A significantly more successful model imo would be the title that treats every player as a consumer and crafts a compelling enviroment that makes people WANT to convert to paying.. on the merits of the game, not by making the free game essentially unplayable.
How would you distuiguish this game from any other p2p game? Your model is based entirely on the perceptions of the developers. I'm certain there are very few game developers working on free to play games that do not hold this belief, any developer anywhere i believe hold the belief. "people want to pay for my creation because it is good"
I would tend to side with Aihoshi. I don't believe that is the only fault of free to play. I find that my experiences with free to play are fleeting and short. If my personal experience is a common phenomenon amoung the players in free to play games then i believe that is the true problem with free to play. I think the other opinions expressed here back up that idea. That fleeting community lacks the stong ties that paying a monthly subscription and feeling the obligation to play create, whether solo or a group player.
I believe this is strictly a problem based in western, specifically the american market. free to play games are massive in asia. that's probably why there are so many asian inspired ports.
Community? That is strong word for what you find in F2Ps or even WoW.
F2Ps need playerbase to populate the world. They need to recruit new people to sift out those big paying fish. They need to put peer pressure on them once hooked.
They do not need any kind of safe social net that would make you comfortable and feel needed. Actually quite opposite. They create needless competition. The community is fabricated illusion.
What the article talks about is that games need playerbase and good new player experience. Doh.
Edit: Oh the article does not really need to be correct. It just needs to generate page views. And I fell for it. Meh.
I would like to see specific examples of what F2Ps you have played that have good communities. I would really like to find a game with a good community where you can make good friends. I found that WoW has a pretty good community (tho admittedly you have to weed through a lot of idiots to find it, lol) but I have yet to find one in any F2P game. Of course, I'll admit that I've also had a difficult time getting far enough into any of the F2P games to find that community. >.<
Anyway, if anyone has a F2P that they could recommend as having a great community please let me know. :-)
I would like to see specific examples of what F2Ps you have played that have good communities. I would really like to find a game with a good community where you can make good friends. I found that WoW has a pretty good community (tho admittedly you have to weed through a lot of idiots to find it, lol) but I have yet to find one in any F2P game. Of course, I'll admit that I've also had a difficult time getting far enough into any of the F2P games to find that community. >.< Anyway, if anyone has a F2P that they could recommend as having a great community please let me know. :-)
My experience as a GAMER I find that the best communities are the one's you seek out WoW is a good example of course everyone knows finding a good GUILD can be hard but your guild becomes your community. Your extended FAMILY. What seem to be true for me may not be true for others. In general RP guilds are better then RAIDING guild simply because raiding guild are ever so serious in getting the latest gear drops climbing the raiding latter to try to hit that number one spot on the realm and they forget that some in the guild just need a COMMUNITY.
On the other hand a RP guild shold be a little more RELAXED and conservetive and as mention family oriented. So no matter what game you play try looking for a RP guild or clan.
I have not fully read all of the comments, hence I might be repeating something.
First of all. Speaking of community, F2P games have the worst communities in general, and everyone who has played some of them and some of subscription games will know it. Fine, ooh, I don't have numbers, I don't have evidence, but we're not sharing statistics here, we're talking about our personal experiences. And if there are so many players who see such a problem about F2P MMORPGs, then there has to be a problem with such games, regardless of our lack of numbers. Of course you will use the anedoctal evidence argument, because you are aware that no one here has the time or determination to go around making a lists of the gazillion F2P games out there that have or lack feature "X", but from common sense people know that majority of those games have similar characteristics.
It's not like F2P developers destroy their communities intentionally. It is that the whole micro-transactions system and grind in general generate a situation in which players will be more conflictant than cooperative. First of all, F2P games are far too competitive and achievement-centered. As you mentioned, "they want the sense of recognition they get from their respective communities", and for that they will grind and buy cash items. The point is that F2P games are designed in such a way that mainly players who pay will get (or believe they got) the recognition that everyone wants in such games, be it through easy leveling or cute, appealing equipment.
Again, many people take MMORPGs as achieve-centered games, but not everyone plays them that way. Roleplayers are a good example of this, they don't necessarily enjoy the game by increasing their levels or acquiring the über-sword. And it is common sense that some games, in general, center more on the roleplaying and cooperation than on the achievement aspect. F2P games instead focus mainly on the achievement aspect, even because it is more profitable for them to do so (oh, there goes, anedoctal evidence again. Ask players if you doubt it, it's pretty obvious).
The thing is. In a community in which your main objective is to be recognized through such means, in other words, to be better than everyone else, being a kind, helpful player is not exactly a good way to achieve recognition. F2P games are like that, and they offer you the so wanted recognition if you pay. It is that simple. And of course that "free players" have their use. You gain recognition by being or looking better than majority, and there is your majority, free players. They will always be the majority, but they will also be the reason for what people buy cash items.
F2P games have disparities between "recognized players" and "free players". A large portion of the "recognized players" will look down on the "free players" (they paid, thus they believe they have the right to do so), generating a bad community. There are also disparities among the recognized players themselves, but such differences might not be so evident at first glance. Pay-to-play games are equitative, and while in some of them people may also look for achievement-oriented recognition, they do it through actually playing the game, which makes it completely different than some chat room in disguise.
Is it wrong of me to ask why so many people in this thread are talking about community using a different definition and context than the article? Is it just an assumption based on the title itself without having read the article? In talking about community, Richard Aihoshi was discussing the importance of the playerbase to the developers, not the general interactions amongst players. Whether interactions amongst players matter to the players is a completely different issue than whether sectors of the playerbase matter to the developers.
If communities are critically important, then why would developers design their games in a way that seriously disadvantages a substantial majority of their users, including the ones who don't buy anything plus those who only spend small amounts?
This substantial majority adds up to a very small percentage of the income generated from the game. Money spent by players is the most important thing to the developer since that is what lets them keep the game running, and pays their salaries. Do they care if the non-paying players stick around? Sure. That would be swell. Do they care a lot more if the paying players stick around than the non-paying players? Hell yes. And therein lies the problem.
There is no question that the developers will put a greater importance and give greater favor toward those players who spend a lot of money in the game. One does not need to provide examples or statistics on this, it is pure common sense, and good business sense. Developers will certainly dangle some carrots for players who are spending little to no money, but not because they are nice people and want to have a nice happy community -- they do it in the hopes that one day those people will become big spenders, too. Meanwhile, the F2P business model requires that the developers give greater attention and advantage to those players who spend more money. If they did not, there would be no incentive for those players to continue spending. Do you believe that developers assign equal importance to the brand new player who has not spent a dime yet in the item mall as they do the player who spent $20,000 for a sword? Of course not. They'd sooner spit in the face of the new player than allow him anything even vaguely resembling equality to the player who dropped 10 grand on their game.
On the other hand, in a P2P model all players are equally important because all players supply the same amount of income to the company.
Now, about those carrots I mentioned being dangled for the non spending player -- for some people, that's enough. Some people are happy to download a F2P game and enjoy those little nuggets of fluff that are freely available to them. For other people, it's not enough. There's a good reason why so many MMORPG.com readers/posters argue against F2P -- for most of us, the carrots are not enough. Most people on these boards are hardcore MMORPG players (to varying degrees of hardness) which means we are a competitve lot who want play MMORPG games to their fullest -- we want endgame, we want success in PVP, we want to clear raids and get the best loot we possibly can. And we want to earn it through playing, not max out our credit cards to buy it.
I would like to see specific examples of what F2Ps you have played that have good communities. I would really like to find a game with a good community where you can make good friends. I found that WoW has a pretty good community (tho admittedly you have to weed through a lot of idiots to find it, lol) but I have yet to find one in any F2P game. Of course, I'll admit that I've also had a difficult time getting far enough into any of the F2P games to find that community. >.< Anyway, if anyone has a F2P that they could recommend as having a great community please let me know. :-)
Hey Greenneutron!
I don't want to spam, but Regnum Online would be your choice, just search it in the game list. Great community and a decent premium shop that doesn't affect gameplay at all.
Regarding the article:
Community is important, and especially for those games that have a base gameplay that requires players to group up to play. Why is this so? You may have a simple game, nothing from out of this world, and people will love it just because of that social interaction (yeah, some loners may come and go easily). Then, what pisses off most player of an F2P game is when you know that even if you play 10 years to get your gear, it would make no difference if you don't pay.
So, the best thing to do is check out who are really free to play games and who are "free to try". F2P must mean that the end gameplay must be fully playable and with no disadvantages, paying or not. Given this, the list of F2P games narrows down a lot.
Comments
How would you distuiguish this game from any other p2p game? Your model is based entirely on the perceptions of the developers. I'm certain there are very few game developers working on free to play games that do not hold this belief, any developer anywhere i believe hold the belief. "people want to pay for my creation because it is good"
I would tend to side with Aihoshi. I don't believe that is the only fault of free to play. I find that my experiences with free to play are fleeting and short. If my personal experience is a common phenomenon amoung the players in free to play games then i believe that is the true problem with free to play. I think the other opinions expressed here back up that idea. That fleeting community lacks the stong ties that paying a monthly subscription and feeling the obligation to play create, whether solo or a group player.
I believe this is strictly a problem based in western, specifically the american market. free to play games are massive in asia. that's probably why there are so many asian inspired ports.
Community? That is strong word for what you find in F2Ps or even WoW.
F2Ps need playerbase to populate the world. They need to recruit new people to sift out those big paying fish. They need to put peer pressure on them once hooked.
They do not need any kind of safe social net that would make you comfortable and feel needed. Actually quite opposite. They create needless competition. The community is fabricated illusion.
What the article talks about is that games need playerbase and good new player experience. Doh.
Edit: Oh the article does not really need to be correct. It just needs to generate page views. And I fell for it. Meh.
I would like to see specific examples of what F2Ps you have played that have good communities. I would really like to find a game with a good community where you can make good friends. I found that WoW has a pretty good community (tho admittedly you have to weed through a lot of idiots to find it, lol) but I have yet to find one in any F2P game. Of course, I'll admit that I've also had a difficult time getting far enough into any of the F2P games to find that community. >.<
Anyway, if anyone has a F2P that they could recommend as having a great community please let me know. :-)
My experience as a GAMER I find that the best communities are the one's you seek out WoW is a good example of course everyone knows finding a good GUILD can be hard but your guild becomes your community. Your extended FAMILY. What seem to be true for me may not be true for others. In general RP guilds are better then RAIDING guild simply because raiding guild are ever so serious in getting the latest gear drops climbing the raiding latter to try to hit that number one spot on the realm and they forget that some in the guild just need a COMMUNITY.
On the other hand a RP guild shold be a little more RELAXED and conservetive and as mention family oriented. So no matter what game you play try looking for a RP guild or clan.
I have not fully read all of the comments, hence I might be repeating something.
First of all. Speaking of community, F2P games have the worst communities in general, and everyone who has played some of them and some of subscription games will know it. Fine, ooh, I don't have numbers, I don't have evidence, but we're not sharing statistics here, we're talking about our personal experiences. And if there are so many players who see such a problem about F2P MMORPGs, then there has to be a problem with such games, regardless of our lack of numbers. Of course you will use the anedoctal evidence argument, because you are aware that no one here has the time or determination to go around making a lists of the gazillion F2P games out there that have or lack feature "X", but from common sense people know that majority of those games have similar characteristics.
It's not like F2P developers destroy their communities intentionally. It is that the whole micro-transactions system and grind in general generate a situation in which players will be more conflictant than cooperative. First of all, F2P games are far too competitive and achievement-centered. As you mentioned, "they want the sense of recognition they get from their respective communities", and for that they will grind and buy cash items. The point is that F2P games are designed in such a way that mainly players who pay will get (or believe they got) the recognition that everyone wants in such games, be it through easy leveling or cute, appealing equipment.
Again, many people take MMORPGs as achieve-centered games, but not everyone plays them that way. Roleplayers are a good example of this, they don't necessarily enjoy the game by increasing their levels or acquiring the über-sword. And it is common sense that some games, in general, center more on the roleplaying and cooperation than on the achievement aspect. F2P games instead focus mainly on the achievement aspect, even because it is more profitable for them to do so (oh, there goes, anedoctal evidence again. Ask players if you doubt it, it's pretty obvious).
The thing is. In a community in which your main objective is to be recognized through such means, in other words, to be better than everyone else, being a kind, helpful player is not exactly a good way to achieve recognition. F2P games are like that, and they offer you the so wanted recognition if you pay. It is that simple. And of course that "free players" have their use. You gain recognition by being or looking better than majority, and there is your majority, free players. They will always be the majority, but they will also be the reason for what people buy cash items.
F2P games have disparities between "recognized players" and "free players". A large portion of the "recognized players" will look down on the "free players" (they paid, thus they believe they have the right to do so), generating a bad community. There are also disparities among the recognized players themselves, but such differences might not be so evident at first glance. Pay-to-play games are equitative, and while in some of them people may also look for achievement-oriented recognition, they do it through actually playing the game, which makes it completely different than some chat room in disguise.
Is it wrong of me to ask why so many people in this thread are talking about community using a different definition and context than the article? Is it just an assumption based on the title itself without having read the article? In talking about community, Richard Aihoshi was discussing the importance of the playerbase to the developers, not the general interactions amongst players. Whether interactions amongst players matter to the players is a completely different issue than whether sectors of the playerbase matter to the developers.
This substantial majority adds up to a very small percentage of the income generated from the game. Money spent by players is the most important thing to the developer since that is what lets them keep the game running, and pays their salaries. Do they care if the non-paying players stick around? Sure. That would be swell. Do they care a lot more if the paying players stick around than the non-paying players? Hell yes. And therein lies the problem.
There is no question that the developers will put a greater importance and give greater favor toward those players who spend a lot of money in the game. One does not need to provide examples or statistics on this, it is pure common sense, and good business sense. Developers will certainly dangle some carrots for players who are spending little to no money, but not because they are nice people and want to have a nice happy community -- they do it in the hopes that one day those people will become big spenders, too. Meanwhile, the F2P business model requires that the developers give greater attention and advantage to those players who spend more money. If they did not, there would be no incentive for those players to continue spending. Do you believe that developers assign equal importance to the brand new player who has not spent a dime yet in the item mall as they do the player who spent $20,000 for a sword? Of course not. They'd sooner spit in the face of the new player than allow him anything even vaguely resembling equality to the player who dropped 10 grand on their game.
On the other hand, in a P2P model all players are equally important because all players supply the same amount of income to the company.
Now, about those carrots I mentioned being dangled for the non spending player -- for some people, that's enough. Some people are happy to download a F2P game and enjoy those little nuggets of fluff that are freely available to them. For other people, it's not enough. There's a good reason why so many MMORPG.com readers/posters argue against F2P -- for most of us, the carrots are not enough. Most people on these boards are hardcore MMORPG players (to varying degrees of hardness) which means we are a competitve lot who want play MMORPG games to their fullest -- we want endgame, we want success in PVP, we want to clear raids and get the best loot we possibly can. And we want to earn it through playing, not max out our credit cards to buy it.
Hey Greenneutron!
I don't want to spam, but Regnum Online would be your choice, just search it in the game list. Great community and a decent premium shop that doesn't affect gameplay at all.
Regarding the article:
Community is important, and especially for those games that have a base gameplay that requires players to group up to play. Why is this so? You may have a simple game, nothing from out of this world, and people will love it just because of that social interaction (yeah, some loners may come and go easily). Then, what pisses off most player of an F2P game is when you know that even if you play 10 years to get your gear, it would make no difference if you don't pay.
So, the best thing to do is check out who are really free to play games and who are "free to try". F2P must mean that the end gameplay must be fully playable and with no disadvantages, paying or not. Given this, the list of F2P games narrows down a lot.