With the cash shop games it feels like the devs spend far too much time and resources developing new shinies for the shop every few weeks than they do on content every few weeks.
As a paying subscriber to SWTOR for instance, we haven't seen a new raid in two years give or take. But they're sure to release two new RNG loot packs for sale on their micro transaction cash shop every 3 weeks or so. It's chock full of brand new weapons and armors and mounts and pets and weapon mod crystals / weapon visual effects.
I'm paying $15 bucks a month to still be raiding EV / KP for instance which were the two original raids that vanilla launched with, they just boosted the hit points and character level of the mobs and bosses - not even adding any different mechanics or ramping up any difficulty level.
My guild all quit and we were hardcore play every nighters but the story updates that they are going with this "expansion" you mow through in about 20 minutes. Do the only real content the devs seem to be churning out are cash shop shinies.
What I want to know is whatever happened to the free to try model that games like runescape were built off. Limited content for on a free basis with a full game behind some sort of paywall (subscription or purchase).
I've seen a few games starting to go this route (atlas reactor from trion comes to mind), however I've never see it discussed as a viable middleground in the F2P vs B2P debate.
Ya know, like just as you come up to a boss fight....
"Now for a message from our sponsors"
I'm in my 50's, I've got tons of disposable income and these game companies just keep pushing me further away.
Think I'll go buy myself a muscle car.
You're a few years behind the curve. I bought my Celica GTS when I was mid 40's... best time to have a mid-life crisis
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
For years I was an avid World of Warcraft player, after real life got busy and I had little time for gaming I cancelled my sub and stuck with single player or ftp games. After switching back and forth, not really finding anything worth what little time I had to play I decide to put some cash into a few of the cash stores. First was Swtor, fun game, great story telling, terrible business model. Next was Tera, similar story, game is fun, but just odd community and game play choices just wasn't my thing. Next was ESO, awesome game, fun all around, interesting classes but totally destroyed by smothering business model, even as a subscriber I felt like I wasn't getting everything, end up spending so much more than I had on any other game in a single month. I moved on..... Back to World of Warcraft, still best bang for my bucks..
I want to play the game and be rewarded for it, not by spending money in the cash shop, even cosmetics are part of the reward for playing the game. I'll take a game designed to be fun with a regular charge over one designed to manipulate you with roadblocks and addiction mechanics that break immersion and shove the cash shop in your face.
I want to play the game and be rewarded for it, not by spending money in the cash shop, even cosmetics are part of the reward for playing the game. I'll take a game designed to be fun with a regular charge over one designed to manipulate you with roadblocks and addiction mechanics that break immersion and shove the cash shop in your face.
I just saw an article in Forbes about Overwatch loot boxes from a writer, Paul Tassi, I don't usually like but this time I think he got it right:
"The main counter-argument to all this is that all of these unlocks are cosmetic, that they don’t affect the game at all. This is true, and if it wasn’t, if you could “buy power,” we would be having a very different conversation. It wouldn’t even be a debate, as that would be a thousand percent wrong and Overwatch may have bombed outright if that system was in place.
And yet I don’t really buy the argument that cosmetics are “meaningless” either. Jim Sterling did a good video on this recently where he talks about when they only “goal” in Overwatch other than just winning is to level up and get loot crates, that is a hugely important part of the game. And we have to stop pretending that cosmetics aren’t “important,” at least psychologically, as players love dressing up their characters in every kind of title from shooters to RPGs. Cosmetics do matter, and unlocking them is an important part of the player experience."
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
I prefer the old school method of p2p with a subscription, with no cash shop at all. Each player invests equally and it's a continuous string of revenue for the developer. Of course, we've strived for "better" in recent years with b2p and f2p models that almost always come with a cash shop favoring whales over the average gamer. Even when there isn't game breaking/p2w content in those stores, I'd still prefer none over the immersion breaking and convenience items often sold.
Yet, to be fair I'd take anything over the shady business practices of selling images of pixels not even fully finished/created for money before a game is even launched, cough"Star Citizen"cough.
Haxus Council Member 21 year MMO veteran PvP Raid Leader Lover of The Witcher & CD Projekt Red
Subs are the only way to monetize fairly. All of the F2P options are exploitative in some way.
It's not that simple, Subs don't work well for people with little time.
The problem is you need a system that works well for people with lots of time OR money that provides a healthy profit for the business.
What possible way would a sub not work for people with little time? Can they play 1 hour a week? Well then that's a whopping $3.75 for an hour play based on $15 a month sub.
Give me a break...
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
Here is my idea for a payment model that is fair and take into account people time, which is valuable.
4 Hours per day estimated an average player would play. 7 Days 30 Hours Sub Fee: $5 a month 14 Days 60 Hours Sub Fee: $10 a month 30 Days 120 Hours Sub Fee: $15 a month Sub Fee: $1 Maint Fee (not required). This is per month. Has to pay full price for Xpac's. Sub Fee: $5 This is per month. Unused hours roll over. Has to pay full price for Xpac's. Sub Fee: $10 This is per month. Unused hours roll over. Has to pay half price for Xpac's(Have this sub for 6 continuous months prior to purchase). Sub Fee: $15 This is per month. Unlimited time, but the user gets 120 hours, if they go over, no charge, it will however, consume roll over hours. What doesn’t get used, rolls over to next month. Xpac's free(Have this sub for 6 continuous months prior to purchase). $1 monthly maint fee option is for when a player cancels the sub but wants to save the time accrued and the character information. Example: Player canceled sub, has 200 hours saved. As long as the player pays the $1 fee, the player can keep playing till the hours are used up. Example: Player is leaving town for 6 months, putting thier sub on the $1 monthly maint fee will ensure all the hours accrued and character info is saved. If a player has used up all their hours prior to the next billing date, they can purchase hours. Same rate and hours as the subs. Players are free to give time saved (rollover hours), up to 120 hours, to another player within a single billing cycle. The player giving the hours can only perform this action 1 time per billing cycle. Players purchase hours for another player(can perform this action as much as the player wishes), same rates and hours as the subs. A player that has received hours from another player, will not be allowed to trade any hours. This freeze ends when the hours received from other players are used up. Changing sub plans prior to the new billing cycle will not go into effect until start of new billing cycle.
Roses are red Violets are blue The reviewer has a mishapen head Which means his opinion is skewed ...Aldous.MF'n.Huxley
Here is my idea for a payment model that is fair and take into account people time, which is valuable.
4 Hours per day estimated an average player would play. 7 Days 30 Hours Sub Fee: $5 a month 14 Days 60 Hours Sub Fee: $10 a month 30 Days 120 Hours Sub Fee: $15 a month Sub Fee: $1 Maint Fee (not required). This is per month. Has to pay full price for Xpac's. Sub Fee: $5 This is per month. Unused hours roll over. Has to pay full price for Xpac's. Sub Fee: $10 This is per month. Unused hours roll over. Has to pay half price for Xpac's(Have this sub for 6 continuous months prior to purchase). Sub Fee: $15 This is per month. Unlimited time, but the user gets 120 hours, if they go over, no charge, it will however, consume roll over hours. What doesn’t get used, rolls over to next month. Xpac's free(Have this sub for 6 continuous months prior to purchase). $1 monthly maint fee option is for when a player cancels the sub but wants to save the time accrued and the character information. Example: Player canceled sub, has 200 hours saved. As long as the player pays the $1 fee, the player can keep playing till the hours are used up. Example: Player is leaving town for 6 months, putting thier sub on the $1 monthly maint fee will ensure all the hours accrued and character info is saved. If a player has used up all their hours prior to the next billing date, they can purchase hours. Same rate and hours as the subs. Players are free to give time saved (rollover hours), up to 120 hours, to another player within a single billing cycle. The player giving the hours can only perform this action 1 time per billing cycle. Players purchase hours for another player(can perform this action as much as the player wishes), same rates and hours as the subs. A player that has received hours from another player, will not be allowed to trade any hours. This freeze ends when the hours received from other players are used up. Changing sub plans prior to the new billing cycle will not go into effect until start of new billing cycle.
Ridiculously overly complicated.
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
Not sure there will ever be a 'fair' system... even before WoW had a cosmetics shop / account services the $15 a month didn't seem fair as a non-raider (a lot of the updates were raid-only content). And the problem with anything but a pure sub is that you start to negatively affect gameplay / in-game content.
I don't know... maybe a sub model (i.e. $15 a month) but you can 'refund' certain content (like the latest raid instance you have no interest in). Also, I really think expansions (e.g. WoW style major content update expansions) should come with a month of game time.
Most MMORPG players agree on what the business model should be: only someone else should have to pay, but they shouldn't get any advantage from doing so.
That's just cutesy cynical crap that passes as old fart wisdom around here.
Pay for the game because it's the type of game you enjoy (with or without grind,) pay a reasonable monthly fee because you want to keep playing it and everyone pays no more and no less.
That would be ideal from a game player's perspective.
Of course people can put their wannabe game capitalist hat on and praise ingenious, seductive schemes that produce ever increasing ROIs... maybe there should be a separate forum for them?
That's a bit harsh and glosses over all the problems and baggage that system carries that I mentioned earlier. Gross advantages for those with a lot more time to spend or account sharing, third party rmt gold sales, etc.
Why do we need a monthly fee? In what world did we convince ourselves that renting access to games was a good idea? That might be ideal for some gamers, but the larger gaming populace has not agreed that this is the best or subs + box fees wouldn't have failed.
"Fail" is relative though isn't it? Dark Age of Camelot is still going with a sub fee today last time I looked. Does box + sub make as much money as F2P + cash shop and all the mixes of the two systems? Obviously not. FB and the app store have shown that.
There's fail as in "we can't pay salaries anymore and have to shut down" and there's faux-fail as in "we can make more money doing it the other way" and that's without even getting into the forum troll's use of "fail."
Time factor? Yeah... that argument again. It's just part of simulated 24/7 worlds. Never was a type of game for everyone.
Gold sellers and buyers? Yup. Used to be just a shady underground thing right along with bots and hacks. All of those will always be with us. It took a while for some companies to adopt it as part of their BM (SOE was first in the West I believe) but eventually they did... some of us even defend it as a good thing now.
Harsh reply to Quiz? Well I do get tired of seeing that thrown around here as truth. No I don't think players are freeloaders that want others to pay. Some I'm sure are, just like there are gold buyers, botters, hackers, etc. But you don't use that to dismiss all gamers and their opinions about what feels fair... emphasis on feel.
Outside of whales, most people's perceptions of what is fair skews toward themselves paying less and others paying more. For example:
1. People who want to play betas and early access sometimes get upset about being charged more to play early. People who wait until well after launch often think it's fair that people who want to be first to play should pay more for it.
2. People who play for 30 or 40 hours per week tend to think it's fair if everyone pays a flat subscription fee. People who only play a few hours per month commonly think it's unfair that they should have to pay just as much for that as someone who plays vastly more.
3. People who like the leveling process and avoid endgames don't particularly mind if the endgame is heavily pay to win. People who want to rush to endgame and get the best gear and so forth tend to be far more upset about models that heavily favor whales at endgame.
4. People who don't care what they look like tend to favor pushing monetization of purely cosmetic things. People who love to decorate their characters with many different outfits get upset if they have to pay vastly more than everyone else just because they like to look good.
I'm not sure where you're digging up these "people" from
1. People getting upset about paying more to play in betas is a a bit of legacy thing since monetizing betas has only become common in the past few years. Before betas were done by invitation only, then they added it as a perk of pre-ordering and now it's a full-on additional costs even with tiers of access. People complain about THAT.
2. I've never heard anyone complain about that, tbh, although the Korean "labor point" system could be seen as a form of that. Can't say I care one way or the other. I'm sure some people get more out of their Netflix sub than I do... doesn't bother me in the least.
3. Most people dislike P2W...period.
4. I've never heard cosmetic junkies whine about paying for it... c'mon surely you made that one up.
One can readily tell which side of those divides you're on from your replies.
1) Do you really think that people who aren't in a rush to play a game get upset if those who are have to pay extra? It's pretty well established by now that games get a surge of incoming players when they go "free to play". Do you think all those people who waited months or years after launch are hopping mad that people paid more to get into the beta than if they had waited until launch? Only people who want to get in first get upset about having to pay more for the privilege.
2) Casuals who don't play much tend not to be especially vocal. But in most games, an overwhelming majority of the people who play the game don't play it very much. The reason that the rise of "free to play" brought so many more players into MMORPGs is precisely because of people who weren't willing to pay a subscription fee, sometimes because they couldn't justify it with how little they play.
3) Do you really think that people who know that they'll never meaningfully participate in a game's endgame really get upset if that endgame that they'll never take part in is pay to win? Most people tend to focus more on the experience that they'll have in a game than on things they know full well they'll never see. The recent Black Desert incident is a good example: volcanic rage from some small portion of the playerbase and a shrug from the rest.
4) Part of why people so commonly say that games should charge for cosmetic stuff is precisely because so few people care about it. But do you think that people who do like having a lot of costumes appreciate being treated like whales and expected to heavily subsidize everyone else? There are games that give you a lot of costumes for free, you know.
With the cash shop games it feels like the devs spend far too much time and resources developing new shinies for the shop every few weeks than they do on content every few weeks.
As a paying subscriber to SWTOR for instance, we haven't seen a new raid in two years give or take. But they're sure to release two new RNG loot packs for sale on their micro transaction cash shop every 3 weeks or so. It's chock full of brand new weapons and armors and mounts and pets and weapon mod crystals / weapon visual effects.
I'm paying $15 bucks a month to still be raiding EV / KP for instance which were the two original raids that vanilla launched with, they just boosted the hit points and character level of the mobs and bosses - not even adding any different mechanics or ramping up any difficulty level.
My guild all quit and we were hardcore play every nighters but the story updates that they are going with this "expansion" you mow through in about 20 minutes. Do the only real content the devs seem to be churning out are cash shop shinies.
To a considerable degree, it's not the same people. Bug fixes and new mechanics are the job of programmers. New shinies for the item mall are the job of artists.
Not sure there will ever be a 'fair' system... even before WoW had a cosmetics shop / account services the $15 a month didn't seem fair as a non-raider (a lot of the updates were raid-only content). And the problem with anything but a pure sub is that you start to negatively affect gameplay / in-game content.
I don't know... maybe a sub model (i.e. $15 a month) but you can 'refund' certain content (like the latest raid instance you have no interest in). Also, I really think expansions (e.g. WoW style major content update expansions) should come with a month of game time.
This is why I always like DDOs model, which i believe has been used in a couple other games as well. Basically you could either pay a sub and have access to ALL content, or you could choose not to sub and instead buy the adventure packs as desired. If there were ones that didnt interest you, you could just choose not to buy them.
Along with that you could also earn currency for purchasing the packs, or any other items in the shop, simply by completing certain feats in the game without having to pay a cent. Of course it did get a bit grindy, but you could easily supplement spending just a small amount of money combined with the free stuff to get by pretty easily.
I'd rather pay $15 a month and have access to everything than be nickle and dimed in the f2p model or never see any real expansions like in the b2p model.
Not sure there will ever be a 'fair' system... even before WoW had a cosmetics shop / account services the $15 a month didn't seem fair as a non-raider (a lot of the updates were raid-only content). And the problem with anything but a pure sub is that you start to negatively affect gameplay / in-game content.
I don't know... maybe a sub model (i.e. $15 a month) but you can 'refund' certain content (like the latest raid instance you have no interest in). Also, I really think expansions (e.g. WoW style major content update expansions) should come with a month of game time.
Are you kidding me? Divide $15 by the number of hours you played WoW in an average month. That is somewhere between a low and ridiculously low cost per hour of entertainment. And you want some kind of refund system for any content you don't like?
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
Subs are the only way to monetize fairly. All of the F2P options are exploitative in some way.
It's not that simple, Subs don't work well for people with little time.
The problem is you need a system that works well for people with lots of time OR money that provides a healthy profit for the business.
What possible way would a sub not work for people with little time? Can they play 1 hour a week? Well then that's a whopping $3.75 for an hour play based on $15 a month sub.
Give me a break...
You cant turn back the clock, Most mainstream gamers don't want to have to grind shit and rather just pay for it.
That's why were in this mess in the first place.
Weather your pro-sub or pro f2p these people represent a large share of the market and should be represented in a "fair" model.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
My prefered monetization, is P2P. Yes, WoW does it right. Their game is Free to Try (Free up to level 20), as stated the cash shop is reasonable. Though the sale of cash shop items on the market (anti-gold farming) is now being called p2w. F2P only exists for the P4F (Play For Free) crowd, this is not healthy for the industry. Games can not survive catering to P4F gamers, in search of their totally free game (white whale).
I'm an Engineer at Heart, so I always return to the math. £10 x 2.000.000 is what companies want to make each month from their MMOs. If you want to offer them £5 x 250.000 (obtainable player base), then it won’t fly. You're going to tell me all they have to do is retain double the player base (more like 16x) to get the profits they want.
Remember, this is why games cost so much, they have to make these payments each month.
Existing Product Development (bug fixes, expansions, updates)
New Product Development (diversified revenue stream)
Stockholders, those who eat profits in big bites (CEO, COO, CFO, board members, lawyers)
Making less money will never be the answer. Players must speak up and tell makers what they want from a product and what they don't want. Then they must pay for it, most likely monthly and for as long as they play. And saying the thing they don't want, is to pay for their game play isn't going to happen.
Pardon any spelling errors
Konfess your cyns and some maybe forgiven Boy: Why can't I talk to Him? Mom: We don't talk to Priests. As if it could exist, without being payed for. F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing. Even telemarketers wouldn't think that. It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
Subs are the only way to monetize fairly. All of the F2P options are exploitative in some way.
It's not that simple, Subs don't work well for people with little time.
The problem is you need a system that works well for people with lots of time OR money that provides a healthy profit for the business.
What possible way would a sub not work for people with little time? Can they play 1 hour a week? Well then that's a whopping $3.75 for an hour play based on $15 a month sub.
Give me a break...
You cant turn back the clock, Most mainstream gamers don't want to have to grind shit and rather just pay for it.
That's why were in this mess in the first place.
Weather your pro-sub or pro f2p these people represent a large share of the market and should be represented in a "fair" model.
No. Fair has nothing to do with people who "don't want to grind shit and rather just pay for it".
The question wasn't which is the best model but which is the fairest. Nothing about P2W can be considered "fair".
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
So before I continue to prattle on, I want to know what your preferred payment model is for the genre. Do you think a hybrid approach that places players first is the answer? Do you think World of Warcraft already does things right or should more companies adopt ArenaNet’s approach with Guild Wars 2? Let me know as I’m keen to hear your thoughts. Read the full story here
To me, playing an MMO is a time investment. I never consider playing an MMO game without asking myself "Does this game look good enough to justify my play-time?".
A good MMO will have content and game-play elements that encompass many things, including the game-world LORE and story. A mix of PvE and PvP, engaging combat, chain-quests, various factions/races, dungeon crawls, raids, group content, solo content, easter-eggs, loot tables, item rarity, visually stunning....
Well an MMO to me is like a second home. A place to escape reality and spend my time in. So THAT is why I view and MMO a time investment.
MMOs are not and should not be created like they're some console RPG shooter, with content to be consumed in a few weeks and then the player moves on to consume some other game.
THAT is one of the mistakes developers and publishers have been making with the genre, IMO. They create shallow and grindy games. Games with not very much depth, where players can plow through levels easily by either grinding their way, or paying their way to the top. Insta-gratification and dumbing-down of certain elements have helped destroy the genre, just as much as people may say it has helped it.
Truth is, most recent MMO games aren't good enough to convince players to pay a monthly subscription. The content and game depth is just not there. Plus, no one in their right mind would pay a subscription fee when there's P2W in the game, where players can bypass all that with their wallets. (Well, maybe some ArcheAge players aren't in their right mind...)
Let's take a look at SWTOR, a subscription game at launch, but lacked several key features that quickly made it more of a game to be consumed quickly and players move on. Enter their server merges, called by me only 3 months into the game after release, and then their move to the system they have now. They went to that system because the game simply did not have enough depth and good design back then to support the subscription model.
Everquest, back in the day, had a subscription model, and one of the reasons it persisted for a long time was, because there was tons of content in that game, with depth, community, little dumbing-down of systems, etc.
Enter greed of the publishers and developers, the 'lay down and take my money' attitude of the players(who'll pay for Alpha/Beta access and even pay to TEST the game, because they're so desperate), desperate for ANYTHING FREEKIN' NEW because they can't find a game they truly like, and haven't consumed quickly. You've now got a cycle of near P2W cash shops, with games having even more grind, to try to convince players to spend real-world money in someway to bypass such long, uninspired and tedious grind-a-thon gameplay.
Ugh.. Makes me sick..
I'll happily pay a subscription for a game that's worth my time. Such a game is where: Everyone starts out the same There's no P2W cash shops There's no dumb-down systems There's lots of content There's a deep, rich world to explore in many different ways.
I'm OK with a cash shop just for cosmetic stuff, but there MUST be a way to achieve such stuff in the game as well. PLUS, there must be cosmetic items in game that are impossible for you to get by the cash shop, you MUST play the game. None of this insta-gratification crap. If you don't have the TIME to play to get items QUICKLY, don't bitch and moan. I've played games where I didn't have the time like other did to get all the best and cool gear. Yet, the game was still fun and I could still play and have fun. I didn't NEED to stoke my ego with the best of the best. I didn't have as much time, that was the reality, but the game was still lots of fun. AND THAT'S THE MOST IMPORTANT THING.
Monetized fairly? Well with a Monthly Subscription to play the game would be a start, they get to cover their costs and continuous revenue income without forcing anything gameplay-wise.
But the fault ends at players as well here, everybody wanted everything for free and the subscription model on MMO's started failed, so the free to play or buy to play became the mainstream, from that moment the monetization of this MMO's is done more aggressively.
Now it's too late, there's no hope, open your wallets and suffer.
Comments
As a paying subscriber to SWTOR for instance, we haven't seen a new raid in two years give or take. But they're sure to release two new RNG loot packs for sale on their micro transaction cash shop every 3 weeks or so. It's chock full of brand new weapons and armors and mounts and pets and weapon mod crystals / weapon visual effects.
I'm paying $15 bucks a month to still be raiding EV / KP for instance which were the two original raids that vanilla launched with, they just boosted the hit points and character level of the mobs and bosses - not even adding any different mechanics or ramping up any difficulty level.
My guild all quit and we were hardcore play every nighters but the story updates that they are going with this "expansion" you mow through in about 20 minutes. Do the only real content the devs seem to be churning out are cash shop shinies.
I've seen a few games starting to go this route (atlas reactor from trion comes to mind), however I've never see it discussed as a viable middleground in the F2P vs B2P debate.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
"The main counter-argument to all this is that all of these unlocks are cosmetic, that they don’t affect the game at all. This is true, and if it wasn’t, if you could “buy power,” we would be having a very different conversation. It wouldn’t even be a debate, as that would be a thousand percent wrong and Overwatch may have bombed outright if that system was in place.
And yet I don’t really buy the argument that cosmetics are “meaningless” either. Jim Sterling did a good video on this recently where he talks about when they only “goal” in Overwatch other than just winning is to level up and get loot crates, that is a hugely important part of the game. And we have to stop pretending that cosmetics aren’t “important,” at least psychologically, as players love dressing up their characters in every kind of title from shooters to RPGs. Cosmetics do matter, and unlocking them is an important part of the player experience."
http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2016/06/10/the-math-behind-why-overwatchs-loot-boxes-are-exhausting-to-unlock/#662e5a5074fd
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
The problem is you need a system that works well for people with lots of time OR money that provides a healthy profit for the business.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
Yet, to be fair I'd take anything over the shady business practices of selling images of pixels not even fully finished/created for money before a game is even launched, cough"Star Citizen"cough.
21 year MMO veteran
PvP Raid Leader
Lover of The Witcher & CD Projekt Red
Give me a break...
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
4 Hours per day estimated an average player would play.
7 Days 30 Hours Sub Fee: $5 a month
14 Days 60 Hours Sub Fee: $10 a month
30 Days 120 Hours Sub Fee: $15 a month
Sub Fee: $1 Maint Fee (not required). This is per month. Has to pay full price for Xpac's.
Sub Fee: $5 This is per month. Unused hours roll over. Has to pay full price for Xpac's.
Sub Fee: $10 This is per month. Unused hours roll over. Has to pay half price for Xpac's(Have this sub for 6 continuous months prior to purchase).
Sub Fee: $15 This is per month. Unlimited time, but the user gets 120 hours, if they go over, no charge, it will however, consume roll over hours. What doesn’t get used, rolls over to next month. Xpac's free(Have this sub for 6 continuous months prior to purchase).
$1 monthly maint fee option is for when a player cancels the sub but wants to save the time accrued and the character information. Example: Player canceled sub, has 200 hours saved. As long as the player pays the $1 fee, the player can keep playing till the hours are used up. Example: Player is leaving town for 6 months, putting thier sub on the $1 monthly maint fee will ensure all the hours accrued and character info is saved.
If a player has used up all their hours prior to the next billing date, they can purchase hours. Same rate and hours as the subs.
Players are free to give time saved (rollover hours), up to 120 hours, to another player within a single billing cycle. The player giving the hours can only perform this action 1 time per billing cycle. Players purchase hours for another player(can perform this action as much as the player wishes), same rates and hours as the subs.
A player that has received hours from another player, will not be allowed to trade any hours. This freeze ends when the hours received from other players are used up.
Changing sub plans prior to the new billing cycle will not go into effect until start of new billing cycle.
Roses are red
Violets are blue
The reviewer has a mishapen head
Which means his opinion is skewed
...Aldous.MF'n.Huxley
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
I don't know... maybe a sub model (i.e. $15 a month) but you can 'refund' certain content (like the latest raid instance you have no interest in). Also, I really think expansions (e.g. WoW style major content update expansions) should come with a month of game time.
1) Do you really think that people who aren't in a rush to play a game get upset if those who are have to pay extra? It's pretty well established by now that games get a surge of incoming players when they go "free to play". Do you think all those people who waited months or years after launch are hopping mad that people paid more to get into the beta than if they had waited until launch? Only people who want to get in first get upset about having to pay more for the privilege.
2) Casuals who don't play much tend not to be especially vocal. But in most games, an overwhelming majority of the people who play the game don't play it very much. The reason that the rise of "free to play" brought so many more players into MMORPGs is precisely because of people who weren't willing to pay a subscription fee, sometimes because they couldn't justify it with how little they play.
3) Do you really think that people who know that they'll never meaningfully participate in a game's endgame really get upset if that endgame that they'll never take part in is pay to win? Most people tend to focus more on the experience that they'll have in a game than on things they know full well they'll never see. The recent Black Desert incident is a good example: volcanic rage from some small portion of the playerbase and a shrug from the rest.
4) Part of why people so commonly say that games should charge for cosmetic stuff is precisely because so few people care about it. But do you think that people who do like having a lot of costumes appreciate being treated like whales and expected to heavily subsidize everyone else? There are games that give you a lot of costumes for free, you know.
Along with that you could also earn currency for purchasing the packs, or any other items in the shop, simply by completing certain feats in the game without having to pay a cent. Of course it did get a bit grindy, but you could easily supplement spending just a small amount of money combined with the free stuff to get by pretty easily.
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
That's why were in this mess in the first place.
Weather your pro-sub or pro f2p these people represent a large share of the market and should be represented in a "fair" model.
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
My prefered monetization, is P2P. Yes, WoW does it right. Their game is Free to Try (Free up to level 20), as stated the cash shop is reasonable. Though the sale of cash shop items on the market (anti-gold farming) is now being called p2w. F2P only exists for the P4F (Play For Free) crowd, this is not healthy for the industry. Games can not survive catering to P4F gamers, in search of their totally free game (white whale).
I'm an Engineer at Heart, so I always return to the math. £10 x 2.000.000 is what companies want to make each month from their MMOs. If you want to offer them £5 x 250.000 (obtainable player base), then it won’t fly. You're going to tell me all they have to do is retain double the player base (more like 16x) to get the profits they want.
Remember, this is why games cost so much, they have to make these payments each month.
- Operating Cost (buildings, servers, furniture, utilities, employees)
- Existing Product Development (bug fixes, expansions, updates)
- New Product Development (diversified revenue stream)
- Stockholders, those who eat profits in big bites (CEO, COO, CFO, board members, lawyers)
Making less money will never be the answer. Players must speak up and tell makers what they want from a product and what they don't want. Then they must pay for it, most likely monthly and for as long as they play. And saying the thing they don't want, is to pay for their game play isn't going to happen.Boy: Why can't I talk to Him?
Mom: We don't talk to Priests.
As if it could exist, without being payed for.
F2P means you get what you paid for. Pay nothing, get nothing.
Even telemarketers wouldn't think that.
It costs money to play. Therefore P2W.
The question wasn't which is the best model but which is the fairest. Nothing about P2W can be considered "fair".
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
No cash shop BS, no Korean activity gating mechanics (like labor points and such), no pay for bonuses. No gambling lock boxes.
Or B2P with B2P expansions once in a while.
I think the gimmicks have just about all played themselves out by now.
A good MMO will have content and game-play elements that encompass many things, including the game-world LORE and story. A mix of PvE and PvP, engaging combat, chain-quests, various factions/races, dungeon crawls, raids, group content, solo content, easter-eggs, loot tables, item rarity, visually stunning....
Well an MMO to me is like a second home. A place to escape reality and spend my time in.
So THAT is why I view and MMO a time investment.
MMOs are not and should not be created like they're some console RPG shooter, with content to be consumed in a few weeks and then the player moves on to consume some other game.
THAT is one of the mistakes developers and publishers have been making with the genre, IMO.
They create shallow and grindy games. Games with not very much depth, where players can plow through levels easily by either grinding their way, or paying their way to the top.
Insta-gratification and dumbing-down of certain elements have helped destroy the genre, just as much as people may say it has helped it.
Truth is, most recent MMO games aren't good enough to convince players to pay a monthly subscription. The content and game depth is just not there.
Plus, no one in their right mind would pay a subscription fee when there's P2W in the game, where players can bypass all that with their wallets. (Well, maybe some ArcheAge players aren't in their right mind...)
Let's take a look at SWTOR, a subscription game at launch, but lacked several key features that quickly made it more of a game to be consumed quickly and players move on. Enter their server merges, called by me only 3 months into the game after release, and then their move to the system they have now.
They went to that system because the game simply did not have enough depth and good design back then to support the subscription model.
Everquest, back in the day, had a subscription model, and one of the reasons it persisted for a long time was, because there was tons of content in that game, with depth, community, little dumbing-down of systems, etc.
Enter greed of the publishers and developers, the 'lay down and take my money' attitude of the players(who'll pay for Alpha/Beta access and even pay to TEST the game, because they're so desperate), desperate for ANYTHING FREEKIN' NEW because they can't find a game they truly like, and haven't consumed quickly. You've now got a cycle of near P2W cash shops, with games having even more grind, to try to convince players to spend real-world money in someway to bypass such long, uninspired and tedious grind-a-thon gameplay.
Ugh.. Makes me sick..
I'll happily pay a subscription for a game that's worth my time.
Such a game is where:
Everyone starts out the same
There's no P2W cash shops
There's no dumb-down systems
There's lots of content
There's a deep, rich world to explore in many different ways.
I'm OK with a cash shop just for cosmetic stuff, but there MUST be a way to achieve such stuff in the game as well. PLUS, there must be cosmetic items in game that are impossible for you to get by the cash shop, you MUST play the game.
None of this insta-gratification crap.
If you don't have the TIME to play to get items QUICKLY, don't bitch and moan.
I've played games where I didn't have the time like other did to get all the best and cool gear.
Yet, the game was still fun and I could still play and have fun. I didn't NEED to stoke my ego with the best of the best. I didn't have as much time, that was the reality, but the game was still lots of fun.
AND THAT'S THE MOST IMPORTANT THING.
But the fault ends at players as well here, everybody wanted everything for free and the subscription model on MMO's started failed, so the free to play or buy to play became the mainstream, from that moment the monetization of this MMO's is done more aggressively.
Now it's too late, there's no hope, open your wallets and suffer.