P2P will never die, P2P games hold that quality of gameplay that F2P games can never catch and will never be as good as P2P games
There's not one MMO that is F2P and can be concidered a AAA MMO, not one, they all have their faults and all are ruined by greedy cash shops
FFXIV
SWTOR
Warhammer 40k
These are all games we know of and heart thousand times per day and have massive hype behind, these are P2P games and not F2P throw away games, P2P will always be the premier buisness model for all future premium MMO's, best a F2P game can do is browser games
Cant even mention WoW, that would just melt all F2P scrubs faces away, WoW is what happens when you take a P2P game and nail it, what can a F2P game ever do to WoW?
I can foresee nothing but continued diversity with regards to business models that new MMOs will choose to follow. P2P doesn't have to be a monthly fee.
It's also true and evident that nothing seems better for an old game with dwindling subs than to go F2P, or partly F2P such as DDO and LOTRO.
MMORPG's are time sinks...hence they become a hobby, rather than a game.
People will go to whatever title that fits their needs/pocket/interest and thats the truth.
If there was a F2P game that trully rocked the world, I assure you P2P, would be worried, though realistically the given F2P game would have to find some way of financing it's self. On top of this P2P games will have a certain level of marketing and hype behind them, that makes them more noticed by people who aren't really interested.
WoW is always an example that people bring up...and it's popular ofc, due to the fact that everyone could say "HEY FREE TRIAL COME TRY IT OUT!" and people were sucked in....
So on the same Principle...... F2P.... can sucssed, if it's economic foundation and longelivity are well planned and accessible....
Either way... for MMORPG fans.... choice of game and payment options can only be a good thing ^^...
P2P will never die, P2P games hold that quality of gameplay that F2P games can never catch and will never be as good as P2P games
There's not one MMO that is F2P and can be concidered a AAA MMO, not one, they all have their faults and all are ruined by greedy cash shops
FFXIV
SWTOR
Warhammer 40k
These are all games we know of and heart thousand times per day and have massive hype behind, these are P2P games and not F2P throw away games, P2P will always be the premier buisness model for all future premium MMO's, best a F2P game can do is browser games
Uhm so the new upcoming top-hyped game on mmorpg a F2P TRIPLE A TITLE is probably non-existant?
Correct me if I'm wrong but let's say Guildwars and check your list.
1. Quality : It's great actually for a game with no subscription fee and Guildawrs is also very known to be a high quality game.
2. Cash shops: They only have a vanity cash shop it does not ruin the game nor it gives a unfair advantage it's only for vanity.
3. Future?: Dude have you checked the news ? Guildwars 2 is looking great and is hyped most on this site. So who says p2p is the new premium ?
Wow in all the years ive been reading articals on mmorpg.com, this is the first time I have seen one that was slapped up there with absolutly no reaserch done.
All your points are off the mark.
The first one: Insant infusion of cash. Sure. But most games that require a box purchuse have SLOWER forming populations than those that offer downloads. Reason being, people don't want to drop 50+15 (And if by card, +15-45 the first month, easily cost 80-100 bucks JUST TO LOG IN) to 'see what its like' and wil wait around while others play, and get thier info from them.
Its growning eh? U mean groaning. THe market cannot bear the sheer mass of games out there. Players are giving up, pulling back. This can be seen by the sucess of f2p markets. People are either willing to spend a ton for quick results, or spend absolutly nothing and 'stick it out'. There is a shrinking sub market, which is easily noticable in most games these days, where they even 'reduce' the sub package, and throw the stuff the took OUT of the sub service into the 'item shop' for more.
And 3 -- its growing? Are u serious? well... ok.. sure.. but.. almost 50% of the TOTAL mmo market, as in 50% of ALL PLAYERS OUT THERE, are playing beta games. Games that are not finished, most of those will NOT finish. How can u say its growing when half of all players are playing games that will likley never make it to the market. Oh and btw if theres a beta out there 'now' I am sure that 95% of all 'beta' games are cash shop games too.
Im sorry but I really wish you spent 5 min googling before u started typing. Just 'had' to hit that deadline eh?
I have 3 reasons too why subscription isn't gonna die, at least not in the near future.
1. SW tor
2. FFXIV
3. Tera
Let's make it 4
4. Rift
Even if only one of these games would deliver what it promised than I'll be a happy p2p player for a couple of years.
ok sorry for double post, but when has a game, ever, in all the history of mmo/mmorpgs, 'delivered what it promised'
Never. They always fall short of the mark, Paints to say it but the one that came closest to providing all they promised 6 months after release, was wow. And I hate wow, but have to admit its the only game thats managed to keep to a strong p2p model. Unfourtnatly having only one choice can kill the market aswell.
P2P will never die, P2P games hold that quality of gameplay that F2P games can never catch and will never be as good as P2P games
There's not one MMO that is F2P and can be concidered a AAA MMO, not one, they all have their faults and all are ruined by greedy cash shops
FFXIV
SWTOR
Warhammer 40k
These are all games we know of and heart thousand times per day and have massive hype behind, these are P2P games and not F2P throw away games, P2P will always be the premier buisness model for all future premium MMO's, best a F2P game can do is browser games
Uhm so the new upcoming top-hyped game on mmorpg a F2P TRIPLE A TITLE is probably non-existant?
Correct me if I'm wrong but let's say Guildwars and check your list.
1. Quality : It's great actually for a game with no subscription fee and Guildawrs is also very known to be a high quality game.
2. Cash shops: They only have a vanity cash shop it does not ruin the game nor it gives a unfair advantage it's only for vanity.
3. Future?: Dude have you checked the news ? Guildwars 2 is looking great and is hyped most on this site. So who says p2p is the new premium ?
You bought the box, you paid to play.
F2P games have no client fees, even hybrids like DDO give the game client free.
Guild Wars is a "Buy to Play" game. No different than buying Counterstrike or Battlefield or Call of Duty or Neverwinter Nights and playing online for free.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.- -And on the 8th day, man created God.-
Western players do not like F2P, of course it might happen that they play them sometimes (I did few times) but generally that's not the case.
And let's face it, only failing MMOs go F2P, do not kid ourselves.
A MMO is alive only if there are other people playing it, and for some games the only way you can increase the population is by making it free and set up a cash shop to make a bit of money out of it.
Decent western MMOs should not have F2P..............they need to make better MMO, tha's it.
If a new game can get 1 Million subs (which is just a fraction of WoW), that would mean 120 Million a year in income (+ Expansions).
I doubt you can achieve that with Cash Shops, you will need 10 millions players to get the same amount, since only 1 in 10 will use the cash shops, the rest will play for free.
There is one game that bursts your little bubble that I can think of right now, since you say anything that does not have a subscription is going to be a failure. Then expain to me the numbers that Guild Wars has, they do not have a subscription. And in my personal opinion they have the best looking game coming out in the near future. OH so there goes the subcription is the Hold Grail to MMOs theory .
1. Box sales and Subscriptions really have nothing to do with each other. There are several titles that are F2P that had box sales. GW2 will be F2P, I doubt any of us will be getting it free.
2. Stating the obvious. Pretty well anyone can say that there are millions willing to pay a subscription, since millions of people currently are.
3. This is also hardly enlightening, As long as there is one more person today willing to pay a subscription than there was yesterday, that can be called growth. Since most companies are extremely closed mouthed bout their current paying subscription numbers, it would be extremely difficult to determine overall hard numbers across the industry. One could assume this is true, as we have seen an expanding market whenever a new game has come out, but assumption is not fact andwhether that is growth in the subscription model or just growth in the overall industry would be difficult to determine.
Not sure what the 2nd half of the article has to do with subscription model at all.
I am not impressed with this kind of writing, it insults the readers intellect and puts forth "fluff writing" as meaningful dialogue.
1. Box sales and Subscriptions really have nothing to do with each other. There are several titles that are F2P that had box sales. GW2 will be F2P, I doubt any of us will be getting it free.
2. Stating the obvious. Pretty well anyone can say that there are millions willing to pay a subscription, since millions of people currently are.
3. This is also hardly enlightening, As long as there is one more person today willing to pay a subscription than there was yesterday, that can be called growth. Since most companies are extremely closed mouthed bout their current paying subscription numbers, it would be extremely difficult to determine overall hard numbers across the industry. One could assume this is true, as we have seen an expanding market whenever a new game has come out, but assumption is not fact andwhether that is growth in the subscription model or just growth in the overall industry would be difficult to determine.
Not sure what the 2nd half of the article has to do with subscription model at all.
I am not impressed with this kind of writing, it insults the readers intellect and puts forth "fluff writing" as meaningful dialogue.
Very disappointing.
^^ Thank you for the wonderful laugh! I love when people expect Woodward and Bernstein type exposes from a website about games then proceed to rail about how an opinion piece was pawned off to us as meaningful dialogue. You should have demanded your money back at the end, that would have been great.
Personally, while I have played and enjoyed F2P games, I will always go back to P2P until production values get better in the free market.
P2P will never die, P2P games hold that quality of gameplay that F2P games can never catch and will never be as good as P2P games
There's not one MMO that is F2P and can be concidered a AAA MMO, not one, they all have their faults and all are ruined by greedy cash shops
FFXIV
SWTOR
Warhammer 40k
These are all games we know of and heart thousand times per day and have massive hype behind, these are P2P games and not F2P throw away games, P2P will always be the premier buisness model for all future premium MMO's, best a F2P game can do is browser games
Uhm so the new upcoming top-hyped game on mmorpg a F2P TRIPLE A TITLE is probably non-existant?
Correct me if I'm wrong but let's say Guildwars and check your list.
1. Quality : It's great actually for a game with no subscription fee and Guildawrs is also very known to be a high quality game.
2. Cash shops: They only have a vanity cash shop it does not ruin the game nor it gives a unfair advantage it's only for vanity.
3. Future?: Dude have you checked the news ? Guildwars 2 is looking great and is hyped most on this site. So who says p2p is the new premium ?
Guild Wars is not F2P. You have to buy the game client in order to play it.
There's no sub fee, but it's not F2P.
It's amazing to me how many people say Guild Wars is F2P when you clearly have to pay to activate an account.
From what I've seen GW2 will follow the same setup... Buy the game, then no monthly fees. Still not F2P.
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Western players do not like F2P, of course it might happen that they play them sometimes (I did few times) but generally that's not the case.
And let's face it, only failing MMOs go F2P, do not kid ourselves.
A MMO is alive only if there are other people playing it, and for some games the only way you can increase the population is by making it free and set up a cash shop to make a bit of money out of it.
Decent western MMOs should not have F2P..............they need to make better MMO, tha's it.
If a new game can get 1 Million subs (which is just a fraction of WoW), that would mean 120 Million a year in income (+ Expansions).
I doubt you can achieve that with Cash Shops, you will need 10 millions players to get the same amount, since only 1 in 10 will use the cash shops, the rest will play for free.
There is one game that bursts your little bubble that I can think of right now, since you say thoughting that does not have a subscription is going to be a success. Then expain to me the numbers that Guild Wars has, they do not have a subscription. And in my personal opinion they have the best looking game coming out in the near future. OH so there goes the subcription is the Hold Grail to MMOs theory .
It's really a very easy and straight-forward distinction: If a purchase is required before you can play the game at all (not counting free trials)... it is not F2P.
F2P would be games like Allods, Runes of Magic, Archlord, Perfect World... None of those games require any purchase, what-so-ever, to obtain the client, activate an account, or play them
Please people, let's not start bastardizing the meaning of F2P just to apply it to what we want to be a winning argument, okay?
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Wow in all the years ive been reading articals on mmorpg.com, this is the first time I have seen one that was slapped up there with absolutly no reaserch done.
All your points are off the mark.
The first one: Insant infusion of cash. Sure. But most games that require a box purchuse have SLOWER forming populations than those that offer downloads. Reason being, people don't want to drop 50+15 (And if by card, +15-45 the first month, easily cost 80-100 bucks JUST TO LOG IN) to 'see what its like' and wil wait around while others play, and get thier info from them.
Ummm.... you accuse the author of not doing research and then immediately put out this ridiculous butchering of the facts... How ironic.
1. The author is describing an *infusion of cash*, not an infusion of people. The two are *not* equal when you're comparing F2P and P2P.
200,000 people (and that's a fairly low number for typical P2P MMOs, especially at release) spending $30-$40 up front is $6,000,000 at the low end, $8,000,000 at the high end. Even though the developers don't get 100% of that, it's guaranteed revenue from every single person purchasing the game. Guild Wars 2 is on pre-order for $60, and you *know* it's going to sell more than 200,000 copies. But still using that number, that's $12,000,000 up front.... and Guild Wars will have no sub fee, by the way, so no need for a gametime card...
F2P on the other hand, generate no income from box purchases, because no purchase is required. They typically make the game exceedingly playable without using the cash shop for at least the first 20-30 levels... and even then, it's commonly stated that most people playing F2P's never spend a dime.
Having a more quickly forming population means nothing to their bottom line if none of those people are spending anything to start playing the game. That's kinda the entire point of him pointing that out.
2. Your costs assume everyone buys a game-time card when they buy a new MMO. That isn't the case.
I don't buy them. Many people I know don't use tiem cards. Many others I'm sure I don't know don't. P2P MMOs come with the first 30 days included, so there's no need to spend another dime on a time-card... unless you *choose* to. I've never payed a penny more than the price of the game itself to obtain or start playing any P2P MMO I've ever sub'd to.
Assuming the optional purchase of a time-card as part of your argument is pretty disingenuous and not at all an accurate representation of all MMO players. You're including only certain details (the people who use time cards), and ignoring others (the people who don't).
Its growning eh? U mean groaning. THe market cannot bear the sheer mass of games out there. Players are giving up, pulling back. This can be seen by the sucess of f2p markets. People are either willing to spend a ton for quick results, or spend absolutly nothing and 'stick it out'. There is a shrinking sub market, which is easily noticable in most games these days, where they even 'reduce' the sub package, and throw the stuff the took OUT of the sub service into the 'item shop' for more.
Are there actual statistics to back this up? Please point us to the sources you used to come to this conclusion.
And 3 -- its growing? Are u serious? well... ok.. sure.. but.. almost 50% of the TOTAL mmo market, as in 50% of ALL PLAYERS OUT THERE, are playing beta games. Games that are not finished, most of those will NOT finish. How can u say its growing when half of all players are playing games that will likley never make it to the market. Oh and btw if theres a beta out there 'now' I am sure that 95% of all 'beta' games are cash shop games too.
Again, you're throwing out numbers and statements here as fact, but providing nothing to back it up.50% of the MMO market... 95% of all 'beta' games... Where are you getting these figures from? I mean, you're challenging the author on the accuracy of his statements by throwing out your own seemingly random figures here with absolutely nothing to support them.
So, again, please provide the sources for the numbers and statements you're throwing out here... that is if you want your statements to be considered any more "factual" than the author you're "calling out".
Im sorry but I really wish you spent 5 min googling before u started typing. Just 'had' to hit that deadline eh?
Oh lovely... you used Google... so it should be very easy to link us to the specific data that supports everything you said in your post.
And if you do respond, and you do provide the sources, please provide links to the original articles so anyone interested can go see it for ourselves... You know... to make sure you're presenting the information in its proper context.
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
monthly sub games are one blizzard F2P game away from extinction. its a less profitable model, and the loudmouth gamers who are now swearing they will never play F2P have lost their credability swearing off every other game in history and then playing it anyway.
you guys can keep up stamping your feet in protest and pretending that "western" gamers dont like F2P. it wont do you any good when big budget games start getting designed from the ground up on the F2P model. trying to compare the current slowass time wasting sub model games to F2P cant be done unless you are allowing for the entire structure of gaming to be redefined.
either way, this gaggle of gamers who attaches real life achievment with gaining levels is about to be forced out. time to adapt or find a new hobby.
i wonder which mmorpg.com blogger will do a write up on how they think F2P games wont dominate the market next?
Uh-huh. Sorry, your welfare state isn't taking over gaming no matter how much you bellow. Still won't be able to buy games with food stamps either there, bud.
apparently you havent grasped the concept of F2P just yet. it doesent cater to people with no money, its barebones template is free to access but all worthwhile content is purchasable in controlable increments. this is why P2P will whither and die along with the holdout players who refuse to evolve. game design the favors larger, more frequent, impluse generated capitol is a lucrative market than static fees in time consuming games.
im a geek with a good stable job, and mmo's are my prime hobby. why wouldnt my game of choice be set up to let me waste as much money as i can afford to advance my interest. ill happily sink $100 a month or more into an MMO that keeps my interest and lets me build my toon in anyway i want. if you people who have no sense of accomplishment in your real lives depend on the thrill of grinding to max without paying for advancement, all the power to you. im sure F2P with cash shops will still you do so by only paying $15/month ish and slowing getting there on all fours.
welcome to the future son, whatever the mandate of this website happens to be this week.
apparently you havent grasped the concept of F2P just yet. it doesent cater to people with no money, its barebones template is free to access but all worthwhile content is purchasable in controlable increments. this is why P2P will whither and die along with the holdout players who refuse to evolve.
The problem though is that p2p is not dying. I'm willing to evolve but there are some really promising games coming now which happen to be p2p. I still don't see a great f2p game in the horizon.
apparently you havent grasped the concept of F2P just yet. it doesent cater to people with no money, its barebones template is free to access but all worthwhile content is purchasable in controlable increments. this is why P2P will whither and die along with the holdout players who refuse to evolve.
The problem though is that p2p is not dying. I'm willing to evolve but there are some really promising games coming now which happen to be p2p. I still don't see a great f2p game in the horizon.
its not going to happen overnight, but i wouldnt expect P2P to hold to much sway in a year or two.
apparently you havent grasped the concept of F2P just yet. it doesent cater to people with no money, its barebones template is free to access but all worthwhile content is purchasable in controlable increments. this is why P2P will whither and die along with the holdout players who refuse to evolve.
The problem though is that p2p is not dying. I'm willing to evolve but there are some really promising games coming now which happen to be p2p. I still don't see a great f2p game in the horizon.
its not going to happen overnight, but i wouldnt expect P2P to hold to much sway in a year or two.
Regardless of some people's hopes and desires, welfare games won't win over P2P. For one thing, there's plenty of us who don't feel like subsidizing other people's gameplay. No foodstamp program for good mmos, sorry.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.- -And on the 8th day, man created God.-
apparently you havent grasped the concept of F2P just yet. it doesent cater to people with no money, its barebones template is free to access but all worthwhile content is purchasable in controlable increments. this is why P2P will whither and die along with the holdout players who refuse to evolve.
The problem though is that p2p is not dying. I'm willing to evolve but there are some really promising games coming now which happen to be p2p. I still don't see a great f2p game in the horizon.
its not going to happen overnight, but i wouldnt expect P2P to hold to much sway in a year or two.
Regardless of some people's hopes and desires, welfare games won't win over P2P. For one thing, there's plenty of us who don't feel like subsidizing other people's gameplay. No foodstamp program for good mmos, sorry.
wtf are you talking about? welfare games? $15/month is chicken feed to me. subsidizing other peoples gameplay? wtf do you call paying a flat fee no matter how much gametime you use, where you end up paying for the players who pay the same as you but play tens time more?
you need to figure out what it is you believe, and then figure out how to say it properly. are you for cheap games? cuz the cheapest full content games are P2P. are you for paying for other peoples pay times? cuz that only happens in flat monthly fee games.
I can give 3 counter reasons why they are ending....
1. Devlopers have forgotten how to make good games and learned how to make more money quickly.
2. Developers can now have their cake and eat it too, with milk, ala carte So called sub-games, item mall and pay-by x "features" being a way to make more money off players.
3. Box sales work in both sub games and F2P games but here's overhead, so why not make evrything downloadable content and make it F2P and bring in the millions and then milk them for every cent we can get by every dirty under handed tactic possible that we can think up like they do in the so called eastern market where we're making $21 per month vice $15 bucks a month plub boxes off each member. Woah, there's goes that money sign again...every one jump on the wagon its coming again....
to sum up...its all about the money..its not about games anymore...
apparently you havent grasped the concept of F2P just yet. it doesent cater to people with no money, its barebones template is free to access but all worthwhile content is purchasable in controlable increments. this is why P2P will whither and die along with the holdout players who refuse to evolve.
The problem though is that p2p is not dying. I'm willing to evolve but there are some really promising games coming now which happen to be p2p. I still don't see a great f2p game in the horizon.
its not going to happen overnight, but i wouldnt expect P2P to hold to much sway in a year or two.
Regardless of some people's hopes and desires, welfare games won't win over P2P. For one thing, there's plenty of us who don't feel like subsidizing other people's gameplay. No foodstamp program for good mmos, sorry.
wtf are you talking about? welfare games? $15/month is chicken feed to me. subsidizing other peoples gameplay? wtf do you call paying a flat fee no matter how much gametime you use, where you end up paying for the players who pay the same as you but play tens time more?
you need to figure out what it is you believe, and then figure out how to say it properly. are you for cheap games? cuz the cheapest full content games are P2P. are you for paying for other peoples pay times? cuz that only happens in flat monthly fee games.
In flat monthly fee games, i am paying for my time. I can use as much or as little of that time as i wish. Everyone else is paying the same amount of money and we all have access to the same content and rewards.
In a cash shop game, 10% of the players are putting in the money, the rest are grinding away free. So in a cash shop game, if I feed the shop, i'm subsidizing other people's gametime.
Perhaps you should consider your arguments better in the future.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.- -And on the 8th day, man created God.-
I have said it before, but it is worth repeating. The reason I avoid F2P games is because the developer's incentive is in the wrong place. Subscription models give them the incentive to make a better game and make their customers happy so they get more subscriptions, while the free to play model gives them the incentive to make the game either annoying enough, or inconvenient enough that the players want to pay real money to get things or bypass things.
Free to Play model
It takes 90 hours of grinding to obtain this awesome gear. Want to bypass that? Cough up some cash at the equipment shop! Say, that is working pretty well for us. Let's make MORE gear that takes 90 hours to obtain unless you pay cash for it!!!!
Subscription Model
It took 90 hours to obtain this awesome gear, but that made the players unhappy and we lost subscriptions, so we have reduced the time it takes to obtain the gear.
Currently playing: Rift Played: SWToR, Aion,EQ, Dark Age of Camelot World of Warcraft, AoC
apparently you havent grasped the concept of F2P just yet. it doesent cater to people with no money, its barebones template is free to access but all worthwhile content is purchasable in controlable increments. this is why P2P will whither and die along with the holdout players who refuse to evolve.
The problem though is that p2p is not dying. I'm willing to evolve but there are some really promising games coming now which happen to be p2p. I still don't see a great f2p game in the horizon.
its not going to happen overnight, but i wouldnt expect P2P to hold to much sway in a year or two.
Regardless of some people's hopes and desires, welfare games won't win over P2P. For one thing, there's plenty of us who don't feel like subsidizing other people's gameplay. No foodstamp program for good mmos, sorry.
wtf are you talking about? welfare games? $15/month is chicken feed to me. subsidizing other peoples gameplay? wtf do you call paying a flat fee no matter how much gametime you use, where you end up paying for the players who pay the same as you but play tens time more?
you need to figure out what it is you believe, and then figure out how to say it properly. are you for cheap games? cuz the cheapest full content games are P2P. are you for paying for other peoples pay times? cuz that only happens in flat monthly fee games.
In flat monthly fee games, i am paying for my time. I can use as much or as little of that time as i wish. Everyone else is paying the same amount of money and we all have access to the same content and rewards.
In a cash shop game, 10% of the players are putting in the money, the rest are grinding away free. So in a cash shop game, if I feed the shop, i'm subsidizing other people's gametime.
Perhaps you should consider your arguments better in the future.
lol. you are hilarious. "the rest grinding away for free". by this, are you refering to the players who only get 10-30% of the content unlocked, weaker characters, base items, rudamentary demo dungeons, etc? im fine with paying for my advance content, and specifically designed options. others with different wants and needs will pay for other options, and get something closer to the game they need. not just the same boring POS over and over again, year after year, like every monthly sub game in history.
"paying for your time". by this you mean you mean paying the same rate not dependant on the time you actually spend ingame, when other might be playing 10 times as much as you? i actually do not want to pay for players who play round the clock, when i only play 3-5 hours a week. why should my only monetary contribution to a game reflect the limits of the lowest common denominator. thanks, id rather have the option to pay more to recieve more, instead of being stuck at bottom with any other schmoe with a credit card. woohoo, monthly sub exclusivity. congrats, you can afford a game card at any game store.
second rate players should not have access to all game features. quality costs money, and only those who support all aspects of the game should reap all the rewards.
believe what you want, but each of your points were blatant oxymorons.
Comments
P2P will never die, P2P games hold that quality of gameplay that F2P games can never catch and will never be as good as P2P games
There's not one MMO that is F2P and can be concidered a AAA MMO, not one, they all have their faults and all are ruined by greedy cash shops
FFXIV
SWTOR
Warhammer 40k
These are all games we know of and heart thousand times per day and have massive hype behind, these are P2P games and not F2P throw away games, P2P will always be the premier buisness model for all future premium MMO's, best a F2P game can do is browser games
Cant even mention WoW, that would just melt all F2P scrubs faces away, WoW is what happens when you take a P2P game and nail it, what can a F2P game ever do to WoW?
Nice article.
I can foresee nothing but continued diversity with regards to business models that new MMOs will choose to follow. P2P doesn't have to be a monthly fee.
It's also true and evident that nothing seems better for an old game with dwindling subs than to go F2P, or partly F2P such as DDO and LOTRO.
I only wanted to ask, why is it that Guild Wars model is unique? why haven't other companies taken their succesfull example?
MMORPG's are time sinks...hence they become a hobby, rather than a game.
People will go to whatever title that fits their needs/pocket/interest and thats the truth.
If there was a F2P game that trully rocked the world, I assure you P2P, would be worried, though realistically the given F2P game would have to find some way of financing it's self. On top of this P2P games will have a certain level of marketing and hype behind them, that makes them more noticed by people who aren't really interested.
WoW is always an example that people bring up...and it's popular ofc, due to the fact that everyone could say "HEY FREE TRIAL COME TRY IT OUT!" and people were sucked in....
So on the same Principle...... F2P.... can sucssed, if it's economic foundation and longelivity are well planned and accessible....
Either way... for MMORPG fans.... choice of game and payment options can only be a good thing ^^...
Uhm so the new upcoming top-hyped game on mmorpg a F2P TRIPLE A TITLE is probably non-existant?
Correct me if I'm wrong but let's say Guildwars and check your list.
1. Quality : It's great actually for a game with no subscription fee and Guildawrs is also very known to be a high quality game.
2. Cash shops: They only have a vanity cash shop it does not ruin the game nor it gives a unfair advantage it's only for vanity.
3. Future?: Dude have you checked the news ? Guildwars 2 is looking great and is hyped most on this site. So who says p2p is the new premium ?
Wow in all the years ive been reading articals on mmorpg.com, this is the first time I have seen one that was slapped up there with absolutly no reaserch done.
All your points are off the mark.
The first one: Insant infusion of cash. Sure. But most games that require a box purchuse have SLOWER forming populations than those that offer downloads. Reason being, people don't want to drop 50+15 (And if by card, +15-45 the first month, easily cost 80-100 bucks JUST TO LOG IN) to 'see what its like' and wil wait around while others play, and get thier info from them.
Its growning eh? U mean groaning. THe market cannot bear the sheer mass of games out there. Players are giving up, pulling back. This can be seen by the sucess of f2p markets. People are either willing to spend a ton for quick results, or spend absolutly nothing and 'stick it out'. There is a shrinking sub market, which is easily noticable in most games these days, where they even 'reduce' the sub package, and throw the stuff the took OUT of the sub service into the 'item shop' for more.
And 3 -- its growing? Are u serious? well... ok.. sure.. but.. almost 50% of the TOTAL mmo market, as in 50% of ALL PLAYERS OUT THERE, are playing beta games. Games that are not finished, most of those will NOT finish. How can u say its growing when half of all players are playing games that will likley never make it to the market. Oh and btw if theres a beta out there 'now' I am sure that 95% of all 'beta' games are cash shop games too.
Im sorry but I really wish you spent 5 min googling before u started typing. Just 'had' to hit that deadline eh?
ok sorry for double post, but when has a game, ever, in all the history of mmo/mmorpgs, 'delivered what it promised'
Never. They always fall short of the mark, Paints to say it but the one that came closest to providing all they promised 6 months after release, was wow. And I hate wow, but have to admit its the only game thats managed to keep to a strong p2p model. Unfourtnatly having only one choice can kill the market aswell.
You bought the box, you paid to play.
F2P games have no client fees, even hybrids like DDO give the game client free.
Guild Wars is a "Buy to Play" game. No different than buying Counterstrike or Battlefield or Call of Duty or Neverwinter Nights and playing online for free.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
There is one game that bursts your little bubble that I can think of right now, since you say anything that does not have a subscription is going to be a failure. Then expain to me the numbers that Guild Wars has, they do not have a subscription. And in my personal opinion they have the best looking game coming out in the near future. OH so there goes the subcription is the Hold Grail to MMOs theory
.
1. Box sales and Subscriptions really have nothing to do with each other. There are several titles that are F2P that had box sales. GW2 will be F2P, I doubt any of us will be getting it free.
2. Stating the obvious. Pretty well anyone can say that there are millions willing to pay a subscription, since millions of people currently are.
3. This is also hardly enlightening, As long as there is one more person today willing to pay a subscription than there was yesterday, that can be called growth. Since most companies are extremely closed mouthed bout their current paying subscription numbers, it would be extremely difficult to determine overall hard numbers across the industry. One could assume this is true, as we have seen an expanding market whenever a new game has come out, but assumption is not fact andwhether that is growth in the subscription model or just growth in the overall industry would be difficult to determine.
Not sure what the 2nd half of the article has to do with subscription model at all.
I am not impressed with this kind of writing, it insults the readers intellect and puts forth "fluff writing" as meaningful dialogue.
Very disappointing.
^^ Thank you for the wonderful laugh! I love when people expect Woodward and Bernstein type exposes from a website about games then proceed to rail about how an opinion piece was pawned off to us as meaningful dialogue. You should have demanded your money back at the end, that would have been great.
Personally, while I have played and enjoyed F2P games, I will always go back to P2P until production values get better in the free market.
Guild Wars is not F2P. You have to buy the game client in order to play it.
There's no sub fee, but it's not F2P.
It's amazing to me how many people say Guild Wars is F2P when you clearly have to pay to activate an account.
From what I've seen GW2 will follow the same setup... Buy the game, then no monthly fees. Still not F2P.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
And yet again...
Guild Wars is not F2P... Click Here To Find Out Why.
Guild Wars 2 wont' be F2P either... Click Here To Find Out Why.
It's really a very easy and straight-forward distinction: If a purchase is required before you can play the game at all (not counting free trials)... it is not F2P.
F2P would be games like Allods, Runes of Magic, Archlord, Perfect World... None of those games require any purchase, what-so-ever, to obtain the client, activate an account, or play them
Please people, let's not start bastardizing the meaning of F2P just to apply it to what we want to be a winning argument, okay?
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
apparently you havent grasped the concept of F2P just yet. it doesent cater to people with no money, its barebones template is free to access but all worthwhile content is purchasable in controlable increments. this is why P2P will whither and die along with the holdout players who refuse to evolve. game design the favors larger, more frequent, impluse generated capitol is a lucrative market than static fees in time consuming games.
im a geek with a good stable job, and mmo's are my prime hobby. why wouldnt my game of choice be set up to let me waste as much money as i can afford to advance my interest. ill happily sink $100 a month or more into an MMO that keeps my interest and lets me build my toon in anyway i want. if you people who have no sense of accomplishment in your real lives depend on the thrill of grinding to max without paying for advancement, all the power to you. im sure F2P with cash shops will still you do so by only paying $15/month ish and slowing getting there on all fours.
welcome to the future son, whatever the mandate of this website happens to be this week.
The problem though is that p2p is not dying. I'm willing to evolve but there are some really promising games coming now which happen to be p2p. I still don't see a great f2p game in the horizon.
its not going to happen overnight, but i wouldnt expect P2P to hold to much sway in a year or two.
Regardless of some people's hopes and desires, welfare games won't win over P2P. For one thing, there's plenty of us who don't feel like subsidizing other people's gameplay. No foodstamp program for good mmos, sorry.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
wtf are you talking about? welfare games? $15/month is chicken feed to me. subsidizing other peoples gameplay? wtf do you call paying a flat fee no matter how much gametime you use, where you end up paying for the players who pay the same as you but play tens time more?
you need to figure out what it is you believe, and then figure out how to say it properly. are you for cheap games? cuz the cheapest full content games are P2P. are you for paying for other peoples pay times? cuz that only happens in flat monthly fee games.
I can give 3 counter reasons why they are ending....
1. Devlopers have forgotten how to make good games and learned how to make more money quickly.
2. Developers can now have their cake and eat it too, with milk, ala carte So called sub-games, item mall and pay-by x "features" being a way to make more money off players.
3. Box sales work in both sub games and F2P games but here's overhead, so why not make evrything downloadable content and make it F2P and bring in the millions and then milk them for every cent we can get by every dirty under handed tactic possible that we can think up like they do in the so called eastern market where we're making $21 per month vice $15 bucks a month plub boxes off each member. Woah, there's goes that money sign again...every one jump on the wagon its coming again....
to sum up...its all about the money..its not about games anymore...
http://www.forceofarms.com/index.php
In flat monthly fee games, i am paying for my time. I can use as much or as little of that time as i wish. Everyone else is paying the same amount of money and we all have access to the same content and rewards.
In a cash shop game, 10% of the players are putting in the money, the rest are grinding away free. So in a cash shop game, if I feed the shop, i'm subsidizing other people's gametime.
Perhaps you should consider your arguments better in the future.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
I have said it before, but it is worth repeating. The reason I avoid F2P games is because the developer's incentive is in the wrong place. Subscription models give them the incentive to make a better game and make their customers happy so they get more subscriptions, while the free to play model gives them the incentive to make the game either annoying enough, or inconvenient enough that the players want to pay real money to get things or bypass things.
Free to Play model
It takes 90 hours of grinding to obtain this awesome gear. Want to bypass that? Cough up some cash at the equipment shop! Say, that is working pretty well for us. Let's make MORE gear that takes 90 hours to obtain unless you pay cash for it!!!!
Subscription Model
It took 90 hours to obtain this awesome gear, but that made the players unhappy and we lost subscriptions, so we have reduced the time it takes to obtain the gear.
Currently playing:
Rift
Played:
SWToR, Aion,EQ, Dark Age of Camelot
World of Warcraft, AoC
lol. you are hilarious. "the rest grinding away for free". by this, are you refering to the players who only get 10-30% of the content unlocked, weaker characters, base items, rudamentary demo dungeons, etc? im fine with paying for my advance content, and specifically designed options. others with different wants and needs will pay for other options, and get something closer to the game they need. not just the same boring POS over and over again, year after year, like every monthly sub game in history.
"paying for your time". by this you mean you mean paying the same rate not dependant on the time you actually spend ingame, when other might be playing 10 times as much as you? i actually do not want to pay for players who play round the clock, when i only play 3-5 hours a week. why should my only monetary contribution to a game reflect the limits of the lowest common denominator. thanks, id rather have the option to pay more to recieve more, instead of being stuck at bottom with any other schmoe with a credit card. woohoo, monthly sub exclusivity. congrats, you can afford a game card at any game store.
second rate players should not have access to all game features. quality costs money, and only those who support all aspects of the game should reap all the rewards.
believe what you want, but each of your points were blatant oxymorons.
the way i see the future is box sale, with cash shop :P
everyone pays to keep the servers running for quite some time. and no monthly fees, since people will buy the junk items