MMO's these days are very much a different breed than the ones released in the era of Everquest, EvE, and WoW. Back in 2004 releasing a mmo with attached monthly fees was the norm, and quite a few games became wildly successful because of it (both financially and garnering the respect of customers). The MMO scene currently is a very different beast...
Before I rag on upcoming p2p mmo's, lets take a look at the currently successes. First you have WoW the grandfather of the modern mmo, and probably the last great p2p mmo as well. WoW continues to be a p2p power mainly through Blizzards groundwork laid almost 10 years ago but also because it was the first to bring the mmo genre to the masses. Another continual success for the p2p mmo's is EvE online which has achieved a continuous growth of player subs for over 10 years. CCP managed this, in my opinion, by providing the players an ever change and evolving universe that puts your sub money to good use.
Now lets take a look at what the upcoming p2p mmo wildstar has to go up against. First you have the B2P juggernaut GW2. Whether you like ANet's style of mmo's or not you have to commend them for producing a game that only requires one purchase to play. ANet has been providing content updates that have far out striped or equaled what you usually get in a P2P mmo (for your 15$) all for free.
This brings me to my main point, how can any new p2p mmo possibly come up with a reasonable and defensible answer to why they need a monthly stipend from you, in addition to the base game cost? Now I will digress for a second to say that the only P2P mmo I have encountered that made me feel as if my monthly fee was warranted, was EvE online (mainly because your monthly fee went to server architecture that actually needed maintenance and free expansions). I for one see no way a new P2P mmo can justify the need for having a large $15/month fee, unless they produce content on the scale and size of GW2's or they provide expansion style content packs for free like EvE. Long gone are the myths around needing this $15 for server upkeep and costs (http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=av26nr&s=6).
In conclusion I will be hoping for more innovative and risk taking p2p mmo's in the future, as they are my preferred style of mmo, sadly I do not see any upcoming releases that take into account my worries above but who knows what the future holds.
Lol, it was a good read and laugh, now since when did F2P titles become "modern"? It's also funny how if you combine every F2P MMORPG on the market with the exception of Maple Story, that the combined numbers don't even come close to the current number of subs of WoW. Please, it's a nice shiny troll thread, but no matter how flashy and shiny you type, it's still a troll thread. Sorry if you can't afford 10-15$ a month for awesome gaming! Maple Story is the only MMO which is side scroll and 2D that is generating more cash and way more playerbase then 3D F2P titles like Age of Wushu , RO2 , etc. So please take your "modern" argument somewhere else, it's invalid here.
Probably when modern games starting switching or releasing as f2p.
And if you combined every MMORPG on the market it would = equal about 50 x the number of WoW players.
Heck there are 3rd party research groups stating there are something like 200 million MMO players in North America alone, which would be almost 17 x the number of WoW worldwide.
edit - sorry my mistake, the reports showed 50 million in U.S., I would guess 5-10 million for Canada and Mexico. So not 200 million in NA but 60 million, still 7x the size of WoW. And again that is all MMO players, not just sub.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Probably when modern games starting switching or releasing as f2p.
And if you combined every MMORPG on the market it would = equal about 50 x the number of WoW players.
Heck there are 3rd party research groups stating there are something like 200 million MMO players in North America alone, which would be almost 17 x the number of WoW worldwide.
edit - sorry my mistake, the reports showed 50 million in U.S., I would guess 5-10 million for Canada and Mexico. So not 200 million in NA but 60 million, still 7x the size of WoW. And again that is all MMO players, not just sub.
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Probably when modern games starting switching or releasing as f2p.
And if you combined every MMORPG on the market it would = equal about 50 x the number of WoW players.
Heck there are 3rd party research groups stating there are something like 200 million MMO players in North America alone, which would be almost 17 x the number of WoW worldwide.
edit - sorry my mistake, the reports showed 50 million in U.S., I would guess 5-10 million for Canada and Mexico. So not 200 million in NA but 60 million, still 7x the size of WoW. And again that is all MMO players, not just sub.
The thread title is about P2P. Of course i wasnt suggesting you will P2P a F2P game
nariuss is a notorious troll. just ignore him from now on.
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Thanks for the advice
Those numbers are consistent with this report:
http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/107218/video-game-retail-sales-decline-digital-up-in-july
45.8M f2p MMO players.
5.8M p2p MMO players.
The total is 51.6M. And p2p is quite small in both revenue & player base, compared to f2p.