Originally posted by tordurbar "Hey Bones,Its not P2P. Games are not free, and MMOs need consistently operational cost to keep playing. Something F2P will never get you cannot make enough money consistently to pay your operating cost period. F2P will bring down many publishers in the near future. You can take that to the bank. There are just too many MMOs and F2P will do nothing but bring alone the enviable which is games shutting down faster because too much money is spent creating a game for little or no return on investment."/this Many gamers (especially on this site) forget or don't care that to create a game and maintain it costs money. That requires investors. Funding a game that was already produced and had good word of mouth is a possible investment but to start a game from scratch as f2p - why would investors want to take that risk.Kickstarter is not the answer. For a AAA MMO you need a LOT of resources and work and money to pay for the salaries of all those people. Kickstarter is not going to make it.Yes, there are too many MMOs on the market. Contrary to the usual critics there are many that are not the "usual wow clones". GW2, Tera, and TSW are just three who are different. Different did not seem to work. Yes, the games are hanging in there but are they making a ton of money - no.There is a bigger factor that is going to bring down most (yes most) of the big games in the future - mobile games. Investors are dumping MMOs right and left. What do you think was behind the Titan layoff? Investors want mobile games not pc/console games - even from the biggest name in MMOs.
Are you talking to me or are you referring to Dr. McCoy, aka "Bones" from Star Trek?
Anyway, all or some of what you say could be totally true. The MMO industry is a very big, complex beast. The surface stuff is obvious, such as games must make money, or they will cease to exist. The rest of it though is a big, knotty mess, and even determine what the issues are is tricky. Even saying that the MMO industry is in trouble is iffy. The industry is growing, making more money every year. It's hard to say the industry is failing when it keeps growing. In a perfect world, this would happen without any games failing, but that's just not possible.
Really though, I just don't think it makes any sense to blame F2P for things that it can't possibly be responsible for. If anything, F2P is making it possible for more development to take place and for games that would otherwise shutdown to continue and grow.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Have you noticed how there are hundreds of MMO but they all die off in a matter of months.
Have you noticed that people jump from MMO to MMO.
Have you noticed how communities in MMO are dead, no one really gives a damn anymore.
Have you noticed how you seem to level to the cap in a matter of weeks.
None of those issues are related to the business model, but rather are problems with current MMO game design, they are created to be mostly disposable, single player experiences, and like any single player game, have a very short playing life.
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
Have you noticed how there are hundreds of MMO but they all die off in a matter of months.
Have you noticed that people jump from MMO to MMO.
Have you noticed how communities in MMO are dead, no one really gives a damn anymore.
Have you noticed how you seem to level to the cap in a matter of weeks.
In a F2P MMO all the freeloaders bail the ship once they hit the paywall after a few weeks, the ones who get tired of having to pay to progress bail the ship a few weeks after, and the whales is all that's left, but they jump ship too once they realise they're competing against themselves and no longer have a monetary edge over freeloaders.
As a result, no one joins older F2P, since they would need to spend hundreds of dollars to compete with the whales. The MMO simply die.
As a result the quality of the MMO goes down too, since the companies make dying MMO after dying MMO, to rake in cash from the whales.
In China MMo last a couple of months, and they shut them down. This is the future of F2P MMO, completely meaningless casino adventures. Congorats.
The community in MMOs have been in a state of decline, and I do think the Free 2 Play market is partially to blame.
The problem stems from the nature of F2P's no-commitment model. For example, if you would go and sign up for Ultima Online, Everquest, you'd have a monthly fee to pay, something that keeps you hanging around and feeling the need to utilize before it runs out. This usually kept players a bit more committed. Also, back in EQ and UO's day, there weren't many options to scratch your MMO itch, nor was the market half the size it is today.
The size of the market is the next factor that hurts the UO/EQ ideals. Whenever a market expands and tries to pull in more and more demographics, the lower a denominator the company tries to find to bring everyone in. I think they assume hardcore MMO players will sign on to whatever they're fed, while the real challenge is how to pull in non-MMO and casual gamers, since that's where the money is at. Those casual gamers and non-MMO players don't care that much about having a community, since community requires consistent returning players and a time commitment many of them don't care to put forward.
And while it's a fun idea for a developer to be a hero and make a sandbox MMO, when one does come forward, they're slammed down for being glitchy, having poor graphics, and overall not having enough to do, even by those recalling the "Good ol' days of sandboxes." Developing a game in the modern market costs millions upon millions more than it did in Ultima's time. So it's a catch-22 for a developer. The last AAA sandbox MMO I can think of is Pre-CU SWG, and while I loved it, it was slapped down often for its glitchiness that sandbox titles are prone to. So what do you do, then? Do you spend millions of dollars to make a game that appeals to the hardcore MMO crowd and, hopefully, scrounge back enough money to stay afloat? Or do you go and make another themepark F2P game, which will attract your average gamer along with the hardcore MMO crowd, even if they do come whining and moaning? They still come.
Originally posted by tkreep isnt the result of f2p happens because the mmo dies as a p2p?
Speak not those words. This isn't a thread for logic.
because they were bad games?
Thats a cop-out answer. They were good games to many people, plenty of people stayed subbed, just not enough to make the model viable.
The market is not the same market as 8-10 years ago. There are ALOT more options out there now, back in the day, there were only sub games and not many of those either. Today you have a new MMO coming out every other month, it seems.
You can say "just make a good game and people will sub" but thats meaningless, good for whom? What other options are available for a player? Do they have time invested somewhere else?
I would venture to say that many, many people would rather play an average game for free, vs a great game with a sub.
Does sub have its place? Sure, but to get people in it truly has be be extraordinary, and to be frank, we dont get many extraordinary games, in any genre.
Originally posted by tkreep isnt the result of f2p happens because the mmo dies as a p2p?
Speak not those words. This isn't a thread for logic.
because they were bad games?
Thats a cop-out answer. They were good games to many people, plenty of people stayed subbed, just not enough to make the model viable.
The market is not the same market as 8-10 years ago. There are ALOT more options out there now, back in the day, there were only sub games and not many of those either. Today you have a new MMO coming out every other month, it seems.
You can say "just make a good game and people will sub" but thats meaningless, good for whom? What other options are available for a player? Do they have time invested somewhere else?
I would venture to say that many, many people would rather play an average game for free, vs a great game with a sub.
Does sub have its place? Sure, but to get people in it truly has be be extraordinary, and to be frank, we dont get many extraordinary games, in any genre.
if nobody is paying to play ur game, is ur game bad?
if nobody is paying to play ur game, is ur game bad?
Not necessarily...which is why these threads are always based on fail logic. If your competition is offering a better deal people will go there.
It's been said a million times over, some ppl just don't want to understand. The market changed and people don't want to be forced to pay a sub when there is better options.
Originally posted by tkreep isnt the result of f2p happens because the mmo dies as a p2p?
Speak not those words. This isn't a thread for logic.
because they were bad games?
Thats a cop-out answer. They were good games to many people, plenty of people stayed subbed, just not enough to make the model viable.
The market is not the same market as 8-10 years ago. There are ALOT more options out there now, back in the day, there were only sub games and not many of those either. Today you have a new MMO coming out every other month, it seems.
You can say "just make a good game and people will sub" but thats meaningless, good for whom? What other options are available for a player? Do they have time invested somewhere else?
I would venture to say that many, many people would rather play an average game for free, vs a great game with a sub.
Does sub have its place? Sure, but to get people in it truly has be be extraordinary, and to be frank, we dont get many extraordinary games, in any genre.
if nobody is paying to play ur game, is ur game bad?
Not neccisarily, Would you save WoW is better than EvE because it has more people playing?
I can objectively look at EvE, even though I cant stand playing it, and say, thats a well made game. The same for Rift, the game is well made, but it may just not be what the market wants.
Originally posted by tkreep isnt the result of f2p happens because the mmo dies as a p2p?
Speak not those words. This isn't a thread for logic.
because they were bad games?
Thats a cop-out answer. They were good games to many people, plenty of people stayed subbed, just not enough to make the model viable.
The market is not the same market as 8-10 years ago. There are ALOT more options out there now, back in the day, there were only sub games and not many of those either. Today you have a new MMO coming out every other month, it seems.
You can say "just make a good game and people will sub" but thats meaningless, good for whom? What other options are available for a player? Do they have time invested somewhere else?
I would venture to say that many, many people would rather play an average game for free, vs a great game with a sub.
Does sub have its place? Sure, but to get people in it truly has be be extraordinary, and to be frank, we dont get many extraordinary games, in any genre.
if nobody is paying to play ur game, is ur game bad?
Not neccisarily, Would you save WoW is better than EvE because it has more people playing?
I can objectively look at EvE, even though I cant stand playing it, and say, thats a well made game. The same for Rift, the game is well made, but it may just not be what the market wants.
The mere fact you need to pay an upfront cost by buying the game in P2P means people are more willing to build a community.
Does paying an entry fee at a club/party/concert make you more willing to interact with others than if you had gotten in for free?
That seems like a real leap of logic. Is this another "keep the riff-raff out" thing?
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
Originally posted by tkreep isnt the result of f2p happens because the mmo dies as a p2p?
Speak not those words. This isn't a thread for logic.
because they were bad games?
Thats a cop-out answer. They were good games to many people, plenty of people stayed subbed, just not enough to make the model viable.
The market is not the same market as 8-10 years ago. There are ALOT more options out there now, back in the day, there were only sub games and not many of those either. Today you have a new MMO coming out every other month, it seems.
You can say "just make a good game and people will sub" but thats meaningless, good for whom? What other options are available for a player? Do they have time invested somewhere else?
I would venture to say that many, many people would rather play an average game for free, vs a great game with a sub.
Does sub have its place? Sure, but to get people in it truly has be be extraordinary, and to be frank, we dont get many extraordinary games, in any genre.
if nobody is paying to play ur game, is ur game bad?
Not neccisarily, Would you save WoW is better than EvE because it has more people playing?
I can objectively look at EvE, even though I cant stand playing it, and say, thats a well made game. The same for Rift, the game is well made, but it may just not be what the market wants.
what WOw and EVE have in common buddy?
They're both MMOs? They both are part of the same market, but may not neccisarily be for the same audience. I know people who play both.
You are confusing "Good" which is completely arbitrary and varies from person to person, with "successful". Successful is about reading the market, advertising, timing, ect, in addition to the game itself, its not entirely about the product. Again look at WoW, many people on this site hate it, and think its a terrible game, but nobody can say that it wasnt successful. It's success was in large part due to being able to capitalize on an untapped market.
Wow is the most successful themepark and Eve is the most successful sandbox, and both are P2P. why they are the most succesful in their expertise field even requiring the absurd amount of 15$bucks a month since 2004 and 2003?
Whether the game is free or has a sub doesn't determine whether the game will have longevity/replayability. Some people assume that if you pay monthly for a game it is some how better than if you didn't pay anything. That's already been proven not to be the case.
MMOs die fast because they lack the elements of longevity/replayability... and of course the number one cause of all... they are all exactly the same. Free or pay to play... sameness wears thin the fastest.
Wow is the most successful themepark and Eve is the most successful sandbox, and both are P2P. why they are the most succesful in their expertise field even requiring the absurd amount of 15$bucks a month since 2004 and 2003?
You are forgetting about the time investment factor. Everyone plays WoW, because thats the game they've always played, thats where their friends are, that's where they've invest so much of themselves, so its very hard to leave. Although that is slowly changing, it is an 8 year old game after all. But people arent going to any one place, they are either leaving the MMO market or filtering to any number of other MMOs.
WoW was a product of perfect timing, no-one had tried a more casual minded approach to a game before. Most games required a significant time sink in order to progress in their game world, EQ being the obvious example. WoW did away with that, which allowed it to be much more accessible to many more people, people that had no horse in the MMO race, no prior commitments, so they could jump right in. Add to that fact that the blizzard name was still riding high on the wave of D2 and WC3, (as it had always been) it had instant name recongnition for quality. WoW was the prefect storm of market conditions, hundreds of thousands and millions of people wanted to play a MMO, but there wasnt one that they felt they could play and still have a life. Boom, WoW.
WoW CANNOT be repeated, the market is different now
EvE is a strange bird. I believe its current success is, in part due to the many dedicated players who adopted the game early and helped it, and its economy and political structure mature, so that it could be more accessible down the line. In other words people were patient and allowed for the game to grow. From what I have been told, it was buggy as all hell on release. People dont leave EvE for obvious reasons, MASSIVE time investment and a sense of ownership, not to mention a lack of other options.
Honestly though, many long time players dont even pay a sub, they get plex and pay for the game that way.
The fact that both games had a sub had absolutely zero impact on why they were successful. They had a sub, because when they were releases, thats what MMOs had.
The mere fact you need to pay an upfront cost by buying the game in P2P means people are more willing to build a community.
Does paying an entry fee at a club/party/concert make you more willing to interact with others than if you had gotten in for free?
That seems like a real leap of logic. Is this another "keep the riff-raff out" thing?
People who pay a sub are generally invested in some way in the game. The ones that stay do so for a specific reason either they really like the game systems or more likely they enjoy the social interaction's they have built. I have said before WoW's largest strength at this point is social momentum. People keep paying that sub every month because they have social ties to the game.
It's not that F2P games can't have those same kinds of ties as they surly can so much as they tend not to try very hard to foster them if at all. It's a shame really because if a F2P game took a longer term approach and softened the up front pay wall but found ways to foster community building they could make much more money long term.
Granted even most modern P2P MMO's have done a horrible job at this which is one of the reasons why none of them have really been spectacular success. It's funny how developers copy every single element of WoW except the one that contributed the most to it's success.
The mere fact you need to pay an upfront cost by buying the game in P2P means people are more willing to build a community.
Does paying an entry fee at a club/party/concert make you more willing to interact with others than if you had gotten in for free?
That seems like a real leap of logic. Is this another "keep the riff-raff out" thing?
Actually, sometimes it does. Let's look at the analogy of a the golf country club. If you play golf at a public course, no matter how often you will never build the same bonds with the other players as people who join a private country club.
Of course, they are joining partly to keep out the "riff-raff", which of course doesn't actually work any better than it does in MMO's, but they definitely develop more social bonds based on their commonly shared "membership" than the public golf course player does.
Is it the fee that generates this sense of belonging? No, it's part of being something special, a member, and I do believe people who pay a sub fee are more vested in playing a single MMORPG for longer periods of times than those who are more tourists to the game.
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
The mere fact you need to pay an upfront cost by buying the game in P2P means people are more willing to build a community.
Does paying an entry fee at a club/party/concert make you more willing to interact with others than if you had gotten in for free?
That seems like a real leap of logic. Is this another "keep the riff-raff out" thing?
Actually, sometimes it does. Let's look at the analogy of a the golf country club. If you play golf at a public course, no matter how often you will never build the same bonds with the other players as people who join a private country club.
Of course, they are joining partly to keep out the "riff-raff", which of course doesn't actually work any better than it does in MMO's, but they definitely develop more social bonds based on their commonly shared "membership" than the public golf course player does.
Is it the fee that generates this sense of belonging? No, it's part of being something special, a member, and I do believe people who pay a sub fee are more vested in playing a single MMORPG for longer periods of times than those who are more tourists to the game.
That might be true if free games didn't have guilds, but most people looking for the social aspect of an mmo look for it in the same small groups of " exclusive" memberships guilds offer in both types of games.
Free to play for sure has more people come and go but people quitting are a part of every mmo. You make friends with the people who stay regardless of the payment type.
Have you noticed how there are hundreds of MMO but they all die off in a matter of months.
Have you noticed that people jump from MMO to MMO.
Have you noticed how communities in MMO are dead, no one really gives a damn anymore.
Have you noticed how you seem to level to the cap in a matter of weeks.
In a F2P MMO all the freeloaders bail the ship once they hit the paywall after a few weeks, the ones who get tired of having to pay to progress bail the ship a few weeks after, and the whales is all that's left, but they jump ship too once they realise they're competing against themselves and no longer have a monetary edge over freeloaders.
As a result, no one joins older F2P, since they would need to spend hundreds of dollars to compete with the whales. The MMO simply die.
As a result the quality of the MMO goes down too, since the companies make dying MMO after dying MMO, to rake in cash from the whales.
In China MMo last a couple of months, and they shut them down. This is the future of F2P MMO, completely meaningless casino adventures. Congorats.
And the problem is?
There are still so many out there and i can continue to hop for a long while. Heck, STO, DCUO, LOTRO are still running strong and there are new F2P games coming out often.
(Warframe, Star Conflict, and Marvel Heroes just this year).
The mere fact you need to pay an upfront cost by buying the game in P2P means people are more willing to build a community.
Does paying an entry fee at a club/party/concert make you more willing to interact with others than if you had gotten in for free?
That seems like a real leap of logic. Is this another "keep the riff-raff out" thing?
Actually, sometimes it does. Let's look at the analogy of a the golf country club. If you play golf at a public course, no matter how often you will never build the same bonds with the other players as people who join a private country club.
Of course, they are joining partly to keep out the "riff-raff", which of course doesn't actually work any better than it does in MMO's, but they definitely develop more social bonds based on their commonly shared "membership" than the public golf course player does.
Is it the fee that generates this sense of belonging? No, it's part of being something special, a member, and I do believe people who pay a sub fee are more vested in playing a single MMORPG for longer periods of times than those who are more tourists to the game.
That might be true if free games didn't have guilds, but most people looking for the social aspect of an mmo look for it in the same small groups of " exclusive" memberships guilds offer in both types of games.
Free to play for sure has more people come and go but people quitting are a part of every mmo. You make friends with the people who stay regardless of the payment type.
Great point, DamonVile.
Kyleran, when paying for the exclusive country club over the free golf course, the 'special' is in the priority and extras that come with membership, not just in having paid the fee. Subscription MMOs don't offer such things over the F2P MMOs. If anything, such a situation only exists within the F2P MMOs that also offer subs or VIP options.
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
Developers and Publishers do not create F2P games with the main focus of them being FUN.
Instead, they focus on how to con players out of their money.
If a game is fun, players will spend money in a F2P game...but, design it as a money grubber, where in the long run F2P costs you more money than a subscription would....well...it fails
Whether the game is free or has a sub doesn't determine whether the game will have longevity/replayability.
Yah it does.
The OP already addressed it, but Asian MMO in China last literally months and they close them off, and they start again with a new game.
The West simply isn't at the same F2P level yet where MMO are throw-away games like single player games, but if China is anything to go by, the West will be there soon too.
That would never be possible with P2P since that would bankrupt them. The F2P model allows them to amass the same amount of money in a few months from whale that would take years with P2P.
For anyone who is still clueless how F2P work, or people in denial.
F2P get their money through the leveling process, people want to level faster than others, they want to make the grind fun, they need gear, XP, items. That's where whales and regular players spend the money. Those first few weeks / months, is where insane amounts of money are spent in the cash shop.
After those first few weeks are over, it doesn't matter anymore. So the company needs a new game to do that same trick once more. And they make another MMO. F2P MMO companies often have 10 MMO or more. Blizzard has 1 MMO.
The payment model directly influences the longevity of the game.
For anyone who is still clueless how F2P work, or people in denial.
F2P get their money through the leveling process, people want to level faster than others, they want to make the grind fun, they need gear, XP, items. That's where whales and regular players spend the money. Those first few weeks / months, is where insane amounts of money are spent in the cash shop.
After those first few weeks are over, it doesn't matter anymore. So the company needs a new game to do that same trick once more. And they make another MMO. F2P MMO companies often have 10 MMO or more. Blizzard has 1 MMO.
The payment model directly influences the longevity of the game.
Which is why PWI, Wizard 101, Shattered Galaxy, Flyff, Habbo Hotel, DOFUS, Maple Story, Club Penguin and Navy Field all closed down 6-8 years ago.
My mistake. They're all still running.
"F2P MMO companies often have 10 MMO or more. Blizzard has 1 MMO."
Yes, the outlier has 1. SOE, Funcom, EA, Turbine, and NCSoft - the majority of the other companies that dominated subscription gaming for the past decade or so - all have more than one.
Let's not toss around 'clueless' and 'in denial' so freely.
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
Comments
Are you talking to me or are you referring to Dr. McCoy, aka "Bones" from Star Trek?
Anyway, all or some of what you say could be totally true. The MMO industry is a very big, complex beast. The surface stuff is obvious, such as games must make money, or they will cease to exist. The rest of it though is a big, knotty mess, and even determine what the issues are is tricky. Even saying that the MMO industry is in trouble is iffy. The industry is growing, making more money every year. It's hard to say the industry is failing when it keeps growing. In a perfect world, this would happen without any games failing, but that's just not possible.
Really though, I just don't think it makes any sense to blame F2P for things that it can't possibly be responsible for. If anything, F2P is making it possible for more development to take place and for games that would otherwise shutdown to continue and grow.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
None of those issues are related to the business model, but rather are problems with current MMO game design, they are created to be mostly disposable, single player experiences, and like any single player game, have a very short playing life.
F2P doesn't kill MMO's, game design does.
"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
glad u took the red pill, welcome to reality.
The community in MMOs have been in a state of decline, and I do think the Free 2 Play market is partially to blame.
The problem stems from the nature of F2P's no-commitment model. For example, if you would go and sign up for Ultima Online, Everquest, you'd have a monthly fee to pay, something that keeps you hanging around and feeling the need to utilize before it runs out. This usually kept players a bit more committed. Also, back in EQ and UO's day, there weren't many options to scratch your MMO itch, nor was the market half the size it is today.
The size of the market is the next factor that hurts the UO/EQ ideals. Whenever a market expands and tries to pull in more and more demographics, the lower a denominator the company tries to find to bring everyone in. I think they assume hardcore MMO players will sign on to whatever they're fed, while the real challenge is how to pull in non-MMO and casual gamers, since that's where the money is at. Those casual gamers and non-MMO players don't care that much about having a community, since community requires consistent returning players and a time commitment many of them don't care to put forward.
And while it's a fun idea for a developer to be a hero and make a sandbox MMO, when one does come forward, they're slammed down for being glitchy, having poor graphics, and overall not having enough to do, even by those recalling the "Good ol' days of sandboxes." Developing a game in the modern market costs millions upon millions more than it did in Ultima's time. So it's a catch-22 for a developer. The last AAA sandbox MMO I can think of is Pre-CU SWG, and while I loved it, it was slapped down often for its glitchiness that sandbox titles are prone to. So what do you do, then? Do you spend millions of dollars to make a game that appeals to the hardcore MMO crowd and, hopefully, scrounge back enough money to stay afloat? Or do you go and make another themepark F2P game, which will attract your average gamer along with the hardcore MMO crowd, even if they do come whining and moaning? They still come.
because they were bad games?
Thats a cop-out answer. They were good games to many people, plenty of people stayed subbed, just not enough to make the model viable.
The market is not the same market as 8-10 years ago. There are ALOT more options out there now, back in the day, there were only sub games and not many of those either. Today you have a new MMO coming out every other month, it seems.
You can say "just make a good game and people will sub" but thats meaningless, good for whom? What other options are available for a player? Do they have time invested somewhere else?
I would venture to say that many, many people would rather play an average game for free, vs a great game with a sub.
Does sub have its place? Sure, but to get people in it truly has be be extraordinary, and to be frank, we dont get many extraordinary games, in any genre.
if nobody is paying to play ur game, is ur game bad?
Not necessarily...which is why these threads are always based on fail logic. If your competition is offering a better deal people will go there.
It's been said a million times over, some ppl just don't want to understand. The market changed and people don't want to be forced to pay a sub when there is better options.
Not neccisarily, Would you save WoW is better than EvE because it has more people playing?
I can objectively look at EvE, even though I cant stand playing it, and say, thats a well made game. The same for Rift, the game is well made, but it may just not be what the market wants.
what WOw and EVE have in common buddy?
Does paying an entry fee at a club/party/concert make you more willing to interact with others than if you had gotten in for free?
That seems like a real leap of logic. Is this another "keep the riff-raff out" thing?
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
They're both MMOs? They both are part of the same market, but may not neccisarily be for the same audience. I know people who play both.
You are confusing "Good" which is completely arbitrary and varies from person to person, with "successful". Successful is about reading the market, advertising, timing, ect, in addition to the game itself, its not entirely about the product. Again look at WoW, many people on this site hate it, and think its a terrible game, but nobody can say that it wasnt successful. It's success was in large part due to being able to capitalize on an untapped market.
Wow is the most successful themepark and Eve is the most successful sandbox, and both are P2P. why they are the most succesful in their expertise field even requiring the absurd amount of 15$bucks a month since 2004 and 2003?
Whether the game is free or has a sub doesn't determine whether the game will have longevity/replayability. Some people assume that if you pay monthly for a game it is some how better than if you didn't pay anything. That's already been proven not to be the case.
MMOs die fast because they lack the elements of longevity/replayability... and of course the number one cause of all... they are all exactly the same. Free or pay to play... sameness wears thin the fastest.
You are forgetting about the time investment factor. Everyone plays WoW, because thats the game they've always played, thats where their friends are, that's where they've invest so much of themselves, so its very hard to leave. Although that is slowly changing, it is an 8 year old game after all. But people arent going to any one place, they are either leaving the MMO market or filtering to any number of other MMOs.
WoW was a product of perfect timing, no-one had tried a more casual minded approach to a game before. Most games required a significant time sink in order to progress in their game world, EQ being the obvious example. WoW did away with that, which allowed it to be much more accessible to many more people, people that had no horse in the MMO race, no prior commitments, so they could jump right in. Add to that fact that the blizzard name was still riding high on the wave of D2 and WC3, (as it had always been) it had instant name recongnition for quality. WoW was the prefect storm of market conditions, hundreds of thousands and millions of people wanted to play a MMO, but there wasnt one that they felt they could play and still have a life. Boom, WoW.
WoW CANNOT be repeated, the market is different now
EvE is a strange bird. I believe its current success is, in part due to the many dedicated players who adopted the game early and helped it, and its economy and political structure mature, so that it could be more accessible down the line. In other words people were patient and allowed for the game to grow. From what I have been told, it was buggy as all hell on release. People dont leave EvE for obvious reasons, MASSIVE time investment and a sense of ownership, not to mention a lack of other options.
Honestly though, many long time players dont even pay a sub, they get plex and pay for the game that way.
The fact that both games had a sub had absolutely zero impact on why they were successful. They had a sub, because when they were releases, thats what MMOs had.
People who pay a sub are generally invested in some way in the game. The ones that stay do so for a specific reason either they really like the game systems or more likely they enjoy the social interaction's they have built. I have said before WoW's largest strength at this point is social momentum. People keep paying that sub every month because they have social ties to the game.
It's not that F2P games can't have those same kinds of ties as they surly can so much as they tend not to try very hard to foster them if at all. It's a shame really because if a F2P game took a longer term approach and softened the up front pay wall but found ways to foster community building they could make much more money long term.
Granted even most modern P2P MMO's have done a horrible job at this which is one of the reasons why none of them have really been spectacular success. It's funny how developers copy every single element of WoW except the one that contributed the most to it's success.
Actually, sometimes it does. Let's look at the analogy of a the golf country club. If you play golf at a public course, no matter how often you will never build the same bonds with the other players as people who join a private country club.
Of course, they are joining partly to keep out the "riff-raff", which of course doesn't actually work any better than it does in MMO's, but they definitely develop more social bonds based on their commonly shared "membership" than the public golf course player does.
Is it the fee that generates this sense of belonging? No, it's part of being something special, a member, and I do believe people who pay a sub fee are more vested in playing a single MMORPG for longer periods of times than those who are more tourists to the game.
"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
That might be true if free games didn't have guilds, but most people looking for the social aspect of an mmo look for it in the same small groups of " exclusive" memberships guilds offer in both types of games.
Free to play for sure has more people come and go but people quitting are a part of every mmo. You make friends with the people who stay regardless of the payment type.
lets say i only want to troll/cheat/trashtalk in a mmorpg, what game i choose... a game with monetary barriers or a f2p game with zero barriers...
And the problem is?
There are still so many out there and i can continue to hop for a long while. Heck, STO, DCUO, LOTRO are still running strong and there are new F2P games coming out often.
(Warframe, Star Conflict, and Marvel Heroes just this year).
Great point, DamonVile.
Kyleran, when paying for the exclusive country club over the free golf course, the 'special' is in the priority and extras that come with membership, not just in having paid the fee. Subscription MMOs don't offer such things over the F2P MMOs. If anything, such a situation only exists within the F2P MMOs that also offer subs or VIP options.
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
As many posters have said....
Developers and Publishers do not create F2P games with the main focus of them being FUN.
Instead, they focus on how to con players out of their money.
If a game is fun, players will spend money in a F2P game...but, design it as a money grubber, where in the long run F2P costs you more money than a subscription would....well...it fails
Yah it does.
The OP already addressed it, but Asian MMO in China last literally months and they close them off, and they start again with a new game.
The West simply isn't at the same F2P level yet where MMO are throw-away games like single player games, but if China is anything to go by, the West will be there soon too.
That would never be possible with P2P since that would bankrupt them. The F2P model allows them to amass the same amount of money in a few months from whale that would take years with P2P.
For anyone who is still clueless how F2P work, or people in denial.
F2P get their money through the leveling process, people want to level faster than others, they want to make the grind fun, they need gear, XP, items. That's where whales and regular players spend the money. Those first few weeks / months, is where insane amounts of money are spent in the cash shop.
After those first few weeks are over, it doesn't matter anymore. So the company needs a new game to do that same trick once more. And they make another MMO. F2P MMO companies often have 10 MMO or more. Blizzard has 1 MMO.
The payment model directly influences the longevity of the game.
Which is why PWI, Wizard 101, Shattered Galaxy, Flyff, Habbo Hotel, DOFUS, Maple Story, Club Penguin and Navy Field all closed down 6-8 years ago.
My mistake. They're all still running.
"F2P MMO companies often have 10 MMO or more. Blizzard has 1 MMO."
Yes, the outlier has 1. SOE, Funcom, EA, Turbine, and NCSoft - the majority of the other companies that dominated subscription gaming for the past decade or so - all have more than one.
Let's not toss around 'clueless' and 'in denial' so freely.
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