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General: 2010 Awards: Biggest News Story
Drew
Member Posts: 434
The month of December has come and gone, taking 2010 with it. Some say good riddance, some look back fondly, but no matter how you slice it, that puppy’s behind us and we’re all moving forward to 2011. For the team here at MMORPG.com, we’ve just got one tiny loose thread to tie up before we officially start the new year: We have to announce the winners of the 2010 MMORPG.com Reader’s Choice Awards! Today we feature our final award, 2010's Biggest News Story.
This year, our categories were: Game of the Year, New Game of the Year, Most Innovative, Most Improved, Best F2P, Favorite Company, Biggest News Story, Most Anticipated, and the newest, and most dubious, addition to our prizes, Biggest Disappointment.
Read more of our MMORPG.com 2010 Awards: Biggest News Story.
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Comments
Considering that nearly all of the major 2011 MMO releases will be subscription (Rift, Tera, Star Wars, and Earthrise), excluding Guild Wars 2, I just don't see this as a rise of Freemium games. Lotro and DDO were the two major games last year to go Free. It seems to me that subscription is pretty solid for the next year at least.
Umm you forgot EQ2X as well and those games have all been the hot topics outside of this years failures in FFXIV,STO and APB being the biggest story of 2010 doesn't automatically mean that the topic of the story will kill it's opposite next year just what was implied that freemium games was the biggest story worth mentioning for the year in mmorpg's. I personally would rather talk about that than the failures of the games I listed earlier and we already know that there is another game switching to freemium this year in CO and possibly even STO sometime later.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
the biggest story means it was the subject of many many debates both pro and con games going in that direction with their designs. it got so big on people's minds that WoW even made references towards it in several official discussions about possible future considerations. i doubt they would ever go that route, just like i doubt very many big name highly anticipated releases will go that way, but it did make for many interesting arguments..
I certainly enjoyed some of the discusions going on about it. Bought some life into an otherwise very dull year for mmo's.
Well, even though I feel F2P mmos are important to the MMORPpG industry as a whole... I so disagree with item mall items... We are not zynga Farmville... mafia wars where if you want more to be the best of the best you gotta dish out $$$$$$$ to get... I so feel that a P2P is so much more of Equal = equality. As with WoW/DAoC/Rift etc ( I will be playing Rift for at least 6mos) the Equality factors make gaming Equal! We all have a chance... where in F2P, those who have extra $$$$$$$$ to use, will be the uber person to be admired... I know so many peeps who play there heart out to reach that level of expertise that they deserve Excellence so much more!
Bick
The question was: which of the 4 choices offered is most popular. Not which of these is better than anything not listed... If they had had a "none of the above" I am very sure it would have won. I didn't like ANY of the choices listed but the Freemium thing was least detested.
Interesting how each of the poll options represented a single game, except for one that encompassed a whole revenue model.
the 'freemium' model is just a thing the industry discovered to squeeze a bit more profit out of some older, but in comparision to the most original designed as f2p titles, much better games and bring them back to live. a good choice, i think. if you speak with some ceos or marketing managers in the buisness the mayority of them foresee hard years for the original designed as f2p titles. more competition not only from other f2p titles and, of course, from the freemium ones cause more of the older triple a games will follow ddo, lotr and eq, more needs to spend money for marketing and they see the conceptional stagnation and the failing to provide players with something really new in their games.
a good example for the changing trend is that one of the bigger european mmo publisher refused to take five more f2p titles in their portfolio instead they take two of the upcoming bigger p2p mmogs for 2011.
The freemium trend only serves to point out the flaws in f2p games. They're cheap crap. The fact that wow has pushed a lot of other games into a weaker financial place does not diminish the fact that games like Lotro and DDO are high end, expensive games designed for the subscription level of intake and expenditure. They weren't made to exist on a budget like a cheaper f2p game. The "rise of freemium" shows that people don't want to sub to more than one game at once, and tend to keep their wow subs and let others dwindle.
The biggest thing that freemium does is let you play for a while before you pay. MMOs have a high frontload cost with the 50 dollar box price for a game you're going to have to stick with to get anything out of. Taking the initial risk out of a purchase makes people more likely to play them. I played Lotro in the open beta, and thought it was like wow but not as good. The day it went free, I picked it up, and loved it. Granted, they had three years to polish it, but once I have a chance to sit down and try it, without the 10 day clock ticking in the background, I got the chance to enjoy it, and I've been subbed since I hit lv 20.
Good games sell. Crap games do not. This is the flaw in most f2p games. They're crap. The payment model doesn't matter. The quality of the game does matter.
Important facts:
1. Free to Play games are poorly made.
2. Casuals are not all idiots, but idiots call themselves casuals.
3. Great solo and group content are not mutually exclusive, but they suffer when one is shoved into the mold of the other. The same is true of PvP and PvE.
4. Community is more important than you think.
Figured LOTRO going f2p would of been biggest, APB dying wasnt a surpise to anyone as you could see that coming as open beta ended, and as for the virtual property it isnt the first time and I wouldnt call it big news.
I agree with a whole lot of what you said.
So many F2P games I have played are poorly made, and designed to funnel you to the item mall. That is not a good way to create a successful game. The way Turbine has designed their Freemium system is rather ingenius. You can earn tokens in game to spend in the store and never drop a dime. You can also pay for the content you want and skip the rest, but you can also sub to the game if you like it enough. In so many regards, that is an intelligent business model, simply because more players are exposed to your game, and more important...gamers are given numerous options of how to "pay" to play.
I really believe that B2P with DLC and/or expansions, and Freemium gaming are going to become more popular and important as we move into this decade. I think developers are realizing that their games aren't getting the exposure they need to compete in a competitive market, and if the cost of entry is relatively cheap, you'll probably get many more people playing more games.
One company, Turbine has made a success of a hybrid pricing structure. No one else has and no one knows how long it will be a success for. Based on two games which were both funded as P2P when launched the rise of freemium may be premature.
Pundits in any field like to wax lyrical about trends, only history will show how important this really was. My own prediction is that the word 'Freemium' will become very popular with F2P gaming companies who will start to use it no matter how they price their MMO.
Turbine has understood the model. The key is to offer good deals that people feel are bargains and fair. You never feel you really HAVE to spend money but often you get something nice out of it that leaves you satisfied and feel that its money well spend.
SoE on the other hand just stand out as extremely greedy and gnabby in EQ2. The worst thing is that they constantly spam you to spend money every time you log in with is so irritating that it made me leave the "free" game again.
The result in Lotro is astounding. The game is revitalized in a way I have never ever seen in any MMO's before. Not that it was ever dead but the new model has given it a huge constant infusion of new players and many of them keep on playing the game for a long time.
"You are the hero our legends have foretold will save our tribe, therefore please go kill 10 pigs."
also blade and soul is coming with subscription and looks really promising game... lately there has been a wave of f2p mmos that feels they came out underdeveloped.... p2p mmos indeed are still solid
The "feeemium" plan, as implemented by Turbine, can be a boon for both the players and the game companies. As is mentioned above you feel as if you never have to spend money. This works well for the palyer. As for the company, I can certainly imagine that there are soem people that are potentially spending more per month than they would have on a standard 14.xx/month payment plan. At the very least I can imagine that it is making the same as a p2p plan would.
2010 was not a year with much stories, Freemium was more or less the only thing that happened besides a few nice demos and Rifts start of beta tests.
The right thing won of course and freemium is a way to keep older MMOs alive for some more years but I think 2010 was a in between year together with 2009.
I have a feeling it will be tougher to vote for 2011, things seems to be moving fast suddenly.
its a review of 2010, not whats going to happen in 2011
What's "$335,000 Virtual Property" ?
lol... I guess I don't keep up with the internetz all that well.
Playing: Darkfall Unholy Wars
Played: Darkfall, EVE, AoC, Ryzom, Ragnarok Online, GW2, PS2, Secret World, WOW, City Of Heroes/Villains, Champion Online.
Where the heck are the links to these stories?