Blizzard only listened to frame the design around their own.
The result was LFR (Blizzard way).
Well, LFR is popular. Why do you think they expand the use of it to all raids after the first try.
In fact, i went back to wow for a few month (before i quit again) just because of LFR. It is a nice system to let you experience the content without the work and commitment of joining a raid guild.
see nariuss, people like you are the reason WoW is hemoragging subs(that and WoW is getting old, but it wouldn't be losing subs at as high of a rate as it is though), and the reason why P2P mmos are failing nowadays as compared to back when BC/wotlk first dropped.
If P2P mmos were modeling themselves after a Vanilla WoW-BC WoW, the P2P market would be outstanding right now.
Well that is, IF they copied the right aspects.
Thing is everyone tried to copy blizzards game to make them money. Sadly the one thing they should have copied from blizzard wasnt the game but their innovation. Its hard to fathom why companies, high class suits etc donot understand this simplest of concepts.
Rift is the perfect example of copying all of the bad of WoW but almost none of the good.
And they didnt copy vanilla/BC, they copied Wrath.
Unlike Vanilla/BC WoW, Rift's game world was soulless, leveling was treated as an inconvenience, the races were dull and useless, and the classes for all their choice lacked depth. But I guess the crafting for dummies from all eras of WoW made it into Rift just fine.
Blizzard only listened to frame the design around their own.
The result was LFR (Blizzard way).
Well, LFR is popular. Why do you think they expand the use of it to all raids after the first try.
In fact, i went back to wow for a few month (before i quit again) just because of LFR. It is a nice system to let you experience the content without the work and commitment of joining a raid guild.
Because they treated LFR as LFG, complete with the loot rolls.
Want to talk about how much LFR DS was a disaster?
I had a dude so nuts he made a level 1 toon on my realm and demanded "his" weapon from my alt. Logged into my Guild leader main and told him to move on (I don't reward bad behavior). and put him on /ignore. Dude makes a DK and started a scene, /reported him to Blizzard as circumnavigating an /ignore IS a harassment violation.
No experienced raider wanted LFG for raids for those reasons.
Few also wanted anything but MS>OS rolls, too. We wanted to also raid normal raids, not watered down raids. THAT was pushed by Blizzard. I agreed to it as a nice choice, but not as a lower level raid. When I saw what they wanted, it was 4.0.1 healing changes all over again -- Blizzard's way.
We needed raiders since the PuRs dried up due to the guild achievement system (with shared lockouts, is why the 25 mans died on realms). We needed raiders without the mess of Real ID. We needed better talent since so many transferred to the top 10 or so PvP or Raid servers, leaving a vacuum of talent in the process. And we needed raids to happen within our lifetime (LFG wait times can be +45 mins).
Well, LFR is popular. Why do you think they expand the use of it to all raids after the first try.
In fact, i went back to wow for a few month (before i quit again) just because of LFR. It is a nice system to let you experience the content without the work and commitment of joining a raid guild.
Because they treated LFR as LFG, complete with the loot rolls.
Want to talk about how much LFR DS was a disaster?
I had a dude so nuts he made a level 1 toon on my realm and demanded "his" weapon from my alt. Logged into my Guild leader main and told him to move on (I don't reward bad behavior). and put him on /ignore. Dude makes a DK and started a scene, /reported him to Blizzard as circumnavigating an /ignore IS a harassment violation.
No experienced raider wanted LFG for raids for those reasons.
Few also wanted anything but MS>OS rolls, too. We wanted to also raid normal raids, not watered down raids. THAT was pushed by Blizzard. I agreed to it as a nice choice, but not as a lower level raid. When I saw what they wanted, it was 4.0.1 healing changes all over again -- Blizzard's way.
We needed raiders since the PuRs dried up due to the guild achievement system (with shared lockouts, is why the 25 mans died on realms). We needed raiders without the mess of Real ID. We needed better talent since so many transferred to the top 10 or so PvP or Raid servers, leaving a vacuum of talent in the process. And we needed raids to happen within our lifetime (LFG wait times can be +45 mins).
See that is the elitist attitude. I was in a raid guild before. Too much work. Too much commitment. Too much loot drama. I *can* deal with it .. but why should i?
LFR is much better. Do you know that now they roll INDIVIDUAL loot? There is no ninja-ing. And i don't know why you put up with anyone? Just hit "quit" and he may not even be on your server. And you can ignore him.
Whether YOU prefer LFR is irrelevant. It is popular, and they are using it MORE, not less. Personally i like it. I got sick of wow though so i am no longer playing it. But the idea should be used in other games.
Firstly, they seem to only focus on the facts that matter to them, Bit like politicians, The OP has only pointed to the one MMO that is P2P how about the others where the numbers are increasing
Eve Online 10years as Pay monthly, and numbers have never been higher, and forcasts suggest they will be higher next month - so OP are you just going to say something like "well its only eve it doesn't count" or will you admit that the post should just be
"WoW numbers decreasing" and thats about it!. the fact is its a 8-10year old game is it any suprise the numbers are dropping, but what people also fail to point out with WoW is about 6months after they release a new upgrade their numbers dive, this has always been the case, granted not to the level they are today, but when they release their numbers will go up again, so will you (the OP report how pay monthly is succeeding) nope i doubt it.
Secondly, No model is the perfect model, you have the pay monthly, (my personal preference) the P2P or the B2P all of them have their advantages, but you cannot compare them very much like apple and strawberries.
Personally my favorourite model is EvEs (and others i believe) where ti does cost per month, but this can be bought using in game gold/money that is earnt doing what you do in eve, this allows the game to be free for myself which i buy from player that has bought the gamecard from CCP thus earning CCP their monthly subs and earning the selling player some in game credits to play with
This to me is how long term games should be, then if you cannot afford the real life cash, simply earn it in game, if you can afford the cash and dont much gaming time then buy your game time and sell it in game to another player to give you credits to play with to save you grinding
I will not argue what the future, but for me, I dislike f2p, I find it is a dishonest model, at least for the average mmo. In some moba type games and such, that require less development, their are some good ones.
So I generally do not like to play something that requires 10% or the 'whales' to fund the game, I do not wish to be the whale for anyone, and I like to know for a game that I will pay 'x' amount of money, and everything is open, not I play free, and those paying get more....People try to argue that subs are p2w, but I find that argument lacking. If everyone pays $10-15 and has the same access to everything, that is what I prefer. Sometimes you have no choice, if you want to play something, but I generally avoid f2p in mmos, it feels like they are trying to put their hand in my pocket non-stop, that and the previous stuff, bothers me.
I will admit, I am giving some of the mmos that announced they will be p2p a second look, same as those that love f2p are running away, it is attracting my eyes again.
I am not sure if I will play EQN, still have a lot of questions, but hopefully the resurgence in p2p will make them rethink EQN, doubt it though, they seem pretty set on the f2p model now, but EQN is a long way off still.
I will not argue what the future, but for me, I dislike f2p, I find it is a dishonest model, at least for the average mmo. In some moba type games and such, that require less development, their are some good ones.
Well stated. I am the opposite. I like f2p and i find it a great model for many games i play. But certainly it is your prerogative to feel anyway you want. At least you are not trying to impose your preference on others.
So I generally do not like to play something that requires 10% or the 'whales' to fund the game, I do not wish to be the whale for anyone, and I like to know for a game that I will pay 'x' amount of money, and everything is open, not I play free, and those paying get more....People try to argue that subs are p2w, but I find that argument lacking. If everyone pays $10-15 and has the same access to everything, that is what I prefer. Sometimes you have no choice, if you want to play something, but I generally avoid f2p in mmos, it feels like they are trying to put their hand in my pocket non-stop, that and the previous stuff, bothers me.
I generally think it is great that whales is funding the game. It is a free world. The whales are free to choose if they want to be whales. If they do, it is their choice. In fact, it is fair that they get more because they pay for teh game. It won't affect me anyway, because i play mostly pve and solo (most of the time).
It is a win-win-win. I have fun for free. Whales get their epleen or whatever reason they spend money. Devs got a successful business.
I will admit, I am giving some of the mmos that announced they will be p2p a second look, same as those that love f2p are running away, it is attracting my eyes again.
I am not sure if I will play EQN, still have a lot of questions, but hopefully the resurgence in p2p will make them rethink EQN, doubt it though, they seem pretty set on the f2p model now, but EQN is a long way off still.
I found i have no reason not to try EQN. It is F2P. What am i going to lose? At most 30 min if it is not fun.
"Subscription based MMO revenues declined 9.0% on a monthly basis to $76.0 million. Subscriber base declined to 5.8 million from 6.3 million in June. This was much anticipated due to the loss of 600K subscribers for Activision’s World of Warcrafts (WoW) in the recently concluded quarter."
9% loss on a month basis ... it does not look good.
Originally posted by Sephastus
It is not a "sub-only" game decline... it is a WoW decline. Since their population is huge, changes in their gamers looks like it affect the entire gaming world. All other sub based games could be getting more subscribers, but a big decline in WoW membership will make it look as if the whole payment method is going south.
Valid point about the WoW decline causing the major sub-decline. Because of the WoW player decline, the total sub-market lost around 7.5% of income. If you take out the WoW 'whale', then the decline is only 1.5%, which is close to the same decline you saw in the F2P market. Next week FFXIV:ARR comes, soon followed by ESO & Wildstar, and the 3 of them will bring the 600K subs that WoW lost back to the sub system (I'm quite certain about that).
Stats like the site OP quoted are all fun to look at, but certainly for the F2P games, you can't tell the truth about those numbers. The F2P publishers all use creative numbers (pre-tax, after tax, gross or net profit jsut to name a few), while sub games simply count active subs numbers...
Stats like the site OP quoted are all fun to look at, but certainly for the F2P games, you can't tell the truth about those numbers. The F2P publishers all use creative numbers (pre-tax, after tax, gross or net profit jsut to name a few), while sub games simply count active subs numbers...
All that is clear is the decline in sub-only MMOs.
If you want to look at F2P, people here don't even agree on the definition. Many won't count LoL as one, but the industry obviously does.
"Subscription based MMO revenues declined 9.0% on a monthly basis to $76.0 million. Subscriber base declined to 5.8 million from 6.3 million in June. This was much anticipated due to the loss of 600K subscribers for Activision’s World of Warcrafts (WoW) in the recently concluded quarter."
9% loss on a month basis ... it does not look good.
"Free-to-play subscriber base slightly declined to 45.8 million from 46 million in June. Average revenue per user (“ARPU”) was approximately $40 much higher than $27 reported in June."
Guess the whales are paying more.
But that is not the point. The point is that sub-only MMOs are probably going to be dead soon.
red tells me that all MMOs are going to be dead soon. blue tells me your opinion that you tried to fit some data to support.
you miss the data that shows f2p is making more money?
Stats like the site OP quoted are all fun to look at, but certainly for the F2P games, you can't tell the truth about those numbers. The F2P publishers all use creative numbers (pre-tax, after tax, gross or net profit jsut to name a few), while sub games simply count active subs numbers...
All that is clear is the decline in sub-only MMOs.
If you want to look at F2P, people here don't even agree on the definition. Many won't count LoL as one, but the industry obviously does.
Outside of the fact that F2P is supposed to be a growth industry and far more F2P titles are being currently released and despite all of that it also dropped....
You can't view information in convenient ways, you have to look at it unbiased.
lol, another troll thread, those 600K sub losses, they are most likely taking a break from WoW, some will stick with FF14, some will try other F2P titles that they won't like and most of the 600K will return to WoW. Every company goes through losses, and 600K sub losses is nothing for WoW , they still got a few million subs left to back them up. So I really don't see a problem here. Almost every MMORPG on this site that is F2P just wish they had a 100K players playing on a daily basis, so in the end who's the real loser? LOL!
making more money off fewer players is a very beautiful interpretation of "free to play". it looks awfully...bubbly.
Why? They get more whales to pay more. What is the problem?
Plus, you agree that f2p is making more money, and sub-only MMOs are making less, right? Since you did not revisit that point, i assume you have nothing to add.
I don't want to be harsh, but basically... if you're really good, you end up changing trends.
People would tell Blizzard that 500k is the sky in MMO subs. Look what happened.
Star Citizen would never ever happen looking at space sim numbers.
So, you care too much about trends only if you're shooting for mediocre or thereabouts. Make a really good game, and people will pay. And pay. And pay.
making more money off fewer players is a very beautiful interpretation of "free to play". it looks awfully...bubbly.
Why? They get more whales to pay more. What is the problem?
Plus, you agree that f2p is making more money, and sub-only MMOs are making less, right? Since you did not revisit that point, i assume you have nothing to add.
F2P is a growth industry (or supposed to be). The number of new F2P titles is growing very quickly. Despite this they have fewer players, have a drop in revenue (according to your own first post), and have forced those players sticking with the model to pay more. That isn't a sign of success.
It is a sign of more games making combined less money and making the individual players pay more than they did before to enjoy the games. How are you defining that as a strong business with a bright future while saying P2P games also having fewer players but charging them the same is a failing business?
making more money off fewer players is a very beautiful interpretation of "free to play". it looks awfully...bubbly.
Why? They get more whales to pay more. What is the problem?
Plus, you agree that f2p is making more money, and sub-only MMOs are making less, right? Since you did not revisit that point, i assume you have nothing to add.
F2P is a growth industry (or supposed to be). The number of new F2P titles is growing very quickly. Despite this they have fewer players, have a drop in revenue (according to your own first post), and have forced those players sticking with the model to pay more. That isn't a sign of success.
It is a sign of more games making combined less money and making the individual players pay more than they did before to enjoy the games. How are you defining that as a strong business with a bright future while saying P2P games also having fewer players but charging them the same is a failing business?
As the number of games increase the number of players playing any one game at the same time is smaller. While some players are paying more, it is by choice for an item they want not server rental.
If every game on the market right now was sub... Oh wait most wouldn't be able to have a high enough sub count to stay over, nevermind.
making more money off fewer players is a very beautiful interpretation of "free to play". it looks awfully...bubbly.
Why? They get more whales to pay more. What is the problem?
Plus, you agree that f2p is making more money, and sub-only MMOs are making less, right? Since you did not revisit that point, i assume you have nothing to add.
F2P is a growth industry (or supposed to be). The number of new F2P titles is growing very quickly. Despite this they have fewer players, have a drop in revenue (according to your own first post), and have forced those players sticking with the model to pay more. That isn't a sign of success.
It is a sign of more games making combined less money and making the individual players pay more than they did before to enjoy the games. How are you defining that as a strong business with a bright future while saying P2P games also having fewer players but charging them the same is a failing business?
As the number of games increase the number of players playing any one game at the same time is smaller. While some players are paying more, it is by choice for an item they want not server rental.
If every game on the market right now was sub... Oh wait most wouldn't be able to have a high enough sub count to stay over, nevermind.
Did you even read the thing you replied to?
New subscription based games are being released very slowly.
New F2P games are coming out by the dozens.
BOTH saw declines in revenues. This means that there are far more F2P games constantly flowing in, yet all of them COMBINED are producing LESS revenue, are sharing a SMALLER player base, and as a result are getting individual players to PAY MORE.
That is NOT GOOD. Yet the OP made this thread as an example of P2P being dead yet F2P doing well. That is a sign that neither is doing well and it is a very bad sign for F2P to have so many new games coming to market yet despite all these new titles having a shrinking player base and lesser revenues for the group as a whole.
Don't let the "I love F2P" concept to blind the obvious facts in that data.
"Free-to-play subscriber base slightly declined to 45.8 million from 46 million in June. Average revenue per user (“ARPU”) was approximately $40 much higher than $27 reported in June."
So total revenues goes from 46M*27 = $1.24B in June to 45.8M*40 = $1.83B. It is a 47% increase.
Yet another post quoting "research data" from Super Data.
Where does this company get their data from ? Game developers and publishers are notoriously reluctant to publish data on specific games. Those that are forced to disclose numbers only do it in quarterly investor calls.
Super Data makes their money from selling their "research reports" which analyse the digital games market. They won't make much money trying to sell data on 5 subscription MMO's, but the F2P market is huge, diverse and spread across multiple platforms from PC's to mobile phones.
There are literally thousands of MMO's, social games and phone apps in the F2P market. It's complex and rapidly changing, but also generates heaps of money. Super Data has a vested interest in reporting "growth and profit" in this market. A great deal of their "facts" would have to be educated guesswork. Some would even say biased guesswork...
"Subscription based MMO revenues declined 9.0% on a monthly basis to $76.0 million. Subscriber base declined to 5.8 million from 6.3 million in June. This was much anticipated due to the loss of 600K subscribers for Activision’s World of Warcrafts (WoW) in the recently concluded quarter."
9% loss on a month basis ... it does not look good.
"Free-to-play subscriber base slightly declined to 45.8 million from 46 million in June. Average revenue per user (“ARPU”) was approximately $40 much higher than $27 reported in June."
Guess the whales are paying more.
But that is not the point. The point is that sub-only MMOs are probably going to be dead soon.
Is this report different than the others so that sub revenue within a "free to play" game is counted in the appropriate column of "subscription based"? If not it's too skewed to be taken seriously, just like the other reports.
I don't understand why WoW losing subs automatically means sub games are dead?!
WoW is getting old and ridiculously easy on top of it. People are getting tired of it and canceling their sub. This doesn't mean they won't happily subscribe to another sub game if they enjoy it and think it's worth it.
If neither FFXIV:ARR, Wildstar, or ESO can't manage to keep a sub going then I say, yeah ok you have a point and I just need to accept that I'm going to have to deal with ads in my face to spend my money and being microtransactioned out the wazoo and spending a lot more than a sub would cost me if I want to really enjoy the game. I wonder if the F2P lovers will be so willing to admit that maybe subs are an option if one or a couple of them keep their sub base UNTIL the game is almost a decade old.
Currently Playing: FFXIV:ARR Looking Forward to: Wildstar
You know Nari, I didn't realize it at first, but man, you are pretty good at what you do, you single handedly get so many people worked up, I give you credit for that.
I don't understand why WoW losing subs automatically means sub games are dead?!
WoW is getting old and ridiculously easy on top of it. People are getting tired of it and canceling their sub. This doesn't mean they won't happily subscribe to another sub game if they enjoy it and think it's worth it.
If neither FFXIV:ARR, Wildstar, or ESO can't manage to keep a sub going then I say, yeah ok you have a point and I just need to accept that I'm going to have to deal with ads in my face to spend my money and being microtransactioned out the wazoo and spending a lot more than a sub would cost me if I want to really enjoy the game. I wonder if the F2P lovers will be so willing to admit that maybe subs are an option if one or a couple of them keep their sub base UNTIL the game is almost a decade old.
correlations say otherwise.
if WoW, the absolute champion of P2P can't sustain its playerbase, then no other small-fry stands much chance.
the only growing P2P is EVE which is older than WoW, but also fairly medium in size and by no means an MMO for the masses.
I guess what one must ask himself is "why is EVE growing" and start trying to improve on that formula. WoW's formula has had a great run but its approaching the end of its lifespan. A themepark like wow released now will have a difficult time. Wildstart is the only contestant on the horison and they are trying to go back to the roots of wow's formula which is a very brave and risky choice. I'll play it, I'll buy it, I'll pay for it. But I dan't have the hopes that it'll be the next wow.
That's pretty easy, I doubt there is, or has ever been a MMO that can encourage a player to have more than one account than EVE. I had 4 myself at one time, and many people have at least 2 with some up into the 20's.
Couple that with the real time training curve, and you find yourself paying for the sub even while playing for another game.
Finally, throw in the magic of PLEX to help people fund all of those accounts and game play unique in the MMORPG world and you have a the formula for steady success.
But it is very hard to duplicate this model, and I doubt we'll see it happen any time soon.
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
If I was to sub to something, im not going to pay a bunch first. If I sub to a newspaper (no I don't) they don't try to make me pay 3 or 4 times the sub rate up front. Sell me the game, or sub me to the game, not both.
When I said i had "time", i meant virtual time, i got no RL "time" for you.
"Free-to-play subscriber base slightly declined to 45.8 million from 46 million in June. Average revenue per user (“ARPU”) was approximately $40 much higher than $27 reported in June."
So total revenues goes from 46M*27 = $1.24B in June to 45.8M*40 = $1.83B. It is a 47% increase.
I was reading the 45.8 million as revenue but I see where my confusion came from now, you took two different discussions from the article and combined them to make them look as one. You discussed the entire f2p world vs the subscription MMO market which is a very odd comparison.
The Free-to-play section was discussing all free to play, including mobile (which is essentially only f2p or b2p) which makes that number huge. Then again they say as you point out 45.8m * 40 which = 1.83 billion, yet they say digital sales of all forms combined together was 1.1 billion so something is clearly off in their figures.
"overall digital sales increased 5.4% year over year to $1.1 billion in July. This was much higher than $841.0 million reported in Jun 2013. Conversion rate improved 2.11% across all categories" Unless someone randmonly decided that digital sales were only the digital selling of a game and selling items digitally (also known as.... digital sales) was something seperate. Even so that would indicate that buying games vs doing f2p is also still rising which doesn't suggest that f2p is going to become the be all end all.
It also says that mobile games provided $271 million and social games (facebook) was 164 million. Considering mobile games rake in f2p money like crazy yet they were only $271 million of the 1.8 billion where the hell was the other $1.4 billion from (and no it wasn't from MMO f2p sales)? The whole report seems a bit off.
Yet another post quoting "research data" from Super Data.
Where does this company get their data from ? Game developers and publishers are notoriously reluctant to publish data on specific games. Those that are forced to disclose numbers only do it in quarterly investor calls.
Super Data makes their money from selling their "research reports" which analyse the digital games market. They won't make much money trying to sell data on 5 subscription MMO's, but the F2P market is huge, diverse and spread across multiple platforms from PC's to mobile phones.
There are literally thousands of MMO's, social games and phone apps in the F2P market. It's complex and rapidly changing, but also generates heaps of money. Super Data has a vested interest in reporting "growth and profit" in this market. A great deal of their "facts" would have to be educated guesswork. Some would even say biased guesswork...
Companies now are in PR mode.
The days when devs are gamers first, company second (which allowed the criticism and such from the community) are over. It's "big business" and they're treating the game market like a brick and mortar business, but without the brick and mortar consumer protections (nor self-policing itself...which will cause a backlash and a gamer revolution in the future).
This is the result of no regulation within the industry or out. F2P/P2W schemes are essentially unregulated gambling (this is why I'm saying it's a fad, because as soon as politicians realize there's another revenue stream not taxed, they're going to come in SWAT style). The industry is acting like spoiled kids with the same yobber attitudes, and when it does go too far, the correction is going to be harsh.
Secondly, the reason is the MMO market is aging. Those who were 15-18 years-old when Ultima and EQ was around are close and at 30 years-old now. Gamers who started with Pong, like myself, are near or over 50 (yeah, serious casual gaming). When RIFT had it's forum poll on the age of it's players, the majority wasn't 20 year-olds. It was over 40. Many were EQII players that came to a EQII-lite game.
Blizzard et al wants that cash market of 15-22 year-olds still under mom and dad's disposable incomes (same of other game companies), but have hit a problem: consoles. Kids prefer to play on it. MMOs are made for PCs. The self-sustaining market of endless kids coming into the game has declined since 2008, as MMOs aren't for XBox or Playstation. This results in MMOs sharing a player pool, with it's average game age of it's player base being around *27 years-old*. Out of school, in the workforce, and ready to start a family. They're cash stripped as the 15 year-old trying to get mommy and daddy to pay for his game time (the real push for F2P for the kids).
We have an old game base that's growing older, as tech isn't meeting up with demand (got to plug into that 15-22 year-old console market in a MMORPG...not FPS nor MOBA).
So the data folks spew is mixed in with spin. Blizzard back in WotLK stopped providing specific demographics, so there's a lot of voodoo in the numbers others want to hammer home. The only numbers we get that isn't doctored are the population numbers that's directly in the stock report (due to criminal penalties). We don't get the real breakdowns in financial wealth; age; gender; profession breakdowns, which would better show people the strength of a franchise and it's holding power (that 15-22 year-old game market isn't the holding power, it's quick cash). Yeah, the companies don't want to share that their gamer base is but of freebies freeloading; or a bunch of older casuals who prefer right clicking to fight. They just want warm bodies to sign up, and devise whatever scheme to show they do have someone or something (aka bot) online.
Comments
Rift is the perfect example of copying all of the bad of WoW but almost none of the good.
And they didnt copy vanilla/BC, they copied Wrath.
Unlike Vanilla/BC WoW, Rift's game world was soulless, leveling was treated as an inconvenience, the races were dull and useless, and the classes for all their choice lacked depth. But I guess the crafting for dummies from all eras of WoW made it into Rift just fine.
Because they treated LFR as LFG, complete with the loot rolls.
Want to talk about how much LFR DS was a disaster?
I had a dude so nuts he made a level 1 toon on my realm and demanded "his" weapon from my alt. Logged into my Guild leader main and told him to move on (I don't reward bad behavior). and put him on /ignore. Dude makes a DK and started a scene, /reported him to Blizzard as circumnavigating an /ignore IS a harassment violation.
No experienced raider wanted LFG for raids for those reasons.
Few also wanted anything but MS>OS rolls, too. We wanted to also raid normal raids, not watered down raids. THAT was pushed by Blizzard. I agreed to it as a nice choice, but not as a lower level raid. When I saw what they wanted, it was 4.0.1 healing changes all over again -- Blizzard's way.
We needed raiders since the PuRs dried up due to the guild achievement system (with shared lockouts, is why the 25 mans died on realms). We needed raiders without the mess of Real ID. We needed better talent since so many transferred to the top 10 or so PvP or Raid servers, leaving a vacuum of talent in the process. And we needed raids to happen within our lifetime (LFG wait times can be +45 mins).
.:| Kevyne@Shandris - Armory |:. - When WoW was #1 - .:| I AM A HOLY PALADIN - Guild Theme |:.
See that is the elitist attitude. I was in a raid guild before. Too much work. Too much commitment. Too much loot drama.
I *can* deal with it .. but why should i?
LFR is much better. Do you know that now they roll INDIVIDUAL loot? There is no ninja-ing. And i don't know why you put up with anyone? Just hit "quit" and he may not even be on your server. And you can ignore him.
Whether YOU prefer LFR is irrelevant. It is popular, and they are using it MORE, not less. Personally i like it. I got sick of wow though so i am no longer playing it. But the idea should be used in other games.
What i love most about these threads is 2 fold
Firstly, they seem to only focus on the facts that matter to them, Bit like politicians, The OP has only pointed to the one MMO that is P2P how about the others where the numbers are increasing
Eve Online 10years as Pay monthly, and numbers have never been higher, and forcasts suggest they will be higher next month - so OP are you just going to say something like "well its only eve it doesn't count" or will you admit that the post should just be
"WoW numbers decreasing" and thats about it!. the fact is its a 8-10year old game is it any suprise the numbers are dropping, but what people also fail to point out with WoW is about 6months after they release a new upgrade their numbers dive, this has always been the case, granted not to the level they are today, but when they release their numbers will go up again, so will you (the OP report how pay monthly is succeeding) nope i doubt it.
Secondly, No model is the perfect model, you have the pay monthly, (my personal preference) the P2P or the B2P all of them have their advantages, but you cannot compare them very much like apple and strawberries.
Personally my favorourite model is EvEs (and others i believe) where ti does cost per month, but this can be bought using in game gold/money that is earnt doing what you do in eve, this allows the game to be free for myself which i buy from player that has bought the gamecard from CCP thus earning CCP their monthly subs and earning the selling player some in game credits to play with
This to me is how long term games should be, then if you cannot afford the real life cash, simply earn it in game, if you can afford the cash and dont much gaming time then buy your game time and sell it in game to another player to give you credits to play with to save you grinding
This post is all my opinion, but I welcome debate on anything i have put, however, personal slander / name calling belongs in game
where of course you're welcome to call me names im often found lounging about in EvE online.
Use this code for 21days trial in eve online https://secure.eveonline.com/trial/?invc=d385aff2-794a-44a4-96f1-3967ccf6d720&action=buddy
I will not argue what the future, but for me, I dislike f2p, I find it is a dishonest model, at least for the average mmo. In some moba type games and such, that require less development, their are some good ones.
So I generally do not like to play something that requires 10% or the 'whales' to fund the game, I do not wish to be the whale for anyone, and I like to know for a game that I will pay 'x' amount of money, and everything is open, not I play free, and those paying get more....People try to argue that subs are p2w, but I find that argument lacking. If everyone pays $10-15 and has the same access to everything, that is what I prefer. Sometimes you have no choice, if you want to play something, but I generally avoid f2p in mmos, it feels like they are trying to put their hand in my pocket non-stop, that and the previous stuff, bothers me.
I will admit, I am giving some of the mmos that announced they will be p2p a second look, same as those that love f2p are running away, it is attracting my eyes again.
I am not sure if I will play EQN, still have a lot of questions, but hopefully the resurgence in p2p will make them rethink EQN, doubt it though, they seem pretty set on the f2p model now, but EQN is a long way off still.
Valid point about the WoW decline causing the major sub-decline. Because of the WoW player decline, the total sub-market lost around 7.5% of income. If you take out the WoW 'whale', then the decline is only 1.5%, which is close to the same decline you saw in the F2P market. Next week FFXIV:ARR comes, soon followed by ESO & Wildstar, and the 3 of them will bring the 600K subs that WoW lost back to the sub system (I'm quite certain about that).
Stats like the site OP quoted are all fun to look at, but certainly for the F2P games, you can't tell the truth about those numbers. The F2P publishers all use creative numbers (pre-tax, after tax, gross or net profit jsut to name a few), while sub games simply count active subs numbers...
All that is clear is the decline in sub-only MMOs.
If you want to look at F2P, people here don't even agree on the definition. Many won't count LoL as one, but the industry obviously does.
you miss the data that shows f2p is making more money?
Outside of the fact that F2P is supposed to be a growth industry and far more F2P titles are being currently released and despite all of that it also dropped....
You can't view information in convenient ways, you have to look at it unbiased.
Why? They get more whales to pay more. What is the problem?
Plus, you agree that f2p is making more money, and sub-only MMOs are making less, right? Since you did not revisit that point, i assume you have nothing to add.
I don't want to be harsh, but basically... if you're really good, you end up changing trends.
People would tell Blizzard that 500k is the sky in MMO subs. Look what happened.
Star Citizen would never ever happen looking at space sim numbers.
So, you care too much about trends only if you're shooting for mediocre or thereabouts. Make a really good game, and people will pay. And pay. And pay.
F2P is a growth industry (or supposed to be). The number of new F2P titles is growing very quickly. Despite this they have fewer players, have a drop in revenue (according to your own first post), and have forced those players sticking with the model to pay more. That isn't a sign of success.
It is a sign of more games making combined less money and making the individual players pay more than they did before to enjoy the games. How are you defining that as a strong business with a bright future while saying P2P games also having fewer players but charging them the same is a failing business?
As the number of games increase the number of players playing any one game at the same time is smaller. While some players are paying more, it is by choice for an item they want not server rental.
If every game on the market right now was sub... Oh wait most wouldn't be able to have a high enough sub count to stay over, nevermind.
Did you even read the thing you replied to?
New subscription based games are being released very slowly.
New F2P games are coming out by the dozens.
BOTH saw declines in revenues. This means that there are far more F2P games constantly flowing in, yet all of them COMBINED are producing LESS revenue, are sharing a SMALLER player base, and as a result are getting individual players to PAY MORE.
That is NOT GOOD. Yet the OP made this thread as an example of P2P being dead yet F2P doing well. That is a sign that neither is doing well and it is a very bad sign for F2P to have so many new games coming to market yet despite all these new titles having a shrinking player base and lesser revenues for the group as a whole.
Don't let the "I love F2P" concept to blind the obvious facts in that data.
Where do you get this?
"Free-to-play subscriber base slightly declined to 45.8 million from 46 million in June. Average revenue per user (“ARPU”) was approximately $40 much higher than $27 reported in June."
So total revenues goes from 46M*27 = $1.24B in June to 45.8M*40 = $1.83B. It is a 47% increase.
Yet another post quoting "research data" from Super Data.
Where does this company get their data from ? Game developers and publishers are notoriously reluctant to publish data on specific games. Those that are forced to disclose numbers only do it in quarterly investor calls.
Super Data makes their money from selling their "research reports" which analyse the digital games market. They won't make much money trying to sell data on 5 subscription MMO's, but the F2P market is huge, diverse and spread across multiple platforms from PC's to mobile phones.
There are literally thousands of MMO's, social games and phone apps in the F2P market. It's complex and rapidly changing, but also generates heaps of money. Super Data has a vested interest in reporting "growth and profit" in this market. A great deal of their "facts" would have to be educated guesswork. Some would even say biased guesswork...
Is this report different than the others so that sub revenue within a "free to play" game is counted in the appropriate column of "subscription based"? If not it's too skewed to be taken seriously, just like the other reports.
I don't understand why WoW losing subs automatically means sub games are dead?!
WoW is getting old and ridiculously easy on top of it. People are getting tired of it and canceling their sub. This doesn't mean they won't happily subscribe to another sub game if they enjoy it and think it's worth it.
If neither FFXIV:ARR, Wildstar, or ESO can't manage to keep a sub going then I say, yeah ok you have a point and I just need to accept that I'm going to have to deal with ads in my face to spend my money and being microtransactioned out the wazoo and spending a lot more than a sub would cost me if I want to really enjoy the game. I wonder if the F2P lovers will be so willing to admit that maybe subs are an option if one or a couple of them keep their sub base UNTIL the game is almost a decade old.
Currently Playing: FFXIV:ARR
Looking Forward to: Wildstar
That's pretty easy, I doubt there is, or has ever been a MMO that can encourage a player to have more than one account than EVE. I had 4 myself at one time, and many people have at least 2 with some up into the 20's.
Couple that with the real time training curve, and you find yourself paying for the sub even while playing for another game.
Finally, throw in the magic of PLEX to help people fund all of those accounts and game play unique in the MMORPG world and you have a the formula for steady success.
But it is very hard to duplicate this model, and I doubt we'll see it happen any time soon.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
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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
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"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
When I said i had "time", i meant virtual time, i got no RL "time" for you.
I was reading the 45.8 million as revenue but I see where my confusion came from now, you took two different discussions from the article and combined them to make them look as one. You discussed the entire f2p world vs the subscription MMO market which is a very odd comparison.
The Free-to-play section was discussing all free to play, including mobile (which is essentially only f2p or b2p) which makes that number huge. Then again they say as you point out 45.8m * 40 which = 1.83 billion, yet they say digital sales of all forms combined together was 1.1 billion so something is clearly off in their figures.
"overall digital sales increased 5.4% year over year to $1.1 billion in July. This was much higher than $841.0 million reported in Jun 2013. Conversion rate improved 2.11% across all categories" Unless someone randmonly decided that digital sales were only the digital selling of a game and selling items digitally (also known as.... digital sales) was something seperate. Even so that would indicate that buying games vs doing f2p is also still rising which doesn't suggest that f2p is going to become the be all end all.
It also says that mobile games provided $271 million and social games (facebook) was 164 million. Considering mobile games rake in f2p money like crazy yet they were only $271 million of the 1.8 billion where the hell was the other $1.4 billion from (and no it wasn't from MMO f2p sales)? The whole report seems a bit off.
Companies now are in PR mode.
The days when devs are gamers first, company second (which allowed the criticism and such from the community) are over. It's "big business" and they're treating the game market like a brick and mortar business, but without the brick and mortar consumer protections (nor self-policing itself...which will cause a backlash and a gamer revolution in the future).
This is the result of no regulation within the industry or out. F2P/P2W schemes are essentially unregulated gambling (this is why I'm saying it's a fad, because as soon as politicians realize there's another revenue stream not taxed, they're going to come in SWAT style). The industry is acting like spoiled kids with the same yobber attitudes, and when it does go too far, the correction is going to be harsh.
Secondly, the reason is the MMO market is aging. Those who were 15-18 years-old when Ultima and EQ was around are close and at 30 years-old now. Gamers who started with Pong, like myself, are near or over 50 (yeah, serious casual gaming). When RIFT had it's forum poll on the age of it's players, the majority wasn't 20 year-olds. It was over 40. Many were EQII players that came to a EQII-lite game.
Blizzard et al wants that cash market of 15-22 year-olds still under mom and dad's disposable incomes (same of other game companies), but have hit a problem: consoles. Kids prefer to play on it. MMOs are made for PCs. The self-sustaining market of endless kids coming into the game has declined since 2008, as MMOs aren't for XBox or Playstation. This results in MMOs sharing a player pool, with it's average game age of it's player base being around *27 years-old*. Out of school, in the workforce, and ready to start a family. They're cash stripped as the 15 year-old trying to get mommy and daddy to pay for his game time (the real push for F2P for the kids).
We have an old game base that's growing older, as tech isn't meeting up with demand (got to plug into that 15-22 year-old console market in a MMORPG...not FPS nor MOBA).
So the data folks spew is mixed in with spin. Blizzard back in WotLK stopped providing specific demographics, so there's a lot of voodoo in the numbers others want to hammer home. The only numbers we get that isn't doctored are the population numbers that's directly in the stock report (due to criminal penalties). We don't get the real breakdowns in financial wealth; age; gender; profession breakdowns, which would better show people the strength of a franchise and it's holding power (that 15-22 year-old game market isn't the holding power, it's quick cash). Yeah, the companies don't want to share that their gamer base is but of freebies freeloading; or a bunch of older casuals who prefer right clicking to fight. They just want warm bodies to sign up, and devise whatever scheme to show they do have someone or something (aka bot) online.
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