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What do you guys think of Free to play games?
Starwars001
Member Posts: 85
I actually had to chuckle today when i read about soe seeing 300% growth when eq2 went free to play. I mean to me going free to play shows that customers the game was soo bad that they went free to play in order to annouce that eq2, Star trek online, DCUO, and others Fallen earth. In order to attracte and tells the whole world your game has 1000% growth in players since going to play? really? did they have tyo tell the mmo world that?
what do you guys think? subscription games going free to play?
Is a last resort to attract more players, or what?
does it tell you that it gets bad rep for going free to play?
I highly subscription games go free to play, lets face it it gives bad rep for such games.
like soe and cryptic tells the world they have amazing growth of 1000% logins since F2P. /rollseye.
not impressed in my opinion. Lets see those subs then we'll talk.
p.S bioware will never admit defeat and go free to play which is a good thing in my opinion.
Comments
I prefer and wish they would make more B2P games, but I guess its harder to do now a days. I also can't even comprehend how people can complain about a 15/month sub. I mean really? If you cant afford 15$ a month you need to get your life priorities straightened out before playing games at all.
I generally consider F2P games as 'I need a break from what im currently playing" and "side games". They generaly arent going to be as good as anything your paying for, since well... you get what you pay for.
Going F2P adds more people to the game, i dont see how its bad?... especially when MMO's are about been massive and all.
SKYeXile
TRF - GM - GW2, PS2, WAR, AION, Rift, WoW, WOT....etc...
Future Crew - High Council. Planetside 1 & 2.
Whatever works for the company.
The most profitable mmorpg right now is probably not even wow. It's probably some random f2p games.
I'm not saying which is better. Just whatever works. I know lineage have different subscription model region to region, some use f2p some use p2p. I guess which ever makes more money.
Awesome! It allows smaller game companies to earn a profit more quickly, thus providing us the consumer with a more competetive gaming market. This in turn provides us with better quality games. Win Win. Free better games ftw!
EQ2 was seven years old before it went F2P so I don't get your point. Free 2 Play is just another payment model and it makes it easier to get your game out there rather than go through traditional ways ie publisher, distributer. There are some great F2P games and some not so good there are some great F2P models and some not so good its as simple as that. Now if EA see's more potential growth and profit Bioware have zero say in if SW:TOR goes F2P so your confidence in Bioware not admiting defeat is not well grounded they just make the game they don't make fiscal policy about the game. If a game goes F2P and it keeps that game alive for those who enjoy the game then it is never a bad thing. Though your forum name says it all really and what this post is really about.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
i like f2p, takes the urge to play for your money out of it and delivers tons of fun and content for free.
I dont define myself by computer games btw, so that 'competitive gameplay' is no point to me.
So if someone want to spend this 40$ for his 'ubergun-of-pwn' to stand out of the freebie crowd, hes welcome to do so.
Eventualy the cashshop is well balanced and does not impact on the game that bad. i overhear in korea f2p+CS is the very standart?
I enjoy certain ones.
Games like LotRO, DCUO and AOC are fun games that I can log into occasionally.
Playing: Nothing
Looking forward to: Nothing
F2P is a sure sign a game has fallen flat on its ass, but then again with so many being available and having no financial commitment to any of them I can just drop into a game and play as irregularly as I like. There isn't a game out there I would sub to anyway, so they fill time in until something worthwhile comes along. (Yeah, I know, there's a 0.1% likelihood of that given the lack of imagination in game designers, but I can always hope.)
I think that for many of today's MMOs, Free to Play works well and I really thought that a couple years ago we would have seen more of a shift toward it. I've been keeping a timeline here of MMOs that transition over. The combination of NA devs being slow to adopt new strategies and strong cognitive biases among the target audience seems to have really delayed that.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
While most F2P games do suck I think it is hard to put them all in a huge group.
P2P games really don't get worse (or much worse at least) when they go F2P, they wouldn't have gone F2P in the first place if they were good enough from the start but they do actually tend to get more expensive to play once they have gone F2P.
I only want a good game and don't really mind if a game is F2P unless the RMT shop is too greedy, like in EQ2 when you need to pay to be able to use items you get as quest rewards or that drops to you.
What really upsets me is P2P games that sells stuff and services, I don't see why we can't get all included in the monthly fee + box sales, they just stealth raised the price but pretend that it is a service to the players.
If I could choose I prefer B2P like Guildwars, Biowares Neverwinter nights and upcomming GW2 and Class 4. But I rather have a good F2P game than a bad B2P or P2P.
I prefer B2P games without any pay-2-win aspects. Unfortunately, f2p games tend to be overrun with far more douchebagery and gold farmers than a B2P or P2P game. Most companies generally prefer the more consistant income rather than the chancy income of f2p games.
"For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed:
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!"
~Lord George Gordon Byron
F2p games put pressure on the p2p games. a p2p game should never be worse than a f2p game (although a lot of times, they are) if they wan't to survive. It gives WoW a heck of a competition and the quality of fp games that has come out the past few years is pretty amazing.
I wouldn't call it bankrupt to go f2p.. The DCUO team even claims that going f2p was their plan all along. And if people want to most out of f2p games, they have to pay for some special services anyway.
Going free to play (aka pay-2-win) is either a last resort for a sub game that isn't worth the pricetag, or a conscious decision on the part of the developers/suits to try and squeeze maximum cash out of a... let's be honest here, generally stupid customerbase that will drop a large sum of real money for crap that doesn't exist.
Either in my opinion is strong evidence of an inferior product that should be avoided at all costs.
Subscriptions on the other hand mean that if the game sucks, the company/game goes under, the way it should work. Pay-2-win games on the other hand only need the 5% of morons with way too much spending money to keep their sub-par game afloat, the way it shouldn't work.
To find an intelligent person in a PUG is not that rare, but to find a PUG made up of "all" intelligent people is one of the rarest phenomenons in the known universe.
If you think for one second that Bioware/EA wouldn't ANYTHING to make money (including going F2P), then you are sorely mistaken. If making TOR P2W makes them more money, then that it the route they'll take. It's cute that you think that EA has any integrity.
My free to play non-acceptance draws from the idea that if you design a game to be free to play from the start, then it will be low quality and terrible. Does this subjective idea make it true? No but this idea works for me. I tried Age of Empires Online and it was exactly what I thought and uninstalled it as fast as possible haha.
Same thing applies for me when a developer designs a game to be something you buy from the start. For me, in most cases games like this should always be of higher quality and more fun than games that were designed as free to play from the start, because the developer wants the entire game to be something that they would want to buy rather than having an online shop that has ITEMS that you would want to buy.
Objectively, I understand that free to plays can just be a different business model, but my own personal feelings are too strong. I just can't find myself ever liking free to play. Even League of Legends, while it was a fun game to me, still didn't change my mind. I would rather LoL be a B2P. I'm ok with B2Ps with cash shops.
Occured to me that after I posted this that I left out the bit where I talk about P2Ps that turn into F2Ps. I'm ok with that, because the game was designed as B2P + P2P to begin with. However, I do feel that this does hurt the game just a little bit but they are definitely better than games designed as F2P from the start in terms of how I feel.
I'm not totally sure that there is anything I add that is 100% true but it's probably a good way to save time and not download tons of free to plays by taking my advice lol.
What do you guys think? Subscription games going free to play? I don't typically see a change in quality when a sub game goes F2P- sometimes the community can suffer but for the most part it doesn't seem like a huge change and imo it's worth it having more players in the lower levels.
Is a last resort to attract more players, or what? It can be if a game really bombs, or as we saw in LoTRO it can just be a way to get more players in a game that isn't failing so much as it is stalling. MMORPGs thrive on having good server populations so if a standard P2P option isn't keeping the servers at a good capacity something has to be done.
Does it tell you that it gets bad rep for going free to play? Not at all, in fact it gets me even more likely to play because I don't have to pay a cent to log in and try the game- on top of that F2P games aren't nearly as hyped or populated as the AAA P2P games are so I actually tend to find less douchebaggery than in the fotm P2P ones. YMMV
Currently playing Forsaken World, DCUO, and LoTRO because I refuse to pay money for copy & paste, linear, shallow, themeparks. Until I can find and try a solid hybrid game the genre won't see any more of my money- not because I can't afford to but because I don't want to support more underwhelming games and let's be honest, no matter what hype a company spins based on population increases in a F2P game it all comes down to the almighty dollar.
...or switching to a business model that the majority of their audience prefers.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
1) No issue with it. Some will end up better some worse. Most sub games are going hybrid free to play with a sub being possible for access to all content.
2) I wouldn't call it a last resort. Just a better path to money than they had previously.
3) No.
Expect wow, rift, and tor to be free to play as well, just not till it becomes more profitable... and in bliz's case I expect them to see how the market in diablo3 goes before going f2p. I don't expect tor will till rift and wow do.
Shadus
I tried to play both f2p and freemium games. Some of them even for over 6 months (Lotro cause I was attached to it , was playing it as p2p then as Vip Subscriber in their freemium model).
I learned by experience I don't like f2p models. There is multitude of reasons , two most important though:
- company make money by selling games in cash shop ,so in order to get sales they have to and they do design / change game around cash shop
- immersion breakers. For me all game world and rl world should be stricly split things. Cash shop bring direct connection between RL and $ and game world. This destroy kinda one of reasons I play mmropg's in first place. I play them to relax and to have this few hours once in a time to temporarly separate myself from real world and everyday problems like work, bills, money, etc - just knowing and seeing cash shop and it's items (even if I don't use it myself) kinda tick me off.
I tried to convince myself, not thinking about it ,etc but I can't and to be honest - I am not playing game to force myself so I am not going to play f2p / freemium games ever again.
If I have no choice (no fun p2p or maybe b2p - cause I never tried b2p mmorpg yet) then I prefer to not play any mmorpg at all.
I value my leisure time too much and will just do something else.
As a consumer, I tend to get suspicious of reports of soaring profits that come off a different method of billing.
I wouldn't call EQ2 ftp, but ftputacp (free to play up to a certian point) they want to to spend upwards of $100 for the last two expanisons, those are not included in the so called free to play.
Besides, no game is really free to play, rather free to download, if you want to be up with the power gamers, you gonna have to pay.
When I said i had "time", i meant virtual time, i got no RL "time" for you.
If I told you what I think of free to play games I would get perma banned from mmorpg.com. The amount of common sense that gets tossed out the door when people talk about this subject is beyond a joke.
This push by the mmorpg community to basically force devs to shift from p2p to f2p is the biggest joke. If there is a god I hope it back fires and every game goes pay to win.
EQ2 was the target. Vanguard and WAR are the next targets. Aion was targetted. Rift is on the list of games targetted. As soon as the population starts to drop in TOR that game will be targetted.
Scott Hartsman said it best. As soon as you go f2p the game has to be designed to target the big money./
Which is 5-10% of the players. Everyone else plays for free instead of paying monthly
Did you have data that indicates that isn't the case for the majority of F2P MMOs?
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Simple....
FREE TO LOSE - PAY TO WIN
/thread.
When i see a F2P game (not the mis-catergorized pay per content oor unlimited restricted trial games that are often p2p in their past life) I think of the busniess behind it and what that means for gameplay.
I understand (as it seems so few do) that all games are businesses...they are in it to make money. So how does a F2P differ from P2P? Well its often about what is driving their cash flow from players.
P2P must either create a worthy expansion to charge for, or, create a game people will buy box sets for. As well as keep them playing for monthly subs. Thats it. Content and mechanics drives sales.
In F2P, cash shop is the driving factor. You can get the content for free, and the mechanics of the game are free as well. They need to code in reasons to pay. I call this programmed fustrations. See they need to create the want and need to get players to spend money, often far more than a P2P would cost, to offset everyone who wont pay a dime. So they program into the game fustrations that can be removed.
These fustrations are often crafting failures, inventory space, mounts. ability to upgrade gear, faster leveling, faster traveling ect.
P2P on the other hand, must fix problems, create content, improve and expand in order to generate continued sales.
So anyway, F2P games are typically great for short periods of time, before the fustrations set in, and good up untill endgame when they force you to get into a wallet fight with other players.
In the end, the fair play field, having access to 100% of the game at all times, and the development based on making the game better to keep subs is the only way for me. I may stop in a f2p, but its always buggy, loaded with children (well they make the annoying p2p children look like sophisticated professors) absent of any GM control, loaded with gold seller spam, market prices set by gold sellers to require their services...and just overall games i wouldnt want to stick around in.