making your credibility a laughing stock - but that's not for this thread.
I don't know where you get the idea that those articles all are in january, but when you look at the dates of the articles they are in March and May. The F2P model started somewhere in September (?), I believe. In any case quite a lot more months than the first 2,3 months after a launch. To add to that, Warner Interactive president Martin Tremblay declared a few days ago that DDO's current market share now is 8% of the market, compared to 5% for LotrO's market share.
Nice result for a MMO that was dwindling away a short year ago.
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 said the survey was finished in January: Perhaps you should read your own links first:
"....They surveyed nearly 19,000 gamers of all ages in January of this year, looking at every aspect from hours played per week"...
The "current market of 8% of what exactly ? Players? So why are there around a dozen other MMo's showing up their face on Xfire in front of DDO?
8% of market in dollars perhaps? I have seen not one dollar sign that accompanied the "500% growth" either in an official statement.
500% of what? 10 dollars, 10.000 dollars, 10.0000.00000000 dollars ?
here is the catch: I even think it was a good idea to relaunch DDO as a so called "free to play" game.
I just think it is not the huge and fantastic money maker they talk about: it has been done numurous times before and it will happen numurous times after ANY launch.
That's the core discussion of this thread : Bye Bye P2P. I don't believe it one yota.
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
Nope, P2P will stay, at least for a while.
But what will happen is that more and more MMO companies will veer towards a hybrid model, where the best of both worlds will unite. DDO has it, LotrO will have it, and I suspect others will follow too if it also happens to be a success for LotrO.
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."
except with LOTRO, and DDO; The option for P2P still exists.
The "F2P" is pretty much a trial of the actual game; and if you want to get your moneys worth, you still pay a monthly fee.
P2P isn't dead, its just having a F2P trial tacked on and a flashy new acronym
after 6 or so years, I had to change it a little...
As said before...DDO is more of a microtransactions game. You can pay for a sub, pay for content as you go, or experience limited content for free.
Oh..and you think WoW is going F2P? Maybe eventually for levels 1-30 or up to 60 without instances. But it won't be a full game or even close.
Obviously Free Trial does not sound as good as Free to Play. And players are such morons that they never even look at what is in reality actually free. Sounding better is unfortuantly selling better in this world of consumer sheep.
Baaa!
Actually, I work in the gaming industry in the SEAsia/Australia region - more specifically the area focused around data centre and infrastructure management to support MMOG (F2P and P2P) and other mass distribution clutering efforts. I know intrinsically what it costs to run an MMOG. Given you've dedicated a lot of time to current "subscriptions" (proper term for your F2P fetish would be accounts), I doubt you even understand the business aspects of the two models. Fact of the matter is, every title that goes F2P has a massive reduction (over 90%) in the ongoing support agreements. Their specific vendor agreements are for routine break fix maintence as their equipment is beyond last sale date and pushing towards EOSL. The companies themselves have stated that the title is now dead and they are milking it for more $ - which is not as much as you profess: A person with an education would understand the economics of a P2P vs F2P model. I'm not going to explain Micro Economics 101 here.
P2P models, far from your ignorant view of how they work, in reality, are fully funded from conception to completion - this includes ongoing support and development costs for generally two-three years after launch. Revenue from a generally predictable income stream is geared towards return on investment. F2P models are dumped on sub-standard, resource dry, hardware, haev no plans for serious development, with very small ongoing operation costs. They have minimal development costs. They live on micro transactions fed by less than 10% of the active community. Just because they might have large populations does not mean they are all spending money. It's a very very small percentage that buy regularly (less then 2%), then a chunk who will make one off purchases (5-10%). The rest leech off it being free and spam forums with these type of stupid threads how everything should be free to play.
Either way, industry experience > gamer hearsay/belief. I have yet to read a logical arguement based on fact that makes a F2P model a sustainable way to run business. Unless you are a developer who just has millions of spare $ lying around to burn on a great, well managed and developed, title, and don't mind running it at a substantial loss, then F2P will never work.
To the OP, I say that it would be very very VERY stupid for Blizzard to make WoW and F2P game. The reason is mainly because they would lose a lot of money. The king of MMO's should always be a P2P MMO just because the only reason F2P MMO's are going to be good for the reason that people don't want to subscribe to WoW and another MMO.
When you have a F2P MMO, you buy it and play it for free. You have a choice to spend money to level faster or experience more content. In P2P MMOs, you are spending your $15 and mainly the reason is because it's your "main" MMO.
The reason Turbine is doing the switch is not because it is in jeopardy, but because it is a famous title and has a beautiful world that people need to experience first hand before joining the game as a paying subscriber. It might have to also do with the fact that a lot of people just buy the Lifetime Subscription and over a long run Turbine don't get the revenue.... but i think that is very doubtful.
The fact is, Turbine knows what it's doing and other MMO's like WAR or AoC would be very wise to follow. WAR already started with a free unlimited trial, might as well get some cash later on from a F2P style payment.
Purpose in life is not to gain things, but experience. - Rover64dd
Oh are we playing the "look at my industry experience" cards now? I didn't realize that we were even going to bother with such idiotic formalities. First of all I said subscriptions because I have followed and been a part of MMOs since I began playing EQ over 10 years ago. I said subscriptions because I meant the word. So please do not assume to know anything about me and that includes my education and experience in the game industry. You see unlike you I base my arguments on the issues rather than trying to prove I'm better by saying what I have done in the industry.
You on the other hand have said that you understand the industry and then go on to completely ignore the actual arguments. I love how you made up me saying that P2P game weren't fully funded or whatever it was I supposedly said to elicit that 2nd paragraph. What I believe you must be replying to is that $15 a month is not supposed to be the industry standard and that a combination of factors are keeping studios from charging more which causes problems in our current market. You then go on to make up statistics about how many people pay for MTs based on no real data whatsoever. Sorry let me change that, you might have gotten data based on a model that is not what we are talking about at all. Everything you seem to say implies that you are still talking about a completely F2P system based entirely around item shops. What most of us are talking about are hybrid systems and other alternative payment models.
The main MMO that we do have information about that made this switch gets around 20% of its player based spending money at their item shop. A lot of what the money they make through those shops are the items that tend to be rebought. But I guess you must have missed those actual numbers in all of your "research".
Either way, actual research into new alternative models > tired rhetoric and baseless acusations. Of course you will now go on to spout how F2P will never work because even though I use the words alternative models time and again you will latch onto the idea that everything labeled F2P is the exact same and ignore the crux of the argument.