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General: Questions About F2P Conversions
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
In this week's installment of Free Zone, MMORPG.com columnist Richard Aihoshi considers the conversion of several subscription titles to free-to-play games. What does it mean when a 'premium' game goes F2P? Richard examines this question and others. Keep reading!
It has been interesting to watch the still continuing discussions that have sprung forth from the announcements about Lord of the Rings Online and EverQuest II shifting their business models. In part, this has been due to various questions that have come to mind, some of which I've decided to comment on today.
Read more of Richard Aihoshi's Free Zone.
Comments
Richard,
I think it could be labeled a "trend", LOTRO and EQ2 are pretty big name titles....and from seperate companies....and certainly there is alot of hype surrounding the model in the media. Whether it's more of a "fad" then a "trend" remains to be seen though....and I suspect at least partialy will depend on how well the move does for LOTRO and EQ2. Purportedly it did well for DDO....but DDO is really a very different offering then either of those two....and was in a different place subscription wise.
I don't think that there was too much contention that DDO was floundering before the move, so Turbine didn't have much to loose by trying to move it to F2P. I certainly don't buy the LOTRO was underperforming arguement. Clearly the management behind these moves expects that it will gain them much more profit..... whether they are right or not remains to be seen.... If not, it would hardly be the first time that a major corporations management misread a market by trying to change an existing model into something different. Can you say "New Coke."
Again, clearly it worked with DDO...but that doesn't mean it will transalate well elsewhere.
Thirdly, I'm not entirely convinced these moves are entirely directed toward the Western market. They could be....but I also know that LOTRO has been expanding into Asia...I'd be cuorius to see how much that might have influenced thier decision making process with this move.
Part of the problem comes from the difference in perspectives from the publisher to the consumer.
Online games started with a per minute cost (as that is how connection was charged), then it moved to a monthly fee (as connection changed as well).
The move to the monthly fee was something the consumer didn't like, as it cost them more per month than the per minute charge. However, the habits of the consumer changed, and they started using the service more to 'justify' the cost, and eventually started using more than would have been justified by the per minute charge.
Now the market is shifting back, the monthly fee is standard, but they are adding on per usage (item/service) charges so as to create a higher cost for specific activities. This is what we have been seeing with the advent of the hybrid business models. They are very effective ways of providing different tiers of service.
How does F2P fit into this? Well, in today's online market, the digital download is the best method to get your product on the market. Putting a charge on this not only limits your sales, but it is not very appealing to the market. Hence the creation of the 'Free' category. Players can download and play for free... and are monetized by the sale of items that makeup the 'monthly' fee. Moving to the monthly fee gives them a better deal, and helps to track/monetize them. Then there are still the premium sales to be made for the extra money.
F2P IS the future... as long as things like digital downloads are used. There is no better/cheaper/more efficient method of marketing a good product than letting people try it. The product speaks for itself. As long as this the situation, then F2P is how products will be marketed...
I don't think its a trend yet. However if we continue to see it more and more then yes.
I would like to comment on the one paragraph were these game under performing. The answer would be yes.
It was a well known fact that lotro has/had been having retention problems. There is a lot of debate as to why, mostly it would be the gear and raid gates that locked folks out of certain areas they were paying for. I had been saying on the lotro forums we were headed for this in 2012, I actually said the game was going to die in 2012. It reached that point much sooner. come September 15/16 it will bee free to play. Lotro will be newly reborn and only a former shadow of itself. The reason why is most of the game experience is now turned to the new players. While only giving small little bits to folks at the cap level.
Now lets look at eq2. Under performing there yes too. The game has been around six years. It suffers with the stygma of the SOE name on it. Lots of folks will never touch an SOE game now due to things that have happened to other games. I.E. swg, matrix, planet side, and others. However EQ2 is not going totally free to play. There are two different servers. The free to play side and the side I still play on the subscriber based side. Who knows how this is going to work out.
I will end with saying this, give a few months and lets see what kind of name that Turbine and Soe comes out with, I got a feeling that there will be a lot of newly generated discontent for both these companies in the near future.
So can you post a link to theese "facts" or what?
If WoW = The Beatles
and WAR = Led Zeppelin
Then LotrO = Pink Floyd
SupermanOX,
Not sure where you were getting the "per minute" charge being a better deal for consumers. I used to play games back on Genie back in the day where the hourly connection fee for those games was something like $3 per hr.... Let me assure you that I wanted to play ALOT more then 3-5 hrs per month. The monthly subscription rates were the BEST (IMO) thing to happen to online game consumers.
Note that the point you are making about digital downloads has nothing really to do with F2P as a business model. Lots of B2P games offer digital distribution for selling thier games (at a reduced cost).... Lots of the also offer demo's for download or even limited Free Trials. Those provide the consumer the opportunity to sample before making a purchase decision....which I agree is an expected feature of software today. Having the entire game based on a F2P model is very different then offering a limited free trial or a Demo.
List all games this site has in the database and tell me what payment model is more widespread.
."It was a well known fact that lotro has/had been having retention problems."
This.. Did you even play lotro?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
waiting for ... nothing..
I believe we will see more and more older mmo's out there jump on this wagon, as for new games, I don't see any company giving up box sales, I think the trend there will be subs with a store of some kind, these are for profit companies and if this expands or increases their profits, I have no doubt that the standard, 14.99 a month sub only game will go the way of the dino's..
in the future..
I think he meant it was obvious to anyone who had played the game for any length of time that the population was in a downward trend. Hence the non stop come back free weekends.
WOW isnt great because it has 12 million players. WOW has 12 million players because its great.
Oh so thats what the word "fact" means in trollish?
The only downwards trend Ive seen was around 6 months before MoM launched when alot of people left since there was no point to keep playing after reaching 50. Since Moria released it has seemed steady, probably thanks to that they added stuff to do after reaching cap.
If WoW = The Beatles
and WAR = Led Zeppelin
Then LotrO = Pink Floyd
Most of the headcount posts have been deleted about 3 months back when they decided to clean out the forums in lotro. It had been a hotly debated topic, one that resulted in several folks getting the ban hammer. One I can name in particular would be rod. I even had a few tin foil hats put on me for my views, and even pointed out that unless they did something to retain the veteran players that we were going free to play, and 2 months after I said that bam there was the anouncment.
All one had to do was log into game any time with int the past year and do headcounts. I did them for a while myself until I became board with trying to prove that we did have a problem, and get into another heated argument that we either were or were not having issues.. There was an uptake during the xpac, but nothing that has come close to the population counts we had prior mom.
I will just point you over at the lotro forums as after a hard day of work, I'm not going to bother with my time trying to see if any of those threads even exit any more. I know the ones by rod are long gone as well as a lot of the ones I did myself.
I don't think the word "fact" means what you think it means.
Did you observe lower ingame numbers during the summer months than before? I don't doubt you did, since every MMO has noticeably lower in game numbers during those months. Your "headcount" is probably the least reliable indicator one could base your conspiracy on.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Are you serious? MOM was not well recieved at all. While personally I liked it well enough there were many complaints voiced about it. You are correct. When the cap was 50 things did take a downward turn in terms of subs and Moria brought some back for awhile but they didnt stay long.
WOW isnt great because it has 12 million players. WOW has 12 million players because its great.
There is another post around here about Turbine scouring the forums. I dont know as I dont go there anymore but when I did I can say that anything negative about F2P was not tolerated and a lot of their older promises were removed as well.
WOW isnt great because it has 12 million players. WOW has 12 million players because its great.
Yes the welcome back week ends were always an indicator.
Not only that but we had an alliance, you could see there as well. We were allied with about 8 other guilds and shared a chat channel so you could reach out and see who all was available. I logged in this weekend oh about 9pm Saturday night, and a channel that once had around 100+ folks in it had 4 folks in it and nobody was talking. To me that's a downward trend. I head other smaller guilds complain that they were dead in the watter after the kinship contest. Forcing some to either grow or be absorbed. Some folks like me see that as fact, other folks just call it rubbish
I don't think you sell out, and then take your cash cow to the extent of going free to play unless you your hurting for cash. Just my thoughts. Then you have to ask why are they hurting for cash
Some folks are going to say they are trying to copy the ddo success, but ddo was dead when they did that and it turned around. Who knows if it will work or not.
However they are not getting any more of my cash, for any game.
Am I the only one looking at this new model as more of a freemium one than a "F2P" one?
Not to mention a perfect excuse to go full monthly fee + item all, unless you want to purchase quest packs, lift an account restriction like broker usage, inventory usage, gold cap limit or similar things everywhere.
Yes lotro forums are very heavly moderated. Here is a link to one that was closed last week, take a look at the notes from the cm about why it was washed then locked.
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=351353
The per/hr charge was the better deal because in the real world time = money. People with unlimited ammounts of time could not dominate the game when they were being charged $3/hr or more. This deal was better for those working jobs who had the money but couldn't make the time commitment modern MMOs demand of players. The truth is $3/hr is nothing when you work and get paid $20/hr. Subs are actually more expensive for working people because the time commitment. Every hour I spend in game instead of working is a net loss to my income of $20. Microtransactions where players pay for time is just a re-emergance of the old paradigm.
Well that is what a lot of us vet's in eq2 are calling eq2 extended. A freemium. However if you want certain classes, certain spells, certain content, certain dungeons, gold level cap, and level 80-90 unlocked then you have to buy some sort of subscription. Turns out the gold subscription gets you everything that we have in live except the price tag. I normally get 6 months at a time 79 bucks, that's 160 a year. The gold plan for eq2 extended is 200 dollars. However suposedly you dont have to buy the xpac you use station cash to buy your xpacs. So yes it is more of a fremium with hopes folks will either sub up or visit the cash shop.
You cant say the same thing about lotro, you only get level 1-20 free after that you start adding up the cash and turbine points to get you where your going. They are using close to the same model as ddo.
Good link although I only read as far as the....dont post it, PM me and I will post if it meets approval .... part. That is what has been going on for sometime now. Gets better and better doesnt it? Oh well, its business and we all have the option of not playing which I have done. Turbine used to be one of if not the best, but things change and they will see no more of my time and money.
WOW isnt great because it has 12 million players. WOW has 12 million players because its great.
What's really funny is all the fanboys who ran around ( and some still do ) spouting the "LotRO is in the top 3 of mmorpgs", only to disappear when it was pointed out to them that both the CEOs of Warner Brothers and Turbine stated in an interview just before LotRO F2P ( and while they were still saying there were no plans for LotRO to go F2P ) was announced that DDO was fifth (5th) in the market and LotRO was eighth (8th).
I play LotRO and I like it. But some of you guys are really funny.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
LOTRO was reported as 8th highest money making MMO by DFC Intelligence, which is a different statistic from subscription numbers. Most players and even industry people pretty much understood that when it came to subscriptions in the West, WOW was out front and EVE, WAR and LOTRO (and possibly AOC) were huddled in a muddled 2nd/3rd place pile up. However, if you still want to focus on money making MMOs, although not at all what 'fanboys' were 'spouting' about when discussing LOTRO being in third, of the Western MMOs that same article linked above shows LOTRO in 3rd.
Maybe people 'disappeared' because you might have come across as rather set in your views thus leaving little room for discussion.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
"I had been saying on the lotro forums we were headed for this in 2012, I actually said the game was going to die in 2012."
We're all going to die in 2012, so what does it matter?
I don't even believe in Jeebus.
This was an interesting and thought-provoking article.
I tend to say, let's see the next 6 months/year before we jump to the conclusion of this being a trend. Again I point to so many games being developed here in the West that have a subscription payment model. Most Western games have this year been released as a P2P or P2P with cash shop. Outside of Allods, most games in the West are still subscription-games. Most older games in the West are also not converting to F2P.
In the case of EQ2, it's clearly an experiment (and hasn't been gotten right yet). Will they keep Extended? I don't know. If EA follows suit with DAoC and UO, CCP with EVE, and SoE with SWG, EQ1, etc., then we can start talking about a trend. Will these games go that route? I quite simply don't know for most of them, except possibly with EVE. I don't think CCP will switch it to F2A because of the PLEX and GTC systems already in place. A lot of players sub to the game just to train skills, so doubtful that CCP would nerf that form of revenue for itself.
Playing MUDs and MMOs since 1994.