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General: Grist for the Rumor Mill
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
In his latest Free Zone column, Richard Aihoshi passes along a tidbit of information that he's picked up in the last week or so. Without giving away -all- of the juicy details, Richard has heard that EA is giving free-to-play a hard look as it ponders its future in the gaming business. Check out what Richard has heard and thinks about this rumor and then add a few thoughts of your own in the comments below.
So, the rumor I've chosen to talk about today is one I can't confirm and have no solid reasons to believe. However, it has piqued my interest repeatedly for quite a while, it started circulating again within the past month or two, and my gut feel says there *might* be some fire where there's currently just smoke.
Read more of Richard Aihoshi's Free Zone: Grist for the Rumor Mill.
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Comments
EA already has a website for free to play titles..
http://play4free.com/
Any company that has an mmorpg is at least pondering F2P as a business model. It has pluses and minuses just like a subscription model has. That's before you even get into what kind of F2P model you're going to go with. What do you limit and what do you sell? Which combination of Free and Premium would generate the most money and bring in the most people?
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Or they could contemplate buying an existing company with a strong position in Asian markets ,like NCsoft ( with the guild wars franchise to boot ) .
NCSoft, like Neowiz is too big for EA to swoop in and buy out. I think if they'd been considering a merge with a powerful Asian publisher they would've done it with Neowiz, rather than just buy a stake of the company.
I don't think they will buy out a free to play publisher, but I can see them picking up a few free to play developers, maybe one of the Russian companies or fledgling American developers.
F2P? but what game?
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Even Battlefield is getting the F2P makeover
http://battlefield.play4free.com
EA's F2P model is in full swing with games already launched at the link posted by redreapa09
They can make TOR's business plan similar to that of GW2 as mentioned above.
And then acquire Funcom. Turn AoC to F2P which is the most obvious move to that game now, and have the secret world as a new title. And recently we did see them take on Funcom's secret world distro. Not to mention Funcom's bad financial position. They make a good acquisition option.
http://werewood.wordpress.com
Before jumping into the sea of F2P Asian market and looking to cash in I would look hard at what Turbine has done with both DDO and LOTRO and their "freemium" model. Right now it owns one of the genres most hardcore fanbase games in DOAC... nobody can say that game would not spring back to life with such a F2P model. Would it make them billions of $? Not a chance... but it would be the easiest "test project" possible (and save one of the best games still hanging on).
http://www.facebook.com/thejodygilbert
I reckon that means they aren't going to develop there own console like I thought. Hm, ok. thanks
^ edited
Godspeed my fellow gamer
dunno but I really wish they would make warhammer online and DAOC free to play as they really need the pop boost badly. War is down basically to one good american server and 3 bad ones & DAOC is down to just one server with 10 housing zones. If war went free to play and did some tweaking to rvr gear scaling for the higher tier players they would boost the current pop a lot. DAOC needs a new interface if they want to attract any new players to that game though , telling people to download bobs ui isnt something that most new players wanting something fresh will just go and do right away , and being they us the vn for forums its not like they have a direct avanue for advice in that game causing it turn away a lot of potential subs.
I could be wrong but I think we are going to see a lot more of the f2p. There aren't many that are as well planned and thought out as Lotro. I mean there are many f2p that I have tried and liked but if you could spend the money you could have better Armour and such and still not know how to play.
But yea I do think we are going to see more f2p. There are many games out there that are pretty good and suffering because the player base has dropped. Times are changing and people don't seem to be willing to pay a month sub to play when they may not be able to play that often. Then there are many that are paying a monthly sub but f2p would make things a lot easier on them. Offering a monthly sub on a f2p is also good but just like Lotro you can pay monthly sub but you still need TP's for some things. Nothing that will take away from the game but just like the xpansions, you have to purchase them at the store. So f2p is good but people can spend even more if they aren't careful.
Gikku
EA simply has a trend to cover its ass. Rather than make a game themselves, they buy a development company with a game series in development just to stamp their logo in their game and steal some credit and money. If EA does F2P, it will be another "bought and stolen" project
EA must be considering an item shop for SWTOR
So, how does their pouring money into Funcom for the publishing of The Secret World fit in with this theory?
Thats already been a rumor for 2 years plus. Lots of hate on the official forums for that idea.
I don't think TOR will bee free to play they spent hundreds of millions developing that game, there going to need huge box sales and a rather large sub to keep it going.
EQ already has free to play web sites, its call Battlefield Herros and there are a couple of others.
So i would think one of the older titles will go that way now.
If you consider the very crazy Star Wars fans out there the item shop would be a huge money maker for them. There will be people willing to spend a lot and it is truly a Mecca for EA.
EA is always looking to buy, I just don't see most of these f2p games out there as a huge revenue generator.
As to existing games, SWTOR is going to make them big bucks when it is released. They do not have enough staff in place atm to update DAoC even though it would be a good idea to make that game f2p. I don't think War is fixable, they made some significantly bad decisions in the early design and even moving it to f2p won't help it.
Maybe EA should start worrying that one of those eastern developers might buy it.
EA isnt looking to buy. They are looking to cut cost, and increase returns.
They will be doing more F2P via their Play4Free branding... but they really dont know how to make money with F2P. They are too fixated with their old methods, and have not really adopted F2P in the way that will make them money.
Playfish (now owned by EA) is doing a great job on their approach, and will turn into a major revenue source for EA.
Imo it is pretty simple why the F2P market is so big and the P2P market going down ' ( for now )
As a F2P title you CAN:
- reintroduce a game without much cost
- deliver a game what is not finished yet
- or just lacks the kwality of a good mmorpg ( which there are not many atm ) for paying per month.
- temp boosting a converted P2P mmorpg with higher income
In the long run , mark my words, they will die ^^ Wish we were already a few years further down the road
Go look at DDO now that it has been some time since they changed over to freemium model. There are significantly less people playing now as opposed to when F2P first started for DDO. I think the long term results are coming in and it is showing gamers that the F2P model actually costs something to fully enjoy a game. When the realization sets in they begin to bail on the "free" game.
DDO (Turbine) is being used for analysis of F2P viability and I think it is safe to say the F2P model is showing to be more of trend than a long term business model for future MMOs.