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Free to play: The death of gaming?
Souldrainer
Member Posts: 1,857
http://insertcredit.com/2011/09/22/who-killed-videogames-a-ghost-story/
Over at the Grim Dawn forums, there is also a thread about this. It pointed out the many perils of FTP models and what happens when people play these types of games. I grew curious as to what gamers at large would have to say of this. So, what say you?
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Did you read the article? Also, what you call a bad game, someone else may love, and vice versa. "Bad games" to you are not considered empirically and universally bad. For example, Farmville is considered the greatest game on Earth to some people.
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"You are all going to poop yourselves." BillMurphy
"Laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone."
Idiotic pseudo-journalism is more harmful to gaming than any game ever made.
Also Chrome says that website is harmful so probably has some shitty ads playing on it that may or may not contain malware.
A very bad formulated question. First of all, one needs to make clear what does "free to play" mean? While there are some free games, they are typically solo made by freeware enthusiasts. Doubt if OP had them in mind.
Then we have games offering subscription and free model They do differ. Think about too limited Runescape where you have to be paying customer in order to advance a bit; think about Istaria, where free player has all the land to explore, but is limited to 1 race and no plot; think about Lord of the rings online where player can be whoever he wants and reach an endgame without paying a penny (with some cosmetic restrictions, no doubt).
F2P can't kill any mmorpg. Like printer did not kill the book nor pdf format killed the book. There may be some dangerous tendencies, like making game too dependent on purchases. Companies are turning to f2p not because of great love - it's money. One player in Lotro told he spent $100 in two months for store: that's more than standard customer would pay for 6 months subscription.
http://www.mmoblogg.wordpress.com
i didnt even read the article and i fully agree with DamonVile.
He doesnt mean bad games just like that.... bad games. Its true that what i find bad others find good. But the problem is (and im sure he means that type of "bad") overall development and publishing practices. Clunky mechanics, unfinished games, unpolished game, generic gameplay, no graphic detail (even 2d cartoony games can show great detail so it doesnt have to be realistic, just high quality textures). On the publishing side of the coin, greedy practices, Pay to Win, forcing the gameplay progression so only payers can advance fairly. etc, etc, etc.
Theres a huge amount of things that can kill a game regardless of paying method.
I voted 'No' because my experience of DUST 514 has been positive. However, I realise that this might not be a typical F2P game.
In addition, I played DUST from the beginning with the intention of paying for in-game items - so I never treated it as F2P as such.
In my opinion, WoW is the classic subsription-based game and the problem I find with this model is that I waste a bit of my subsription when I stop playing it.
For me, this subscription problem is magnified much more with Eve Online. I literally haven't played this game for a year, but I contine to waste/pay my subsription to 'keep my hand in' and keep leveling my characters up (I'm playing this game for the long-haul once I get a bit more free time).
If Eve was F2P I would be far more enthusiastic about that game.
So to summarise, F2P games are probably more suited to how we play these days - i.e. we don't really know what we'll be doing in a few days / weeks / months time.
I believe the old saying is true, that you get what you pay for. A decent portion of the MMO community would expect regular updates, patches, hotfixes, expansions etc as a part of the service of a quality game.
To be able to continue to provide these quality services costs $.
I believe that there's room for all but the ones that want the shiney new toys will happily pay for them and the ones that don't want to pay may not get them.
Rhino.
It has been proven that sub based mmos that go "free" make more money. So... since you say the old saying is true. Shoulnt "Free" mmos be better quality? (not saying higher quality than sub ones, those are the ones switching models but even as good as them). They obviously make more money even without being P2W garbage or forcing you to pay.
I agree with you - you do get what you pay for.
However, I think you're assuming that people who buy in-game items for F2P games don't want to purchase that much. If they are keen they might pump in more money than you think.
For example, quite a few players in DUST are horrifyingly hardcore - I imagine they pay quite a bit, one way or the other.
The problem is that this sort of information is likely to be a closely guarded secret by companies that make games.
Thanks rojo6934,
If what you say is true then I have learn't something new today. Are you able to provide an article or link that supports your statement? I would be very keen to read up and see how this works as I don't play many MMOs and none that have gone "free" as you say.
Cheers mate.
Good games will do fine no matter how the players pay for them (unless they get too expensive, few players want to cough up more than 20 bucks a month, no matter if it is monthly fees or in a cashshop).
Exactly how people pay for the game is not that important, if modern MMOs do badly it is because they aint good enough, not because P2P is dying or F2P is bad.
The whole thing kinda reminds of of the record industries complain that piracy are the reason for lesser earnings instead of the high prices and the generally crappy quality of pop music today (the artist looks and style are more important than the music and they tend to pick artists in TV shows)...
That was true for the first games that converted, yes. But when DDO converted and started to earn money F2P games were generally really bad, now when most games are F2P that might not be true.
I don't know about you,but if my company invested tens of millions of dollars in developing a computer game, I'd like to get the investments back somehow.
With F2P this meens 100.000 leeches who contributes nothing, and 1000 paying customers who get abused for "paying to win". Hate all the way.
I very much prefer the P2HF model (Pay to have fun, also known as subscription). Problem is, people are too used to getting things for free on the interwebz (by theft) that it sort of rules P2HF out.
Good luck demanding F2S (free to shop) from your local grocery store
(Hey, why don't someone else pay? I'll hate them for it, but it will be free of charge)
This!
They hop from game to game and don't realy care about game they play anymore its free after all and many times limited so who cares about community just hop in see if its hold my attention for few weeks and ill go to next one.
After these days hundreds mayne thousends of mmo's out there.
But not all some prolly are good enough to realy care whats going on ingame.
you make it sound like its no big deal.
I use my phone every day for different things, i dont care about TV, the internet has the news and the movies can be rented. I dont play sub based mmos every day. Its not about how many hours can you play a day. its about how many times can you play before the month of service is up. I personaly dont like subs for that reason. If i dont play at least 75% of the month of service, i will not sub.... and i know i dont play the same game that much, sooo..... yeah
Here are the actual reasons for the death of gaming/MMOs:
1) Solo leveling being as fast or even faster than group leveling (so many players nowadays who don't even chat, you can't tell them apart from bots)
2) No challenge / easy mode questing / pve. "Everybody is a winner, there are no losers"
3) P2W cash shops
4) minimaps and interactive maps ("exploration" = no need to learn the landscape, we will tell you where everything is, you just have to play connect the dots. You will never get lost ever...)
5) AHs and RMAHs (AHs are worse though)
6) cross-server 1-button dungeon queueing
7) Instances (arenas/bgs/dungeons/raids)
8) daily quests
9) flying mounts
10) culling
11) Devs and fanboys hyping their games with lies
12) "F2P" that are endless trials in disguise (paying players having an advantage in PvP)
DAoC - Excalibur & Camlann
Is what you're suggesting is that MMO's need a new model that addresses the points you've mentioned because what you've said is a very big statement considering many mmo's impliment a number of these points. Can you provide alternatives to your 12 point summation?
WOW malware warning from Chrome immediately on clicking the link. Amazing.
And there is such a thing as REALLY REALLY bad games btw. Things that are offered that no one likes to play at all ever that die out. And guess what, as much as I'd like to say it's due to subscription models, it's not.
1) But most players are obnoxious (worse than me, even,) no wonder people will rather go solo
2) Agreed. The obnoxious lot likes it easy. (Gimme-gimme-gimme a purple b'fore midnight).
3) Because the cheap obnoxious guys want it all for free. Someone has to pay.
4) The obnoxious guys have a short attention span. Give them a proper world to explore, and they will be off to GW2 before you know it (flame intended).
5) I have no idea what any of that means, but I don't like the look of "AH"s for sure.
6) I'm not sure why this is killing gaming, but I'll take your word for it.
7) I have already forgotten about the empty or overcrowded non-instanced games. Don't remind me of it.
8) Play a game as a substitute for the job you haven't got. Fun is for losers.
9) Dragons shouldn't be pink. That's just wrong.
10) There's nothing like a surprise.
11) They are trying to offset the obnoxious guys on a personal vendetta of hate because the developers care about other things then their own private requests. Did I say requests? I ment demands.
12) Paying players. What an abomination.
I do have an iPhone and I use pay-as-you go. However, having a phone is essential these days (like heating and electricity) - it's a 'need' not a 'want', so you shouldn't be comparing it to a game.
I use 'cable' every day for work. PCs are also used for business, you know!
$15 doesn't seem like very much, but if you add together tiny expenses it can come to an awful lot - so you have to be careful - this is just good housekeeping. Particularly in this economic environment, and today the EU predicted a further period of economic downturn.