Looks to me like the whole thing is a marketing ploy from Mark Jacobs, to justify having a subscription in a free to play industry. Maybe he will get a few extra people backing him, and maybe the game gets developed. But sooner or later it will be free to play just like Tera, SWTOR and every other MMO that has released in the last couple years. If it doesnt, it will just get shut down, there arent enough people willing to pay a sub to sustain a game anymore. Not to mention that CU is a very small niche game to begin with, since it only supports PVP players. With no PVE, theres no PVE players, which im not going to make up some random imaginary number like 90% of the playerbase, but im sure it has to be close.
Originally posted by boxsnd We will see if his prediction is right. I predict exactly the opposite. F2P/B2P will flourish and P2P will die out with WoW.
Agree Box, it will be interesting to see how this plays out.:)
I've paid more money to SOE alone using their item mall, and I've not used a subscription in over 3 years. Games are what make the , well the game, I doesn't matter if it is free to play or a subscription, if the game is crap, no one will pplay it.
He may well be right, even if he's being a tad dramatic about it.
I don't think the model is heading to an apocalypse. I think the market will become saturated with F2P titles - if it isn't already - and that will initially be a better thing for consumers. F2P titles have a long way to go in terms of quality. Eventually, of course, we'll see few titles coming to the fore. Many will fail quickly as the "better" games monopolise the player base. The market will normalise, in the same way the P2P market has normalised.
Also, the F2P model will likely give way largely to the B2P model. Ethical microtransactions will be used as a point of growth for a few years yet. Add that to the fact that it is "THE" traditional model of payment... for pretty much everything... and it seems like the safest bet long term for everyone concerned.
And that's what I'd say to Mark and his plans for CU. I'm not going to play it. It's that simple. I'm not going to play it because I'm not a moron. Playing an MMO for more than a few weeks removes your ability to apply yourself to any worthwhile pursuit in life. If it's a choice between reading, and paying a subscription to play your game... reading wins. Also, the average person is feeling the pinch right now, and it's only going to get worse. By offering a subscription, you are asking for a long term commitment. You are also competing with other subscription services... and regular bills. Seems shortsighted, if you ask me. Merely hastening the demise of the system that allows you to do it, really. Better to comply with change so that you're in a position to impact it, than to struggle blindly to peddle the old nonsense.
Development and progress take time and unfortunately a lot of corpses along the way in the form of bankruptcies, failed games, and disgruntled players. Hopefully some kind of stimulus will not come in to artificially prop up games that should fail.
Thats where the problem lies,there is companies building free to play game,what kind of goal is that.
The goal is for those making crappy games to fail horrible and someone behind them to say "Stop...we are going to make a F2P game, but we are going to make one worth playing not just a one year money grab game."
there must be something else behind this ideology,i do understand if someone tries to build something for "wider" audience but then you need to listen them all,actually allmost every single one of them.Like Reaper for example,it really is amazing thing but can it compete against the "big boys" no ,it really cant.
I don't really see this happening. We see more companies with layoffs and closing based upon sub based models already. There are far more free to play models now then sub based, but sub based still ends up being the guys who end up falling apart the most brutally. The only reason Jacobs is saying this is because of the game he is creating. Niche sub based games work because they are cheap to develop and can make money off a sub.
If you got the sub route and you spend 40-60 million on a game you need hundreds of thousands of subs to even see profit. Considering how saturated the market is becoming, I don't see F2P games going away anytime soon. F2P games don't force you to play one title at a time so it is easy to play multiple and potentially spend money each month in different ones. Unlike sub games where most people will only play one because they can only afford to play one.
Basically nothing really shows that the F2P model is going anywhere and everything is showing that the sub model is.
Just a bit of clarity: I think some people are mistaking hybrid F2P games for what they are. Hybrid games are going to cost you more to get what you would get with a sub because they WANT you to sub. The free to play is just one optional way to play the game. The reason that these games restrict you so much is because they want you to sub. They want F2P to be more of a trial run for the real game. Obviously they would not say this, but it is clearly true. The only games that doesn't do this that I can think of is Tera. Obviously everyone wants every game to be like Tera, but Tera was failing so badly that they had to resort to a pretty drastic change. The same reason you see TSW's F2P model offer the whole game short of "content packs" that you purchase is also because the game was failing so badly that if they made people pay a sub to still enjoy the game it would not do as well.
Development and progress take time and unfortunately a lot of corpses along the way in the form of bankruptcies, failed games, and disgruntled players. Hopefully some kind of stimulus will not come in to artificially prop up games that should fail.
Thats where the problem lies,there is companies building free to play game,what kind of goal is that.
The goal is for those making crappy games to fail horrible and someone behind them to say "Stop...we are going to make a F2P game, but we are going to make one worth playing not just a one year money grab game."
there must be something else behind this ideology,i do understand if someone tries to build something for "wider" audience but then you need to listen them all,actually allmost every single one of them.Like Reaper for example,it really is amazing thing but can it compete against the "big boys" no ,it really cant.
If you make something that can not compete then it should fail. These are things that people have to actually want to play and support. If it is fail it should fail. I should not have to support a game I do not like so that a game I like that thrive. My money should go for what I like. If a developers can make more money making games I do not like then I have to move on to a new form of entertainment. Life is not fair. Some succeed some fail. Every so often you will find yourself on the bad end of that.
Originally posted by boxsnd We will see if his prediction is right. I predict exactly the opposite. F2P/B2P will flourish and P2P will die out with WoW.
I predict you are half right. I think the whole genre is going to be in trouble by then.
Business models are not the issue. pisspoor quality MMORPGs are the issue. Create a quality product and people will pay for it. Once you have a quality product, you can then figure out the best business model. But we can all see how dollar signs have driven this industry since the (anomalous) success of WoW. Developers have lost sight of why gamers play and have zeroed in on their wallets. It shows.
MMORPGs weren't originally mainstream games. I believe they will eventually either die out or return to their roots. I also think there will be forks. Gw2 could potentially be the pioneer to such a fork....A hybrization from action games. But in the end, I don't think they will be what we call(ed) MMORPGs
Camelot Unchained creator... don't you, you know, have to actually create the game first before you can claim that? Its more like Camelot Unchained 'Idea writer" then maker.
As for the article... yeah... I'm going to have to laugh at it and disagree heavily. No offense but it feels more like an attempt to 'reason' with having a sub fee for your game. F2P has issues, don't get me wrong and it can go the wrong way (which same games ARE doing) but it won't die out or end in disaster, if anything it will evolve and hopefully become better in such a time.
F2P is going to stay, and there is no reaosn why you can't have your game sub if you really want it to be if you push it out to be good enough, or at the very least a Freemium model which can cause players who want to dedicate actual money to the game to have full access.
Originally posted by boxsnd We will see if his prediction is right. I predict exactly the opposite. F2P/B2P will flourish and P2P will die out with WoW.
I predict you are half right. I think the whole genre is going to be in trouble by then.
Business models are not the issue. pisspoor quality MMORPGs are the issue. Create a quality product and people will pay for it. Once you have a quality product, you can then figure out the best business model. But we can all see how dollar signs have driven this industry since the (anomalous) success of WoW. Developers have lost sight of why gamers play and have zeroed in on their wallets. It shows.
MMORPGs weren't originally mainstream games. I believe they will eventually either die out or return to their roots. I also think there will be forks. Gw2 could potentially be the pioneer to such a fork....A hybrization from action games. But in the end, I don't think they will be what we call(ed) MMORPGs
There has not been too many good MMOs for sure. You are right, but I think we are reaching the tail end of that cycle. GW2 has been a huge success -- the biggest since WoW-- and is seeing more initial success then WoW did initially as well. A big reason for this is the B2P model. I think that is the direction "AAA" quality MMOs will go. Games like TESO and Wildstar look to be promising. I think that the future of this genre is fine, but I also think that there will be more quality games coming. From my current perspective the only thing that could screw up TESO and Wildstar at this point is...a sub model. I mean just look at Rift. It was a solid game with loads of content and even one of the biggest MMO expansions yet, but it is still starting to go down the route of F2P. If it started as B2P I think it would have done much better and have a far bigger audience.
Subscription models are even worse. You have to pay monthly for a service, after the initial purchase of the product. And if you don't like it, well, too bad, because you aren't allowed to play the game anymore if you're not paying. I'm guessing you never paid for services such as, television, phone, or isp., because if you did, you would know how their services work., and they aren't always good. Let's not forget the competition either, where there is either none or services just as bad the one you don't want. LOL silly consumers indeed.
Great interview. Really convinced me. Put 110$ “Young Her” most I’ve ever spent on a game.
I’ve played pretty much every MMO to date, excluding ones not in English(and some that aren’t), and nothing beats Pay 2 play quality.
GW2 disappointed me…GW1 was one of my favorite games ever…GW2 I regret buying.
GW1 & GW2 are buy-to-play, not f2p.
F2P won't go away. It's here to say, because it works. It basically an extended trial version of the game.
B2P and F2P is really not that different. Many games that are labeled F2P you still have to buy content much like GW and then you can play for no subscription. Also with cash shops in GW the line gets blurred even more.
Because his track record for long term success in subscription MMO's is so great, right?
F2P is not going to die in 3-5 years. I used to be a subscription purist, myself. Then I realized it's really not viable in today's economy & market, and the least appealing thing ever to the current generation of consumers. If anyhting, there will be an evolution somewhere down the line, but I think buy to play is the future of online gaming for a good long while.
Because his track record for long term success in subscription MMO's is so great, right?
F2P is not going to die in 3-5 years. I used to be a subscription purist, myself. Then I realized it's really not viable in today's economy & market, and the least appealing thing ever to the current generation of consumers. If anyhting, there will be an evolution somewhere down the line, but I think buy to play is the future of online gaming for a good long while.
Uh
His track record is great. Both DAOC & Warhammer are both still using a sub model, and appear to be making enough money to not be taken offline.
So I'd say yeah.
Help get Camelot Unchained made, a old-school MMORPG, with no hand holding!
then make really good and complete mmo's that will attract players and make them pay a sub. we all have payed subs for many years but all the latest releases sucks big time or at least dont justify a sub. make a proper mmo and you will see if ppl wants to pay or not.
The problem I see for P2P games is with how flighty the current market is. With so many choices the fact I have lay down $15 a month to play your game is a lot more commitment than a lot of people want to make. Yeah the amount might not be a lot but for a lot of people people they would rather try 50 "free" games than pay for more than 1 sub game also with sub games you have to usually buy the initial game. Now if the game was "free" but you have to sub it might be different. I would be more will it try more games if I only needed to invest $15 for one month to try it. Then if I hate it I am only out $15 not box + sub price.
He may well be right, even if he's being a tad dramatic about it.
I don't think the model is heading to an apocalypse. I think the market will become saturated with F2P titles - if it isn't already - and that will initially be a better thing for consumers. F2P titles have a long way to go in terms of quality. Eventually, of course, we'll see few titles coming to the fore. Many will fail quickly as the "better" games monopolise the player base. The market will normalise, in the same way the P2P market has normalised.
Also, the F2P model will likely give way largely to the B2P model. Ethical microtransactions will be used as a point of growth for a few years yet. Add that to the fact that it is "THE" traditional model of payment... for pretty much everything... and it seems like the safest bet long term for everyone concerned.
And that's what I'd say to Mark and his plans for CU. I'm not going to play it. It's that simple. I'm not going to play it because I'm not a moron. Playing an MMO for more than a few weeks removes your ability to apply yourself to any worthwhile pursuit in life. If it's a choice between reading, and paying a subscription to play your game... reading wins. Also, the average person is feeling the pinch right now, and it's only going to get worse. By offering a subscription, you are asking for a long term commitment. You are also competing with other subscription services... and regular bills. Seems shortsighted, if you ask me. Merely hastening the demise of the system that allows you to do it, really. Better to comply with change so that you're in a position to impact it, than to struggle blindly to peddle the old nonsense.
I was giong to make a new post to the thread, but you've said essentially everything that I was going to say. The guy's rhetoric is unnecessary and comes across unbalanced.
How the free to play games has to do with low quality?
Nobody knows Path of Exile?
And if companies adopt the model free to play is because their customers are not as loyal as well.
Don't use Path of Exile as "high quality" stuff.
The animations, art assets, and skills are all free-use stuff. It's pretty "meh" quality, it makes a nice picture.
It's great for a free ARPG...but there are much, much better ones out there, that you can buy.
I've followed POE for a year now and played abit myself...but the game is so boring. It has nothing going for it except that people who hate Diablo 3 play it.
Help get Camelot Unchained made, a old-school MMORPG, with no hand holding!
If they have a subscription model, then they ought to put in more updates, patches, etc then the F2P and B2P games. Rift had issues that took a long time to fix but they DID put out quite a bit of content. The other P2P can't say the same, what do you get with a P2P that you don't get with the others? If nothing or similar is the answer, then the P2P is doomed.
Servers are more stable and last longer (reads needs less maintenance) than than they used to. This is not an excuse any more to charge a sub, if others can do it to the same level.
The article writer has an axe to grind and he is delusional if he thinks F2P is doomed.
Comments
Agree Box, it will be interesting to see how this plays out.:)
He may well be right, even if he's being a tad dramatic about it.
I don't think the model is heading to an apocalypse. I think the market will become saturated with F2P titles - if it isn't already - and that will initially be a better thing for consumers. F2P titles have a long way to go in terms of quality. Eventually, of course, we'll see few titles coming to the fore. Many will fail quickly as the "better" games monopolise the player base. The market will normalise, in the same way the P2P market has normalised.
Also, the F2P model will likely give way largely to the B2P model. Ethical microtransactions will be used as a point of growth for a few years yet. Add that to the fact that it is "THE" traditional model of payment... for pretty much everything... and it seems like the safest bet long term for everyone concerned.
And that's what I'd say to Mark and his plans for CU. I'm not going to play it. It's that simple. I'm not going to play it because I'm not a moron. Playing an MMO for more than a few weeks removes your ability to apply yourself to any worthwhile pursuit in life. If it's a choice between reading, and paying a subscription to play your game... reading wins. Also, the average person is feeling the pinch right now, and it's only going to get worse. By offering a subscription, you are asking for a long term commitment. You are also competing with other subscription services... and regular bills. Seems shortsighted, if you ask me. Merely hastening the demise of the system that allows you to do it, really. Better to comply with change so that you're in a position to impact it, than to struggle blindly to peddle the old nonsense.
[mod edit]
MJ already said he won't be doing 14.99$ a month
IT'll be 9.99$ or less.
He also said that, if the game is in a state where it has to go F2P...he's shutting it down.
Help get Camelot Unchained made, a old-school MMORPG, with no hand holding!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/13861848/camelot-unchained
there must be something else behind this ideology,i do understand if someone tries to build something for "wider" audience but then you need to listen them all,actually allmost every single one of them.Like Reaper for example,it really is amazing thing but can it compete against the "big boys" no ,it really cant.
Let's internet
I don't really see this happening. We see more companies with layoffs and closing based upon sub based models already. There are far more free to play models now then sub based, but sub based still ends up being the guys who end up falling apart the most brutally. The only reason Jacobs is saying this is because of the game he is creating. Niche sub based games work because they are cheap to develop and can make money off a sub.
If you got the sub route and you spend 40-60 million on a game you need hundreds of thousands of subs to even see profit. Considering how saturated the market is becoming, I don't see F2P games going away anytime soon. F2P games don't force you to play one title at a time so it is easy to play multiple and potentially spend money each month in different ones. Unlike sub games where most people will only play one because they can only afford to play one.
Basically nothing really shows that the F2P model is going anywhere and everything is showing that the sub model is.
Just a bit of clarity: I think some people are mistaking hybrid F2P games for what they are. Hybrid games are going to cost you more to get what you would get with a sub because they WANT you to sub. The free to play is just one optional way to play the game. The reason that these games restrict you so much is because they want you to sub. They want F2P to be more of a trial run for the real game. Obviously they would not say this, but it is clearly true. The only games that doesn't do this that I can think of is Tera. Obviously everyone wants every game to be like Tera, but Tera was failing so badly that they had to resort to a pretty drastic change. The same reason you see TSW's F2P model offer the whole game short of "content packs" that you purchase is also because the game was failing so badly that if they made people pay a sub to still enjoy the game it would not do as well.
If you make something that can not compete then it should fail. These are things that people have to actually want to play and support. If it is fail it should fail. I should not have to support a game I do not like so that a game I like that thrive. My money should go for what I like. If a developers can make more money making games I do not like then I have to move on to a new form of entertainment. Life is not fair. Some succeed some fail. Every so often you will find yourself on the bad end of that.
uh-huh.. and that warning is coming from the guy who did Warhammer Online.
LOL.
And what was again with that Imperator Online title?
His quote reminds me of the SWTOR analyst who said F2P "could attract up to 50 million players"
http://www.examiner.com/article/analyst-swtor-move-to-free-to-play-could-attract-up-to-50-million-players
Secrets of Dragon?s Spine Trailer.. !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwT9cFVQCMw
Best MMOs ever played: Ultima, EvE, SW Galaxies, Age of Conan, The Secret World
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2X_SbZCHpc&t=21s
.
.
The Return of ELITE !
I predict you are half right. I think the whole genre is going to be in trouble by then.
Business models are not the issue. pisspoor quality MMORPGs are the issue. Create a quality product and people will pay for it. Once you have a quality product, you can then figure out the best business model. But we can all see how dollar signs have driven this industry since the (anomalous) success of WoW. Developers have lost sight of why gamers play and have zeroed in on their wallets. It shows.
MMORPGs weren't originally mainstream games. I believe they will eventually either die out or return to their roots. I also think there will be forks. Gw2 could potentially be the pioneer to such a fork....A hybrization from action games. But in the end, I don't think they will be what we call(ed) MMORPGs
GW1 & GW2 are buy-to-play, not f2p.
F2P won't go away. It's here to say, because it works. It basically an extended trial version of the game.
Camelot Unchained creator... don't you, you know, have to actually create the game first before you can claim that? Its more like Camelot Unchained 'Idea writer" then maker.
As for the article... yeah... I'm going to have to laugh at it and disagree heavily. No offense but it feels more like an attempt to 'reason' with having a sub fee for your game. F2P has issues, don't get me wrong and it can go the wrong way (which same games ARE doing) but it won't die out or end in disaster, if anything it will evolve and hopefully become better in such a time.
F2P is going to stay, and there is no reaosn why you can't have your game sub if you really want it to be if you push it out to be good enough, or at the very least a Freemium model which can cause players who want to dedicate actual money to the game to have full access.
There has not been too many good MMOs for sure. You are right, but I think we are reaching the tail end of that cycle. GW2 has been a huge success -- the biggest since WoW-- and is seeing more initial success then WoW did initially as well. A big reason for this is the B2P model. I think that is the direction "AAA" quality MMOs will go. Games like TESO and Wildstar look to be promising. I think that the future of this genre is fine, but I also think that there will be more quality games coming. From my current perspective the only thing that could screw up TESO and Wildstar at this point is...a sub model. I mean just look at Rift. It was a solid game with loads of content and even one of the biggest MMO expansions yet, but it is still starting to go down the route of F2P. If it started as B2P I think it would have done much better and have a far bigger audience.
Subscription models are even worse. You have to pay monthly for a service, after the initial purchase of the product. And if you don't like it, well, too bad, because you aren't allowed to play the game anymore if you're not paying. I'm guessing you never paid for services such as, television, phone, or isp., because if you did, you would know how their services work., and they aren't always good. Let's not forget the competition either, where there is either none or services just as bad the one you don't want. LOL silly consumers indeed.
B2P and F2P is really not that different. Many games that are labeled F2P you still have to buy content much like GW and then you can play for no subscription. Also with cash shops in GW the line gets blurred even more.
Because his track record for long term success in subscription MMO's is so great, right?
F2P is not going to die in 3-5 years. I used to be a subscription purist, myself. Then I realized it's really not viable in today's economy & market, and the least appealing thing ever to the current generation of consumers. If anyhting, there will be an evolution somewhere down the line, but I think buy to play is the future of online gaming for a good long while.
Uh
His track record is great. Both DAOC & Warhammer are both still using a sub model, and appear to be making enough money to not be taken offline.
So I'd say yeah.
Help get Camelot Unchained made, a old-school MMORPG, with no hand holding!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/13861848/camelot-unchained
How the free to play games has to do with low quality?
Nobody knows Path of Exile?
And if companies adopt the model free to play is because their customers are not as loyal as well.
I was giong to make a new post to the thread, but you've said essentially everything that I was going to say. The guy's rhetoric is unnecessary and comes across unbalanced.
Don't use Path of Exile as "high quality" stuff.
The animations, art assets, and skills are all free-use stuff. It's pretty "meh" quality, it makes a nice picture.
It's great for a free ARPG...but there are much, much better ones out there, that you can buy.
I've followed POE for a year now and played abit myself...but the game is so boring. It has nothing going for it except that people who hate Diablo 3 play it.
Help get Camelot Unchained made, a old-school MMORPG, with no hand holding!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/13861848/camelot-unchained
If they have a subscription model, then they ought to put in more updates, patches, etc then the F2P and B2P games. Rift had issues that took a long time to fix but they DID put out quite a bit of content. The other P2P can't say the same, what do you get with a P2P that you don't get with the others? If nothing or similar is the answer, then the P2P is doomed.
Servers are more stable and last longer (reads needs less maintenance) than than they used to. This is not an excuse any more to charge a sub, if others can do it to the same level.
The article writer has an axe to grind and he is delusional if he thinks F2P is doomed.