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B2P: The Trojan Horse of MMOs?
Camaro68
Member Posts: 50
This is the story of Developer X and Gamer Joe:
Developer X announces that it's upcoming game, Trojan Horses 2, will not have a sub fee. Just buy the box and its yours to play for life with no sub fee whatsoever.
Launch day arrives and millions of players buy Trojan Horses 2 with visions of NO SUB FEE dancing in their head. Developer X announces millions in sales.
A few months later Gamer Joe is a little late to the party and decides to buy Trojan Horses 2 with a warm fuzzy feeling toward Developer X because there's NO SUB FEE.
But then Gamer Joe logs into Trojan Horses 2 and finds there's hardly anybody in the game. Wondering why he's playing a Massively Multiplayer game with hardly anybody in it, he turns to a internet message forum for answers.
He explains how he logged into the game and had trouble finding anybody to group with.
Fanboy Y says Developer X is doing fine because it made all its money back with box sales. He goes on to explain that Trojan Horses 2 doesn't need players to actually keep playing because all it ever needed was alot of box sales to be successful.
Comments
Well this is obviously about GW2..
It's a fail post though for the simple fact that ANet are still updating the game, supporting the game and want to make it bigger and better... all for free I might add.
They want people to stick around.
Then, there is this issue of it being treated differently because it's an MMO. Games like, say, dead space are totally left on their own after release with no free content updates whatsoever.. not even a proper patching schedule. The same amount of money crossed hands for the box sale.. yet everyone thinks they are entitled to more than in other BTP games because it's an MMO. With GW2 and TSW there has already been more free stuff given, more content playable and more bug fixes than 99% of ALL other BTP games. I certainly don't remember Christmas and halloween events in Skyrim.. or Dragon Age... you sound like you don't even understand what you are getting for free with BTP MMOs.
ALL BTP games should be compared to OTHER BTP games. A BTP MMO is clearly more value than any other game on the market, regardless of payment model.
bah, they don't need me to say "keep up the good work" the ton of awards the game won like Game of the Year, MMO of the Year, RPG of the Year and so on from multiple sites should tell them enough.
All of my posts are either intelligent, thought provoking, funny, satirical, sarcastic or intentionally disrespectful. Take your pick.
I get banned in the forums for games I love, so lets see if I do better in the forums for games I hate.
I enjoy the serenity of not caring what your opinion is.
I don't hate much, but I hate Apple© with a passion. If Steve Jobs was alive, I would punch him in the face.
It can't be about GW2. GW2 uses the P2W business model (cash shop) and has a box price.
You sure? I still hear quite a bit about it. Whenever I hear people talk about MMOs it's usually about GW2.
just take a peek at the front page.. look at the most popular games and click on 1 month and look at the hits GW2 is getting compared to any other game... seems pretty popular here still to me.. and winning these MMO and PC game of the year awards isn't hurting either:)
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
this is actually the first topic i read about it this year to be honest...i no one personally that plays GW2...so i dont hear much about it and that is how i like it...the lost my support of GW1 so they dont get anything from me for GW2.
This was sarcasm right? As we all know sarcasm is hard to read in text.
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
Apparently your idea of no one in the game, and my idea of no one in the game differe by several hundred thousand people.
OK just post a head count and I'll believe it when I see it.
Hmmm, I am pretty sure that the GW2 B2P model was intended to be a sell-lots-of-boxes-and-expac-and-cash-shop-items. It seems to fit that pretty well outside of the expacs since they don't have any yet. If no one ever paid for gems then GW2 failed. I am pretty sure though that that is not the case. ANet is doing with GW2 what they did with Gw1 as far as payment model goes, except that it is slightly more restrictive in that in GW1 you could at least buy chest keys with ingame money.
Playing MUDs and MMOs since 1994.
nah GW2 is doing fine.
There is another game which have 10 million sub and I don't have people to play with too.
That is the thing with themepark game. Once people go through the content, they never go back again.
In GW2, there are 301 renown quest, 202 skill point, 266 vista point, and 1500(proclaimed) dynamic quest. Each of them take a few minutes. What are the chance anyone is doing the exact same thing you are doing. The map is just too big.
Go to the main page.
Scroll down a bit.
Click on "Most Popular Games".
Click on "Week" or "1 Month".
You'll see GW2 in lead.
PoE seems to lead today's click count, though.
Choose a high population server. Starting areas are always empty, in every mmo I have played post launch so I don't find that surprising and I don't see how it's the developers fault about not making people stick forever in starting zones.
At first it seems as a desert but as you level up you get into areas where more people hangs around, tho it'll hardly be anything like the launchday populations. Nothing a dev can really influence unless they change something drastically.
"Happiness is not a destination. It is a method of life."
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So given your analogy,a regular McDonalds meal is clearly more value than a recommended meal at a 4-star restaurant given that when you pay equally, you get much more food at McDonalds.
I don't know where you are getting at.
The fact remain GW2 is actually better than almost all mmorpg on the market right now. Not because it is cheaper. Because it is better.
I don't care if you talk trash about GW2. But you seemed to forget very few mmorg right now even have more active player than GW2.
Have you ever ate in a french restaurant? it's bloody expensive and the food is no better than the italian restaurant down the road with much cheaper prices
You forgot to include that B2P game box also has a cash shop which isn't all that different from one from a respectable F2P game, and in fact does not offer much difference between the other system and can milk even more money for a 'B2P' game then it might be able to produce if it was straight P2P.
I'm very iffy on the B2P model. With F2P games becoming a lot better as time goes on (Tera being a recent example given no changes or additions to its model as being a good one) the B2P seems like a possible way to drain the customer's wallet quickly up front and still provide exactly the same cash shop perks of another game that doesn't have that box cost.
Hahahaha! I spat out my coffee! Hilarious!
only prob, 4 bars should be more than enough. yet, they are still crying.
standart mmo gamer:
i'd say the were spoiled by their parents or sth, there gotta be a reason for such a behaviour
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
Over the last week it had more than double the amount of unique hits on this site than any other game. Yeah deadly quiet on the GW2 front.... hahaha.
We all know its fixed now, but the fact they did it in the first place just goes to show what you are dealing with in that game. Its SoE V2.0
Although having said that, SoE seems to be fixing its greed lately. Both EQ2 and Vanguard have had significant boosts to F2P standards.
Isn't that true for Tera or most other "used to be F2P games too"?
They pretty much start the game as selling box and montly sub when player base is high and change it to F2P later.
Even the elder scroll online dev says they will "start the game as P2P", and change it to F2P sometime later. The game isn't even out yet.
Those are just marketing strategy. And market spereration from its competitor. The game studio really just choose whatever model they think will max their profit.