I guess you missed the AAA part. All I see on that list is a bunch of crappy F2P games.
If the general contention here that AAA devs don't like risk is true, then it's possible that the subscription model, while not as profitable as F2P, may be more stable revenue or a safer bet than F2P.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
F2P is the domain for the games that couldn't hold enough subs. The game was the problem, not the model. Those that launch F2P already are admitting that their game isn't worth the sub.
A solid P2P game will never have trouble holding subs. The problem, as many of these boards lament on a regular basis, is that although there are plenty of games, there aren't very many good ones - or at least games worth investing everything into.
In addition, have you seen the launchers of every single F2P game? Buy this, pay for that - you never get the complete game experience. 50 cents a day for a complete game experience is WAY better imho.
So back to the OP's post - F2P is more profitable for games not good enough to hold a sub. We can at least give them that, right?
If in 1982 we played with the current mentality, we would have burned down all the pac man games since the red ghost was clearly OP. Instead we just got better at the game.
Why are the majority of AAA MMO's releasing with aspirations of being P2P? Regardless of people's predictions of how many months til a games "inevitable" conversion to a F2P cash shop, P2P is still and will always be the preferred business model for game makers. It benefits the devs and players alike, and if a game has the longevity and the fun factor built into it you should be required to compensate the game makers for providing you this service.
If people want to be nickel and dimed for content that should already be available to them for a small fee each month, more power to them. If kiddies can't get their parents to cough up a credit card so they can game, I say get a damn job. The problem with P2P isn't the business model, it is the fact that there have been no games released in recent memory worth paying a sub for.
Nothing in life is free except the grace and favor of the Lord. Support the developers that give you hours of entertainment. Long live P2P! Huzzah!
ESO and Wildstar were built from the ground up to be sub based. They would have to be further delayed if the devs decided to switch to a free to play, item-mall based game. I think both studios decided to take a gamble and see how successful their games would be, sticking to sub based.
Sure, Rift switched from sub based to free to play and people like it. But you also have SWTOR which does free to play terribly and was originally sub based.
The fact of the matter is, good free to play games are built from the ground up with free to play model in mind. Look at Planet Side 2. Look at league of legends. Those are free to play done right.
I think, ultimately, P2P is more profitable, but only if you hit a home run and get millions and millions of players. Free to play atleast draws in ridiculous amount of sub numbers where people then decide 'hmm..okay I like this game...i'm going to spend some money'.
If you did the math, SWTOR made tons of money (basically recouped their investment) by being B2P+P2P first.
They can't sucker players into that forever though, and it will gradually become a better idea to just release F2P first.
I suppose that doesn't answer the question and that I'd agree overall that they should release as F2P because they'd make even more money doing so. Especially if they only sell lateral purchases and not vertical ones (purchases which make you stronger.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
problem I got with F2P titles being released like crazy every 2-3 weeks, is that people think the F2P model is awesome since a lot of people play when the game releases. That's true, until the next F2P releases 2-3 weeks later and those same players will flock around the new release and only a handful will stay and play that now 6 week old F2P title.
You make it sounds like a bad thing.
You get to play more games. More variety, instead of stuck with one.
I don't know about you, but that sounds like a win to me.
And btw, 6 weeks is way longer than SP games already. And who says i cannot go back for more if i like the game enough. It is free .. so it is easy to drop it and pick up later.
Stuck?
If a game is good enough, there are millions that would gladly stick around for the long term. It use to be that way.
I'm sorry games suck so bad that you have to play a new one every 2-3 weeks. Or you have to follow the crowd every 2-3 weeks because serious gamers subsidize your gaming. That's not a good thing, no matter how you spin it.
Nobody else on these forums is boasting about these types of games you're standing by.....in every single thread with this topic and no other.
Use to be that way? So? Do you want to ride a horse to work too?
Oh games don't suck. Dishonored .. a far shorter game that most MMO .. is more fun (to me) than most MMOs. You are confusing quality and duration.
I play for quality, not duration.
And it is certainly a good thing for me, when i am having more fun. I doubt you are the authority on how i have fun.
"no one else blah blah blah ..." I am no sheep. You can go follow others in the forum. I stick to my own preferences.
Why are the majority of AAA MMO's releasing with aspirations of being P2P?
P2P will net a developer the most revenue if they can sustain enough subs. If you look at the revenue of the top microtransaction MMORPGs they don't earn more than 20 mil a year in the NA region. As long as your subscription numbers don't drop below 112k there is no reason to use the microtransaction model.
F2p is a rule change to beat World of Warcraft. Devs couldnt do it playing by the same rules, so they dont play the same game. Whats happening now is more and more people are becoming educated about the f2p woes and why they should avoid f2p like the plague. When I decide what mmorpg I want to play, the payment model is a big factor in that decision. F2p games get automatically disqualified from the pool of candidates. P2p and true buy to play do not. I say true buy to play because Gw2 is considered b2p, yet the game is significantly been made less rewarding due to thier cash shop and so even fluff items get in the way of quality. When you can simply pay for your gear, level cap, power, any convenience, your taking away from the game. So they change the rules and make f2p and I change my habits and stop gaming.
The truth is most f2p games can not compete witu WoW, Eve, even the new comer FFARR - setup fundamentally for p2p knowing what to expect and being thankful for anything more. This next games Eso and Wildstar chose p2p and its simply a testimony to thier confidence and that alone is a reason to get excited.
Off hand - how many subs are needed to keep a game afloat? / / Also how many f2p games before the f2p culture has exhausted its resources? Loss of money, loss of f2p members?
How many subs? lol you are really naive.... thats not the question for the publishers the question is where the most money can be made thats why they sell you boxes and lifetime subs first and later go f2p.....
I failed to locate a AAA mmo on that list, though I did see a few that aspired to P2P but fell to their own short comings. FF XIV, Wildstar, and ESO are all releasing as P2P. I would consider those AAA games. I suppose it's a matter of one's opinion on what a quality AAA game is, my apologies for using my opinion as a blanket statement!
The question remains however...if the three games I mentioned are releasing as P2P, do you think they have made a grievous error in profitability? Because as I see it, if they maintain healthy subscription numbers...will it not be a more profitable and sound endeavor for them? I know I personally take comfort in knowing my monthly budget amount before the bills start rolling in...instead of worrying about selling enough lemonades at my stand to keep my electricity on next month.
It really depends. Exactly how you maximize the profits is something up to debate.
F2P games that gets too greedy tend to loose many players. Same thing with P2P games that also sells stuff.
My guess is that the studios saw that there are very few P2P games out now which opens up for a few more games. F2P is probably the hardest to compete in right now since there are so many games who does it.
Most devs believe F2P earns most money and they are probably right but you have to count in how many players you are competing for and a different model from the norm can be an advantage as well as a disadvantage.
GW 1 & 2 have gotten many players because they are B2P which is a rare model.
They can't sucker players into that forever though, and it will gradually become a better idea to just release F2P first.
reading these forums, I'd say they still have a while to go before they can't pull this off anymore.
Yeah, players' resistence to change works to developers' benefit in this case.
It's a weird situation too, since I think most developers who hype their game as "We're going P2P so players know they're buying quality" actually believe that P2P means higher quality. Even a rather famous designer friend I know recently made this correlation.
It's doubly weird because of how nobody ever figured out F2P for MMORPGs, whereas F2P games of nearly every other genre are fantastic if you do it right (despite the fact that yes, 80% of everything is still crap -- including all those pay2win games.) It's really a win/win model for both developers and players alike. But again, in MMORPGs few games have really nailed the model (although quite a few have pretty much avoided being pay2win.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
They can't sucker players into that forever though, and it will gradually become a better idea to just release F2P first.
reading these forums, I'd say they still have a while to go before they can't pull this off anymore.
Yeah, players' resistence to change works to developers' benefit in this case.
It's a weird situation too, since I think most developers who hype their game as "We're going P2P so players know they're buying quality" actually believe that P2P means higher quality. Even a rather famous designer friend I know recently made this correlation.
It's doubly weird because of how nobody ever figured out F2P for MMORPGs, whereas F2P games of nearly every other genre are fantastic if you do it right (despite the fact that yes, 80% of everything is still crap -- including all those pay2win games.) It's really a win/win model for both developers and players alike. But again, in MMORPGs few games have really nailed the model (although quite a few have pretty much avoided being pay2win.)
Historically P2W did mean quality, but it really doesn't matter because look at SWTOR, they lost subs quickly. Since a lot of players wait a month or two after release to see if the game is good, they lose nothing.
So the players still decide if a game is worth it, the sub or lack of, doesn't really matter that much.
I think the F2P model just doesn't work with MMOs. For games like LoL, DotA 2, FireFall...ect, its a perfect model!
I think, ultimately, P2P is more profitable, but only if you hit a home run and get millions and millions of players. Free to play atleast draws in ridiculous amount of sub numbers where people then decide 'hmm..okay I like this game...i'm going to spend some money'.
It's profitable if the game company isn't plain greedy.
If the company is looking for a long-term base of players to capitalize on further IP, P2P is the model to use (Diablo III was launched on the back of 1 year WoW subscriptions, with Diablo III thrown in for "free"). If the company is looking for sheer profits, F2P.
Downside of F2P is the rep it gets for pure greed with the P2W and shoddy quality of the games (usually Chinese leased games, with all the translation and cultural problems, like overt racism).
Subscription players *expect* higher quality as they're used to that in P2P games (and view F2P games as incomplete). The industry isn't going to change that perception when the lasted F2P games resemble what a P2P game company could've put together 4 years ago. We also see the rise of "Founders" subs and other questionable practices. P2P you pay monthly and if the company bellies up, only out a small fee. Not the $1,000 "founder" stuff.
Oh, and the industry :cough: polices itself :cough:.
It's profitable if the game company isn't plain greedy.
...
That can be said about all the models.
Having a cashshop in P2P makes many players choose a B2P or F2P game instead, and if B2P start selling good items with stat people go to F2P. If F2P go too much into Pay2win most players leave as well.
Any of the 3 models works fine as long as the companies avoid being too greedy.
Originally posted by Rockniss F2p is a rule change to beat World of Warcraft. Devs couldnt do it playing by the same rules, so they dont play the same game. Whats happening now is more and more people are becoming educated about the f2p woes and why they should avoid f2p like the plague. When I decide what mmorpg I want to play, the payment model is a big factor in that decision. F2p games get automatically disqualified from the pool of candidates. P2p and true buy to play do not. I say true buy to play because Gw2 is considered b2p, yet the game is significantly been made less rewarding due to thier cash shop and so even fluff items get in the way of quality. When you can simply pay for your gear, level cap, power, any convenience, your taking away from the game. So they change the rules and make f2p and I change my habits and stop gaming. The truth is most f2p games can not compete witu WoW, Eve, even the new comer FFARR - setup fundamentally for p2p knowing what to expect and being thankful for anything more. This next games Eso and Wildstar chose p2p and its simply a testimony to thier confidence and that alone is a reason to get excited. Off hand - how many subs are needed to keep a game afloat? / / Also how many f2p games before the f2p culture has exhausted its resources? Loss of money, loss of f2p members?
Those who remain playing WoW will do so more for the sanctuary to return too. It's there. It's decent.
Blizzard has to be careful and not be arrogant over that though. Because if sanctuary is debased, that's some angry gamers. Blizzard needs a player base for their games -- especially to launch and keep Titan from losing money faster than WoW -- (this is their model: WoW was based on Warcraft. Diablo III got it's launch off of WoW players. Titan will need WoW/Starcraft/Diablo to help it's launch). Blizzard plays it's hand wrong, welcome to SOE vs Players 2005 all over again.
It's profitable if the game company isn't plain greedy.
...
That can be said about all the models.
Having a cashshop in P2P makes many players choose a B2P or F2P game instead, and if B2P start selling good items with stat people go to F2P. If F2P go too much into Pay2win most players leave as well.
Any of the 3 models works fine as long as the companies avoid being too greedy.
F2P isn't the model to launch other IP on though. Have to figure out how many existing players are committed enough to play the new IP.
Dust 514 is a great example of a failed launch. A community that doesn't support it. Single platform launch. Buggy. Made in China (which explains a lot of the problems...can't lease a critical part -- animations -- out of the shop, dismal results). WoW's animations look anime, it doesn't flow like one, though. Big problem in a lot of these MMOs, the animations are not good quality. They flicker badly due to lower framerates of the anime style, and gamers can tell something is off. WoW is more of the Disney school, very free flowing flicker free animations. WoW is an AAA quality game by those little things. They have cute looking figures, but at a high frame rate (60+fps). Even the pets are that detailed. They don't flicker like if keyframes are missing or spliced badly.
Originally posted by uidcaustic5 Who said it was? Oh.. right.. people on here.
People on here? nope..the market proved it.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.' -Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid." -Luke McKinney
Historically P2W did mean quality, but it really doesn't matter because look at SWTOR, they lost subs quickly. Since a lot of players wait a month or two after release to see if the game is good, they lose nothing.
So the players still decide if a game is worth it, the sub or lack of, doesn't really matter that much.
I think the F2P model just doesn't work with MMOs. For games like LoL, DotA 2, FireFall...ect, its a perfect model!
Assuming you meant P2P (not P2W), historically P2P hasn't really meant any higher/lower quality. It just brings its own unique set of negative game mechanics just like any other model (except pay2win, which is just overtly terrible.)
F2P works with MMOs, but hasn't thus far been done well on MMORPGs. Important distinction.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Originally posted by uidcaustic5 Who said it was? Oh.. right.. people on here.
People on here? nope..the market proved it.
Where is this proof?
Huh? the amount of MMOS that went F2P isn't proof enough for you? you think companies would continue to follow F2P model without doing their research and knowing that it is a profitable model for them. Seriously.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.' -Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid." -Luke McKinney
problem I got with F2P titles being released like crazy every 2-3 weeks, is that people think the F2P model is awesome since a lot of people play when the game releases. That's true, until the next F2P releases 2-3 weeks later and those same players will flock around the new release and only a handful will stay and play that now 6 week old F2P title.
You make it sounds like a bad thing.
You get to play more games. More variety, instead of stuck with one.
I don't know about you, but that sounds like a win to me.
And btw, 6 weeks is way longer than SP games already. And who says i cannot go back for more if i like the game enough. It is free .. so it is easy to drop it and pick up later.
Stuck?
If a game is good enough, there are millions that would gladly stick around for the long term. It use to be that way.
I'm sorry games suck so bad that you have to play a new one every 2-3 weeks. Or you have to follow the crowd every 2-3 weeks because serious gamers subsidize your gaming. That's not a good thing, no matter how you spin it.
Nobody else on these forums is boasting about these types of games you're standing by.....in every single thread with this topic and no other.
Use to be that way? So? Do you want to ride a horse to work too?
Oh games don't suck. Dishonored .. a far shorter game that most MMO .. is more fun (to me) than most MMOs. You are confusing quality and duration.
I play for quality, not duration.
And it is certainly a good thing for me, when i am having more fun. I doubt you are the authority on how i have fun.
"no one else blah blah blah ..." I am no sheep. You can go follow others in the forum. I stick to my own preferences.
+0.9
The other 0.1 is because I do want to ride a horse to work.
They got you so fooled you don't get it, well, the OP might be a plant from a big company exactly for this reason. P2P is more lucrative in the first few months, when hype brings more people than those that would ordinarily play the game. However P2P is extremely unreliant and bad in the long run, and after you lose a large amount of customers, hence the switch to F2P after a few months.
Why are the majority of AAA MMO's releasing with aspirations of being P2P? Regardless of people's predictions of how many months til a games "inevitable" conversion to a F2P cash shop, P2P is still and will always be the preferred business model for game makers. It benefits the devs and players alike, and if a game has the longevity and the fun factor built into it you should be required to compensate the game makers for providing you this service.
If people want to be nickel and dimed for content that should already be available to them for a small fee each month, more power to them. If kiddies can't get their parents to cough up a credit card so they can game, I say get a damn job. The problem with P2P isn't the business model, it is the fact that there have been no games released in recent memory worth paying a sub for.
Nothing in life is free except the grace and favor of the Lord. Support the developers that give you hours of entertainment. Long live P2P! Huzzah!
Uh because they get a nice big cash injection at the start, then when sales / subscribers don't meet stakeholder approval (read: not the next World of Warcraft) they will swap to F2P to milk even more money out of the game.
Look at, oh I don't know, every single MMO ever released aside from WoW, Darkfall and EVE?
Long live suckers who will pay for something that will be free in 6 months! Huzzah!
Originally posted by uidcaustic5 Who said it was? Oh.. right.. people on here.
People on here? nope..the market proved it.
Where is this proof?
Huh? the amount of MMOS that went P2P isn't proof enough for you? you think companies would continue to follow F2P model without doing their research and knowing that it is a profitable model for them. Seriously.
I agree, P2P is best.
So other than quoting the obvious typo..do you even have an argument?
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.' -Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid." -Luke McKinney
The term "most profitable" is very subjective. I think a more accurate statement would be that F2P models have the potential for larger profits, but on average, they might not make more profit than P2P games. This scenario becomes a lot more complex when you consider various markets and the games produced for them. It is also important to consider that a company can stay in business while making little (or negative) profit, and that simply being in a business with a stable income is more important to them than making large profits.
Originally posted by uidcaustic5 Who said it was? Oh.. right.. people on here.
People on here? nope..the market proved it.
Where is this proof?
Huh? the amount of MMOS that went F2P isn't proof enough for you? you think companies would continue to follow F2P model without doing their research and knowing that it is a profitable model for them. Seriously.
Also pretty much everyone from SoE to Turbine and Bioware reported much higher profitability after switching to F2P models. There is a reason that SoE is releasing EQN and all its future titles as F2P, they have been in the game a lot longer than Carbine and Zenimax, and they know where the money is at.
Comments
If the general contention here that AAA devs don't like risk is true, then it's possible that the subscription model, while not as profitable as F2P, may be more stable revenue or a safer bet than F2P.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
F2P is the domain for the games that couldn't hold enough subs. The game was the problem, not the model. Those that launch F2P already are admitting that their game isn't worth the sub.
A solid P2P game will never have trouble holding subs. The problem, as many of these boards lament on a regular basis, is that although there are plenty of games, there aren't very many good ones - or at least games worth investing everything into.
In addition, have you seen the launchers of every single F2P game? Buy this, pay for that - you never get the complete game experience. 50 cents a day for a complete game experience is WAY better imho.
So back to the OP's post - F2P is more profitable for games not good enough to hold a sub. We can at least give them that, right?
If in 1982 we played with the current mentality, we would have burned down all the pac man games since the red ghost was clearly OP. Instead we just got better at the game.
ESO and Wildstar were built from the ground up to be sub based. They would have to be further delayed if the devs decided to switch to a free to play, item-mall based game. I think both studios decided to take a gamble and see how successful their games would be, sticking to sub based.
Sure, Rift switched from sub based to free to play and people like it. But you also have SWTOR which does free to play terribly and was originally sub based.
The fact of the matter is, good free to play games are built from the ground up with free to play model in mind. Look at Planet Side 2. Look at league of legends. Those are free to play done right.
I think, ultimately, P2P is more profitable, but only if you hit a home run and get millions and millions of players. Free to play atleast draws in ridiculous amount of sub numbers where people then decide 'hmm..okay I like this game...i'm going to spend some money'.
If you did the math, SWTOR made tons of money (basically recouped their investment) by being B2P+P2P first.
They can't sucker players into that forever though, and it will gradually become a better idea to just release F2P first.
I suppose that doesn't answer the question and that I'd agree overall that they should release as F2P because they'd make even more money doing so. Especially if they only sell lateral purchases and not vertical ones (purchases which make you stronger.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Use to be that way? So? Do you want to ride a horse to work too?
Oh games don't suck. Dishonored .. a far shorter game that most MMO .. is more fun (to me) than most MMOs. You are confusing quality and duration.
I play for quality, not duration.
And it is certainly a good thing for me, when i am having more fun. I doubt you are the authority on how i have fun.
"no one else blah blah blah ..." I am no sheep. You can go follow others in the forum. I stick to my own preferences.
P2P will net a developer the most revenue if they can sustain enough subs. If you look at the revenue of the top microtransaction MMORPGs they don't earn more than 20 mil a year in the NA region. As long as your subscription numbers don't drop below 112k there is no reason to use the microtransaction model.
The truth is most f2p games can not compete witu WoW, Eve, even the new comer FFARR - setup fundamentally for p2p knowing what to expect and being thankful for anything more. This next games Eso and Wildstar chose p2p and its simply a testimony to thier confidence and that alone is a reason to get excited.
Off hand - how many subs are needed to keep a game afloat?
/
/
Also how many f2p games before the f2p culture has exhausted its resources? Loss of money, loss of f2p members?
reading these forums, I'd say they still have a while to go before they can't pull this off anymore.
It really depends. Exactly how you maximize the profits is something up to debate.
F2P games that gets too greedy tend to loose many players. Same thing with P2P games that also sells stuff.
My guess is that the studios saw that there are very few P2P games out now which opens up for a few more games. F2P is probably the hardest to compete in right now since there are so many games who does it.
Most devs believe F2P earns most money and they are probably right but you have to count in how many players you are competing for and a different model from the norm can be an advantage as well as a disadvantage.
GW 1 & 2 have gotten many players because they are B2P which is a rare model.
Yeah, players' resistence to change works to developers' benefit in this case.
It's a weird situation too, since I think most developers who hype their game as "We're going P2P so players know they're buying quality" actually believe that P2P means higher quality. Even a rather famous designer friend I know recently made this correlation.
It's doubly weird because of how nobody ever figured out F2P for MMORPGs, whereas F2P games of nearly every other genre are fantastic if you do it right (despite the fact that yes, 80% of everything is still crap -- including all those pay2win games.) It's really a win/win model for both developers and players alike. But again, in MMORPGs few games have really nailed the model (although quite a few have pretty much avoided being pay2win.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Historically P2W did mean quality, but it really doesn't matter because look at SWTOR, they lost subs quickly. Since a lot of players wait a month or two after release to see if the game is good, they lose nothing.
So the players still decide if a game is worth it, the sub or lack of, doesn't really matter that much.
I think the F2P model just doesn't work with MMOs. For games like LoL, DotA 2, FireFall...ect, its a perfect model!
It's profitable if the game company isn't plain greedy.
If the company is looking for a long-term base of players to capitalize on further IP, P2P is the model to use (Diablo III was launched on the back of 1 year WoW subscriptions, with Diablo III thrown in for "free"). If the company is looking for sheer profits, F2P.
Downside of F2P is the rep it gets for pure greed with the P2W and shoddy quality of the games (usually Chinese leased games, with all the translation and cultural problems, like overt racism).
Subscription players *expect* higher quality as they're used to that in P2P games (and view F2P games as incomplete). The industry isn't going to change that perception when the lasted F2P games resemble what a P2P game company could've put together 4 years ago. We also see the rise of "Founders" subs and other questionable practices. P2P you pay monthly and if the company bellies up, only out a small fee. Not the $1,000 "founder" stuff.
Oh, and the industry :cough: polices itself :cough:.
.:| Kevyne@Shandris - Armory |:. - When WoW was #1 - .:| I AM A HOLY PALADIN - Guild Theme |:.
That can be said about all the models.
Having a cashshop in P2P makes many players choose a B2P or F2P game instead, and if B2P start selling good items with stat people go to F2P. If F2P go too much into Pay2win most players leave as well.
Any of the 3 models works fine as long as the companies avoid being too greedy.
Those who remain playing WoW will do so more for the sanctuary to return too. It's there. It's decent.
Blizzard has to be careful and not be arrogant over that though. Because if sanctuary is debased, that's some angry gamers. Blizzard needs a player base for their games -- especially to launch and keep Titan from losing money faster than WoW -- (this is their model: WoW was based on Warcraft. Diablo III got it's launch off of WoW players. Titan will need WoW/Starcraft/Diablo to help it's launch). Blizzard plays it's hand wrong, welcome to SOE vs Players 2005 all over again.
.:| Kevyne@Shandris - Armory |:. - When WoW was #1 - .:| I AM A HOLY PALADIN - Guild Theme |:.
F2P isn't the model to launch other IP on though. Have to figure out how many existing players are committed enough to play the new IP.
Dust 514 is a great example of a failed launch. A community that doesn't support it. Single platform launch. Buggy. Made in China (which explains a lot of the problems...can't lease a critical part -- animations -- out of the shop, dismal results). WoW's animations look anime, it doesn't flow like one, though. Big problem in a lot of these MMOs, the animations are not good quality. They flicker badly due to lower framerates of the anime style, and gamers can tell something is off. WoW is more of the Disney school, very free flowing flicker free animations. WoW is an AAA quality game by those little things. They have cute looking figures, but at a high frame rate (60+fps). Even the pets are that detailed. They don't flicker like if keyframes are missing or spliced badly.
.:| Kevyne@Shandris - Armory |:. - When WoW was #1 - .:| I AM A HOLY PALADIN - Guild Theme |:.
People on here? nope..the market proved it.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.'
-Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid."
-Luke McKinney
Assuming you meant P2P (not P2W), historically P2P hasn't really meant any higher/lower quality. It just brings its own unique set of negative game mechanics just like any other model (except pay2win, which is just overtly terrible.)
F2P works with MMOs, but hasn't thus far been done well on MMORPGs. Important distinction.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Huh? the amount of MMOS that went F2P isn't proof enough for you? you think companies would continue to follow F2P model without doing their research and knowing that it is a profitable model for them. Seriously.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.'
-Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid."
-Luke McKinney
+0.9
The other 0.1 is because I do want to ride a horse to work.
Uh because they get a nice big cash injection at the start, then when sales / subscribers don't meet stakeholder approval (read: not the next World of Warcraft) they will swap to F2P to milk even more money out of the game.
Look at, oh I don't know, every single MMO ever released aside from WoW, Darkfall and EVE?
Long live suckers who will pay for something that will be free in 6 months! Huzzah!
So other than quoting the obvious typo..do you even have an argument?
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.'
-Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid."
-Luke McKinney
Also pretty much everyone from SoE to Turbine and Bioware reported much higher profitability after switching to F2P models. There is a reason that SoE is releasing EQN and all its future titles as F2P, they have been in the game a lot longer than Carbine and Zenimax, and they know where the money is at.