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General: Free-to-Play is the Savior
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
In a new column here at MMORPG.com, Drew Wood takes on the role of The Devil's Advocate. The Devil's Advocate is an opportunity for the oft-shunned and little discussed “Other Side of the Story” to be heard, promoting open discussion on a heavily contested subject including today's that the Free-To-Play MMO movement is the savior of the genre. Check it out and join in the discussion
The Free-to-Play model is killing the MMOG industry. Games suffer in terms of quality being sacrificed, gamers suffer from “pay-to-win” scenarios, and the market is simply becoming over-populated with inferior games. The F2P model is a bad thing.
On the contrary.
Read more of Drew Wood's The Devil's Advocate: Free-to-Play is the Savior.
Comments
There is a world of difference between games like Lotro going "freemium" and a traditional free-to-play game. These conversions were developed with subscriptions in mind and are of far higher quality than a true FTP. I think having an option for subscription alongside the free option is the only way to insure this quality. Which only proves that purely FTP games are inferior in quality to PTP games.The only, and very large downside to these conversions is the erosion of the game's community. It has happened as predicted in Lotro. The solution to this is to have seperate servers for the paying customers and the freeloaders. Not everyone has done that yet tho. An item mall in and of itself doesn't have to spell doom if only cosmetics like costumes and pets are sold. Even XP potions don't impact those without them. But buffs, potions, or any items that affect battle will have the anti-ftp crowd frothing at the mouth, with good reason. micro-transactions are a slippery slope that understandably concern a game's community. Just look at the recent EVE debacle. We can only trust the devs not to screw us in the item shop, and that's a lot of trust that's usually misplaced.
All around a well writen article. But if what you say is true, I have to ask myself, with this plethora of FTP, or restructured freemium games at my finger tips, how come I can't find a single one I enjoy playing? Poorly made games are still poorly made whether they are free to play or not.
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "
F2p is great for failing games, not so much for making new games.
Explain to me again on how everquest, lotro, ddo or wow could be counted as failing games, again?
# A GRIM, ODD, ARCANE SKY
# ANY GOD, I MARK SACRED
# A MASKED CRY ADORING
# A DREAMY, SICK DRAGON
Over all the article is fail, comparing the conversion of a subscription based MMO to a "fremium" model (such as DDO/LotRO did) is a world of difference in terms of how its gameplay is designed vs a MMO built from the ground up to encourage players to regularly purchase from the cash shop like Runes of Magic.
There's all sorts of cash shop/rmt/microtransaction models out there, and you really can't talk about F2P being "good" for gamers unless you break each one down separately.
Fremium models are probably the most benign form of F2P, so of course they seem like a good thing. But games with P2W designs are no bargin for anyone except those who enjoy spending to be superior and I'll never be convinced otherwise.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
With the exception of WOW, those other titles were all in declining subscription mode and their conversion to fremium models are all considered to have revitalized or "saved" them by common consensus.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I don't agree with you, Drew.
The company needs it income and how the players pay it matters very little. The reason DDO did so well was because it was the first AAA game that converted, now the market are getting flooded with them.
F2P might get some more people to try out the genre at best, but it also creates many leechers that never pays anything. That means that it will eventually lower the income of the genre instead of raising it.
Believing that a crappy game will generate more money just because it is F2P is naive at best.
A great game on the other hand will get a lot of money, no matter if it is P2P. B2P. F2P or Freemium.
The more AAA games that converts to "Freemium" the less new players will they attract. That doesn't mean that a great F2P game wont get's lots of cash but a bad one will not get more than if it was P2P, probably less instead.
LOTRO already got a lot less new players compared to DDO (counting percentage on players and income). That is not because DDO is a better game but because DDO was first in converting. I don't see how F2P will save games like CO and I don't see how it will save the genre.
Good games will earn money, bad games will go badly and the genre continues as it did before.
Free to Play in the western market is nothing more than a last ditch effort for MMOs late in their lifestyle to get a revenue bump.
Most of the games that have gone F2P wouldn't have been developed to the level they were had they not been box sale plus subscription at release, as a F2P model simply does not make money back anywhere near as fast. As such, there will be very few if any MMOs that are AAA quality and F2P at release... in fact, can anyone even name a single western MMO that's AAA quality that actually released with a F2P payment structure?
I find it funny that some people herald free to play as the future. So far it's proven to be the future... for MMOs that have burnt out their subscriber base's interest in the game and are thrashing around trying to get a late life cycle adoption bump.
I disagree with the comments about F2P games being of lower quality.
Some I would say are better than many subscription based games.
Look at Xyson and Mortal Online to name just 2 games that I can't believe have a subscription due to the poor quality.
I think one of the only problems for most F2P games is the lack a a big IP behind them.
You can't deny the quality of games like Perfect World / Forsaken World.
Actually, Wow is declining as much as the rest of them, Morhaime said they lost half a million players in 6 months a little while back (a month or so). They just have so many players that it isn't a disaster for them in the same way as it is for some other games.
But the only game we seen so far that is saved by changing payment method is DDO, the others did get in some fresh blood but saying it saved the games is just not true.
You just picked two western market flops made by indie companies... and picked the two best F2P MMOs made by an eastern corporate giant that has considerable resources available.
If you're going to play that card, then let's compare WoW and Rift to the hundreds of terrible F2P MMOs out there and see who wins.
Then don't generalise, there a great examples of F2P games, just as there are bad examples of subscription based games.
All I'm seeing are comments about 'quality', well that's just not right.
Be more specific rather than just trashing every F2P game.
As the recent P2W EVE Online debacle has shown, F2P, while fine for themepark MMOs, is not a good model for sandbox MMOs.
I have absolutely no moral objection to F2P or P2W, but:-
In a game where the developers make the content, and the immersion is fairly shallow, no problem.
In a game where the players make their content, and the immersion is deep, it's a buzz breaker.
Speaking personally, as a player who's more into immersion than achievement, even with themepark games as fun as LOTRO or DDO or CO, even where they did their best to integrate the shop into the game in a non-offensive way, the very presence of the shop just kills it for me. I used to sub to all these games on and off, and loved them; since they went F2P, I've just stopped playing them, even as free games.
For EVE, as soon as I saw where it was going, EVE just totally died for me - boom, instantly. Like a bubble bursting.
I can't articulate it fully, and as I've said I have no objection whatsoever to F2P in principle; but something about there being a metagame element like a cash shop in a game, just destroys my immersion.
i agree article doesnt do f2p and how bad it is alot of times justice. you mention lotro and ddo, but those games were originally sub games and both were pretty decent in their own right. ddo would of been a top selling game if wotc wouldnt of screwed up and let them build the game in the forgotten realms and instead of making it a city based instance game open up the whole world for us to explore in. lotro has always been good, im just a little sick of the gear gating gear grind endgame that all developers want to do now, that model is old and worn out.
world of tanks has been my only free game, i tried allods online and one look at their cash shop ruined the game for me the day they put that cash shop in. tanks is probably only keeping me around because I have nothing else to do because I dont like what they did with their premium tanks putting a high tier premium tank that makes boatloads of ingame money in the game for 35 dollars thus ruining the experience for the mid tier game because they always get stuck fighting these tanks they cant defeat.
subscription model can still be a valid model if game companies get up off their arses and make a game that is worth the subscription fee instead of trying to catch lightning in a bottle and getting the success wow had by making the same type of game as wow. if we wanted to play wow we would play wow, not a cheap knockoff or expensive knockoff for that matter. the greed of ccp was proven with their cash shop this last week and most of these companies are just out for more money and could care less what the players wanted and that is what players are sick of. cash shop models have been slowly being implemented into every game, blizzard started it with the my little pony and people bought it like hotcakes, so in reality the players only have other players to blame for this type of business model but game companies need to realize they need to quit putting out wow copies and games that arent any good if they want to make money off subcription fees.
im not againt free to play games, but more often those games turn into play to win games and people generally spend way more money than that 15 dollars a month on these games, those that pay anyway while a whole bunch of people play the game for free and I am against pay to win games. still looking for a good non fantasy mmo that isnt all about the gear grind for endgame and isnt full of bugs and glitches and just plain bad, i think ill be looking forever.
Not all games have pay to win cash shop.
Team Fortress 2 example, recently went free. I guess you can say the cash shop is pay to win but then again everyone can get the weapons in cash shop by just playing the game or trade weapons they dont want for ones they do want.
I guess it would be an awesome thing if all games followed in those footsteps, just by playing you can get anything you want, all it requires is time though.
It's sad that most f2p games have pay to win cash shops though, hopefully that will change in the future.
I was specific, every single Western MMOs that is developed as F2P has proven to be inferior. Name a single western AAA quality MMO that was F2P at release... you can't. Every single AAA western MMO that is F2P, was P2P to begin with, that's the entire reason they're AAA quality to begin with.
Despite what people want to believe, the western market simply does not accept the F2P cashshop model as much as the eastern market. As such, F2P in the western market will for the forseeable future lag behind when it comes to recouping development costs after release, compared to a straight box sale + subscription model in the early life of an MMO.
The reason DDO does so well isn't only because it's the first to be converted, otherwise DDO would have failed regardless of wether it changed to the F2P model or not. The game was good, but lackluster in some areas.
As for the "Leechers", if you think that it's an issue, you clearly do not understand the F2P model. About 70-75% of any F2P's playerbase will never pay a dime, and all F2P publishers are completly aware of this, and fine with it. It's actually not an issue at all, in fact, having all those players has more positive repercussions on the game. There are a lot more players, you can find them at all levels, areas, etc because the barrier of entry is non-existant even 2-3 years later. P2P games tend to lose a lot of new players as years goes by, leaving low level areas severely underpopulated which negatively impact the experience of other newer players wishing to enjoy the content with other players (such as low level raids or quests that requires a party for exemple).
The F2P on the other hand, will take several more years to begins suffering from those population issues (Heck, MapleStory who's been around since 2003-04 is still going strong). There are always players, these players will also bring their friends, and potential buyers will be able to enjoy the game for longer period of time as they do not have issues going through the content as players are readily available to complete whatever content or quest is needed. There is always someone to interact with, which makes it much more enjoyable. And having all these players running around for Free are what's keeping these games alive. If only the players who bought Cash Shop played, the majority of those games wouldn't survive. You also do not lose anything by playing a F2P game, if you do not enjoy the game, you can leave at any time, you haven't spent a single buck on it. On the other hand, if you do enjoy the game, you can either continue playing for free or buy items to enhance your experience, and not all F2P titles offers a "pay to win" model.
Since everyone is speaking of over generalization. Allow me to ask...
What are three Free to Play games that were not P2P conversions with solid footing in the Western market and reputation as being excellent quality games and not having Pay to Win issues?
here we go with the "pay to win" crap. games need money to survive. if its free to play then they have to make money somehow. people expect everything for free nowadays.
One man's scourge...or Satan...is another man's savior.
Let me explain that a little more. Since DDO was the first to convert it got a lot of publicity and many people tried it out. I never said DDO was a bad game and the reasonthat it went so bad was another game, Guildwars. GW and DDO are similar in many ways, GW have more content but the reason it nearly killed DDO was because it was B2P.
But I am still pretty certain that if DDO would have converted today it would not get nearly as many new players as they did.
As for leechers, they do fill a function particularly at lower levels but it also means that you will either need 4 times as many players as a P2P game or that your paying customers will have to pay average 60 bucks a month.
There is not an unlimited playerbase so converting a crappy game to F2P wont save it. All gaming companies fight over the same people and the good game will survive, not the bad games no matter how you pay it.
The payment method matters little, the good games will get in the money, and even if more people will try out the bad ones it wont save those games.
I say it again: Good games will always earn money (well, until they are ancient) and bad games wont.
Believing that changing the method people will pay will "save" the genre is just fooling yourself. Better games is the only savior that is realistic.
And I am not really bashing the F2P payment method (even though games with P2win suck), I don't care how I pay my games. But it isn't a savior.
Not all of the people writing here is as positive, Drew is and he do have right to his opinion (even if I don't agree with it).
Calling it a scourge on the other hand is a bit severe.
I agree, a bad game is a bad game, regardless of model. However a poorly hyped game can possibly get some benefit because it will get people, who would not have bothered otherwise, to try the game for free. Which is probably what happened to DDO.
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But if there are too many "good" games for the amount of sub cash to go around and support then they fail...if they adopt a model of you only pay when you want to play that sub cash can instead be spread amoung many "good" games and while their profits are lower than if they hold all the subs they are still making cash.
And people actually seem to like their athletes to dope so not a good example. People are whining about home runs being down in baseball...and no one ever calls for football lineman to be check for roids.