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Have recent events proved that you cannot fund a fully featured MMO on the Buy2Play model alone?
Calerxes
Member UncommonPosts: 1,641
Over the years many posters on this and other MMO forums have espoused that the sub fee was a scam used by greedy companies to increase profits and was not needed. Also that a Free2Play cash shop was also a scam to all intents and purposes do the same thing as a sub and that Buy2Play was the only honourable way an MMO should be funded. Recently we've had Arenanet's spokesmen teling us exactly that, the sub fee was not needed and was just a means for companies to maximise profits but with the recent unveiling of the fully featured cash shop in GW2 that dismissal of sub fees seems now to be a lot of hyperbole used to pull punters into buying the Buy2Play dream of no sub fees forever.
My first thoughts about this started at the original announcement in 2007 that GW2 was going to be made barely 2 years after GW1 was released. This annoucement set alarm bells ringing in my head that the original GW model wasn't making as much money as planned and they could not keep up with content releases at the rate they had been, so announcing GW2 early would free Arenanet up from making more chapters for GW. That set me to thinking that if box sales were not enough how would they fund an ongoing developement project like an MMORPG? I had no answers until I dipped my toe in the Free2Play world and from then I knew GW2 would have a very similar cash shop as many Free2Play games. Of course I wasn't 100% certain as I'm not that confident but its always nice to be right, well for once anyway, and that the MMORPG Buy2Play only dream is just that a dream and companies need to support the game in other ways and that at the moment is either a monthly sub fee or a cash shop. Its a shame that Arenanet had to resort to the mudslinging at sub based games to make their model seem superior but that's the nature of business I suppose, especially if you make a large chunk of your income from the sale of the the game, don't ya love the PR machine.
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.
Comments
And sometimes it's both.
The idea of a B2P MMO you payed for once and never had to pay anything ever again and got to play forever for free after that initial purchase...
Definitely a dream.
MMOs are simply too expensive to make, maintain, and upgrade (quality ones of course)
well after looking through the leaked pictures of what is in the current version of GW2´s cash shop, I cant say that Im not abit disappointed with what is in it, but at the same time can say that there is nothing that I from the get go think I just have to have...wouldnt call any of it pay to win...but certainly is afew items that sound similar to what is in other free 2 play MMOs...
either way personally think this OP is silly....but from the perspective that there is nothing I d care to buy from the cash shop....said without actually playing the game ofc.
Right now we're lucky if subscription games don't shift pay 2 win. Box, expansions, subscription, virtual goods, and maybe even backdoor relationships with virtual currency sellers, all in a package that's immune to software piracy. It's an executives fantasy come true.
Could buy to play make money without pay 2 win? Sure, if it was inexpensive to make and quality enough to gain a playerbase. GW1 seems to have done okay with box sales in the multi-millions. There's nothing remotely close to pay to win in that cash shop... at least nothing I've ever seen.
I don't think that "recent events" as you put it have proven anything else than that it's the purpose of a company to try to maximize profits.
NcSoft/Arenanet have prolly figured that their fans will accept a cash-shop like in any other F2P game, with the only difference that in GW2 you also have to buy the client.
From the forum reaction it seems that the fans happily buy into the concept.
If that isn't good business sense from NCSoft I don't know what is.
I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.
Just for clarity, below is a link the "recent events". I truly can't see how anyone could say these items are evenly remotely anything other than conveniences. If you think you are winning by getting a 10% exp boost, or crafting boost, or even get to rez on the spot, then you clearly have a different definition of "winning" (much like Charlie Sheens, IMO).
[mod edit -link removed. Game is under NDA]
Thats a good point and that this is just a recent change of plan due to multiple games switching to a Freemium model with great success, I do understand that maxinmiesing profits is what companies do. But in saying that doesn't that make a mockery of all the Arenanet Buy2Play is a superior model rhetoric? I'm not against cash shops in any game myself on principle, I'll make up my own mind if they impact my gameplay negatively but companies telling us that something that they happen to promote is better than all the competition to suddenly change tact is a bit hypocritical in my eyes.
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.
That post is against the NDA and is irrelevant to the discussion.
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.
Yup they get two bites of the apple. Clever clever them.
the items that annoy me the most is the lottery ticket items, really put in the thought that there must be something special in there, that is a typical F2P mmo scheme, those I hope get removed before release
It really does look as though they're reaping the benefits that F2P can offer a company, while also charging a full on box price. Which does bring into question the viability of B2P as a self-supporting system for an MMO. If they didn't need to entice sales a lot of the things we've seen wouldn't be there. That's my opinion on the matter.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
The cash shop has been part of the B2P business plan for years. This isn't some new revelation that took us by surprise.
There have been a lot of ridiculous complaint threads over the last weeks, months and years. This has got to be one of the most spurious of an asinine lot.
Since both hardware and bandwidth costs have come down exponentially over the years, logic would dictate that sub fees are less necessary than ever.
Of course that all depends on the continued development costs of a game.
My personal opinion is that if you have a sub fee, there is no way you should also be paying for expansions. Also expansions and new content should be developed at a reasonable rate.
Paying $15 a month on top of the original purchase price is ridiculous for the crap some companies are turning out, especially when 3 months into release they are still fixing bugs or adding missing features, rather than new content.
What is available in the cash shop now (before release) is completely irrelevant, that can as well be placeholders. What matters is what will be in the cash shop in 3 months, 6 month, a year from now.
Not even NCSoft/Arenanet could answer that question now because it's totally dependent on how well the game sells and how frequently the fans use the item shop after release.
I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.
GW2 is supposed to call for a Paradigm Shift accoding to some threeads, But based on responses from different discussions, namely the carrot on a stick thread I don't see that happening.
In games of old, players built their virtual world. They logged in day after day and did the same activities time after time and built an environment for themselves.
WoW comes along and says...No, you aren't building your world...We already did that. you can build your character now. And we all said...."OK" and for a while. It was good. But I am not sure if that just got old and WoW started getting ridiculous to try to keep it going or if WoW got ridiculous 1st adn we all got tired of it. Maybe both who knows.
Anyway. GW2 comes along and offers nothingof the sort. You don't build anything. Not a world, not a character. You are supposed to play for the fun of it.
Yeah, ok, that's good, but that has no staying power. Once GW2 content becomes repetative, what reason will there be to do it yet again? How many times do WoW players run heroics? Why? Do you think the'd be doing it if there was no grind?
GW2 is like an SPRPG in one way. Once you finish the content you stop playing it.
Once the new car smell wears off, GW2 will continue to appeal to the same group GW1 does and I think ANet knows this.
GW2 is nothing more than a Niche Game that will have long term appeal to players satisfied with only Achievements and social wear.. and this "Get it while it's fresh" game design spells out one thing to me.
QUICK CASH GRAB
As long as they arent charging me $20 to respec my skills *coughDragonsNestcough* I think I'll be ok.
I love arguements that use real world examples.
Except they don't apply. Who ever aquired the fastest machines did so by saving, earning and working in the real world with real world money earned from others in the real world.
It did not come from God who bought the hardware in a Cash Shop somewhere and miraculously materialized it on someone's desk.
Apart from existing fans, GW2 will appeal to those without massive amounts of spare time. There are also those who will play it alongside their current mmo for a quick fix when they get bored.
On top of this are the eSport crowds currently playing LOL type games.
Then there's the long time MMO players who are just tired of levelling yet another character in another clone game.
I think GW2 will do well and I will certainly be buying into it.
OK, to be fair...I do agree.
I didn't mean to imply it will fail. I know it will be around for a while. But it will not revolutionize the industry.
I predict it will settle into it's niche but it's not going to rise up and carry 10M players on a daily basis for years.
But I still say that Anet is capitializing on a wave of hype trying to appeal to a demographic they know won't enjoy the game in the long run.
You don't buy your hardware for real money? Where do you get yours? To me it is the same. Someone will always have an advantage due to money. Always. Whether it is due to hardware or buying something in a cash shop. It is up to others to overcome that advantage.
They money people are spending in the cash shop isn't being materialized by god either. It is through their hard earned money. I don't have a problem with the cash shop. What I have a problem with is the double standard that many seem to have. Since Anet is doing it, it must be ok because they care more about the game and their fans than they do about making money. I know this isn't the argument you are making, I'm just annoyed at the fact that when other games have announced cs or microtransactions they haven't been defended nearly as ardently as this game has.
I'm not sure where you're coming from unless you misunderstood my post.
I'm referring to the costs incurred by game companies by hosting a game. Server and bandwidth costs are a fraction of what they once were. I doubt very much that the saving has been passed on to the customer by an appropriate amount.
My point is that, and ingame economy should be isolated from the real world economy or it's trash. and when we use real world examples we are comparing an econmy that is isolated. to one with a cash shop that is not. It's apples to oranges.
GW2 doing Gems raised an eyebrow in regards to the thread title. But I'm keeping an open mind. I just hope the gold farming doesn't lead to fraud like it did in Runes of Magic, which led to the shutting down of their Diamonds AH system.
I know what you are saying, I just disagree. Such is life. As I mentioned in editing my previous post my biggest problem is the defense of cs in this game compared to other games.
DOH! Yes, I quoted the wrong dam post...my apologies to you.
I was reading one when someone was comparing people have the best in the real world as being no different than those who have the best in a game from the cash shop. Now I can't seem to find that one.
Sorry about that.