Um, Acclaim did way more than MMG's. So saying its downfall is 100% pinned to F2p is a bit.....crazy.
But if you have a narrative, push it I guess.
It may be crazy, but it's completely true. If you look at their net gain after concentrating more and more on their F2P titles, you'll see it go down steadily.
They clearly stated, they had hundreds of thousands of players on their F2P titles, but something like only 5% actually spent any money in their cash shops (and ALL of their games attempted to the fullest to force you to pay for things from their cash shops in order to compete).
Acclaim was also one of the first MAJOR companies to push F2P, and was one of the 3 major F2P flagships showing it's "successful nature".
F2P is a crackpot business model, and we ALL knew it except for an acceptable few who are easily suckered into spending money for nothing .
Well 2 Moons didn't have many people spending cash in the shop because it wasn't a pay to win model. Acclaim had all of the games that didn't support pay to win, and it didn't get them very far with getting too much success. They also had very poor advertising, and a lot of their free to play games were just really bad. I mean Dance! Online? Really? It was fun, but they didn't go for the right crowd, they could have gotten the hardcore Stepmania crowd if they didn't make it into a dancing pop-star simulator game.
F2p is immoral and no one should support that model.
When you have teams bragging about having an average of 50$ from each player.. when the majority of players play 0 or almost 0, this means they are extorting a very large amount out of those few people with pathological spending problems, and that's just wrong.
It's more complicated than that, but if you think about it based on that, you might 'get' what I am trying to say.
I think the F2P industry needs to be regulated.
so you're saying we need to make those people that spend thousands of dollars on F2P MMO's stop? umm...why? because you don't like it? to make F2P's fail? it's their money, if they want to spent it on a F2P game that's their choice.
Is it their choice?
It's more or less the same general type of psychological problem as "compulsive gambling".
What I hear here is: "I enjoy playing for free, therefore I don't care that the game is destroying people", more or less.
Well, I guess the world always needs some evil people to make decent people seem even better eh?
umm...yes? it is their choice. i've played many F2P games and never had this uncontrollable urge to spend my money in the CS. i guess it depends on how much self control you have.
F2P is a crackpot business model, and we ALL knew it except for an acceptable few who are easily suckered into spending money for nothing .
i'm sorry but i don't understand this. spending money for nothing? if i spent $20 for a mount, how am i getting nothing? i'm getting the mount i just spent $20 for. o.O
F2P is a crackpot business model, and we ALL knew it except for an acceptable few who are easily suckered into spending money for nothing .
i'm sorry but i don't understand this. spending money for nothing? if i spent $20 for a mount, how am i getting nothing? i'm getting the mount i just spent $20 for. o.O
I'm thinking Faded is thinking that money for "virtual goods" that can be removed / changed / not resold or physical is "worthless".
I, personally, think $20.00 for a flag in a database is crazy. However, many people feel different. *shrug* I'd sure as hell sell $20.00 database flags to anyone that wanted them!
Just as there are f2p games that shut down each year, there are also p2p games that shut down each year. While not as common, game companies also fail, but this does not mean MMOs as a whole are dying or that f2p as a business model is dying.
As a general rule, well done games prosper and poorly done games don't, regardless of their business model.
Atm, I'm in beta for both LOTRO f2p and EQ2 f2p and it looks like they will both do well (especially LOTRO).
The correct title for this thread would be 'The Death of a F2P company'.
F2p is immoral and no one should support that model.
When you have teams bragging about having an average of 50$ from each player.. when the majority of players play 0 or almost 0, this means they are extorting a very large amount out of those few people with pathological spending problems, and that's just wrong.
It's more complicated than that, but if you think about it based on that, you might 'get' what I am trying to say.
I think the F2P industry needs to be regulated.
so you're saying we need to make those people that spend thousands of dollars on F2P MMO's stop? umm...why? because you don't like it? to make F2P's fail? it's their money, if they want to spent it on a F2P game that's their choice.
Is it their choice?
It's more or less the same general type of psychological problem as "compulsive gambling".
What I hear here is: "I enjoy playing for free, therefore I don't care that the game is destroying people", more or less.
Well, I guess the world always needs some evil people to make decent people seem even better eh?
umm...yes? it is their choice. i've played many F2P games and never had this uncontrollable urge to spend my money in the CS. i guess it depends on how much self control you have.
Well, addiction is real and some people have an overwhelming need to improve their self worth. In a large (if not overwhelming) number of cash-shop games, you can pay enough money to pretty much walk over the game.
I've seen people spend not-rational amounts of money, including rent and food, to play these games.
Casinos and bartenders both have moral and sometimes legal obligations to stop people obviously out of control.
And all of us, when we become aware of that kind of situation, have SOME moral obligation to at least say something.
I wouldn't call those people that play for free "evil" if they don't care that others are subsidizing their game play. It is a self-correcting problem anyway. The game designers will make the game less and less fun (to drive people to spend money!) until they either stop playing or spend cash.
Just as there are f2p games that shut down each year, there are also p2p games that shut down each year. While not as common, game companies also fail, but this does not mean MMOs as a whole are dying or that f2p as a business model is dying.
As a general rule, well done games prosper and poorly done games don't, regardless of their business model.
Atm, I'm in beta for both LOTRO f2p and EQ2 f2p and it looks like they will both do well (especially LOTRO).
The correct title for this thread would be 'The Death of a F2P company'.
I don't think f2p as a business model is dieing (reasoning in a previous post).
However, I don't think the two examples given (LOTRO and EQ2) are valid as they were full-fledged P2P games. LOTRO was a pretty good, if linear, game. With the movies out of the way and player base waining, they're trying to get new converts with a bolt-on f2p-like model.
EQ2 f2p looks like a fail. 2 bag slots? Um, no. That's crippled by itself. I'd say that would be more like an extended trial / free way to get alts for grouping.
I think LOTRO is going to do well or at least OK. I feel EQ2 is going to fail.
Neither of those games I would call "f2p" or cash-shop games as they weren't developed in that model. This places their level of polish out of reach of any current f2p game.
In my mind, when we're discussing f2p games it is something like Runes of Magic; not DDO, LOTRO, or EQ2 (cripple version).
Are there crappy P2P games? You bet there are! And they are legion. However, there are some decent P2P games. There are NO (as in none, nada) good value f2p games. They are all rip-offs. This does not include bolt-on f2p games that are or were still p2p games.
I do not agree with compelling casinos to regulate their customers. A person on self-destruct will walk right through any attempts to stop the decent until they reach their own bottom. Then the misery and pain shocks either shocks them back to life or they die. Breaking the fall only leaves them uninjured at the bottom and with no motivation to change.
F2P will likely still fail. The fault is in the model. In F2P you are forking over money for virtual products; products which are always flawed in some way. If you went to a store and bought a boardgame and found it missing pieces you would return it. If you rented the same game you would get a refund and move on. But in F2P you are buying parts of the game, not renting them. The typical response to complaints about a product by MMO is to stonewall and ignore. Now imagine you took back that same boardgame missing the pieces (which you bought not rented) and after waiting in line the csr says, "next" and ignores you... you repeat the process (being so patient and proper :-), only to get the same. Then, because you persist, two thugs come and take your boardgame and remove you from the store and no one will even address your concerns.
If that happened in the "real" world it would be reviled as consumer fraud and targeted by consumer groups, lawsuits, possibly even criminal charges. That happens virtually all the time. The difference in F2P is that funds are not spent to rent items, so when that player is removed for seeking a resolution and all those "points" or viritual "items" are then denied to him, they have just violated consumer protections already in place. F2P will end in class action lawsuits just as soon as a judge can be convinced to take a "game" seriously. With millions of real dollars at play it is only a matter of time.
F2P is a crackpot business model, and we ALL knew it except for an acceptable few who are easily suckered into spending money for nothing .
i'm sorry but i don't understand this. spending money for nothing? if i spent $20 for a mount, how am i getting nothing? i'm getting the mount i just spent $20 for. o.O
I'm thinking Faded is thinking that money for "virtual goods" that can be removed / changed / not resold or physical is "worthless".
I, personally, think $20.00 for a flag in a database is crazy. However, many people feel different. *shrug* I'd sure as hell sell $20.00 database flags to anyone that wanted them!
It's a real ripoff from an objective point of view.
$20 for a mount or some cool-looking equipment, when you can find full retail games at this price, it must be amazing to make a single 3D skin and profit from it more than whole games do (as the difference in costs makes it INCREDIBLY profitable).
$10 to have mechanics bent (either made easier or faster progression) to your credit card, when developers shouldn't be doing the mechanics hard or long in the first place if you feel it's attractive to pay to not play.
If they're selling content packs like GW did or expansion packs, at least they had to work for it instead of making a shortcut for their mechanics (double-dipping) or selling skins. Oh well, can't really consider a game that sells content to have an "item mall"... they aren't selling items, they are selling a DLC equivalent.
Um, Acclaim did way more than MMG's. So saying its downfall is 100% pinned to F2p is a bit.....crazy.
But if you have a narrative, push it I guess.
It may be crazy, but it's completely true. If you look at their net gain after concentrating more and more on their F2P titles, you'll see it go down steadily.
They clearly stated, they had hundreds of thousands of players on their F2P titles, but something like only 5% actually spent any money in their cash shops (and ALL of their games attempted to the fullest to force you to pay for things from their cash shops in order to compete).
Acclaim was also one of the first MAJOR companies to push F2P, and was one of the 3 major F2P flagships showing it's "successful nature".
F2P is a crackpot business model, and we ALL knew it except for an acceptable few who are easily suckered into spending money for nothing .
A business model does not a success make. The game kind of matters to you know. Just because I sell you each peanut does not mean my turd will break a billion.
Thats the crazy part I was talking about blaming it all on F2p.
---------- "Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
I have been playing a F2P game called Galaxy Online for (too) long. In short, a space game with 6 factions, where you make ships and attack other factions to gain control of a map.
Because the game idea was great, and the initial version was good enough to have high hopes for the future, loads of people spent money in the shop, that basically bought them shorter build times to make ships and a few other things to speed things up.
The company never really developped the game further. What they did was introduce "new servers", and the same people that had played on server X would move to server Y to finally become the top player there. And after a while, the servers would get merged with older servers, and another new server would be introduced: rinse and repeat. I lost count but they did it 5-6 times, making big bucks each time people used their wallets to get on top on the new servers.
Now, even the slowest kids on the block realized after merge 2 or 3, that this was what they would get in the long run. Yet even today, people spend money. And i really cant figure out why. People seem to be willing to spend money even if the company laughs in their face, and as such i on't have high hopes that this F2P model will go away soon.
Currently playing browser games. Waiting for Albion Online, Citadel of Sorcery and Camelot Unchained. Played: almost all MMO pre 2007
I do not agree with compelling casinos to regulate their customers. A person on self-destruct will walk right through any attempts to stop the decent until they reach their own bottom. Then the misery and pain shocks either shocks them back to life or they die. Breaking the fall only leaves them uninjured at the bottom and with no motivation to change.
If this happened in isolation, then you would be more-correct. However, as anyone that has dealt with obsessive or addictive behaviors would tell you, they don't. There is usually a lot of collateral damage from addictive behaviors. (I won't be using the usual mealy-mouthed "save teh babuh" speech here. I'll spare us both.)
However, even if there weren't, the cost to society is generally cheaper to deal with behavior at the source than allow the self-destruct model.
Your points about a person hell-bent on destroying themselves being a tenacious force. The point behind the stop-gap behavior is that some percentage of people are impacted enough to change their behavior.
I guess the idea is to funnel them into hitting a bunch of branches on the way down in the hope that they grab one. If their fall is broken some people do change. (Though not all. And for some it takes a few times before they change. Some never do.)
I agree with you that legislating morality or creating laws governing behavior will fail. Sometimes. But removing some of that damage in the process is worth it from both a sociological and purely selfish viewpoint. It simply lowers cost and removes possible colateral impact.
F2P will likely still fail. The fault is in the model. In F2P you are forking over money for virtual products; products which are always flawed in some way. If you went to a store and bought a boardgame and found it missing pieces you would return it. If you rented the same game you would get a refund and move on. But in F2P you are buying parts of the game, not renting them. The typical response to complaints about a product by MMO is to stonewall and ignore. Now imagine you took back that same boardgame missing the pieces (which you bought not rented) and after waiting in line the csr says, "next" and ignores you... you repeat the process (being so patient and proper :-), only to get the same. Then, because you persist, two thugs come and take your boardgame and remove you from the store and no one will even address your concerns.
Also, it makes it impossible to know what you actually did buy. What happens if you buy a +10 magic sword of butt-whooping for $10.00 and the devs decide they want to charge $20.00 for it? Well, they just change your +10 sword to a +5 and make a newer, better sword. You is screwed.
If that happened in the "real" world it would be reviled as consumer fraud and targeted by consumer groups, lawsuits, possibly even criminal charges. That happens virtually all the time. The difference in F2P is that funds are not spent to rent items, so when that player is removed for seeking a resolution and all those "points" or viritual "items" are then denied to him, they have just violated consumer protections already in place. F2P will end in class action lawsuits just as soon as a judge can be convinced to take a "game" seriously. With millions of real dollars at play it is only a matter of time.
United States District Court E. D. of Pennsylvania: Class-Action Lawsuit against Linden Labs for Second Life virtual property. (A $5 mil lawsuit). This case was first filed on Oct 6, 2006 and is still ongoing. An appeal was filed as recently as Apr 15, 2010.
This idea is far from over and hasn't ever been fought in courts. (Including Micro$oft's "we're not selling only renting" idea for its software.)
I predict that the "power of free shit" will cause the courts and tax-lovers to start legislating the crap out of virtual property and that will at least put a chink in the f2p ripoff. Although this might not happen for a decade.
It does seem some posters have got the wrong end of the stick; my overly theatrical title may be responsible for that, to summarise:
When F2P MMO’s go south we hear nothing about it, when one P2P gets cancelled there is a fanfare, its staff articles galore! This creates the illusion that F2P is doing fantastically while P2P is being punched on the ropes. As a business model F2P can work but is no sure winner, in business there is no such thing as a sure winner. Yet the MMO industry sees F2P as the answer to all their problems. The glut of MMO’s we now have, their similarity to each other and the impact of new types of online play are why new MMO’s find it hard to make ends meet not the revenue model.
Don't put such a overly theatrical title next time.
There are a great quantity of F2P games out there to the point that it's like throwing noodles at a wall to see which sticks. It's pretty much expected that some percentage will fail and not many people will shed a tear about it. Hence, there's no need to explicitly say so-and-so failed unless it was somehow hyped up before it failed. On the reverse side, there's not much coverage of successful F2P either. (I define success as being able to survive for years, regardless of how well known it is)
From what I've seen, expectations and coverage of P2P games are higher. Hence, both their successes and failures will be covered.
I'm not sure if the industry actually sees F2P as the answer to all their problems. If so, then there would be no new P2P games out and a vast majority would be making only F2P games. What I think is happening is that the cost to translate a F2P game (probably from Korean) is much cheaper than developing a P2P game and hence companies are more willing to sink some capital into it to test to see if it would work. If the translated F2P doesn't work in a particular region and fails, then it's not a big a loss than if a company devoted all their resources in building a P2P that doesn't work out.
It does seem some posters have got the wrong end of the stick; my overly theatrical title may be responsible for that, to summarise:
When F2P MMO’s go south we hear nothing about it, when one P2P gets cancelled there is a fanfare, its staff articles galore! This creates the illusion that F2P is doing fantastically while P2P is being punched on the ropes. As a business model F2P can work but is no sure winner, in business there is no such thing as a sure winner. Yet the MMO industry sees F2P as the answer to all their problems. The glut of MMO’s we now have, their similarity to each other and the impact of new types of online play are why new MMO’s find it hard to make ends meet not the revenue model.
Because you're making a big deal out of it. There is really no reason to over analyze this. A bunch of low budget games got shut down because the company behind it wants to put its focus in an entirely different direction.
Free to play is currently doing really well and P2P is on a decline. Look at the games released and shut down over the past few years. Auto Assault, Tabula Rasa and The Matrix Online shut down. Pirtates of the Caribean, Vanguard: Saga of heroes, Warhammer Online,Age of Conan and Champions Online are all doing quite poorly. Those are all MMOs with high production values. It seems that P2P MMORPGs have a pretty large failure rate and this is not a good thing.
I think its a good sign for F2P MMOs that the crappy korean ones are dieing off because that we now get western quality MMOs that offer both a better buisnes model and better gameplay.
So you could call DDO/LotrO/Eq2ex the F2P killers. It may mean that both pure F2P AND pure P2P is dieng and instead we get MMOs that will give us the choice in how we want to pay.
Personally I woldnt mind if 99% of all asian MMOs just died.
What a selfish type of person are you, why even bother to play MMORPG's, perhaps you didn't know it yet but not all games should be loved by you, remember that even those games you might dislike there still plenty of people that do like them
Me, I don't like asian MMORPG , but thankfully I have the option to not play them, perhaps try that some day and hope you wil lfind the MMORPG you do like. But wanting 99% of all asian MMO's to die just shows you not really a gamer. As a gamer you would want others to enjoy themself with games regardless how you feel about those games yourself.
On topic F2P does not die, kinda same aswer as I gave Papadam, just because it's something you or me don't like doesn't mean there are others probebly even more then just you or me that do like it. So it's not going to die regardless your or mine feeling about them.
It does seem some posters have got the wrong end of the stick; my overly theatrical title may be responsible for that, to summarise:
When F2P MMO’s go south we hear nothing about it, when one P2P gets cancelled there is a fanfare, its staff articles galore! This creates the illusion that F2P is doing fantastically while P2P is being punched on the ropes. As a business model F2P can work but is no sure winner, in business there is no such thing as a sure winner. Yet the MMO industry sees F2P as the answer to all their problems. The glut of MMO’s we now have, their similarity to each other and the impact of new types of online play are why new MMO’s find it hard to make ends meet not the revenue model.
Because you're making a big deal out of it. There is really no reason to over analyze this. A bunch of low budget games got shut down because the company behind it wants to put its focus in an entirely different direction.
Free to play is currently doing really well and P2P is on a decline. Look at the games released and shut down over the past few years. Auto Assault, Tabula Rasa and The Matrix Online shut down. Pirtates of the Caribean, Vanguard: Saga of heroes, Warhammer Online,Age of Conan and Champions Online are all doing quite poorly. Those are all MMOs with high production values. It seems that P2P MMORPGs have a pretty large failure rate and this is not a good thing.
Those were all really bad games, IMO.
If you want to play them with a cash shop, go ahead.
But I don't want to play them with a subscription, or a cash shop.
If you think F2P players will play those games and spend money in the cash shop, ok fine, but they will be spending money on crappy games.
It does seem some posters have got the wrong end of the stick; my overly theatrical title may be responsible for that, to summarise:
When F2P MMO’s go south we hear nothing about it, when one P2P gets cancelled there is a fanfare, its staff articles galore! This creates the illusion that F2P is doing fantastically while P2P is being punched on the ropes. As a business model F2P can work but is no sure winner, in business there is no such thing as a sure winner. Yet the MMO industry sees F2P as the answer to all their problems. The glut of MMO’s we now have, their similarity to each other and the impact of new types of online play are why new MMO’s find it hard to make ends meet not the revenue model.
Because you're making a big deal out of it. There is really no reason to over analyze this. A bunch of low budget games got shut down because the company behind it wants to put its focus in an entirely different direction.
Free to play is currently doing really well and P2P is on a decline. Look at the games released and shut down over the past few years. Auto Assault, Tabula Rasa and The Matrix Online shut down. Pirtates of the Caribean, Vanguard: Saga of heroes, Warhammer Online,Age of Conan and Champions Online are all doing quite poorly. Those are all MMOs with high production values. It seems that P2P MMORPGs have a pretty large failure rate and this is not a good thing.
Those were all really bad games, IMO.
If you want to play them with a cash shop, go ahead.
But I don't want to play them with a subscription, or a cash shop.
If you think F2P players will play those games and spend money in the cash shop, ok fine, but they will be spending money on crappy games.
Its a good thing none of those people give a crap about your OPINION.
Apparently stating the truth in my sig is "trolling" Sig typo fixed thanks to an observant stragen001.
F2P is a crackpot business model, and we ALL knew it except for an acceptable few who are easily suckered into spending money for nothing .
i'm sorry but i don't understand this. spending money for nothing? if i spent $20 for a mount, how am i getting nothing? i'm getting the mount i just spent $20 for. o.O
I'm thinking Faded is thinking that money for "virtual goods" that can be removed / changed / not resold or physical is "worthless".
I, personally, think $20.00 for a flag in a database is crazy. However, many people feel different. *shrug* I'd sure as hell sell $20.00 database flags to anyone that wanted them!
Your bank account is all 1s and 0s in a database. Your treasured family video or pics are all 1s & 0s on your hard disk.
A shrink charges you $200 per hour just to talk. Value is value. It does NOT have to be physical.
The fact that millions (including me) bought the flying mount PROVES that it has value.
It does seem some posters have got the wrong end of the stick; my overly theatrical title may be responsible for that, to summarise:
When F2P MMO’s go south we hear nothing about it, when one P2P gets cancelled there is a fanfare, its staff articles galore! This creates the illusion that F2P is doing fantastically while P2P is being punched on the ropes. As a business model F2P can work but is no sure winner, in business there is no such thing as a sure winner. Yet the MMO industry sees F2P as the answer to all their problems. The glut of MMO’s we now have, their similarity to each other and the impact of new types of online play are why new MMO’s find it hard to make ends meet not the revenue model.
Because you're making a big deal out of it. There is really no reason to over analyze this. A bunch of low budget games got shut down because the company behind it wants to put its focus in an entirely different direction.
Free to play is currently doing really well and P2P is on a decline. Look at the games released and shut down over the past few years. Auto Assault, Tabula Rasa and The Matrix Online shut down. Pirtates of the Caribean, Vanguard: Saga of heroes, Warhammer Online,Age of Conan and Champions Online are all doing quite poorly. Those are all MMOs with high production values. It seems that P2P MMORPGs have a pretty large failure rate and this is not a good thing.
Those were all really bad games, IMO.
If you want to play them with a cash shop, go ahead.
But I don't want to play them with a subscription, or a cash shop.
If you think F2P players will play those games and spend money in the cash shop, ok fine, but they will be spending money on crappy games.
Its a good thing none of those people give a crap about your OPINION.
Which people? Which of those games do you think was good?
Are you saying the Matrix Online would be a great game with a cash shop?
when you have to donate to be able to compete fairly with others, F2P fails. Same with gold and item seller heavy games. Guild Wars seems to be the best example of what i like as far as how they operate. That being said, and leaving GW out of the equasion, i prefer P2P for the equal footing and even handedness.
I don't see how either is fair, really. If you don't have the time to put into a P2P game, you're always going to be behind those that do. How is that really any different than the person who can afford to put the money into a cash shop game? Purely on a time = $ - they are equal. It's funny the distaste people express for those willing to spend inordinate amounts of money on a game, yet some seem to feel that spending hundreds of hours a month on a game is somehow....saner?
If one sportsman puts in more time and gets a gold medal we don’t argue that what he did was unfair, that’s why time is not an issue. It’s good to see that most posters realise that hybrid revenue models like DDO are not F2P, so many on here only see two categories of revenue model.
I think that F2P doing well does gets attention, but not as much as P2P certainly. MMORPG for example has a regular guest writer who only does articles about F2P; does F2P need more attention than that?
I certainly don’t want all F2P to die, as gamers we should respect that other players may not want to play what we want to play. But I do hope that given time a F2P player sees that they are only getting what they are paying for, if they can afford 15$ a month they will notice the extra quality. Not in every P2P true but in nearly all of them.
I think both F2P and P2P fans are making too many assumptions here.
The F2P fans see that DDO went up a lot when it became F2P and that LOTRO and EQ2 will become F2P now.
The P2P fans saw Acclaims F2P games go up in flames.
But the truth is that crappy MMOs will not make any money no matter what and good MMOs will.
DDO was a Corpg and those games are easy to convert. Also DDO have always competed against GW (both games are about as good) and few people wanted to pay 15 bucks a month for a similar game they could get as B2P. When suddenly DDO became F2P the advantage shifted and DDO became the larger game but that is probably also because Turbine have put a lot of work into it while ANET have focused on GW2 instead. When DDO got the publicity people decided to try it again (since it was free to try) and saw that it was a lot better.
I am not so sure that the same thing will happen to LOTRO. First of all is an open MMO not as easy to adept to this method, selling questlines sounds like a mistake to me. Second of all will LOTRO soon go up against Guildwars 2 and that don't look that good for LOTRO. But until GW2 releases it might get some Wow players.
EQ2X will go down the drain, SOE are way to cheap to pull of a F2P game, they will overcharge people for everything in a way that will make most people to quit fast.
Comments
Well 2 Moons didn't have many people spending cash in the shop because it wasn't a pay to win model. Acclaim had all of the games that didn't support pay to win, and it didn't get them very far with getting too much success. They also had very poor advertising, and a lot of their free to play games were just really bad. I mean Dance! Online? Really? It was fun, but they didn't go for the right crowd, they could have gotten the hardcore Stepmania crowd if they didn't make it into a dancing pop-star simulator game.
umm...yes? it is their choice. i've played many F2P games and never had this uncontrollable urge to spend my money in the CS. i guess it depends on how much self control you have.
i'm sorry but i don't understand this. spending money for nothing? if i spent $20 for a mount, how am i getting nothing? i'm getting the mount i just spent $20 for. o.O
I'm thinking Faded is thinking that money for "virtual goods" that can be removed / changed / not resold or physical is "worthless".
I, personally, think $20.00 for a flag in a database is crazy. However, many people feel different. *shrug* I'd sure as hell sell $20.00 database flags to anyone that wanted them!
Just as there are f2p games that shut down each year, there are also p2p games that shut down each year. While not as common, game companies also fail, but this does not mean MMOs as a whole are dying or that f2p as a business model is dying.
As a general rule, well done games prosper and poorly done games don't, regardless of their business model.
Atm, I'm in beta for both LOTRO f2p and EQ2 f2p and it looks like they will both do well (especially LOTRO).
The correct title for this thread would be 'The Death of a F2P company'.
Well, addiction is real and some people have an overwhelming need to improve their self worth. In a large (if not overwhelming) number of cash-shop games, you can pay enough money to pretty much walk over the game.
I've seen people spend not-rational amounts of money, including rent and food, to play these games.
Casinos and bartenders both have moral and sometimes legal obligations to stop people obviously out of control.
And all of us, when we become aware of that kind of situation, have SOME moral obligation to at least say something.
I wouldn't call those people that play for free "evil" if they don't care that others are subsidizing their game play. It is a self-correcting problem anyway. The game designers will make the game less and less fun (to drive people to spend money!) until they either stop playing or spend cash.
I don't think f2p as a business model is dieing (reasoning in a previous post).
However, I don't think the two examples given (LOTRO and EQ2) are valid as they were full-fledged P2P games. LOTRO was a pretty good, if linear, game. With the movies out of the way and player base waining, they're trying to get new converts with a bolt-on f2p-like model.
EQ2 f2p looks like a fail. 2 bag slots? Um, no. That's crippled by itself. I'd say that would be more like an extended trial / free way to get alts for grouping.
I think LOTRO is going to do well or at least OK. I feel EQ2 is going to fail.
Neither of those games I would call "f2p" or cash-shop games as they weren't developed in that model. This places their level of polish out of reach of any current f2p game.
In my mind, when we're discussing f2p games it is something like Runes of Magic; not DDO, LOTRO, or EQ2 (cripple version).
Are there crappy P2P games? You bet there are! And they are legion. However, there are some decent P2P games. There are NO (as in none, nada) good value f2p games. They are all rip-offs. This does not include bolt-on f2p games that are or were still p2p games.
I do not agree with compelling casinos to regulate their customers. A person on self-destruct will walk right through any attempts to stop the decent until they reach their own bottom. Then the misery and pain shocks either shocks them back to life or they die. Breaking the fall only leaves them uninjured at the bottom and with no motivation to change.
F2P will likely still fail. The fault is in the model. In F2P you are forking over money for virtual products; products which are always flawed in some way. If you went to a store and bought a boardgame and found it missing pieces you would return it. If you rented the same game you would get a refund and move on. But in F2P you are buying parts of the game, not renting them. The typical response to complaints about a product by MMO is to stonewall and ignore. Now imagine you took back that same boardgame missing the pieces (which you bought not rented) and after waiting in line the csr says, "next" and ignores you... you repeat the process (being so patient and proper :-), only to get the same. Then, because you persist, two thugs come and take your boardgame and remove you from the store and no one will even address your concerns.
If that happened in the "real" world it would be reviled as consumer fraud and targeted by consumer groups, lawsuits, possibly even criminal charges. That happens virtually all the time. The difference in F2P is that funds are not spent to rent items, so when that player is removed for seeking a resolution and all those "points" or viritual "items" are then denied to him, they have just violated consumer protections already in place. F2P will end in class action lawsuits just as soon as a judge can be convinced to take a "game" seriously. With millions of real dollars at play it is only a matter of time.
It's a real ripoff from an objective point of view.
$20 for a mount or some cool-looking equipment, when you can find full retail games at this price, it must be amazing to make a single 3D skin and profit from it more than whole games do (as the difference in costs makes it INCREDIBLY profitable).
$10 to have mechanics bent (either made easier or faster progression) to your credit card, when developers shouldn't be doing the mechanics hard or long in the first place if you feel it's attractive to pay to not play.
If they're selling content packs like GW did or expansion packs, at least they had to work for it instead of making a shortcut for their mechanics (double-dipping) or selling skins. Oh well, can't really consider a game that sells content to have an "item mall"... they aren't selling items, they are selling a DLC equivalent.
A business model does not a success make. The game kind of matters to you know. Just because I sell you each peanut does not mean my turd will break a billion.
Thats the crazy part I was talking about blaming it all on F2p.
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"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
I have been playing a F2P game called Galaxy Online for (too) long. In short, a space game with 6 factions, where you make ships and attack other factions to gain control of a map.
Because the game idea was great, and the initial version was good enough to have high hopes for the future, loads of people spent money in the shop, that basically bought them shorter build times to make ships and a few other things to speed things up.
The company never really developped the game further. What they did was introduce "new servers", and the same people that had played on server X would move to server Y to finally become the top player there. And after a while, the servers would get merged with older servers, and another new server would be introduced: rinse and repeat. I lost count but they did it 5-6 times, making big bucks each time people used their wallets to get on top on the new servers.
Now, even the slowest kids on the block realized after merge 2 or 3, that this was what they would get in the long run. Yet even today, people spend money. And i really cant figure out why. People seem to be willing to spend money even if the company laughs in their face, and as such i on't have high hopes that this F2P model will go away soon.
Currently playing browser games. Waiting for Albion Online, Citadel of Sorcery and Camelot Unchained.
Played: almost all MMO pre 2007
It does seem some posters have got the wrong end of the stick; my overly theatrical title may be responsible for that, to summarise:
When F2P MMO’s go south we hear nothing about it, when one P2P gets cancelled there is a fanfare, its staff articles galore! This creates the illusion that F2P is doing fantastically while P2P is being punched on the ropes. As a business model F2P can work but is no sure winner, in business there is no such thing as a sure winner. Yet the MMO industry sees F2P as the answer to all their problems. The glut of MMO’s we now have, their similarity to each other and the impact of new types of online play are why new MMO’s find it hard to make ends meet not the revenue model.
Don't put such a overly theatrical title next time.
There are a great quantity of F2P games out there to the point that it's like throwing noodles at a wall to see which sticks. It's pretty much expected that some percentage will fail and not many people will shed a tear about it. Hence, there's no need to explicitly say so-and-so failed unless it was somehow hyped up before it failed. On the reverse side, there's not much coverage of successful F2P either. (I define success as being able to survive for years, regardless of how well known it is)
From what I've seen, expectations and coverage of P2P games are higher. Hence, both their successes and failures will be covered.
I'm not sure if the industry actually sees F2P as the answer to all their problems. If so, then there would be no new P2P games out and a vast majority would be making only F2P games. What I think is happening is that the cost to translate a F2P game (probably from Korean) is much cheaper than developing a P2P game and hence companies are more willing to sink some capital into it to test to see if it would work. If the translated F2P doesn't work in a particular region and fails, then it's not a big a loss than if a company devoted all their resources in building a P2P that doesn't work out.
Because you're making a big deal out of it. There is really no reason to over analyze this. A bunch of low budget games got shut down because the company behind it wants to put its focus in an entirely different direction.
Free to play is currently doing really well and P2P is on a decline. Look at the games released and shut down over the past few years. Auto Assault, Tabula Rasa and The Matrix Online shut down. Pirtates of the Caribean, Vanguard: Saga of heroes, Warhammer Online,Age of Conan and Champions Online are all doing quite poorly. Those are all MMOs with high production values. It seems that P2P MMORPGs have a pretty large failure rate and this is not a good thing.
What a selfish type of person are you, why even bother to play MMORPG's, perhaps you didn't know it yet but not all games should be loved by you, remember that even those games you might dislike there still plenty of people that do like them
Me, I don't like asian MMORPG , but thankfully I have the option to not play them, perhaps try that some day and hope you wil lfind the MMORPG you do like. But wanting 99% of all asian MMO's to die just shows you not really a gamer. As a gamer you would want others to enjoy themself with games regardless how you feel about those games yourself.
On topic F2P does not die, kinda same aswer as I gave Papadam, just because it's something you or me don't like doesn't mean there are others probebly even more then just you or me that do like it. So it's not going to die regardless your or mine feeling about them.
Those were all really bad games, IMO.
If you want to play them with a cash shop, go ahead.
But I don't want to play them with a subscription, or a cash shop.
If you think F2P players will play those games and spend money in the cash shop, ok fine, but they will be spending money on crappy games.
Its a good thing none of those people give a crap about your OPINION.
Apparently stating the truth in my sig is "trolling"
Sig typo fixed thanks to an observant stragen001.
Your bank account is all 1s and 0s in a database. Your treasured family video or pics are all 1s & 0s on your hard disk.
A shrink charges you $200 per hour just to talk. Value is value. It does NOT have to be physical.
The fact that millions (including me) bought the flying mount PROVES that it has value.
Which people? Which of those games do you think was good?
Are you saying the Matrix Online would be a great game with a cash shop?
I thnk it would suck either way.
I don't think DDO should be lumped in with other F2P games when it comes to labeling them 'pay to win'. It simply doesn't work that way.
when you have to donate to be able to compete fairly with others, F2P fails. Same with gold and item seller heavy games. Guild Wars seems to be the best example of what i like as far as how they operate. That being said, and leaving GW out of the equasion, i prefer P2P for the equal footing and even handedness.
I don't see how either is fair, really. If you don't have the time to put into a P2P game, you're always going to be behind those that do. How is that really any different than the person who can afford to put the money into a cash shop game? Purely on a time = $ - they are equal. It's funny the distaste people express for those willing to spend inordinate amounts of money on a game, yet some seem to feel that spending hundreds of hours a month on a game is somehow....saner?
If one sportsman puts in more time and gets a gold medal we don’t argue that what he did was unfair, that’s why time is not an issue. It’s good to see that most posters realise that hybrid revenue models like DDO are not F2P, so many on here only see two categories of revenue model.
I think that F2P doing well does gets attention, but not as much as P2P certainly. MMORPG for example has a regular guest writer who only does articles about F2P; does F2P need more attention than that?
I certainly don’t want all F2P to die, as gamers we should respect that other players may not want to play what we want to play. But I do hope that given time a F2P player sees that they are only getting what they are paying for, if they can afford 15$ a month they will notice the extra quality. Not in every P2P true but in nearly all of them.
I think both F2P and P2P fans are making too many assumptions here.
The F2P fans see that DDO went up a lot when it became F2P and that LOTRO and EQ2 will become F2P now.
The P2P fans saw Acclaims F2P games go up in flames.
But the truth is that crappy MMOs will not make any money no matter what and good MMOs will.
DDO was a Corpg and those games are easy to convert. Also DDO have always competed against GW (both games are about as good) and few people wanted to pay 15 bucks a month for a similar game they could get as B2P. When suddenly DDO became F2P the advantage shifted and DDO became the larger game but that is probably also because Turbine have put a lot of work into it while ANET have focused on GW2 instead. When DDO got the publicity people decided to try it again (since it was free to try) and saw that it was a lot better.
I am not so sure that the same thing will happen to LOTRO. First of all is an open MMO not as easy to adept to this method, selling questlines sounds like a mistake to me. Second of all will LOTRO soon go up against Guildwars 2 and that don't look that good for LOTRO. But until GW2 releases it might get some Wow players.
EQ2X will go down the drain, SOE are way to cheap to pull of a F2P game, they will overcharge people for everything in a way that will make most people to quit fast.