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B2P, F2P and freemium miscoceptions
latinkuro
Member Posts: 121
Many companies, you know the ones that end up making the CS P2W advertise their game as F2P when in truth what they are aiming for is a Freemium model.
There are big differences between:
B2P= pay for the box, no sub, play all you want spent money on the CS cosmetics if you want to support the DEV's but not required.
F2P= no payment for the box, sub is optional, support them if you want by buying from the balanced CS.
FREEMIUM= low cost price for the box, sub is optional, content is gated, certain classes are CS only, other restrictions applied to basically force you to pay anyway.
The problem is most F2P developers start with a fairly balanced CS than turn cookie monster on you and make it P2W or freemium. Just scrap F2P entirely and make them B2P if you cannot stand your ground and keep it balanced F2P. This is where developer / publisher trust comes into play, If the developer / pubisher has a known history of making his games P2W / freemium after some time why bother with any new games from such developer / publisher ?
Me personally I will never again play any games made by:
Nexon, Perfect world or gameforge.
IMO, the playerbase should learn to make a clear distinction between what is F2P, B2P and what is feemium, the market won't do it because it would hurt their business, it's in the hands of the gamer to wise up and say NO to freemium crap that tries to disguise itself as a F2P game.
B2P is the best of them all imo, the developer still gets money upfront for their product, they can than proceed to have a balanced CS, keep the playerbase happy and make a gazillion dollars, in today's market earning the playerbase's trust and keeping them happy is a far better way to make money, a happy player that trusts the publisher will spent money more easilly, sometimes just to support the publisher. On the other hand if you blatantly try to milk your playerbase your game will not last to long or will dwindle to a mere mirage of what it used to be, leaving you the publisher with deminishing returns moneywise.
Comments
It looks to me like you are the one confused. You are mixing up buzzwords and cash shop bundles with business models.
There are 3 business models. They describe the very basics of how companies charge players for their product. They also dictate design of the game.
Pay to Play (P2P): A subscription cost that gives access to all of the game.
Pay to Win (P2W): Any game with a cash shop.
Buy to Play (B2P): Players must purchase a box and/or expansions.
F2P and Freemium are marketing terms used to differentiate products that use the P2W business model.
There ARE big differences between them...namely what they ARE and what you THINK they are.
F2P has NO optional subs. its FREE with microtransaction shops with either just comsmetic items or also buff items.
FREEMIUM is sub optional with what they are trying to push off (sometimes not even that) as microtransaction shops including up to selling content.
Nope... no bias here.
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
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