Originally posted by GreenishBlue I expect this game to have its life support removed sometime next year
I held a party with a few ppl when it announced ftp, if its plug gets pulled I'm hiring one of those obnoxious hummer limos and I'll fill it with hookers and party like its 1999.
Lol... I think that says it all of the mindset of a part of the current gamers population. Partying when a company or game does badly as if World War 2 has ended and the Nazis been defeated.
The other thing with GW2 boxes. They typically contain boosts that would otherwise be required to purchase in their cash shop such as xp boosts and do not contain weapon or armor items. All of the stuff in the GW2 boxes are fluff from what I can tell outside of the random boost. It is also possible to get additional keys from a box - so one key from in-game could lead to the opening of 4 or 5 boxes. The boxes only contain things that would otherwise require a purchase from the cash shop - so not buying the keys and ignoring the boxes will have 0 impact on gameplay in GW2. It might quicken your leveling experience a small amount, however, it is possible to level pretty fast in the game allready so that is no big loss.
Arena Net is counting on people wanting to continue to buy their game over the next couple of years with perhaps an expansion to come at some point. They will not lower their price to any significant degree and in this way they hope to make a significant amount of money. The last numbers I heard were over 2million copies sold - figure a price of $60 per copy(I do not know of any discounts at this time) and you get $120million plus so far. No idea what they spent on development - but i figure they spent less than that. So they have likely made their initial investment back and are now making a profit. In addition there are people who spend money in the cash shop for silly things - so their model seems to be working for them at this point.
They are probably hoping to reach the point where they can sell 10 million copies a year between base game and expansions similar to battlefield 3.
Originally posted by superniceguySTO does this kind of thing too with Lock Boxes and Master KeysYou loot a Lock Box, and then you can only open them with a Master Key bought from the store with ZEN. They contain about 1 really must have rare item, and then the rest is just filler loot.At least you can play the game to get ZENF2P games just detroys the soul of a game. eg LOTRO - Busy playing other MMOs, and then suddenly spot they have a limited time mount in the store, but as I do not have enough time to get character to level 20, I just log in buy the rifding skill and then buy the mount, logoit and not played the game at all. The better option would be to just put a quest in the game for you to play to get that mount.With both LOTRO and STO they always put stuff in the store that is temporary, as a motivator to get people to log in and get them befiore they are gone. LOTRO with mounts, and STO with lock boxess.
Doesn't GW2 have the same thing as well with the black trading chests that require a key from the gemstore to open. This is part of f2p. Everyone thinks f2p is so awesome and monthly subs suck so stuff like this is part of getting what you asked for.
Except you can get keys from loot and map completition rewards, I haven't bought a single key from the cash shop yet and already unlocked 12 chests.
PS, IIRC the TCG "gambling" was illegal in certain states and countries, so I assume the cartel packs will also be illegal in certain places.
I'd agree with the term "scam in the making" when it comes to cartel packs. It will eventually kill the integrity of play. I do think STO is a great example of what will happen. It starts off innocently enough but as the packs become their main source of income it will be milked for all it is worth with increasingly powerful items you have slim chances of getting and little concern for balance. It is simply the nature of all things to migrate toward extremes and money will drive this horse over a cliff. People with money to burn, poor judgement, or deep wants, will fork over big bucks to get their precious. The state of STO with lock boxes right now is atrocious. It took PWE a year to get to this point but they started just as innocently. In this case, "EA" the acclaimed worst company in America, is driving fora bigger profit margin...
Comments
I held a party with a few ppl when it announced ftp, if its plug gets pulled I'm hiring one of those obnoxious hummer limos and I'll fill it with hookers and party like its 1999.
Lol... I think that says it all of the mindset of a part of the current gamers population. Partying when a company or game does badly as if World War 2 has ended and the Nazis been defeated.The other thing with GW2 boxes. They typically contain boosts that would otherwise be required to purchase in their cash shop such as xp boosts and do not contain weapon or armor items. All of the stuff in the GW2 boxes are fluff from what I can tell outside of the random boost. It is also possible to get additional keys from a box - so one key from in-game could lead to the opening of 4 or 5 boxes. The boxes only contain things that would otherwise require a purchase from the cash shop - so not buying the keys and ignoring the boxes will have 0 impact on gameplay in GW2. It might quicken your leveling experience a small amount, however, it is possible to level pretty fast in the game allready so that is no big loss.
Arena Net is counting on people wanting to continue to buy their game over the next couple of years with perhaps an expansion to come at some point. They will not lower their price to any significant degree and in this way they hope to make a significant amount of money. The last numbers I heard were over 2million copies sold - figure a price of $60 per copy(I do not know of any discounts at this time) and you get $120million plus so far. No idea what they spent on development - but i figure they spent less than that. So they have likely made their initial investment back and are now making a profit. In addition there are people who spend money in the cash shop for silly things - so their model seems to be working for them at this point.
They are probably hoping to reach the point where they can sell 10 million copies a year between base game and expansions similar to battlefield 3.
Star Wars: The Old Republic
General Discussion » Scam is back in a SW MMO » Reply
Maelkor: ?? GW2 ??
PS, IIRC the TCG "gambling" was illegal in certain states and countries, so I assume the cartel packs will also be illegal in certain places.
This is what I think of the future of F2P and regular gaming
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h472NmF1HEQ
Interesing acticle:
The Perfect Ten: The truth about lockboxes