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LotrO revenue TRIPPLED with F2P
Papadam
Member Posts: 2,102
http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/01/06/turbine-lotro-revenue-tripled-since-going-f2p/
Looking forward to see how the haters will spin it!
Thats pretty impressive for an MMO that was already one of the biggest and most succesfull in the west.
If WoW = The Beatles
and WAR = Led Zeppelin
Then LotrO = Pink Floyd
Comments
So they made more money than they would via a sub. That is actually pretty scary as that means there is a portion of the players in an MMORPG that are spending above and beyond and their over the top spending supports all the others who do not spend anything. That is an eye opener but I guess this means the rest of us can rejoice and sponge off these poor idiots.I am quite happy to do so.
I will be honest here okay I never thought about this issue in fact I do not care whether I pay a sub or not as long as the game is fun. I just feel a bit bad for the people who just buy and buy but you are right if you say that those people deserve what happens to them because of their own lack of control. I think this business of relying on people without self control and it is model that makes them more money is distasteful but it is business. I feel indecent living off them but I think I am a minority.
I love guildwars and I have playing it for about two months now and that is a quality game. I enjoy it but that model is b2p and perhaps in some ways LotRO is not like a traditional f2p but I feel the future will change and more games will use this profitable method and it will be focussed on how to milk these type of people. If you think otherwise that is naive anything that makes this type of money will be exploited to the hilt. What will happen is that more of these types of games will come out but don't kid yourself that this will improve the f2p servings.
This means that in the future every game will have a cash shop.
The pay to win model doesnt bother me but I have no self control and end up spending 300$ a month, thats what bothers me.
No F2P for me.
I dove back into LOTRO this past week and am having a blast. With just questing on some of my older characters and a couple new alts I have already earned enough TP's just trough playing to purchase 2 quest packs, not to mention just doing the Yule Tide stuff also grants TP's, which I thought was pretty cool.
Turbine did a good job, they made sure nothing in the cash shop is necessary to buy in order to continue playing and 90% of it is just cosmetic and items to make crafting and leveling easier. I only wish they would add in purchasable monster play.
My Guild Wars 2 Vids
The end is near! Repent! Repent!
Have you even seen what's in their cash shop? Hardly pay to win. I will say that USD/Turbine Point exchange rate is iffy- there's a better value in subscribing than purchasing points in my opinion.
It wouldn't surprise me if Blizzard adds a cash shop on top of World of warcraft, as well as the sub, oh wait they have.
Valve put a cash shop on Team fortress 2, you pay for the better weapons, hats, exclusive stuff, again milking the cow.
Activision wouldn't surprise me if their new Call of duty from Sledgehammer Games has a cashshop, P2P model, or both.
Blizzard's Titan mmo, again wll have a sub and probably a cash shop as well.
It's not just F2P doing the cashshop model, P2P corporate giants are now leaning towards cash shops as well, squeezing every dollar from the cow they can. They don't even have quality in games / mmos anymore.
No it does not. I didn't watch the interview, but I bet they compared figures of last the half of 2010 with the same period in 2009. No wonder you'd get a tripple revenue then. In 2009, the number of subscriptions was extremely low because over half of the subscribers were on a lifetime subscription. And without the monthly income of regular subscriptions, you don't have much income.
With the 2nd half of 2010 having the revenue trippled only tells that they indeed did get more players, but the growth is only marginal, about 50% total max. Not to mention, a lot of revineu comes from new players buying Lone Lands, North Downs and (prossibly) Trollshaws. I bet most newcoming players won't go much further than that in playing the game. On the EU servers there's a lot of complaint from mainstream MMO players that LotRo is so different (is it really *THAT* different..?)
Is this a jealously over wealth thing, a sour grapes thing, or do you consider anyone that spends money on their hobby - the limit of what others can spend dictated by you, of course - an idiot? Why is the person who can afford to spend extra on his entertainment and leisure a 'poor idiot'?
*hides his NY Islanders collectibles and Hibben knife collection*
Whew! Got those gone before someone saw them and figured me for some kind of idiot!
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
Triple what? 3 times 0 is still 0... Why not s sigle number ?
its says turbine has triple their profits single F2P... they were manking none before that why they changed to f2p... this annoucement is trolling.
Lol. Here's some ointment. It should stop that burning sensation.
There is NO miracle patch.
95% of what you see in beta won't change by launch.
Hope is not a stategy.
______________________________
"This kind of topic is like one of those little cartoon boxes held up by a stick on a string, with a piece of meat under it. In other words, bait."
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
The difference is, though, that Blizzard's cash shop sells truly fluff items. No one "needs" a sparkly flying horse mount, no matter how "hardcore"or active of a player they are. There are plenty of other mounts available in-game that are perfectly good. Further, a sub to WoW still gets you access to all the game's content. You're not stopped by NPCs with icons over their heads indicating "ooops... gotta buy this quest content! Sorry!". You're not seeing ads popping up about 50% off sales on HP or MP potions.
You pay your $15 and you play the game. Period. That's just one of the myriad reasons I do, and always will, prefer P2P to F2P and/or Cash Shop models.
You are right though.. the Cash Shop model is entirely intended to milk customers for all they can. They also prey on impulse buyers who don't stop to think how much they're spending on their "free" MMO over time. Irresponsible spenders, you could say.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
If you sub to LotRO, don't you get everything anyway? Like everyother MMO?
There is NO miracle patch.
95% of what you see in beta won't change by launch.
Hope is not a stategy.
______________________________
"This kind of topic is like one of those little cartoon boxes held up by a stick on a string, with a piece of meat under it. In other words, bait."
The difference is, though, that Blizzard's cash shop sells truly fluff items. No one "needs" a sparkly flying horse mount. Further, a sub to WoW still gets you access to all the game's content. You're not stopped by NPCs with icons over their heads indicating "ooops... gotta buy this quest content! Sorry!". You're not seeing ads popping up about 50% off sales on HP or MP potions.
You pay your $15 and you play the game. Period. That's just one of the myriad reasons I do, and always will, prefer P2P to F2P and/or Cash Shop models.
You are right though.. the Cash Shop model is entirely intended to milk customers for all they can.
If you sub to LotRO, don't you get everything anyway? Like everyother MMO?
Yep.Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
If you sub, yes... and I'm glad Turbine offers that option in their two games. But that wasn't my point.
I was referring specifically to the F2P/Cash Shop model / portion.
Here's an anecdote specifically involving DDO that partially illustrates my issue with F2P setups...
I was on Vent a few weeks back, talking to some friends playing DDO. Two of them subscribed, 3 of them were doing the F2P deal. What I heard was something like this:
"Let's go do "Dungeon/Quest Name Here".
"I can't do that, I haven't bought it yet and I'm not subbed".
"Do you want to buy it? We can wait for ya"
"I would, but I don't have enough points and I really don't feel like doing more farming than I already have for this week. I've practically done nothing but farm points to get some of the other content"
"Why don't you just buy the points then?"
"I already spent too much money on them. I'm going to just stick to farming them instead"
"Dude, you should just do the damn subscription already. Pay a sub, just like other MMOs, and you're set. I'm subbed and I never have to worry about that crap"
"No, I don't want to subscribe. I don't want to spend that much a month on a game"
"You'd rather spend hours farming points, not be able to do dungeon runs with us, and complain about it?"
"Hey, it's free. Can't complain about the price. If a game calls itself free to play, then it should be free to play".
Apparently, something like that conversation happened almost every night, always involving one of the free players. They couldn't do a dungeon run because they didn't buy it yet, didn't have enough points and didn't want to spend the money on a "free game".
I'd just sit quietly and listen to these conversations, shaking my head. $15 or so a month to subscribe and they'd have the entire game open to them. But they were determined to "play a F2P game for free", and in the process had to spend much of their time farming points or otherwise missing out on content others were doing. 2 of the 3 playing the "free" version eventually got tired of farming TPs and stopped playing, because they couldn't keep up with the content the subbed players were doing from day to day... and refused to to the end to 'pay money for a free game'. Meanwhile, the subbed players just did as they wished and are still playing along with the 3rd F2P player who's still hanging on.
Keep in mind.. the "grind points for free so you don't have to spend money on them" thing happens in every F2P MMO I've played. Instead of just going out, playing the game and doing what they want to do, when they want to do it, people have to always be concerned about whether or not they have enough points to get what they need/want. I, personally, have no need nor desire to deal with that kind of distraction when I'm trying to enjoy a game. And, unfortunately, most F2P MMOs don't offer a subscription option.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Ok here is my spin on that, I dont trust ANYTHING posted on Massively.Joystiq.com, the site sold out long ago and now is just a place where a failing publisher can get press for a few bucks in an unmarked envelope, if you dont belive me look at there awards this year.
OK lets tackle this as it is.
First Turbine has never released how much money they were making with the game.
You want to impress me then release a earnings statement to prove what you say, as with most mmo companies you cant believe anything they say. Otherwise its just hot air, trying to impress folks.
If they want to impress us then let them release the following numbers.
(1) Active Subs, Inactive subs, Free subs
(2) Amount of revenue per sub
(3) Amount of revenue per turbine points cash shop
(4) Projected revenue for the next year
(5) Prior years revenue.
Otherwise its just hot air being blown up our backside. It is easy to say you triple something when you have nothing to back that up with.
One thing for sure there is more folks playing the game, but what is the player retention rate.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
Don't count on it. That model just wouldn't work in some games and several companies have no interest in that model.
It's also the way the did their F2P model, not just that the model exists. They didn't just throw a bunch of cr@p in a cash shop and triple their revenue. They chose things that people would feel like they got value for what they purchased.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
That's quite upsetting, if you really like a game, even if it's F2P, buy a sub for it, support it and you get full access. I remember back in 2003-2005 days when I played Runescape. I played free to play for around 4 months, knew the game well, Had high skills. I wanted to get Crafting up to like 85, but on F2P it would cost heaps of money for the fastest F2P method, or straight grinding the mats. The alternative was to buy a membership, which unlocks all content, more skills, more worlds (most of my friends I met on F2P were members) and was only a measly 6 dollars a month sub, dirt cheap. I gave in and bought a sub, Crafting to 99 was easier, faster and actually a profit buying the mats, also I had all my friends to play with. Never looked back for over 2-3 years. Best thing I did was sub.
Shows you the danger of lifetime subs. 3 x not very much = not very much.
This question has been a big red flag for me for a while now, especially with how often it's used to promote F2P and, especially demonstrate how "successful' a F2P MMO is.
In many cases, you'll see PR touting an increase in player accounts as a result of being F2P.
The obvious problem with that is it's not necessarily an accurate representation of how many are actively playing the game. Only of how many accounts have been created. Since a F2P account is, technically, always active.. it can technically always be counted as an "active account"... even if not all of them are actually being played.
I've not personally ever seen a developer come out and say "We have X amount of active accounts, of which Y are currently active and playing, and Z are spending money in the cash shop. If any developer has ever given any such breakdown of their account numbers, I've not seen it yet.
I made a F2P DDO account a couple months back, played it a bit, found it still didn't appeal to me and stopped. I would bet my account is included in their numbers of how many they have in DDO. Similarly, other F2P MMO devs would do the same thing.
So, I agree with you, eric. A dev releasing statements about increase in players/accounts/what-have-you in a F2P MMO where every account is pretty much always active, but without giving a more meaningful breakdown to put those numbers in context, is pretty much meaningless to me.
Of course, I don't expect them to release any such break-down. It looks much better to say something like - just off the top of my head - "We have over 1 million player accounts!", than it does to say "We have over 1 million player accounts, of which 500,000 are considered actively playing for at least 4 consecutve weeks, and of which 100,000 are actively using the cash shop". It would be telling, though, of the fact that 100,000 are pretty much paying for the other 400,000 as well.
Eh... no matter what angle I think of it from, the whole F2P/Cash Shop thing to me is just shady as hell, on several different levels.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Also to the OP:
The fact they avoid ALL hard cash and dollars means they can't prove anything.
If they really had 3 times more revenue: they would have published the hard dollars figures all over the internet.
Well they didn't. Financial talk without financial and audited figures is no talk at all.
Did LotROnline change their game? Add new content? Fix or improve Monster Play?
Charging more money or offering different payment options to confuse the masses will not bring me back to a boring game.
I have a lifetime sub, but I am slowly watching that wash away. The reason is simple, they keep making it more and more easy for the free to play guy obtain the same content. I am sure the sub guys feel the same way. After the latest ok lets let them do the entire volume 2 now, even if they don't get to do the quests they still have access.
I watched the cash shop add rep horses, and invalidated the need to grind for those, add items that you cant get in game and so forth and so on.
I will say this it is not the game that I originally purchased, and sure is not the game that I lived all the way from alfa a2 till current.