Everyone talks about f2p games as if they are this t-rex that came in and ate all the tiny p2p dinosaur games up leading to gaming extinction.
There are three types of f2p games: (1) one's that were made that way from the beginning and are not trying to screw anyone just pay the bills [Mabinogi], (2) one's that were originally p2p which usually come up with a fairly decent f2p model when converted [Aion], (3) mom and pop oriental gambling shop quicky throw togethers that make los vegas look holy in comparison. You pro p2p always assume every f2p is in catagory 3.
The t-rex everyone is ignoring is real life economy. People no longer have extra money to spend on gaming. Why? When I was a child my parents played this "game" with credit cards called consolidate. If you put all your outstanding debt on one card and used their promo first three months no-interest/low-interest then before the three months were up you would switch to another credit card with a promo. You could conceivably pay your debts. Those days are gone. We have more shit than we ever had but shit costs more than it ever did and if you are not paying attention (and most of you are not) - people don't have as much spending money as they used to. Jobs are not bringing in much. There are no more promotions. There are no corporate retirements for aged employees. Hell, to keep from paying people the law required couple of cents raise managers find a way to fire employees before they go over their 3 month mark. Gasoline prices up daily. Landlords tack more to rent. Power bill up. Utilities up if you have them. What imaginary world do you peeps live in that you think gaming is going to survive the next Depression which is already happening but you're pretending it isn't? Maybe games have gone f2p because they have no choice. Rich brats are decreasing in number and can't support the p2p models all by dier lonesome selves without us commoners.
Soon the wealthy spoilt will be just like the rest while the few Puppetmaster's explain how we all, for our safety because they are so concerned about us, need to put that identity chip under our skin (the one that is in your cat and dog). Please tell me you realize why that's a bad thing.
This is a good point to (part of the reason) why the gaming market is changing the way it is. Change always has friction and causes tension among the player base.
F2P games make more money to Companies than Sub Games.
The industry would not be churning up F2P games if it was not Profitable
B2P is another approach to be able to have some ROI, and then the rest is revenue to cover expenses and generate profits.
F2P/B2P games enjoy more population generally...because they are more accessible compared to Sub Games to a larger demographic.
The down side is the way businesses work however, wanting to always turn in more profit every year in order to show "growth" etc etc...
So eventually you will end up having rediculous offers in the cash shop which affect the game and its community...and the gradual rise of "Pay to Win" items...which can turn in a short term profit but also bleeds players from then on.
I do not touch any game with "Pay to Win" offers, I have been hooked by a couple which did not initially have them and introduced them six months down the line....it was more difficult quitting..but I did quit playing them.
Now I Scout games first, to make sure there is no "Pay to Win" offers..and approach them with caution...and if there is, I quit them before I get more involved and invested.
So I would say, yes, different type of pay systems affect communities.
PS: I do not mind Sub games, but, I will not get a Sub to a Themepark anymore, I am fed up of them, I would sub to a Sandbox MMO.
- Duke Suraknar - Order of the Silver Star, OSS
ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard
I disagree completely. The player base is starving for a gaming company that offers quality service.
Not at the price gaming companies need to charge to make it profitable.
There are too many free alternatives.
So is the community dependent on quality of service for the game? I think that is reasonable. I think we all can remember a time when crappy customer service got in the way of our goals. So switching to F2P does it lose the quality of service.
Subscription games are not dying out because it's not a working model. They're dying out because the current breed of games do not work with subscriptions because there's not enough hooks and content to support a subscription. Old style games were built around subscriptions. I mean, you do realize the games that are still subbing are very old. It kind of supports my argument that if long in the tooth MMORPG's can hold subscription now but supposedly better and newer games can't.
That is obviously not true. WoW is adding more and more content, and losing subs.
It is not about amount of content. It is about competition. If i can get as much fun from a free alternative, there is no point to sub.
And yes ... sub is old style. That is why it is dying out.
WoW is losing subs because its over 8 years old. 8 years is a really, really long time for anyone to play the same game no matter how much they like it.
EvE is P2P and its gaining subs, so...
Look. The real issue at hand is most games now and days aren't up to snuff. They either don't have the IP. or they are rushed, or some combination of the both.
The past few Triple A mmos that came out were all critically flawed in enough ways that people didn't stay. When a developer releases a game that is worth while, people will pay. Its been a while since that has been the case.
A lot of the P2P games have to go to F2P because to be P2P you need a long term game. Logic says that if your game is about content and you have fast leveling ability then content will end fast and players will not stay. Not to mention the repetitive generic mechanics behind the game play.
My issue with cash shops design games are that they're tasteless money traps. Being unable to get everything in game is a turn off. It kills the spirit of the gaming to me. I rather the items I don't have be something to quest for not clicking a money bag on my screen and ripping out my credit card after. Worst are the in game items that tie to cash shops.
The effect on community seems to be minimal to me because generally the type of games that go F2P or are F2P already are designed to have shallow communities. Not all but somw.
SWTOR development team had a huge lack of content for end game. They assumed that players wouldn't reach level 50 within four months. Its up to a development team to make a good game that will create a good community. As long as a pay system does not break gameplay I am okay with it. It can never be Pay to Win.
Subscription games are not dying out because it's not a working model. They're dying out because the current breed of games do not work with subscriptions because there's not enough hooks and content to support a subscription. Old style games were built around subscriptions. I mean, you do realize the games that are still subbing are very old. It kind of supports my argument that if long in the tooth MMORPG's can hold subscription now but supposedly better and newer games can't.
That is obviously not true. WoW is adding more and more content, and losing subs.
It is not about amount of content. It is about competition. If i can get as much fun from a free alternative, there is no point to sub.
And yes ... sub is old style. That is why it is dying out.
I don't think that is Wows main problem, the game is old and therefor have harder getting in the amount of new players it needs to replace the old, most potential customers have already played it. And eventually almost everyone tires of anything. The new young generation of players that are coming now seems to be more into mobile gaming platforms, and they also see a game with very dated graphics as well.
It might of course also be that the quality of Wows content have dropped, in fact the subs started to drop almost direct after Kaplan got moved to Titan. Or something else, like trinity combat might be on the way out, maybe people don't like pandas or whatever.
My point anyways was that there are many reasons together that makes Wows subs drop, not a single one.
Another point is that the reason that new MMOs are F2P is because the CEOs of companies like Activision, EA and SOE believe that F2P earn more money one way or another, not anything else. They also go F2P if they think the P2P game have gotten too few players.
F2P do affect the community, but mainly at low levels. When people start playing without actually forking up money at front you get many jerks who doesn't care about much as all. Once players have invested some time in them though most morons have already quit and the people who still play have an attachment to the game.
But the noob zones in F2P games usually have a really bad community.I don't think there is much difference in the high level players though.
Really appreciate you bringing this up. Can't think of a solution really for this in F2P. It is the only problem I really see with F2P communities is the constant coming and goings of bad eggs. Even a great game with a great community, I see newb zones being misrepresented to what actually the whole game is. And that could lead to hurting the player base, because of that misrepresentation. I do think though that there are still more people who care about the game then the people that don't. Maybe choice, consequences within the game and moderation by the community would be able to solve this issue.
SWTOR development team had a huge lack of content for end game. They assumed that players wouldn't reach level 50 within four months. Its up to a development team to make a good game that will create a good community. As long as a pay system does not break gameplay I am okay with it. It can never be Pay to Win.
Most MMOs put 90% of the content into leveling for some reason but I think TORs real problem is the multiplayer content over all, not just for the endgame. The main focus is on the solostories and we all know how fast we can complete them.
TOR do have plenty of content, the problem is more that they focused most of it in the wrong place.
Still, it is a mystery that so many devs think that we should spend 90% of our gaming time in 10% of the content, that is really the big problem in modern MMOs that games like EQ, UO and AC didn't have. When they moved most of our gaming time from leveling to the endgame they should have moved the content with that.
F2P games make more money to Companies than Sub Games.
The industry would not be churning up F2P games if it was not Profitable
B2P is another approach to be able to have some ROI, and then the rest is revenue to cover expenses and generate profits.
F2P/B2P games enjoy more population generally...because they are more accessible compared to Sub Games to a larger demographic.
The down side is the way businesses work however, wanting to always turn in more profit every year in order to show "growth" etc etc...
So eventually you will end up having rediculous offers in the cash shop which affect the game and its community...and the gradual rise of "Pay to Win" items...which can turn in a short term profit but also bleeds players from then on.
I do not touch any game with "Pay to Win" offers, I have been hooked by a couple which did not initially have them and introduced them six months down the line....it was more difficult quitting..but I did quit playing them.
Now I Scout games first, to make sure there is no "Pay to Win" offers..and approach them with caution...and if there is, I quit them before I get more involved and invested.
So I would say, yes, different type of pay systems affect communities.
PS: I do not mind Sub games, but, I will not get a Sub to a Themepark anymore, I am fed up of them, I would sub to a Sandbox MMO.
So maybe to fix the problem with F2P cash shops is if the developers allowed the community to moderate it and have a vote before allowing certain items into it.
Another point is that the reason that new MMOs are F2P is because the CEOs of companies like Activision, EA and SOE believe that F2P earn more money one way or another, not anything else. They also go F2P if they think the P2P game have gotten too few players.
They believe it because it is true.
DDO, LOTRO, TOR, and a gorzillian other games made more money after turning F2P. I would say they have very convincing evidence for their beliefs. A case of good data driven business decision making.
F2P do affect the community, but mainly at low levels. When people start playing without actually forking up money at front you get many jerks who doesn't care about much as all. Once players have invested some time in them though most morons have already quit and the people who still play have an attachment to the game.
But the noob zones in F2P games usually have a really bad community.I don't think there is much difference in the high level players though.
Really appreciate you bringing this up. Can't think of a solution really for this in F2P. It is the only problem I really see with F2P communities is the constant coming and goings of bad eggs. Even a great game with a great community, I see newb zones being misrepresented to what actually the whole game is. And that could lead to hurting the player base, because of that misrepresentation. I do think though that there are still more people who care about the game then the people that don't. Maybe choice, consequences within the game and moderation by the community would be able to solve this issue.
There are a few possible fixes. One is to have some kind of starting instance where new players stayed for a while before venturing out in the open world, and not a small one like TERA there you can go further after a few hours but somewhere that takes a week or so to pass. There would still be jerks there but they wouldn't pester people in the main cities at least. Of course once you pass it once you should be able to start in the open world instead.
Heavy moderated staring zones helps as well but that tends to get expensive if you use payed GM, and using players as GMs have a habit of working less than optimal.
At 500k subs .. it is so small that it does not matter.
Let me put it this way .. taking Eve what? 8 years to get to 500k subs?
It is much better to get 2M boxes sold, and lose a million sub over 8 years. That will make a lot more money than Eve, although it is "losing sub".
"Losing sub" from a much much bigger base is better than gaining subs to a small level.
You missed the point.
P2P games can succeed, but they usually don't - not because people aren't willing to pay, but because they feel the games aren't worth it.
SWTOR had 2.4 million people buy the game, 95% of which knowing full well that you needed to pay each month. The userbase was there to make P2P work, the game just wasn't up to today's standards.
P2P isn't dead - far from it. People just aren't as willing to continue to dump money into a game that doesn't meet their personal standards, especially when there are so many more alternatives for them to try.
At 500k subs .. it is so small that it does not matter.
Let me put it this way .. taking Eve what? 8 years to get to 500k subs?
It is much better to get 2M boxes sold, and lose a million sub over 8 years. That will make a lot more money than Eve, although it is "losing sub".
"Losing sub" from a much much bigger base is better than gaining subs to a small level.
500k subs small? I think that is ridiculous statement. That is a large user base. Sure WoW has the biggest, but we can't compare every MMO out there to it. And for it to reach 500k is a huge feat even after 8 years it is still gaining subscribers. That is a successful MMO.
And WoW has lost a million here or a million there, but WoW with such a large subscription base is going to have swings in it population. I think WoW will keep going (look at EQ 1). I don't think WoW is ever going to necessarily die unless Blizzard decides to shut it down.
SWTOR development team had a huge lack of content for end game. They assumed that players wouldn't reach level 50 within four months. Its up to a development team to make a good game that will create a good community. As long as a pay system does not break gameplay I am okay with it. It can never be Pay to Win.
Most MMOs put 90% of the content into leveling for some reason but I think TORs real problem is the multiplayer content over all, not just for the endgame. The main focus is on the solostories and we all know how fast we can complete them.
TOR do have plenty of content, the problem is more that they focused most of it in the wrong place.
Still, it is a mystery that so many devs think that we should spend 90% of our gaming time in 10% of the content, that is really the big problem in modern MMOs that games like EQ, UO and AC didn't have. When they moved most of our gaming time from leveling to the endgame they should have moved the content with that.
Another point is that the reason that new MMOs are F2P is because the CEOs of companies like Activision, EA and SOE believe that F2P earn more money one way or another, not anything else. They also go F2P if they think the P2P game have gotten too few players.
They believe it because it is true.
DDO, LOTRO, TOR, and a gorzillian other games made more money after turning F2P. I would say they have very convincing evidence for their beliefs. A case of good data driven business decision making.
I didn't say it wasn't true, I just say they believe it. Blizzard seems to think Wow earns more money P2P though so some exceptions might exist.
But it is a dangerous game anyways, if the cashshop gets too greedy most people will quit so they need to balance it just right to maximize profits.
500k subs small? I think that is ridiculous statement. That is a large user base. Sure WoW has the biggest, but we can't compare every MMO out there to it. And for it to reach 500k is a huge feat even after 8 years it is still gaining subscribers. That is a successful MMO.
And WoW has lost a million here or a million there, but WoW with such a large subscription base is going to have swings in it population. I think WoW will keep going (look at EQ 1). I don't think WoW is ever going to necessarily die unless Blizzard decides to shut it down.
Agreed, few games have that many active players in the west. Eve is surely on the top 5 list there.
Then again, Eve isn't completely P2P anymore since you can pay your sub with ingame coins so it isn't the typical P2P but have a slightly different model today.
Still, Eve clearly matters and is a huge success, particularly if you consider how small the original budget was and the fact that it have been out so long and still gains players. It must be the oldest MMO that still grows.
F2P games make more money to Companies than Sub Games.
The industry would not be churning up F2P games if it was not Profitable
B2P is another approach to be able to have some ROI, and then the rest is revenue to cover expenses and generate profits.
F2P/B2P games enjoy more population generally...because they are more accessible compared to Sub Games to a larger demographic.
The down side is the way businesses work however, wanting to always turn in more profit every year in order to show "growth" etc etc...
So eventually you will end up having rediculous offers in the cash shop which affect the game and its community...and the gradual rise of "Pay to Win" items...which can turn in a short term profit but also bleeds players from then on.
I do not touch any game with "Pay to Win" offers, I have been hooked by a couple which did not initially have them and introduced them six months down the line....it was more difficult quitting..but I did quit playing them.
Now I Scout games first, to make sure there is no "Pay to Win" offers..and approach them with caution...and if there is, I quit them before I get more involved and invested.
So I would say, yes, different type of pay systems affect communities.
PS: I do not mind Sub games, but, I will not get a Sub to a Themepark anymore, I am fed up of them, I would sub to a Sandbox MMO.
So maybe to fix the problem with F2P cash shops is if the developers allowed the community to moderate it and have a vote before allowing certain items into it.
Yes that actually would be a great and sensible approach. If such a relationship can exist between Developer-Player.
I am not sure it can happen with Large Publishers (too much Red Tape) albeit all the better if someone can pull it off, but with Indi Studios, this can be quite doable.
- Duke Suraknar - Order of the Silver Star, OSS
ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard
Subscription games are not dying out because it's not a working model. They're dying out because the current breed of games do not work with subscriptions because there's not enough hooks and content to support a subscription. Old style games were built around subscriptions. I mean, you do realize the games that are still subbing are very old. It kind of supports my argument that if long in the tooth MMORPG's can hold subscription now but supposedly better and newer games can't.
That is obviously not true. WoW is adding more and more content, and losing subs.
It is not about amount of content. It is about competition. If i can get as much fun from a free alternative, there is no point to sub.
And yes ... sub is old style. That is why it is dying out.
WoW is 8 years old and the most imitated MMO by F2P. Yes it's going to loose subs. With the next big expansion that brings a huge gush of content the active subs will go back up some for awhile and it will slowly dwindle. No game last forever even with new content it's still the same game. It's a game that's been done to death by clones. I returned to WoW a few months ago after being gone for years and found it much better than any clone I played but I still burned out from doing the same type of quest over and over.
Again if long in the tooth games can support subs so can current ones. Of course games designed around the current trends cannot. It doesn't mean you won't have a swing back other direction.
WoW is 8 years old and the most imitated MMO by F2P. Yes it's going to loose subs. With the next big expansion that brings a huge gush of content the active subs will go back up some for awhile and it will slowly dwindle. No game last forever even with new content it's still the same game. It's a game that's been done to death by clones. I returned to WoW a few months ago after being gone for years and found it much better than any clone I played but I still burned out from doing the same type of quest over and over.
Again if long in the tooth games can support subs so can current ones. Of course games designed around the current trends cannot. It doesn't mean you won't have a swing back other direction.
Of course P2P games still can earn money, but it seems like most devs think that they get more from F2P and they want to maximize profits.
Probably because some people are shopaholics and buy stuff for huge sums every month.
Then again, being one of a few P2P games might be an advantage as well. Some people still prefer to pay their game that way and that gives you an advantage when most games are F2P. Having no itemshop would certainly be worth 15 bucks to me, at least compared to itemshops like TOr and EQ2s.
There is also a limited number of players around and it says itself that if everyone make all games F2P all of them can't get 5 times the players they had as P2P as some companies seems to think because DDO did it.
So there are many factors to think about. My view is that it is best with some F2P games, some B2P with fluff itemshops and some P2P with no shops at all. That would be best for us consumers at least.
WoW is 8 years old and the most imitated MMO by F2P. Yes it's going to loose subs. With the next big expansion that brings a huge gush of content the active subs will go back up some for awhile and it will slowly dwindle. No game last forever even with new content it's still the same game. It's a game that's been done to death by clones. I returned to WoW a few months ago after being gone for years and found it much better than any clone I played but I still burned out from doing the same type of quest over and over.
Again if long in the tooth games can support subs so can current ones. Of course games designed around the current trends cannot. It doesn't mean you won't have a swing back other direction.
Of course P2P games still can earn money, but it seems like most devs think that they get more from F2P and they want to maximize profits.
Probably because some people are shopaholics and buy stuff for huge sums every month.
Then again, being one of a few P2P games might be an advantage as well. Some people still prefer to pay their game that way and that gives you an advantage when most games are F2P. Having no itemshop would certainly be worth 15 bucks to me, at least compared to itemshops like TOr and EQ2s.
There is also a limited number of players around and it says itself that if everyone make all games F2P all of them can't get 5 times the players they had as P2P as some companies seems to think because DDO did it.
So there are many factors to think about. My view is that it is best with some F2P games, some B2P with fluff itemshops and some P2P with no shops at all. That would be best for us consumers at least.
I hate cash shops. I'm the type who like to beat someone in Madden(when I played) with using the least amount of cheese as possible. Integrity of the game to me is compromised by making cool things only in the cash shops. Neverwinter has in game items that guide me to the cash shops which is a horrible business practice.
Another point is that the reason that new MMOs are F2P is because the CEOs of companies like Activision, EA and SOE believe that F2P earn more money one way or another, not anything else. They also go F2P if they think the P2P game have gotten too few players.
They believe it because it is true.
DDO, LOTRO, TOR, and a gorzillian other games made more money after turning F2P. I would say they have very convincing evidence for their beliefs. A case of good data driven business decision making.
I didn't say it wasn't true, I just say they believe it. Blizzard seems to think Wow earns more money P2P though so some exceptions might exist.
But it is a dangerous game anyways, if the cashshop gets too greedy most people will quit so they need to balance it just right to maximize profits.
And blizz is putting a cash shop in WoW, no doubt in prep for a F2P conversion that is inevitable down the road.
Payment models may have a slight impact in the overall playerbase quality/community, but design, moderation and other factors probably are equally if not more important.
Moderation. Remember moderation?
Too bad it was expensive.
To bad roleplaying tools, end game content, open worlds, guild HQ's, player housing and so on were also seen as too expensive. But don't worry, you can still level up to top level in a ribbon world.
Another point is that the reason that new MMOs are F2P is because the CEOs of companies like Activision, EA and SOE believe that F2P earn more money one way or another, not anything else. They also go F2P if they think the P2P game have gotten too few players.
They believe it because it is true.
DDO, LOTRO, TOR, and a gorzillian other games made more money after turning F2P. I would say they have very convincing evidence for their beliefs. A case of good data driven business decision making.
I didn't say it wasn't true, I just say they believe it. Blizzard seems to think Wow earns more money P2P though so some exceptions might exist.
But it is a dangerous game anyways, if the cashshop gets too greedy most people will quit so they need to balance it just right to maximize profits.
And blizz is putting a cash shop in WoW, no doubt in prep for a F2P conversion that is inevitable down the road.
Surely WoW has had a cash shop for years, or how did they pay for the special Unicorn (?) mount? And having a cash shop in a P2P game is now a must have. I am not sure there are many P2P games that do not have a cash shop these days. My guess would be they will see how P2P and cash shop go before they think about F2P. If they then decide F2P is the way to go they would already at that stage be in a position to launch it.
500k subs small? I think that is ridiculous statement. That is a large user base. Sure WoW has the biggest, but we can't compare every MMO out there to it. And for it to reach 500k is a huge feat even after 8 years it is still gaining subscribers. That is a successful MMO.
And WoW has lost a million here or a million there, but WoW with such a large subscription base is going to have swings in it population. I think WoW will keep going (look at EQ 1). I don't think WoW is ever going to necessarily die unless Blizzard decides to shut it down.
Agreed, few games have that many active players in the west. Eve is surely on the top 5 list there.
Then again, Eve isn't completely P2P anymore since you can pay your sub with ingame coins so it isn't the typical P2P but have a slightly different model today.
Still, Eve clearly matters and is a huge success, particularly if you consider how small the original budget was and the fact that it have been out so long and still gains players. It must be the oldest MMO that still grows.
Technically I think Lineage 1 holds that slot, at least according to recent sales figures.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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Comments
This is a good point to (part of the reason) why the gaming market is changing the way it is. Change always has friction and causes tension among the player base.
F2P games make more money to Companies than Sub Games.
The industry would not be churning up F2P games if it was not Profitable
B2P is another approach to be able to have some ROI, and then the rest is revenue to cover expenses and generate profits.
F2P/B2P games enjoy more population generally...because they are more accessible compared to Sub Games to a larger demographic.
The down side is the way businesses work however, wanting to always turn in more profit every year in order to show "growth" etc etc...
So eventually you will end up having rediculous offers in the cash shop which affect the game and its community...and the gradual rise of "Pay to Win" items...which can turn in a short term profit but also bleeds players from then on.
I do not touch any game with "Pay to Win" offers, I have been hooked by a couple which did not initially have them and introduced them six months down the line....it was more difficult quitting..but I did quit playing them.
Now I Scout games first, to make sure there is no "Pay to Win" offers..and approach them with caution...and if there is, I quit them before I get more involved and invested.
So I would say, yes, different type of pay systems affect communities.
PS: I do not mind Sub games, but, I will not get a Sub to a Themepark anymore, I am fed up of them, I would sub to a Sandbox MMO.
Order of the Silver Star, OSS
ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard
So is the community dependent on quality of service for the game? I think that is reasonable. I think we all can remember a time when crappy customer service got in the way of our goals. So switching to F2P does it lose the quality of service.
WoW is losing subs because its over 8 years old. 8 years is a really, really long time for anyone to play the same game no matter how much they like it.
EvE is P2P and its gaining subs, so...
Look. The real issue at hand is most games now and days aren't up to snuff. They either don't have the IP. or they are rushed, or some combination of the both.
The past few Triple A mmos that came out were all critically flawed in enough ways that people didn't stay. When a developer releases a game that is worth while, people will pay. Its been a while since that has been the case.
SWTOR development team had a huge lack of content for end game. They assumed that players wouldn't reach level 50 within four months. Its up to a development team to make a good game that will create a good community. As long as a pay system does not break gameplay I am okay with it. It can never be Pay to Win.
I don't think that is Wows main problem, the game is old and therefor have harder getting in the amount of new players it needs to replace the old, most potential customers have already played it. And eventually almost everyone tires of anything. The new young generation of players that are coming now seems to be more into mobile gaming platforms, and they also see a game with very dated graphics as well.
It might of course also be that the quality of Wows content have dropped, in fact the subs started to drop almost direct after Kaplan got moved to Titan. Or something else, like trinity combat might be on the way out, maybe people don't like pandas or whatever.
My point anyways was that there are many reasons together that makes Wows subs drop, not a single one.
Another point is that the reason that new MMOs are F2P is because the CEOs of companies like Activision, EA and SOE believe that F2P earn more money one way or another, not anything else. They also go F2P if they think the P2P game have gotten too few players.
Really appreciate you bringing this up. Can't think of a solution really for this in F2P. It is the only problem I really see with F2P communities is the constant coming and goings of bad eggs. Even a great game with a great community, I see newb zones being misrepresented to what actually the whole game is. And that could lead to hurting the player base, because of that misrepresentation. I do think though that there are still more people who care about the game then the people that don't. Maybe choice, consequences within the game and moderation by the community would be able to solve this issue.
At 500k subs .. it is so small that it does not matter.
Let me put it this way .. taking Eve what? 8 years to get to 500k subs?
It is much better to get 2M boxes sold, and lose a million sub over 8 years. That will make a lot more money than Eve, although it is "losing sub".
"Losing sub" from a much much bigger base is better than gaining subs to a small level.
Most MMOs put 90% of the content into leveling for some reason but I think TORs real problem is the multiplayer content over all, not just for the endgame. The main focus is on the solostories and we all know how fast we can complete them.
TOR do have plenty of content, the problem is more that they focused most of it in the wrong place.
Still, it is a mystery that so many devs think that we should spend 90% of our gaming time in 10% of the content, that is really the big problem in modern MMOs that games like EQ, UO and AC didn't have. When they moved most of our gaming time from leveling to the endgame they should have moved the content with that.
So maybe to fix the problem with F2P cash shops is if the developers allowed the community to moderate it and have a vote before allowing certain items into it.
They believe it because it is true.
DDO, LOTRO, TOR, and a gorzillian other games made more money after turning F2P. I would say they have very convincing evidence for their beliefs. A case of good data driven business decision making.
There are a few possible fixes. One is to have some kind of starting instance where new players stayed for a while before venturing out in the open world, and not a small one like TERA there you can go further after a few hours but somewhere that takes a week or so to pass. There would still be jerks there but they wouldn't pester people in the main cities at least. Of course once you pass it once you should be able to start in the open world instead.
Heavy moderated staring zones helps as well but that tends to get expensive if you use payed GM, and using players as GMs have a habit of working less than optimal.
I don't think there is a perfect solution for it.
You missed the point.
P2P games can succeed, but they usually don't - not because people aren't willing to pay, but because they feel the games aren't worth it.
SWTOR had 2.4 million people buy the game, 95% of which knowing full well that you needed to pay each month. The userbase was there to make P2P work, the game just wasn't up to today's standards.
P2P isn't dead - far from it. People just aren't as willing to continue to dump money into a game that doesn't meet their personal standards, especially when there are so many more alternatives for them to try.
500k subs small? I think that is ridiculous statement. That is a large user base. Sure WoW has the biggest, but we can't compare every MMO out there to it. And for it to reach 500k is a huge feat even after 8 years it is still gaining subscribers. That is a successful MMO.
And WoW has lost a million here or a million there, but WoW with such a large subscription base is going to have swings in it population. I think WoW will keep going (look at EQ 1). I don't think WoW is ever going to necessarily die unless Blizzard decides to shut it down.
Agreed. There has to be a solution to that 10%.
I didn't say it wasn't true, I just say they believe it. Blizzard seems to think Wow earns more money P2P though so some exceptions might exist.
But it is a dangerous game anyways, if the cashshop gets too greedy most people will quit so they need to balance it just right to maximize profits.
Agreed, few games have that many active players in the west. Eve is surely on the top 5 list there.
Then again, Eve isn't completely P2P anymore since you can pay your sub with ingame coins so it isn't the typical P2P but have a slightly different model today.
Still, Eve clearly matters and is a huge success, particularly if you consider how small the original budget was and the fact that it have been out so long and still gains players. It must be the oldest MMO that still grows.
Yes that actually would be a great and sensible approach. If such a relationship can exist between Developer-Player.
I am not sure it can happen with Large Publishers (too much Red Tape) albeit all the better if someone can pull it off, but with Indi Studios, this can be quite doable.
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WoW is 8 years old and the most imitated MMO by F2P. Yes it's going to loose subs. With the next big expansion that brings a huge gush of content the active subs will go back up some for awhile and it will slowly dwindle. No game last forever even with new content it's still the same game. It's a game that's been done to death by clones. I returned to WoW a few months ago after being gone for years and found it much better than any clone I played but I still burned out from doing the same type of quest over and over.
Again if long in the tooth games can support subs so can current ones. Of course games designed around the current trends cannot. It doesn't mean you won't have a swing back other direction.
Of course P2P games still can earn money, but it seems like most devs think that they get more from F2P and they want to maximize profits.
Probably because some people are shopaholics and buy stuff for huge sums every month.
Then again, being one of a few P2P games might be an advantage as well. Some people still prefer to pay their game that way and that gives you an advantage when most games are F2P. Having no itemshop would certainly be worth 15 bucks to me, at least compared to itemshops like TOr and EQ2s.
There is also a limited number of players around and it says itself that if everyone make all games F2P all of them can't get 5 times the players they had as P2P as some companies seems to think because DDO did it.
So there are many factors to think about. My view is that it is best with some F2P games, some B2P with fluff itemshops and some P2P with no shops at all. That would be best for us consumers at least.
I hate cash shops. I'm the type who like to beat someone in Madden(when I played) with using the least amount of cheese as possible. Integrity of the game to me is compromised by making cool things only in the cash shops. Neverwinter has in game items that guide me to the cash shops which is a horrible business practice.
And blizz is putting a cash shop in WoW, no doubt in prep for a F2P conversion that is inevitable down the road.
To bad roleplaying tools, end game content, open worlds, guild HQ's, player housing and so on were also seen as too expensive. But don't worry, you can still level up to top level in a ribbon world.
Surely WoW has had a cash shop for years, or how did they pay for the special Unicorn (?) mount? And having a cash shop in a P2P game is now a must have. I am not sure there are many P2P games that do not have a cash shop these days. My guess would be they will see how P2P and cash shop go before they think about F2P. If they then decide F2P is the way to go they would already at that stage be in a position to launch it.
Technically I think Lineage 1 holds that slot, at least according to recent sales figures.
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