The cost of entry is why this model fails, also at $25 the players would expect higher value in return as this is more than the rest of the games.
So high cost of entry and higher expectations - recipe for failure.
I think that Ninentdo is unto something with their new model which they are calling "free to start" - where you start for free and can pay in increments however once you spend the equivalent of what the total game costs - everything unlocks for you.
I think more MMO companies should take a hard look at the Nintendo "free to start" model as F2P is a misnomer in practice, and free to start closer to truth.
I like the free to start idea as an alternative to a pure F2P where the sky is the limit on how much you can spend, because that ALWAYS affects game design, though some people on these forums cant seem to grasp how. All they see is " I can haz free game plz".
But I'm afraid developers would still just tack on a cash shop just the same with items that accelerate gameplay / increase the odds of something happening or provide "keys" for chest that you find in game. All which once game adversely affect core game design.
It's like giving more money to the Detroit school system and expecting anything different. Do you really trust game devs (in general) to deliver more if you throw more money at them???
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
It's like giving more money to the Detroit school system and expecting anything different. Do you really trust game devs (in general) to deliver more if you throw more money at them???
Yes. It is the MBAs I don't trust. Too bad they usually run the place.
If you could sell a 25 dollar product to 5000 people you'd be pretty happy. If you made it free with ad revenue and cash shops that brought in that much each week, you'd make it free with cash shops and ad revenue.
more people will test a free game. More people will come back next month, even if they're on the fence, if there is no sub. The longer someone plays, the more likely they will invest.
It's like giving more money to the Detroit school system and expecting anything different. Do you really trust game devs (in general) to deliver more if you throw more money at them???
Unfortunately, subscription games have become known as games that "prevent the player from spending unlimited amounts of money"...
Designing the game play to complement the Cash Shop offerings is such an ideal business case that it will most likely never go away. Mobile phone games have proven the point conclusively.
If a game is good, the payment model is irrelevant. But if the game is really good, even with a Cash Shop, it will most likely be a license to print money.
I agree with the sentiment of the OP, I too would be willing to pay as much or more for a good game.
Isn't Revival planning to have special servers with higher subs that get extra GM attention? Not saying Revival is the answer, I don't think it is for me at least, but it will be interesting to see if they manage to launch and run those gold servers or whatever they call them. They might set an example to follow there. (Their selling virtual estates in early development is another matter though, I'm not a fan of that)
Why so hard? Why nobody has tried this monetizing model after a decade+? What do I expect from such monetizing model... #1 Strong security (Both with hacking, exploits as well as bots and minimizing P2W, like no cash shops) #2 Strong endgame either sandbox, player driven or steady, reliable content released for a themepark #3 Complete product with minimal bugs that get addressed quickly.
Paying $299 a year monthly or $249 for a yearly sub for a product I know I'll be investing most of my free time is awesome deal. We've seen F2P, B2P, hybrid, and all kinds of P2W or P2 advance models, but I have yet to see AAA product on a very high budget which can afford with this sub price.
MMORPG's are the only genre where the amount of features, content is limited to the amount of $ is invested in the game. So, $ does play a significant role in the quality of the product we will receive. We often see heavy content games with weak graphics or graphically amazing games with weak endgames.
This game would be receiving at least 27.5 mil annually from only 100k subs....
The trend is going away from subscriptions at the moment . If one released with a 25 dollar subscription now it would be free to play within a year because it would never get enough people playing .
For me it wouldn't be worth it unless it was something totally original and maybe utilizing some type of VR .
The facts are there are just too many options these days that is why most mmo's cant maintain a subscription .
As bad as the MMO genre is right now no one is goign to pay 25 bux a months for one. Simply because it couldnt be THAT much better than wha there already is, or...nothing.
Huh? People drop THOUSANDS of dollars on Kickstarters so obviously saying "no one is going to pay 25 bux a month for one" is a silly statement. Maybe it wouldn't be a big market. Maybe it would. Obviously it would be more than "no one".
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It's like giving more money to the Detroit school system and expecting anything different. Do you really trust game devs (in general) to deliver more if you throw more money at them???
Yes. It is the MBAs I don't trust. Too bad they usually run the place.
Cool! Too bad you don't trust me. So when do I get to start running the place?
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Authored 139 missions in VendettaOnline and 6 tracks in Distance
Yea but that $2000 bought him more stuff then $25 a month could.
It bought him pixels.
So ?, what's wrong with pixels ? luxury is luxury, u buy it for your greedy brain's peace of mind. Whether it's pixels or tangible, what's the difference in the end ? It all becomes but memory.
The only difference is pixels people figured out that down the road pixel memory is gonna be good enough/as good or better as non-pixel memory so they're investing in their future(memory).
The only other difference is some people plan ahead and like delayed gratification more, and other people don't plan ahead and like instant gratification more. I think everyone has the right to choose the timing of their gratification so don't be a pixelist bro, it's not PC bro.
It's just the fact that from 2001, I recall subbing in Ultima Online for $10...a month and now I'm into 2016 with 5 years straight without absolutely nothing that I find myself to spend my $ on. So, yes I can totally afford paying $25 and the fact there has been NOBODY with this monetizing model, while many rather make their games P2W with ridiculously priced items....
There is clearly a SPACE for this game to happen and when it does, we will see best what kind of impact it will make in the industry....until then I'll continue to count the years before I spend $ on a new game.
We'll all have white merlin beards by the time a game like this comes out again. It's sad, but lack of responsibility and capitalism has brought us all to this.
Good, I already have a white Merlin beard. Can I have my $25 a month game now?
Why do people think offering more money is going to make a better game? If that was true, WoW would still have over 7+ million subscribers. Money is irrelevant to great design.
Sure... that's why all cars are the same quality too.
Guessing that's why my neighbors $50,000 BMW has been in the shop 8 times since he bought it while my $20,000 Tacoma has been in the shop exactly 0 times ( well aside from scheduled oil changes ).
You're going to go far in life with that logic kiddo.
Yea but that $2000 bought him more stuff then $25 a month could.
VS paying a sub and getting EVERYTHING the Developers create in the game for free with the ONLY barrier being skill? I will take that any day than spending $2000 just to look cool in a video game.
The cost of entry is why this model fails, also at $25 the players would expect higher value in return as this is more than the rest of the games.
So high cost of entry and higher expectations - recipe for failure.
I think that Ninentdo is unto something with their new model which they are calling "free to start" - where you start for free and can pay in increments however once you spend the equivalent of what the total game costs - everything unlocks for you.
I think more MMO companies should take a hard look at the Nintendo "free to start" model as F2P is a misnomer in practice, and free to start closer to truth.
Free to Start is like a 14 day trial. At the end of the trial you have to pony up or get out. Now we COULD extend the 14 day trial BUT the problem is at what point do people just quit and move on vs spending money.
I think the core issue is the cost of an MMO today is why we have F2P. If MMO development was round $50 Million to $100 Million a Box price with a $25 sub IF its a really good game; the developer would make the initial investment back and make a profit. The PROBLEM is todays AAA publishers want high profit margins vs making a game to make a profit. If EA is not making a 40% profit on X MMO they go to F2P. A Publisher can make a very good game and get 500K P2P players at $25 a month, and only made lets say a 20% profit margin on the game. Problem is they all want Blizzard like returns.
Yea but that $2000 bought him more stuff then $25 a month could.
VS paying a sub and getting EVERYTHING the Developers create in the game for free with the ONLY barrier being skill? I will take that any day than spending $2000 just to look cool in a video game.
You're completely and utterly wrong, a dev is not gonna make all the luxury and fluff he would make for the $2000 whale crowd for the $25 crowd. Add to that, that you can easily gauge interest of a expensive cash shop item, by the total amount of money u get from whales, if its not selling, make one better suited for a demographic, or increase decrease price.
$25 p2p is actually communism, everyone pays the same to be equal, and dev has no incentive or proper way to gauge interest for what fluff to implement, so devs implement fluff on their own accord using limited and complicated prediction and evaluation.
predicting and evaluating in cash shop that may or may not be p2w is incredible more secure and easier, + u have a very high chance to get much more money from less people. And that is a pure evolution of the mmo model, because with the mmorpgs becoming mainstream and there being so many of them, each one is guaranteed to have less pieces of the pie, and therefore be forced not to use p2p model for shear survival.
I would pay $25 a month for a really good MMO, no worries. I also wont pay a cent for a dung of crap since I wont play it anyways.
But the problem with expensive pay2play MMO is that you need to hook the players initially and few people bother to try the expensive games unless they hear it is extra ordanary.
The F2P and freemium games hook you first with free gameplay but after a while you more or less need to buy a few things. Later you need to pay far more or pay an "optional fee" to be competetive. It is easier to hook players that way.
Of course, that isn't a problem for a great game, a great game will earn you money no matter if it is P2P, B2P, F2P or freemium but the problem is that few games are that good. Most are mediocre and a bunch is slightly better but P2P wont work for them anymore, you can play equal or better games for far less than $25.
Fix us a great MMO and I gladly fork up my monthly fee and so will many others, P2P is the best payment model for the players when you have a great game since we all play on equal footing but those games just come around every 5 years or so.
Anything less then great but better then mediocre I prefer as B2P. A initial fee and a limited itemshop that wont upset the game balance is best for that.
Mediocre games I prefer as F2P. I wont spend more than a few weeks in any of them no matter but it can burn me some time, if I for some reason have more then I need (like when I had flu a week 2 years ago and was bored to tears).
I am fine with it as long as they are aware of what they are buying. Though it's kind of hard to believe they would spend that much just for the sake of pixels. I am not saying what all games can offer are just pixels, but what cash shops offer have the same value as pixels.
i was being slightly satirical in one part of my post, and that is the part where i pretend most people are aware of what they're buying.
Disregarding my opinion of that, many a company's standpoint on whether or not a person is aware what they are buying is not only essentially irrelevant but highly discouraged therefore : commercials !
Problem is, the few studios / publishers that can afford to make an MMO worth $25pm are unwilling to take any risks, preventing them from building the MMO in the first place.
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A: A monthly sub does not equate to better security or better content or better end game. Are you under the impression that developers of F2P games don't want good content and security in their games? No one wants to make a flat, crappy game. It just happens. Whether or not it's sub or free is entirely unrelated.
B: A cash shop also does not automatically make a game bad. That also makes no sense. If a game is fun, it's fun. If it has content, it has content. If I can buy cosmetic items in a cash shop, how does that change whether or not you're having fun? Are you seriously that envious that my fancy hat has just ruined the game for you?
I like the ESO/TSW model. I buy the game and get to play it for free. If i want more content i buy a DLC and get to play that extra content for free.
Free content patches sounds nice, but they belong in subscription games imo. Problem is you need a good amount of subscriptions to be able to make new content patches on a regular basis. And people joining the game late gets all the content the earlier subs paid for for free. Some may choose to drop subscription for a few months and wait for new content that the remaining subs are left to pay for.
With paid DLC you dont have that problem. Honestly i think it's a better model. B2P and no sub, but with paid for contentpatches. And ofc. the shop that all mmo's have theese days with fluff items.
Comments
I like the free to start idea as an alternative to a pure F2P where the sky is the limit on how much you can spend, because that ALWAYS affects game design, though some people on these forums cant seem to grasp how. All they see is " I can haz free game plz".
But I'm afraid developers would still just tack on a cash shop just the same with items that accelerate gameplay / increase the odds of something happening or provide "keys" for chest that you find in game. All which once game adversely affect core game design.
It's like giving more money to the Detroit school system and expecting anything different. Do you really trust game devs (in general) to deliver more if you throw more money at them???
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
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
It is the MBAs I don't trust.
Too bad they usually run the place.
more people will test a free game. More people will come back next month, even if they're on the fence, if there is no sub. The longer someone plays, the more likely they will invest.
its business.
Designing the game play to complement the Cash Shop offerings is such an ideal business case that it will most likely never go away. Mobile phone games have proven the point conclusively.
If a game is good, the payment model is irrelevant. But if the game is really good, even with a Cash Shop, it will most likely be a license to print money.
Isn't Revival planning to have special servers with higher subs that get extra GM attention? Not saying Revival is the answer, I don't think it is for me at least, but it will be interesting to see if they manage to launch and run those gold servers or whatever they call them. They might set an example to follow there. (Their selling virtual estates in early development is another matter though, I'm not a fan of that)
For me it wouldn't be worth it unless it was something totally original and maybe utilizing some type of VR .
The facts are there are just too many options these days that is why most mmo's cant maintain a subscription .
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
Whether it's pixels or tangible, what's the difference in the end ? It all becomes but memory.
The only difference is pixels people figured out that down the road pixel memory is gonna be good enough/as good or better as non-pixel memory so they're investing in their future(memory).
The only other difference is some people plan ahead and like delayed gratification more, and other people don't plan ahead and like instant gratification more. I think everyone has the right to choose the timing of their gratification so don't be a pixelist bro, it's not PC bro.
You're going to go far in life with that logic kiddo.
I think the core issue is the cost of an MMO today is why we have F2P. If MMO development was round $50 Million to $100 Million a Box price with a $25 sub IF its a really good game; the developer would make the initial investment back and make a profit. The PROBLEM is todays AAA publishers want high profit margins vs making a game to make a profit. If EA is not making a 40% profit on X MMO they go to F2P. A Publisher can make a very good game and get 500K P2P players at $25 a month, and only made lets say a 20% profit margin on the game. Problem is they all want Blizzard like returns.
$25 p2p is actually communism, everyone pays the same to be equal, and dev has no incentive or proper way to gauge interest for what fluff to implement, so devs implement fluff on their own accord using limited and complicated prediction and evaluation.
predicting and evaluating in cash shop that may or may not be p2w is incredible more secure and easier, + u have a very high chance to get much more money from less people. And that is a pure evolution of the mmo model, because with the mmorpgs becoming mainstream and there being so many of them, each one is guaranteed to have less pieces of the pie, and therefore be forced not to use p2p model for shear survival.
cash shop and p2w is the epitome of capitalism.
But the problem with expensive pay2play MMO is that you need to hook the players initially and few people bother to try the expensive games unless they hear it is extra ordanary.
The F2P and freemium games hook you first with free gameplay but after a while you more or less need to buy a few things. Later you need to pay far more or pay an "optional fee" to be competetive. It is easier to hook players that way.
Of course, that isn't a problem for a great game, a great game will earn you money no matter if it is P2P, B2P, F2P or freemium but the problem is that few games are that good. Most are mediocre and a bunch is slightly better but P2P wont work for them anymore, you can play equal or better games for far less than $25.
Fix us a great MMO and I gladly fork up my monthly fee and so will many others, P2P is the best payment model for the players when you have a great game since we all play on equal footing but those games just come around every 5 years or so.
Anything less then great but better then mediocre I prefer as B2P. A initial fee and a limited itemshop that wont upset the game balance is best for that.
Mediocre games I prefer as F2P. I wont spend more than a few weeks in any of them no matter but it can burn me some time, if I for some reason have more then I need (like when I had flu a week 2 years ago and was bored to tears).
Disregarding my opinion of that, many a company's standpoint on whether or not a person is aware what they are buying is not only essentially irrelevant but highly discouraged
Problem is, the few studios / publishers that can afford to make an MMO worth $25pm are unwilling to take any risks, preventing them from building the MMO in the first place.
A: A monthly sub does not equate to better security or better content or better end game. Are you under the impression that developers of F2P games don't want good content and security in their games? No one wants to make a flat, crappy game. It just happens. Whether or not it's sub or free is entirely unrelated.
B: A cash shop also does not automatically make a game bad. That also makes no sense. If a game is fun, it's fun. If it has content, it has content. If I can buy cosmetic items in a cash shop, how does that change whether or not you're having fun? Are you seriously that envious that my fancy hat has just ruined the game for you?
Free content patches sounds nice, but they belong in subscription games imo. Problem is you need a good amount of subscriptions to be able to make new content patches on a regular basis. And people joining the game late gets all the content the earlier subs paid for for free. Some may choose to drop subscription for a few months and wait for new content that the remaining subs are left to pay for.
With paid DLC you dont have that problem. Honestly i think it's a better model. B2P and no sub, but with paid for contentpatches. And ofc. the shop that all mmo's have theese days with fluff items.