The OP is begging the question here. Do sub games make more money? We don't have much in the way of statistics to investigate this, and even so it would difficult to draw such a sweeping conclusion. WoW makes a lot of money. EVE seems to make some money. Is it because they're subscription based or because they're good games? I have a couple of theories as to why F2P is proving more marketable in certain cases at least...
No. F2P games make 2x more money than sub-only games.
"Speaking of the MMO, the free-to-play MMO is definitely a trendy and have a growth of 3 million players in March, which also brings a slight improvement on monetization to $195 million. To the contrary, the pay-to-play MMO segment is going down in March and loses around 289,000 subscribers. Nonetheless, the overall revenues remained relatively stable at $86 million"
Originally posted by ScotYou certainly know your automobile history, I never realised it did not start as black, but the comparison stands. We are not all still driving Model T's are we, diversity was the result of automobile competition?. In the MMO world, one template stills rules all. There have been MMO like games, e.g MMOFPS, but they are quite different games, I applaud that, but they are not MMO's. MMO's got stuck in a rut and F2P is the cheap production model that is winning.
MMOFPS, instanced pvp games, MOBAs, online ARPGs with MMO features.There are tons of new innovations. Yes, they are different games .. that is why it is innovative and exciting. The definition of MMO is so narrow that some innovation in play style, and suddenly the game is no longer a MMO.If the definition of MMO is not broaden, it will get stuck forever. Personally, it is just semantics to me, and i don't really care. There are enough new games to play. Don't let a definition limit your fun.
The definition of "MMO" is pretty broad, and covers everything you've listed up there. The definition is broad enough that is can be used in the general sense, but also to mean "MMORPG". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massively_multiplayer_online_gamehttp://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/MMO Talking about MMORPGs is when you start getting into people saying that games aren't "true" MMORPGs because they've deviated from the definition a little bit, while at the same time complaining that MMORPGs haven't deviated from the definition at all.
Really? I distinctly remember some posters here are arguing that D3 (online APRG), LoL (MOBA), WoT (instanced pvp) are not MMOs.
Personally i don't care .. it is just a label .. either way is fine with me.
Those games are close enough, even if they are not, MMOs to me. I am more than happy to refer them as MMOs (easier than listing several genre every time) in the future.
People on this site argue lots of things, with nothing to back it up besides their own thoughts. The rest of the internet, which has a lot more people is coming to an agreement on the definitions of these words whether or not people here buy into it. Even if I don't agree with the sources, I'd prefer having sources to refer to rather than trying to convince people that stuff I made up on my own is "right". Unless I'm actually right of course. :-)
That doesn't really have anything to do with the catch 22 developers have when trying to bring innovation to the genre instead of trying to recycle the past. If they innovate, they run the risk of not being an MMORPG, if they don't innovate, they get yelled at for not doing anything. The only way I can resolve this is that the people calling for innovation are largely asking for recycling of much older games, not innovation.
**
Sorry, this post is way off topic. Total brain f@rt on my part.
I agree with you. Only some here want to argue about MMO definitions because they don't like progress, and how the genre has changed.
The industry largely use MMO to include games like LoL and Wot.
f2p games make a lot of money off of people like me buying stupid shit. if I play a sub game I spend 15/month. that's it. if I play a f2p game I buy everything. $200 on neverwinter? np. $100 on marvel? easy. that's a years sub worth. sub games know they will make $15 a month and have a good idea how much money they have to invest in the games future development. so u see expansions and updates and solid content. f2p has no clue how much they will receive from one month to the next. so games get less love meaning shallow games and small crew working on the game. u can plan a games future with a steady income. have a fixed crew working on game. f2p is just small and usually makes money off of new players. sub games go f2p after sub numbers cease to increase and start drifting off. go f2p and add stupid shit in store and people who wouldn't pay a sub come to play. numbers increase for a short time. there r a lot of players out there that just want to play for free. so they bounce from game to game paying nothing and bitching the game sucks but expect gold without paying a cent. we will never see a solid long lasting mmo come out as f2p. just wont happen. have to spend money to make money. and we have to spend money for QUALITY games. we need them to make solid games and they need us to help pay for this. its the way business works. hell its how the world works.
What if the P2P people and the F2P people really are two distinct groups of players? There is certainly some overlap, but what if there really are a few million P2P people and a few million F2P people?
That would mean releasing as a P2P game, and then later switching to a F2P system would capture both groups of people.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
we will never see a solid long lasting mmo come out as f2p. just wont happen. have to spend money to make money. and we have to spend money for QUALITY games. we need them to make solid games and they need us to help pay for this. its the way business works. hell its how the world works.
Nah .. that may be how business worked. It is not so anymore.
They don't need everyone to pay. They just need the whales to pay, and everyone else play for free.
I'm not against P2P and I'm not against F2P I like all models(to some extent).
But I hear it tossed around a lot, that P2P games make more money and get more updates and are hence better. If this is true, why are almost all the P2P games going F2P? Do they just hate money?
Even Rift, which was every P2P die hard's anthem. "Look at Rift! That game pumps out so much content because it is P2P!" well...they went F2P. Were they tired of making all that money?
Other than WoW, Eve is one of the only hold outs with a sub. But even that game allows players to basically buy in game currency through the plex system. (buy tons of plex and sell it all in game) so it's not a pure P2P game with everyone equal regardless of money spent.
I am just curious what the reasoning here is. The P2P games are better, because they make more money, yet they all have to go F2P. Something feels off...
OP, plain and simple P2P games do not make more money. If they did, games would be going that way and they are going away from that model.
P2P games are not inherently better either.
WoW announced they will go F2P - so there goes your argument out the window.
Originally posted by Distopia Never really heard it argued that they make more money (not to say it doesn't happen) I just don't think it's all that common. Most want subs simply because it costs less to have everything a game offers ( if it's based solely on a sub model). Even Hybrids like TOR etc.. Are better experiences (for the buck) with a sub over what it costs without.
Sub based games may cost less for those who play 12-14 hours per day, are a in a guild who can complete the hardest content, has access to resources the average casual gamer does not.
F2P games offer something for me, the guy who plays a couple hours per night when he gets off work from the graveyard shift and will never be able to complete the hardest dungeons because guilds won't accept someone that can only play 2 hours per night and usually only after midnight. Therefore F2P games allow me to exchange real life disposable cash for ingame benefits to even up the odds.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
The OP is begging the question here. Do sub games make more money? We don't have much in the way of statistics to investigate this, and even so it would difficult to draw such a sweeping conclusion. WoW makes a lot of money. EVE seems to make some money. Is it because they're subscription based or because they're good games? I have a couple of theories as to why F2P is proving more marketable in certain cases at least...
No. F2P games make 2x more money than sub-only games.
"Speaking of the MMO, the free-to-play MMO is definitely a trendy and have a growth of 3 million players in March, which also brings a slight improvement on monetization to $195 million. To the contrary, the pay-to-play MMO segment is going down in March and loses around 289,000 subscribers. Nonetheless, the overall revenues remained relatively stable at $86 million"
Sorry, but SuperData's MMO data lacks any credibility. They can call them self professional all they want. The fact they find people who buy this crap does not make them valid in any way.
They claim the U.S. market has 6.6 Million subscription based MMO player as of latest. 6.6 Million in in none other but the United States!. Either they use totally botched up definitions of MMOs and subscriptions or they are just pulling up nonsense. Even WoW has barely a quarter of that left in the U.S., if at all. And Wow is faring pretty well against other subscription based MMOs in the U.S, at least compared to other regions.
However they fabricate these numbers they hold no more credence than any forum user claim here with the numbers the pull up.
While I don't disagree that F2P MMOs so far make more money than P2P MMORPGs in total (regardless of amount of player and games), this source is not to be taken seriously.
I have my concerns about such data myself. It strikes me if you are a gaming company that has said you will only make F2P MMOs, like SOE has, it is in your interest to present figures that show this revenue model is doing great. The same goes for P2P and B2P MMOs but that just adds a note of caution for me, are any of them submitting genuine figures?
The real issue though is how do they classify a game as F2P? A B2P MMO like GW2 is not free to play, even though F2P fans keep saying it is. Just removing GW2/TSW etc from the P2P side and putting them into the F2P side could have a big impact. What we could be seeing here is how well B2P is doing, not F2P.
I understand why these sites do not name their sources, company confidentiality and all that. But without that level of detail you have to question their results. I am not saying that Superdata is right or wrong, just that you need to put a question mark over what they are showing.
Originally posted by Scot You certainly know your automobile history, I never realised it did not start as black, but the comparison stands. We are not all still driving Model T's are we, diversity was the result of automobile competition?. In the MMO world, one template stills rules all. There have been MMO like games, e.g MMOFPS, but they are quite different games, I applaud that, but they are not MMO's. MMO's got stuck in a rut and F2P is the cheap production model that is winning.
MMOFPS, instanced pvp games, MOBAs, online ARPGs with MMO features.
There are tons of new innovations. Yes, they are different games .. that is why it is innovative and exciting. The definition of MMO is so narrow that some innovation in play style, and suddenly the game is no longer a MMO.
If the definition of MMO is not broaden, it will get stuck forever. Personally, it is just semantics to me, and i don't really care. There are enough new games to play. Don't let a definition limit your fun.
MMO has a very finite definition and has nothing to do with play style. If you want an FPS MMO, its an MMOFPS. Which means its an MMO. If you want a non MMO game such as a MOBA, then its not an MMO. If you want to play an ARPG that allows grouping, then its a standard multi-player game. MMO's can be instanced, if there is a massive amount of people playing together in that one, single, instance.
I don't get why you think games with 10 players and so on should be called massive. The day Counterstrike is called an MMO under your definition is the day I will honestly delete my MMORPG account. The site will have no meaning at all when that happens.
i think your right.. theres no way everyone is going to pay 15 bucks a month on a bunch of games.. f2p has to be the route... so that customers can try a bunch of mmo's and not be so vested in it.. so people can pay a few bucks here and there and play a alot more mmo's, makes sense to me..
the 15 bucks a month can only be for the top mmo's... nobody is going to pay for 2 or 3 mmos
i think your right.. theres no way everyone is going to pay 15 bucks a month on a bunch of games.. f2p has to be the route... so that customers can try a bunch of mmo's and not be so vested in it.. so people can pay a few bucks here and there and play a alot more mmo's, makes sense to me..
the 15 bucks a month can only be for the top mmo's... nobody is going to pay for 2 or 3 mmos
Inorite?No one pays $50-60 a month on a bunch of console/PC games...oh wait....
Originally posted by Scot You certainly know your automobile history, I never realised it did not start as black, but the comparison stands. We are not all still driving Model T's are we, diversity was the result of automobile competition?. In the MMO world, one template stills rules all. There have been MMO like games, e.g MMOFPS, but they are quite different games, I applaud that, but they are not MMO's. MMO's got stuck in a rut and F2P is the cheap production model that is winning.
MMOFPS, instanced pvp games, MOBAs, online ARPGs with MMO features.
There are tons of new innovations. Yes, they are different games .. that is why it is innovative and exciting. The definition of MMO is so narrow that some innovation in play style, and suddenly the game is no longer a MMO.
If the definition of MMO is not broaden, it will get stuck forever. Personally, it is just semantics to me, and i don't really care. There are enough new games to play. Don't let a definition limit your fun.
MMO has a very finite definition and has nothing to do with play style. If you want an FPS MMO, its an MMOFPS. Which means its an MMO. If you want a non MMO game such as a MOBA, then its not an MMO. If you want to play an ARPG that allows grouping, then its a standard multi-player game. MMO's can be instanced, if there is a massive amount of people playing together in that one, single, instance.
I don't get why you think games with 10 players and so on should be called massive. The day Counterstrike is called an MMO under your definition is the day I will honestly delete my MMORPG account. The site will have no meaning at all when that happens.
Because you can match with a massive population?
Look at WOW. Most the gameplay is 10/25-man raid and 5-man dungeon at end game. Tell me if that is massive. Or for PvP, it is like 20 people battleground. Tell me if that is massive.
If you have to be massive in pve gameplay, there is no MMO in the world.
Heck, even PS2, an open world pvp centric game, is adding battleground style e-sports. Tell me e-sport is massive too.
May be you should delete your MMORPG account sooner. OTOH, it is just a label. This is as good a place to discuss online games, as any other.
Sorry, but SuperData's MMO data lacks any credibility. They can call them self professional all they want. The fact they find people who buy this crap does not make them valid in any way.
More credibility than "opinions" here by random internet dudes. I don't see anyone has evidence refuting their data.
I have my concerns about such data myself. It strikes me if you are a gaming company that has said you will only make F2P MMOs, like SOE has, it is in your interest to present figures that show this revenue model is doing great. The same goes for P2P and B2P MMOs but that just adds a note of caution for me, are any of them submitting genuine figures?
Superdata don't make MMOs, do they?
The real issue though is how do they classify a game as F2P? A B2P MMO like GW2 is not free to play, even though F2P fans keep saying it is. Just removing GW2/TSW etc from the P2P side and putting them into the F2P side could have a big impact. What we could be seeing here is how well B2P is doing, not F2P.
Who says GW2 is F2P?
I understand why these sites do not name their sources, company confidentiality and all that. But without that level of detail you have to question their results. I am not saying that Superdata is right or wrong, just that you need to put a question mark over what they are showing.
Data is data. Go buy their numbers and you will see. They are of course right .. on the numbers. You just have to go read the details of their definition and stuff.
The answer is VERY simple,they don't want to compete any more than they have to.If they already have a tough time selling in a sub market ,they definitely can't compete in a free market,so they join the masses on the same level.
Now that most devs are once again on even grounds to compete,they are looking for new ways to entice customers.it is all a complete cycle,now they are simply using war of the words."We do this better" ect ect.A perfect example Anet claiming they did us all a favor removing the Trinity,NO you did some a favor,not EVERYONE.Then they used other PR talk like claiming they fixed the problems with grouping by having auto grouping.NO that is not grouping what so ever,that is a pile of players under the moniker of a group but interact NOTHING like a group would.This is just the developers spinning words trying to convince everyone they are better or doing it better.
If these devs could sell their game on a sub fee they most certainly would not turn their noses at more money,truth is they cannot,they NEED to compete on the same level as games that are of the same quality.
You can usually tell the f2p games,instead of starting in a giant city that took the developer months to design,they just toss you out into the field,that took no extra effort at all.The next step in determining a f2p quality is looking at the structures buildings,if they have no insides/architecture you know they were designing the game on a f2p budget.
You get what you pay for as simple as that.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I think, to answer the OP's question, it's a crowded market and only the fittest survive.
He cites WoW and EvE. But to say that all other sub games have failed is a bit misleading. Because it ignores B2P games like GW1, in terms of boxes sold it was very successful.
I sometimes make spelling and grammar errors but I don't pretend it's because I'm using a phone
I think, to answer the OP's question, it's a crowded market and only the fittest survive.
He cites WoW and EvE. But to say that all other sub games have failed is a bit misleading. Because it ignores B2P games like GW1, in terms of boxes sold it was very successful.
If a game is worthy of money it will make money as long as the business model is correctly matched to the game. It's when models aren't really positioned properly or the games simply aren't worth spending real money on that don't earn a lot.
it's the bad p2p games that go f2p. not all of them.
So in your opinion, WoW and Eve are the only two good P2P MMOs ever made? And since you hate all F2P MMOs... is it your opinion that WoW and Eve are the only two good MMOs ever made, period?
no, in my opinion wow and eve are some good mmo's. you asked why all are going f2p, i gave you two examples that aren't.
uhhhh, the OP had already given those exact same examples.
how enlightening of you to give him examples of what he'd already given you.
Sub games don't make more money. That's why so many sub games have gone F2P. A lot of them were doing quite fine too. It was just corporate greed that "made" them "need" to switch to F2P. When I hear an MMO game company saying they are making their MMO F2P because of low population I usually roll my eyes because in all honesty it's a big fat lie. Most of the time the MMO in question can do fine with the number of subs it is getting, and is still profiting quite well. The reason why game companies switch is to make more money because somehow MMOs went from it being to mostly about the players to mostly about the money that game companies could virtually squeeze out of the players.
Originally posted by Scot You certainly know your automobile history, I never realised it did not start as black, but the comparison stands. We are not all still driving Model T's are we, diversity was the result of automobile competition?. In the MMO world, one template stills rules all. There have been MMO like games, e.g MMOFPS, but they are quite different games, I applaud that, but they are not MMO's. MMO's got stuck in a rut and F2P is the cheap production model that is winning.
MMOFPS, instanced pvp games, MOBAs, online ARPGs with MMO features.
There are tons of new innovations. Yes, they are different games .. that is why it is innovative and exciting. The definition of MMO is so narrow that some innovation in play style, and suddenly the game is no longer a MMO.
If the definition of MMO is not broaden, it will get stuck forever. Personally, it is just semantics to me, and i don't really care. There are enough new games to play. Don't let a definition limit your fun.
MMO has a very finite definition and has nothing to do with play style. If you want an FPS MMO, its an MMOFPS. Which means its an MMO. If you want a non MMO game such as a MOBA, then its not an MMO. If you want to play an ARPG that allows grouping, then its a standard multi-player game. MMO's can be instanced, if there is a massive amount of people playing together in that one, single, instance.
I don't get why you think games with 10 players and so on should be called massive. The day Counterstrike is called an MMO under your definition is the day I will honestly delete my MMORPG account. The site will have no meaning at all when that happens.
Because you can match with a massive population?
Look at WOW. Most the gameplay is 10/25-man raid and 5-man dungeon at end game. Tell me if that is massive. Or for PvP, it is like 20 people battleground. Tell me if that is massive.
If you have to be massive in pve gameplay, there is no MMO in the world.
Heck, even PS2, an open world pvp centric game, is adding battleground style e-sports. Tell me e-sport is massive too.
May be you should delete your MMORPG account sooner. OTOH, it is just a label. This is as good a place to discuss online games, as any other.
In a MMO you do not need to have massive play all the time. Different elements of the game can have different numbers. The raid might have 40 players, the zone war a couple of hundred. Your group might have just 6, when soloing there is just one. There is a variety in such play which is the spice of MMO's. If you look at PS2 they have gone down the massive all the time route. Calling it a MMOFPS is the best fit we have for what those type of games do. These are not just labels, they help those who have not played a game get a handle on it without playing the game, that is very important.
We need separate criteria's when discussing MMO's. You keep going on about this Nari, I don't understand why, we can't call them all MMOs or all games. Not all soups are the same, you have tomato soup and chicken soup, its the same with online games. Perhaps we need to go back to MMORPG, that way we would know when we are not taking about all MMO type games.
P2P doesn't make more money because there are few games in this day and age which are worth paying a monthly sub for and those that aren't worth it will likely have extremely limited trial runs so you can spot them from a mile away.
Sorry, but SuperData's MMO data lacks any credibility. They can call them self professional all they want. The fact they find people who buy this crap does not make them valid in any way.
More credibility than "opinions" here by random internet dudes. I don't see anyone has evidence refuting their data.
I don't see you have any evidence supporting their data or even make it appear "correct".
I don't see you have any evidence to support they are credible.
I don't have to, since all gaming sites quote their results. I just report what they find. If you disagree, find your own evidence.
Comments
No. F2P games make 2x more money than sub-only games.
http://2p.com/5170acba61fc1cbdad62bf61_1/March-2013-US-Digital-Games-Market-Overview.htm
"Speaking of the MMO, the free-to-play MMO is definitely a trendy and have a growth of 3 million players in March, which also brings a slight improvement on monetization to $195 million. To the contrary, the pay-to-play MMO segment is going down in March and loses around 289,000 subscribers. Nonetheless, the overall revenues remained relatively stable at $86 million"
I agree with you. Only some here want to argue about MMO definitions because they don't like progress, and how the genre has changed.
The industry largely use MMO to include games like LoL and Wot.
f2p games make a lot of money off of people like me buying stupid shit. if I play a sub game I spend 15/month. that's it. if I play a f2p game I buy everything. $200 on neverwinter? np. $100 on marvel? easy. that's a years sub worth.
sub games know they will make $15 a month and have a good idea how much money they have to invest in the games future development. so u see expansions and updates and solid content. f2p has no clue how much they will receive from one month to the next. so games get less love meaning shallow games and small crew working on the game.
u can plan a games future with a steady income. have a fixed crew working on game. f2p is just small and usually makes money off of new players.
sub games go f2p after sub numbers cease to increase and start drifting off. go f2p and add stupid shit in store and people who wouldn't pay a sub come to play. numbers increase for a short time.
there r a lot of players out there that just want to play for free. so they bounce from game to game paying nothing and bitching the game sucks but expect gold without paying a cent.
we will never see a solid long lasting mmo come out as f2p. just wont happen. have to spend money to make money. and we have to spend money for QUALITY games. we need them to make solid games and they need us to help pay for this. its the way business works. hell its how the world works.
What if the P2P people and the F2P people really are two distinct groups of players? There is certainly some overlap, but what if there really are a few million P2P people and a few million F2P people?
That would mean releasing as a P2P game, and then later switching to a F2P system would capture both groups of people.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Nah .. that may be how business worked. It is not so anymore.
They don't need everyone to pay. They just need the whales to pay, and everyone else play for free.
OP, plain and simple P2P games do not make more money. If they did, games would be going that way and they are going away from that model.
P2P games are not inherently better either.
WoW announced they will go F2P - so there goes your argument out the window.
F2P only has the potential to generate more than a P2P title. It's really that simple.
Sub based games may cost less for those who play 12-14 hours per day, are a in a guild who can complete the hardest content, has access to resources the average casual gamer does not.
F2P games offer something for me, the guy who plays a couple hours per night when he gets off work from the graveyard shift and will never be able to complete the hardest dungeons because guilds won't accept someone that can only play 2 hours per night and usually only after midnight. Therefore F2P games allow me to exchange real life disposable cash for ingame benefits to even up the odds.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
I have my concerns about such data myself. It strikes me if you are a gaming company that has said you will only make F2P MMOs, like SOE has, it is in your interest to present figures that show this revenue model is doing great. The same goes for P2P and B2P MMOs but that just adds a note of caution for me, are any of them submitting genuine figures?
The real issue though is how do they classify a game as F2P? A B2P MMO like GW2 is not free to play, even though F2P fans keep saying it is. Just removing GW2/TSW etc from the P2P side and putting them into the F2P side could have a big impact. What we could be seeing here is how well B2P is doing, not F2P.
I understand why these sites do not name their sources, company confidentiality and all that. But without that level of detail you have to question their results. I am not saying that Superdata is right or wrong, just that you need to put a question mark over what they are showing.
MMO has a very finite definition and has nothing to do with play style. If you want an FPS MMO, its an MMOFPS. Which means its an MMO. If you want a non MMO game such as a MOBA, then its not an MMO. If you want to play an ARPG that allows grouping, then its a standard multi-player game. MMO's can be instanced, if there is a massive amount of people playing together in that one, single, instance.
I don't get why you think games with 10 players and so on should be called massive. The day Counterstrike is called an MMO under your definition is the day I will honestly delete my MMORPG account. The site will have no meaning at all when that happens.
i think your right.. theres no way everyone is going to pay 15 bucks a month on a bunch of games.. f2p has to be the route... so that customers can try a bunch of mmo's and not be so vested in it.. so people can pay a few bucks here and there and play a alot more mmo's, makes sense to me..
the 15 bucks a month can only be for the top mmo's... nobody is going to pay for 2 or 3 mmos
Inorite?No one pays $50-60 a month on a bunch of console/PC games...oh wait....
Because you can match with a massive population?
Look at WOW. Most the gameplay is 10/25-man raid and 5-man dungeon at end game. Tell me if that is massive. Or for PvP, it is like 20 people battleground. Tell me if that is massive.
If you have to be massive in pve gameplay, there is no MMO in the world.
Heck, even PS2, an open world pvp centric game, is adding battleground style e-sports. Tell me e-sport is massive too.
May be you should delete your MMORPG account sooner. OTOH, it is just a label. This is as good a place to discuss online games, as any other.
More credibility than "opinions" here by random internet dudes. I don't see anyone has evidence refuting their data.
The answer is VERY simple,they don't want to compete any more than they have to.If they already have a tough time selling in a sub market ,they definitely can't compete in a free market,so they join the masses on the same level.
Now that most devs are once again on even grounds to compete,they are looking for new ways to entice customers.it is all a complete cycle,now they are simply using war of the words."We do this better" ect ect.A perfect example Anet claiming they did us all a favor removing the Trinity,NO you did some a favor,not EVERYONE.Then they used other PR talk like claiming they fixed the problems with grouping by having auto grouping.NO that is not grouping what so ever,that is a pile of players under the moniker of a group but interact NOTHING like a group would.This is just the developers spinning words trying to convince everyone they are better or doing it better.
If these devs could sell their game on a sub fee they most certainly would not turn their noses at more money,truth is they cannot,they NEED to compete on the same level as games that are of the same quality.
You can usually tell the f2p games,instead of starting in a giant city that took the developer months to design,they just toss you out into the field,that took no extra effort at all.The next step in determining a f2p quality is looking at the structures buildings,if they have no insides/architecture you know they were designing the game on a f2p budget.
You get what you pay for as simple as that.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I think, to answer the OP's question, it's a crowded market and only the fittest survive.
He cites WoW and EvE. But to say that all other sub games have failed is a bit misleading. Because it ignores B2P games like GW1, in terms of boxes sold it was very successful.
I sometimes make spelling and grammar errors but I don't pretend it's because I'm using a phone
well, B2P is not sub.
I just re-read the OP and Narius's comment on my post and I retract the statement about GW1 and B2P.
The OP did mention 'other payment models' or words to that effect but it wasn't central to his argument.
I sometimes make spelling and grammar errors but I don't pretend it's because I'm using a phone
uhhhh, the OP had already given those exact same examples.
how enlightening of you to give him examples of what he'd already given you.
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In a MMO you do not need to have massive play all the time. Different elements of the game can have different numbers. The raid might have 40 players, the zone war a couple of hundred. Your group might have just 6, when soloing there is just one. There is a variety in such play which is the spice of MMO's. If you look at PS2 they have gone down the massive all the time route. Calling it a MMOFPS is the best fit we have for what those type of games do. These are not just labels, they help those who have not played a game get a handle on it without playing the game, that is very important.
We need separate criteria's when discussing MMO's. You keep going on about this Nari, I don't understand why, we can't call them all MMOs or all games. Not all soups are the same, you have tomato soup and chicken soup, its the same with online games. Perhaps we need to go back to MMORPG, that way we would know when we are not taking about all MMO type games.
I don't have to, since all gaming sites quote their results. I just report what they find. If you disagree, find your own evidence.