please, just look at all these AAA games that have gone F2P...... rift, swtor, war, aoc and so on... does anyone really think these two new games are going to be any different?? what was that tripple A game that came out not so long ago? secret world was it? didnt funcom say that they would not go F2P in any near future and VOILA 2 months later it goes f2p!
there is no game speaking in defence of the subsription model that i know of.
but hey i bet they are going to earn the most money this way and thats all its about nowdays (hench why indi games are so popular if you ask me, since you dont feel as riped off), start of with a pricetag of 60$ because heeeey its a AAA... and a sub fee of 15$ for the first 3 months.. then when u have lol'd ur way through the game they make it fp2 with exp boosts and instant leveling for a few bucks..
Considering the reaction I am hearing from people who have already played the game, I don't think it will be any different from previous AAAs that came and dwindled unless the PVP is fantastic.
Here is the thing though; excluding WoW, no AAA game accomplishes that feat. The empirical evidence indicates that a subscription only system is not a viable long term business plan for a MMO with a AAA budget. It's not a question of whether a game eventually adopts a hybrid model, it's only a question of how long it takes. If you think ESO and Wildstar don't already have at least tentative plans for what their Freemium systems would look like, I want to know what you are smoking.
That is just plain wrong. The emprical evidence - over a decade's worth of it - clearly demonstrates the complete opposite.
WoW, Eve, AC1, FFXI, DAoC, UO.. and some others I'm forgetting at the moment.. all have maintained subs for near or even over a decade already... despite not having "frequent content updates".
Other MMOs, such as AO, LoTRO, EQ1/EQ2, and so on... all maintained subs for a number of years... despite not having consistent content updates included in the sub fee. Many of those listed have gone hybrid, and maintain a sub option, which is still very popular among the players.
Lineage 2 went for many years before making the switch to full F2P, and it's too bad they didn't keep the sub option, 'cause I'd have definitely been on board with that.
The problem is in the way they're designed.
The problem with more "modern" MMOs not being feasible as sub-based (or at least not solely sub-based) is that their designs are not conducive to it. Put simply they're "over" too quickly. Progress is way too fast, rewards are handed out far too quickly and easily, and people are reaching "the end" within their first month or two in many cases.
Older MMOs were designed as long-term hobbies. Much as one might play golf, or go bowling, or engage in other activities with an attached cost, MMOs were designed as long-term activities, with long-term goals that kept them engaged and playing for a longer period of time. They also fostered larger and (with exceptions) stronger communities, which play(ed) a huge role in keeping people entertained. Unlike newer MMOs which are ever more about "Me", older MMOs were much more about "We".
Developers didn't shy away from requiring players to cooperate/interact and, perhaps more importantly, the players didn't shy away from it either. In fact, as far back as I can recall, it was never even something players even thought about, much less fretted over. Grouping up to do things just came naturally. I remember logging in to AC2 back during its original release, saying in local chat "Anyone feel like running some Vaults?". Within seconds, there were multiple "Yeah", "Sure", "Okay". Moments later, we were grouped up and deciding which one to knock out first. You'd see similar groups being announced constantly in local and world chat. There was no fretting or fussing or stomping of feet. I never saw people saying "you can solo it, just level up more first". There was no need for "dungeon finders", etc. It was just what you did. People were social and took to it naturally.
From the perspective of someone who's played old-school MMOs and carried on over into the so-called "modern" ones, I've seen how developers have systematically undermined or ripped out the things that kept people playing for years, and replaced them with things that barely keep them playing for more than a couple months.
This is why subs seldom work in newer MMOs. They're not designed for it. They're designed for frequent, "me"-centric, easy gratification, not for long-term progression and community building.
At this point, it would also require a developer to understand the player they're trying to cater to, and stick to that; avoid casting the biggest possible net, trying to get "everyone" (many of whom will leave due to boredom after they've churned through your content), and start focusing on a more specific portion.
I like this article. I am a huge fan of Subs. It puts everyone on an equal playing field and that is what virtual worlds are about: separating from real life. MTX just bring RL success into the virtual realm. This is totally uncalled for. One of the biggest draws of ESO to me is that it is ONLY Subscription. I quit LotRO and SWTOR because they went F2P (MTX). I now had to compete with rich people buying all their mounts, gear, and in-game currencies. I am on the lower end of the economic scale in RL, I don't need to be reminded of that when I am trying to play an MMORPG as well.
If I want a world in which people can purchase success and power with cash, I'll play Real Life. Keep Virtual Worlds Virtual!
Tangent hit the nail on the head. And the thing is, we players keep saying this stuff over and over and over again but it seems to be falling on deaf ears for the most part. There are several games in development that hold promise but only promise. What I can say is that it's pretty much guaranteed that the game will be as Tangent points out. Because every game released in the last ten years has been., These games love to call themselves "next gen" but don't have a clue what that actually means.
Originally posted by Denambren ESO's catastrophic failure will have nothing to do with the subscription model, though I'm sure plenty of people will enjoy pointing to the sub model as the reason the game failed (including Zenimax when they need an excuse to cover just how bad their game turned out to be).
The sub model won't help... Players such as myself, who has a mild interest in ESO and was planning on checking it, will now skip it completely.
I think the MMO industry for the type of games we are talking about here have moved on from subs. It's all about F2P now. Either use it or have your game skipped. I think the exception to the rule here is a blizzard game. If a WoW 2 or Titan comes out, I think they will sub it - unless they figure they can make more money via F2P Microtrans.
The Game will not survive as a sub, ESO is banking on the name to carry it. Its Graphics are nice but its combat is choppy and repetitive. It lacks any real end game. its Slow and I fell asleep when playing it.
Lets not forget it will not only be a Subscription based game but also Micro payments, for skins and such, imo that is bullsh*t seeing as if your going to pay to play you shouldn't have to pay even more for skins ect.
From my experiences as an MMORPG it sucks. You guys should see the complaints in the Beta Forums as well as the Testers who have stopped testing all together.
"As of June 2013, Skyrim has doubled that tally with over 20 million units sold, according toBethesda's official blog. "
Makes you wonder how irate the single-player team must be to see how much money Zenimax is spending on Elder Scrolls Online as opposed to immediately producing a Skyrim sequel.
These projects take multiple years to develop. After working on Skyrim so long, I imagine the dev team at Bethesda Game Studios was probably quite pleased to have a change of scenery and get back to the Fallout property.
Here is the thing though; excluding WoW, no AAA game accomplishes that feat. The empirical evidence indicates that a subscription only system is not a viable long term business plan for a MMO with a AAA budget. It's not a question of whether a game eventually adopts a hybrid model, it's only a question of how long it takes. If you think ESO and Wildstar don't already have at least tentative plans for what their Freemium systems would look like, I want to know what you are smoking.
That is just plain wrong. The emprical evidence - over a decade's worth of it - clearly demonstrates the complete opposite.
WoW, Eve, AC1, FFXI, DAoC, UO.. and some others I'm forgetting at the moment.. all have maintained subs for near or even over a decade already... despite not having "frequent content updates".
Other MMOs, such as AO, LoTRO, EQ1/EQ2, and so on... all maintained subs for a number of years... despite not having consistent content updates included in the sub fee. Many of those listed have gone hybrid, and maintain a sub option, which is still very popular among the players.
Lineage 2 went for many years before making the switch to full F2P, and it's too bad they didn't keep the sub option, 'cause I'd have definitely been on board with that.
The problem is in the way they're designed.
The problem with more "modern" MMOs not being feasible as sub-based (or at least not solely sub-based) is that their designs are not conducive to it. Put simply they're "over" too quickly. Progress is way too fast, rewards are handed out far too quickly and easily, and people are reaching "the end" within their first month or two in many cases.
Older MMOs were designed as long-term hobbies. Much as one might play golf, or go bowling, or engage in other activities with an attached cost, MMOs were designed as long-term activities, with long-term goals that kept them engaged and playing for a longer period of time. They also fostered larger and (with exceptions) stronger communities, which play(ed) a huge role in keeping people entertained. Unlike newer MMOs which are ever more about "Me", older MMOs were much more about "We".
Developers didn't shy away from requiring players to cooperate/interact and, perhaps more importantly, the players didn't shy away from it either. In fact, as far back as I can recall, it was never even something players even thought about, much less fretted over. Grouping up to do things just came naturally. I remember logging in to AC2 back during its original release, saying in local chat "Anyone feel like running some Vaults?". Within seconds, there were multiple "Yeah", "Sure", "Okay". Moments later, we were grouped up and deciding which one to knock out first. You'd see similar groups being announced constantly in local and world chat. There was no fretting or fussing or stomping of feet. I never saw people saying "you can solo it, just level up more first". There was no need for "dungeon finders", etc. It was just what you did. People were social and took to it naturally.
From the perspective of someone who's played old-school MMOs and carried on over into the so-called "modern" ones, I've seen how developers have systematically undermined or ripped out the things that kept people playing for years, and replaced them with things that barely keep them playing for more than a couple months.
This is why subs seldom work in newer MMOs. They're not designed for it. They're designed for frequent, "me"-centric, easy gratification, not for long-term progression and community building.
At this point, it would also require a developer to understand the player they're trying to cater to, and stick to that; avoid casting the biggest possible net, trying to get "everyone" (many of whom will leave due to boredom after they've churned through your content), and start focusing on a more specific portion.
They also didn't have development costs into the hundreds of millions.
I remember the guy that started cryptic did an interview prior to City of Heroes being released, and was asked how much would one expect to need if they wanted to enter the MMO market, he said around 20 million.
Blizzard didn't spend much more than that. UO, AO, AC, DAoC, L2, none of those games cost much more than that.
There's nothing wrong with subs. It's subs plus excessive development costs, and that was a point the forbes guy was trying to get across.
WoW is an anomaly, ESO is not going to carry millions of subs. Only two games managed that, WoW and lineage 2, and lineage 2 only had so many subs because it was a hugely popular game in the east. Most MMO's seem to be lucky when they can hit the 500k mark, and they don't typically spend 100 plus million to make the game.
Zeni is banking on the popularity of the single player games and the console market; with a game that really isn't anything like the single player versions and a market of gamers who aren't used to paying a sub for an individual game and already have to pay a sub to play online with their console.
I don't care which model is better, how other companies do with their payment models and so on. I just want to play my games and i absolutely favour monthly subscription over any other method for a number of reasons. First, the community in these games is better when not every idiot and kiddy can get in. Second MTX is usually a major rip off, a perfect example is SOE's games tradecard system which speculates on peoples stupidity. I know people who spent 1000's of bucks to get 'lootcards' for rare stuff in game. Usually in F2P/MTX games you end up paying A LOT MORE than in subscription games if you don't behave yourself and be very disciplined.
IMO using a subscription model is a wise choice. Now all i hope is that ESO doesn't implement a 2 class society like EQI/II where only 10% of the subscribers being in uber guilds can get to the real good stuff and all others paying the same are left out in the rain (Note: this is part of what people call sonification and IMO the reason for the relative unsuccesful games).
None of this matters. If a gaming company produces a quality game with great service people will pay a fair value under any model to be entertained by it. All this reverse engineering trying to predict a games success based on its payment system after we know the results of other games is arse backwards. Games go B2P or F2P because they either don't have confidence in their product/service to command a sub (or even a higher price) or they are facing financial ruin.
While the quality of the game is undoubtedly crucial, rigorously adhering to an outdated financial model can and will ruin a game. e.g The Secret World said they'd never go F2P... And even SWTOR had to go F2P. Even, dare I say it, there's signs that WOW is slowly sliding that way. When gamers have so much selection, and so many great games, it's not reasonalbe to expect them to stay in one game as long as they used to. Yes, people are still devoted to WOW, but that's because of the community they grew up with in the game and, at the time, there was much less selection of games (there were still many, but nothing like the numbers of today). And, with so many other F2P games of quality, what incentive do people have to pay a subscription?
For my money, however, a hybrid model makes the most sense. Give people what they want, try to cater to as large a portion of the marketplace as you can, with as many ways to play as is reasonable. Today's world is all about 'having it your way' (hope I didn't violate any copyright laws with that). The responsibility should be on the developer to entice all players to pay a similar minimal amount to support the game. For some players that will be via subs, and for some it will be via mtx (of course, there will always be some who chose not to pay).
I too would MUCH rather pay a sub and know hundreds of people that feel the same way. When are people going to learn that a sub gives better value. People that begrudge paying a small sub prob are the kind of people that will spemd money in a cash shop. The people paying subs are more likely to supplement their gameplay w/micro transactions - IMO!
The reason EVERYONE get this wrong is because EVERYONE has experience of a market sector that works. They also all have their own opinion. This subject always degrades to reflecting people's own preferences, backed up by a market they have seen it work in.
The CORRECT answer is this: BOTH markets work. There are players that prefer EACH model.
WoW is often cited as an example purely because IT'S MASSIVE and leads the market in the subscription scenario, being far more widely known and successful than most others these days. An MMO such as ESO would be directly setting itself up as competition to WoW for that chunk of the market. Personally I'm ditching WoW with no intent to return, regardless of future content packs. ESO looks to me to be a viable replacement for me.
I'm pretty sure Zenimax will sound the market out thoroughly following their testing, and get a feel for what the majority of the players are happy with in terms of price and subscription. Individual opinions on these forums are thus utterly pointless.
For the records, I've never maintained long term interest in a game with in-game shops. It undermines hard work in the game and any feeling of accomplishment. Thus devalues the entire experience for me.
Subscription based games I'm always happy with on the basis subscriptions help to pay for further development and keeps the game fresher. I played WoW for many years before deciding more recently I'd had enough of it, as it began catering way too heavily for the top 10% / elitists, leaving many people I played with feeling substandard, fed up and quitting. As those I liked to play with left, I too left.
Please forgive me, I read the main article but haven't had the chance to look over every single comment so this may have been brought up by someone else.
I looked at the chart for what the author believes is a proper representation of the "estimates for the top* MMORPGs in the Western MMO market".
My only real problem with it is this, did the author even look at the games they listed fully, or did they just lump things together based on what they'd heard? The author shows that Star Trek Online is essentially MTX only with no subs.
Wrong.
STO has a subscription a AND microtransaction set up. A simple look at the STO site shows you. Now, while adding in the money that subs bring in for STO only strengthens the authors overall theory, it also makes them look uninformed and sloppy when presenting their "facts" as proof.
It's a small thing to complain about, but it's still a mistake and it makes everything the author said after that list seem less believable, at least to me.
You guys, especially as investors have to decide if you want to make a game which last long and is immersive to hold players for longer with a sub based system or change to a F2P concept which aims rather on higher revenue/profits with a short time view.
You are aswell co-responsible how the mmo industry changes and you decide if you still want to produce mmos with great content or just games which are just Slot-Machines taking away immersion and lowering the content quality. And you guys did figure out why not to get console gamers aswell into the mmo business, mixing them together online.
Of course a F2P works but you will agree that you did start or at least to push a new direction, the directon of a fast decline of games !!
Thats why suddenly a monthly subscription is called outdated, why hundred of million budgets are probably out of question in the future and it is the reason why suddenly short time concepts with clever and sometims already borderline marketing/revenue ideas are rather aimed at and the clock in the mmo genre suddenly runs faster.
You are a part of it !
Hopefully ESO will be successfull with its monthly based payment model, because the direction which is the mmo genre going at the moment with their revenue models/payment models is actually disgraceful and the aim for more revenue takes part in the destruction of this genre.
ESO is great for the MMO business and great for MMO players. The hype and dialogue created by the Forbes.com has polarized players and thus created more interest in the game overall than pre-Forbes article. Opinions are opinions - just because one opinion is branded with a Forbes name - doesn't mean it has any more merit than a guy who just picked up his/her first MMO and played it for the first time and went to forum page to post his thoughts, i.e. http://mmorpgforums.com/forums/elder-scrolls.40/ This article raises more awareness for the game, which translates into buzz, which translates into sales. Marketing and PR 101.
The reason EVERYONE get this wrong is because EVERYONE has experience of a market sector that works. They also all have their own opinion. This subject always degrades to reflecting people's own preferences, backed up by a market they have seen it work in.
The CORRECT answer is this: BOTH markets work. There are players that prefer EACH model.
WoW is often cited as an example purely because IT'S MASSIVE and leads the market in the subscription scenario, being far more widely known and successful than most others these days. An MMO such as ESO would be directly setting itself up as competition to WoW for that chunk of the market. Personally I'm ditching WoW with no intent to return, regardless of future content packs. ESO looks to me to be a viable replacement for me.
I'm pretty sure Zenimax will sound the market out thoroughly following their testing, and get a feel for what the majority of the players are happy with in terms of price and subscription. Individual opinions on these forums are thus utterly pointless.
Damn! A sensible post. Please recant immediately sir, and replace with a bigoted rant. You're letting the side down.
I find it funny there wasn't nearly as much complaining about FFXIV's subscriptions as this game, when this game is poised to be much bigger budget, have a lot more content overall, significant updates every 4-6 weeks (per developer interview), and will provide much more replay value and fun factor in the long term. People get a clue. If any game should have a subscription, it should be ESO. I've paid monthly for games that give a quarter as much as this game is promising to give players.
Currently playing: Elder Scrolls Online, Elite: Dangerous | Recently played: FFXIV, Rift, LoTRO, Diablo 3, Path of Exile, Guild Wars 2 | Single player RPGs: Dragon Age Inquisition, Skyrim
The truth is you can have sub games that justify their sub price by constantly compelling content updates which are included in the sub price, you can have F2P games which really are free to play if you only want the basic experience. Both those models are fine with me. Then you have your sub games that only give a yearly expansion you have to pay extra for or your F2P models that nickle and dime you for things you actually do need to play the game properly like extra hotbars or reasonable bag space. I hate both those models.
The fault of the Forbes article is saying "Sub is bad!" which is ridiculous. There's no reason a good game can't thrive and be loved by its playerbase with a sub and a bad game will be a bad game no matter what payment model it uses. Sure bad games can sometimes be financially successful with slot machine mechanics and other things which exploit some players' base greed but onl a complete non-gamer or fool would argue for more of those type of games.
Here is the thing though; excluding WoW, no AAA game accomplishes that feat. The empirical evidence indicates that a subscription only system is not a viable long term business plan for a MMO with a AAA budget. It's not a question of whether a game eventually adopts a hybrid model, it's only a question of how long it takes. If you think ESO and Wildstar don't already have at least tentative plans for what their Freemium systems would look like, I want to know what you are smoking.
You cannot state as fact that a subscription only system isn't viable while excluding the most successful MMO to date, which happens to be sub based. Eve Online is also a sub based and it's shown growth with nearly the same age as WoW.
As much as people hate on WoW, the game was incredibly polished, the combat was tight and the animations where very smooth and seemed to work with the skills. They had an art style and ran with it, successfully. They had a massive amount of lore to use and they used it well. The writing was superb. The game was a masterpiece and set the standard for the next few years (Now we just get alpha/beta versions of games and a years worth of fixes) It's hard to have a semi-intelligent conversation with anyone who wasn't/isn't in awe of how well the game was polished out of the gate - save launch problems which are unpredictable.
As many have said before, which is why it's so surprising it has to be repeated, it doesn't matter how a game company chooses to charge for the game and whether it is sub or MTX based, it comes down to the quality of said game and it's entertainment value.
If anything, I think we should be excluding those games which quickly followed and seemingly attempted to emulate World of Warcraft's playstyle, UI and in-game systems. Those games are the outliers who attempted, in a way, to repackage and rebrand a current title.
We've seen better empirical evidence that MTX style revenue models have been used to save poorly made MMO's that were originally sub-based. This doesn't say anything about which model is better, what it does say is that the games that failed failed due to their gameplay or quality.
What you're doing is taking correlation and superimposing it as causation, which is an ever increasing flaw in most arguments today.
That is just plain wrong. The emprical evidence - over a decade's worth of it - clearly demonstrates the complete opposite.
WoW, Eve, AC1, FFXI, DAoC, UO.. and some others I'm forgetting at the moment.. all have maintained subs for near or even over a decade already... despite not having "frequent content updates".
Other MMOs, such as AO, LoTRO, EQ1/EQ2, and so on... all maintained subs for a number of years... despite not having consistent content updates included in the sub fee. Many of those listed have gone hybrid, and maintain a sub option, which is still very popular among the players.
I said with a AAA budget. Nothing in your post contradicts my statement. What does every one of the games you list as still being sub only have in common? Tiny budgets by today's standards. Hell, other than WoW, most of the rest don't even have enough players to justify the expense of converting to Freemium. They are games on life support, left running only because the costs of doing so are minimal with the level of support they receive. (Eve being the only exception to that logic, it might do fine in a freemium transition.)
Nobody is saying there shouldn't be a sub option. In games that include it, it is consistently the best experience. I personally never play a game without subbing. But the data in the market is clear. With the amount of money they are spending to make these games, the amount of revenue they will get long term from staying exclusively subscription based is not sufficient to justify the investment. Given the unmitigated success of freemium conversions for major games that start to bleed subs, it is a question of when, not if. The best MMO made in the last decade might manage to last a year before going Freemium, but unless the developer decides life support or death are preferable to change, it will happen. It's not a quality issue, the market has fundamentally changed.
Originally posted by Quesa
You cannot state as fact that a subscription only system isn't viable while excluding the most successful MMO to date, which happens to be sub based. Eve Online is also a sub based and it's shown growth with nearly the same age as WoW.
As much as people hate on WoW, the game was incredibly polished, the combat was tight and the animations where very smooth and seemed to work with the skills. They had an art style and ran with it, successfully. They had a massive amount of lore to use and they used it well. The writing was superb. The game was a masterpiece and set the standard for the next few years (Now we just get alpha/beta versions of games and a years worth of fixes) It's hard to have a semi-intelligent conversation with anyone who wasn't/isn't in awe of how well the game was polished out of the gate - save launch problems which are unpredictable.
As many have said before, which is why it's so surprising it has to be repeated, it doesn't matter how a game company chooses to charge for the game and whether it is sub or MTX based, it comes down to the quality of said game and it's entertainment value.
If anything, I think we should be excluding those games which quickly followed and seemingly attempted to emulate World of Warcraft's playstyle, UI and in-game systems. Those games are the outliers who attempted, in a way, to repackage and rebrand a current title.
We've seen better empirical evidence that MTX style revenue models have been used to save poorly made MMO's that were originally sub-based. This doesn't say anything about which model is better, what it does say is that the games that failed failed due to their gameplay or quality.
What you're doing is taking correlation and superimposing it as causation, which is an ever increasing flaw in most arguments today.
Easier argument first; my statement was about AAA games. That isn't Eve. A game with the budget of a TOR or ESO that only had Eve's numbers, even if they have seen steady growth, would have either converted to freemium or shut down inside of six months. When comparing things, it helps to compare things that are actually similar.
I understand from your post that you love WoW, and in the context of the fundamentally immature market it was released into, it was extremely impressive, lightyears beyond anything else available. Which is exactly why it was so successful, it was like a major league baseball team coming into a town that only had third rate little league squads. But let's be clear, it was mostly impressive because of how lacking the competition was, not because it was some masterpiece. They were a MLB team, but they were no Yankees. Compare pretty much any element in the game which it had in common with offline RPGs, and there were substantially better games released as much as ten years earlier. The only exception being the graphics, where offline games had only been better for a couple of years.
The issue here has absolutely nothing to do with quality. If WoW hadn't been released when it was, and the vanilla version were released today, it would be freemium within six months. The only thing which keeps the behemoth running on subs at this point is the people who are unwilling to give up a decade of time invested in the game.
What all you people who try to point to WoW's success to justify the subscription only model fail to take into account is the way the market has changed. When WoW came out, subscription was the norm. You subbed, or you didn't play MMOs. And the number of options in the market was tiny. Now, the number of options is huge, and almost everything that is more than half a year old has a free option. And there are several games which, by pre-WoW standards, are massive runaway successes. Very few rational people are going to stay subscribed to a game when they finished all of it's content, and there are a mountain of other games that they haven't finished yet. That only happens with extremely loyal customers, and that level of loyalty is hard to build in the amount of time it takes to finish the launch content in recent MMOs. It's not a quality issue, it's a quantity issue.
If the issue were quality, these games wouldn't be converting to freemium *after* most of their subscribers finish the content. They would be shutting the doors entirely because most of the subscribers wouldn't be bothering to finish the content.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
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please, just look at all these AAA games that have gone F2P...... rift, swtor, war, aoc and so on... does anyone really think these two new games are going to be any different?? what was that tripple A game that came out not so long ago? secret world was it? didnt funcom say that they would not go F2P in any near future and VOILA 2 months later it goes f2p!
there is no game speaking in defence of the subsription model that i know of.
but hey i bet they are going to earn the most money this way and thats all its about nowdays (hench why indi games are so popular if you ask me, since you dont feel as riped off), start of with a pricetag of 60$ because heeeey its a AAA... and a sub fee of 15$ for the first 3 months.. then when u have lol'd ur way through the game they make it fp2 with exp boosts and instant leveling for a few bucks..
Welcome to the new eara of mmo's!
# inglish
That is just plain wrong. The emprical evidence - over a decade's worth of it - clearly demonstrates the complete opposite.
WoW, Eve, AC1, FFXI, DAoC, UO.. and some others I'm forgetting at the moment.. all have maintained subs for near or even over a decade already... despite not having "frequent content updates".
Other MMOs, such as AO, LoTRO, EQ1/EQ2, and so on... all maintained subs for a number of years... despite not having consistent content updates included in the sub fee. Many of those listed have gone hybrid, and maintain a sub option, which is still very popular among the players.
Lineage 2 went for many years before making the switch to full F2P, and it's too bad they didn't keep the sub option, 'cause I'd have definitely been on board with that.
The problem is in the way they're designed.
The problem with more "modern" MMOs not being feasible as sub-based (or at least not solely sub-based) is that their designs are not conducive to it. Put simply they're "over" too quickly. Progress is way too fast, rewards are handed out far too quickly and easily, and people are reaching "the end" within their first month or two in many cases.
Older MMOs were designed as long-term hobbies. Much as one might play golf, or go bowling, or engage in other activities with an attached cost, MMOs were designed as long-term activities, with long-term goals that kept them engaged and playing for a longer period of time. They also fostered larger and (with exceptions) stronger communities, which play(ed) a huge role in keeping people entertained. Unlike newer MMOs which are ever more about "Me", older MMOs were much more about "We".
Developers didn't shy away from requiring players to cooperate/interact and, perhaps more importantly, the players didn't shy away from it either. In fact, as far back as I can recall, it was never even something players even thought about, much less fretted over. Grouping up to do things just came naturally. I remember logging in to AC2 back during its original release, saying in local chat "Anyone feel like running some Vaults?". Within seconds, there were multiple "Yeah", "Sure", "Okay". Moments later, we were grouped up and deciding which one to knock out first. You'd see similar groups being announced constantly in local and world chat. There was no fretting or fussing or stomping of feet. I never saw people saying "you can solo it, just level up more first". There was no need for "dungeon finders", etc. It was just what you did. People were social and took to it naturally.
From the perspective of someone who's played old-school MMOs and carried on over into the so-called "modern" ones, I've seen how developers have systematically undermined or ripped out the things that kept people playing for years, and replaced them with things that barely keep them playing for more than a couple months.
This is why subs seldom work in newer MMOs. They're not designed for it. They're designed for frequent, "me"-centric, easy gratification, not for long-term progression and community building.
At this point, it would also require a developer to understand the player they're trying to cater to, and stick to that; avoid casting the biggest possible net, trying to get "everyone" (many of whom will leave due to boredom after they've churned through your content), and start focusing on a more specific portion.
If I want a world in which people can purchase success and power with cash, I'll play Real Life. Keep Virtual Worlds Virtual!
The sub model won't help... Players such as myself, who has a mild interest in ESO and was planning on checking it, will now skip it completely.
I think the MMO industry for the type of games we are talking about here have moved on from subs. It's all about F2P now. Either use it or have your game skipped. I think the exception to the rule here is a blizzard game. If a WoW 2 or Titan comes out, I think they will sub it - unless they figure they can make more money via F2P Microtrans.
The Game will not survive as a sub, ESO is banking on the name to carry it. Its Graphics are nice but its combat is choppy and repetitive. It lacks any real end game. its Slow and I fell asleep when playing it.
Lets not forget it will not only be a Subscription based game but also Micro payments, for skins and such, imo that is bullsh*t seeing as if your going to pay to play you shouldn't have to pay even more for skins ect.
From my experiences as an MMORPG it sucks. You guys should see the complaints in the Beta Forums as well as the Testers who have stopped testing all together.
These projects take multiple years to develop. After working on Skyrim so long, I imagine the dev team at Bethesda Game Studios was probably quite pleased to have a change of scenery and get back to the Fallout property.
They also didn't have development costs into the hundreds of millions.
I remember the guy that started cryptic did an interview prior to City of Heroes being released, and was asked how much would one expect to need if they wanted to enter the MMO market, he said around 20 million.
Blizzard didn't spend much more than that. UO, AO, AC, DAoC, L2, none of those games cost much more than that.
There's nothing wrong with subs. It's subs plus excessive development costs, and that was a point the forbes guy was trying to get across.
WoW is an anomaly, ESO is not going to carry millions of subs. Only two games managed that, WoW and lineage 2, and lineage 2 only had so many subs because it was a hugely popular game in the east. Most MMO's seem to be lucky when they can hit the 500k mark, and they don't typically spend 100 plus million to make the game.
Zeni is banking on the popularity of the single player games and the console market; with a game that really isn't anything like the single player versions and a market of gamers who aren't used to paying a sub for an individual game and already have to pay a sub to play online with their console.
I don't care which model is better, how other companies do with their payment models and so on. I just want to play my games and i absolutely favour monthly subscription over any other method for a number of reasons. First, the community in these games is better when not every idiot and kiddy can get in. Second MTX is usually a major rip off, a perfect example is SOE's games tradecard system which speculates on peoples stupidity. I know people who spent 1000's of bucks to get 'lootcards' for rare stuff in game. Usually in F2P/MTX games you end up paying A LOT MORE than in subscription games if you don't behave yourself and be very disciplined.
IMO using a subscription model is a wise choice. Now all i hope is that ESO doesn't implement a 2 class society like EQI/II where only 10% of the subscribers being in uber guilds can get to the real good stuff and all others paying the same are left out in the rain (Note: this is part of what people call sonification and IMO the reason for the relative unsuccesful games).
ESO wont be a disaster because of its subscription model, lol
It will be a disaster because every mmo released in the past 10 years have been a disaster and there is no reason to beleive this will be different.
ESO isnt a bigger IP that starwars, so unless the game has content to last more than a month... well, lets just say..
By the time the next wow expansion is out, it will be forgotton
While the quality of the game is undoubtedly crucial, rigorously adhering to an outdated financial model can and will ruin a game. e.g The Secret World said they'd never go F2P... And even SWTOR had to go F2P. Even, dare I say it, there's signs that WOW is slowly sliding that way. When gamers have so much selection, and so many great games, it's not reasonalbe to expect them to stay in one game as long as they used to. Yes, people are still devoted to WOW, but that's because of the community they grew up with in the game and, at the time, there was much less selection of games (there were still many, but nothing like the numbers of today). And, with so many other F2P games of quality, what incentive do people have to pay a subscription?
For my money, however, a hybrid model makes the most sense. Give people what they want, try to cater to as large a portion of the marketplace as you can, with as many ways to play as is reasonable. Today's world is all about 'having it your way' (hope I didn't violate any copyright laws with that). The responsibility should be on the developer to entice all players to pay a similar minimal amount to support the game. For some players that will be via subs, and for some it will be via mtx (of course, there will always be some who chose not to pay).
What a load of nonsense.
The reason EVERYONE get this wrong is because EVERYONE has experience of a market sector that works. They also all have their own opinion. This subject always degrades to reflecting people's own preferences, backed up by a market they have seen it work in.
The CORRECT answer is this: BOTH markets work. There are players that prefer EACH model.
WoW is often cited as an example purely because IT'S MASSIVE and leads the market in the subscription scenario, being far more widely known and successful than most others these days. An MMO such as ESO would be directly setting itself up as competition to WoW for that chunk of the market. Personally I'm ditching WoW with no intent to return, regardless of future content packs. ESO looks to me to be a viable replacement for me.
I'm pretty sure Zenimax will sound the market out thoroughly following their testing, and get a feel for what the majority of the players are happy with in terms of price and subscription. Individual opinions on these forums are thus utterly pointless.
For the records, I've never maintained long term interest in a game with in-game shops. It undermines hard work in the game and any feeling of accomplishment. Thus devalues the entire experience for me.
Subscription based games I'm always happy with on the basis subscriptions help to pay for further development and keeps the game fresher. I played WoW for many years before deciding more recently I'd had enough of it, as it began catering way too heavily for the top 10% / elitists, leaving many people I played with feeling substandard, fed up and quitting. As those I liked to play with left, I too left.
Please forgive me, I read the main article but haven't had the chance to look over every single comment so this may have been brought up by someone else.
I looked at the chart for what the author believes is a proper representation of the "estimates for the top* MMORPGs in the Western MMO market".
My only real problem with it is this, did the author even look at the games they listed fully, or did they just lump things together based on what they'd heard? The author shows that Star Trek Online is essentially MTX only with no subs.
Wrong.
STO has a subscription a AND microtransaction set up. A simple look at the STO site shows you. Now, while adding in the money that subs bring in for STO only strengthens the authors overall theory, it also makes them look uninformed and sloppy when presenting their "facts" as proof.
It's a small thing to complain about, but it's still a mistake and it makes everything the author said after that list seem less believable, at least to me.
You guys, especially as investors have to decide if you want to make a game which last long and is immersive to hold players for longer with a sub based system or change to a F2P concept which aims rather on higher revenue/profits with a short time view.
You are aswell co-responsible how the mmo industry changes and you decide if you still want to produce mmos with great content or just games which are just Slot-Machines taking away immersion and lowering the content quality. And you guys did figure out why not to get console gamers aswell into the mmo business, mixing them together online.
Of course a F2P works but you will agree that you did start or at least to push a new direction, the directon of a fast decline of games !!
Thats why suddenly a monthly subscription is called outdated, why hundred of million budgets are probably out of question in the future and it is the reason why suddenly short time concepts with clever and sometims already borderline marketing/revenue ideas are rather aimed at and the clock in the mmo genre suddenly runs faster.
You are a part of it !
Hopefully ESO will be successfull with its monthly based payment model, because the direction which is the mmo genre going at the moment with their revenue models/payment models is actually disgraceful and the aim for more revenue takes part in the destruction of this genre.
ESO is great for the MMO business and great for MMO players. The hype and dialogue created by the Forbes.com has polarized players and thus created more interest in the game overall than pre-Forbes article. Opinions are opinions - just because one opinion is branded with a Forbes name - doesn't mean it has any more merit than a guy who just picked up his/her first MMO and played it for the first time and went to forum page to post his thoughts, i.e. http://mmorpgforums.com/forums/elder-scrolls.40/ This article raises more awareness for the game, which translates into buzz, which translates into sales. Marketing and PR 101.
Damn! A sensible post. Please recant immediately sir, and replace with a bigoted rant. You're letting the side down.
Currently playing: Elder Scrolls Online, Elite: Dangerous | Recently played: FFXIV, Rift, LoTRO, Diablo 3, Path of Exile, Guild Wars 2 | Single player RPGs: Dragon Age Inquisition, Skyrim
You cannot state as fact that a subscription only system isn't viable while excluding the most successful MMO to date, which happens to be sub based. Eve Online is also a sub based and it's shown growth with nearly the same age as WoW.
As much as people hate on WoW, the game was incredibly polished, the combat was tight and the animations where very smooth and seemed to work with the skills. They had an art style and ran with it, successfully. They had a massive amount of lore to use and they used it well. The writing was superb. The game was a masterpiece and set the standard for the next few years (Now we just get alpha/beta versions of games and a years worth of fixes) It's hard to have a semi-intelligent conversation with anyone who wasn't/isn't in awe of how well the game was polished out of the gate - save launch problems which are unpredictable.
As many have said before, which is why it's so surprising it has to be repeated, it doesn't matter how a game company chooses to charge for the game and whether it is sub or MTX based, it comes down to the quality of said game and it's entertainment value.
If anything, I think we should be excluding those games which quickly followed and seemingly attempted to emulate World of Warcraft's playstyle, UI and in-game systems. Those games are the outliers who attempted, in a way, to repackage and rebrand a current title.
We've seen better empirical evidence that MTX style revenue models have been used to save poorly made MMO's that were originally sub-based. This doesn't say anything about which model is better, what it does say is that the games that failed failed due to their gameplay or quality.
What you're doing is taking correlation and superimposing it as causation, which is an ever increasing flaw in most arguments today.
I said with a AAA budget. Nothing in your post contradicts my statement. What does every one of the games you list as still being sub only have in common? Tiny budgets by today's standards. Hell, other than WoW, most of the rest don't even have enough players to justify the expense of converting to Freemium. They are games on life support, left running only because the costs of doing so are minimal with the level of support they receive. (Eve being the only exception to that logic, it might do fine in a freemium transition.)
Nobody is saying there shouldn't be a sub option. In games that include it, it is consistently the best experience. I personally never play a game without subbing. But the data in the market is clear. With the amount of money they are spending to make these games, the amount of revenue they will get long term from staying exclusively subscription based is not sufficient to justify the investment. Given the unmitigated success of freemium conversions for major games that start to bleed subs, it is a question of when, not if. The best MMO made in the last decade might manage to last a year before going Freemium, but unless the developer decides life support or death are preferable to change, it will happen. It's not a quality issue, the market has fundamentally changed.
Easier argument first; my statement was about AAA games. That isn't Eve. A game with the budget of a TOR or ESO that only had Eve's numbers, even if they have seen steady growth, would have either converted to freemium or shut down inside of six months. When comparing things, it helps to compare things that are actually similar.
I understand from your post that you love WoW, and in the context of the fundamentally immature market it was released into, it was extremely impressive, lightyears beyond anything else available. Which is exactly why it was so successful, it was like a major league baseball team coming into a town that only had third rate little league squads. But let's be clear, it was mostly impressive because of how lacking the competition was, not because it was some masterpiece. They were a MLB team, but they were no Yankees. Compare pretty much any element in the game which it had in common with offline RPGs, and there were substantially better games released as much as ten years earlier. The only exception being the graphics, where offline games had only been better for a couple of years.
The issue here has absolutely nothing to do with quality. If WoW hadn't been released when it was, and the vanilla version were released today, it would be freemium within six months. The only thing which keeps the behemoth running on subs at this point is the people who are unwilling to give up a decade of time invested in the game.
What all you people who try to point to WoW's success to justify the subscription only model fail to take into account is the way the market has changed. When WoW came out, subscription was the norm. You subbed, or you didn't play MMOs. And the number of options in the market was tiny. Now, the number of options is huge, and almost everything that is more than half a year old has a free option. And there are several games which, by pre-WoW standards, are massive runaway successes. Very few rational people are going to stay subscribed to a game when they finished all of it's content, and there are a mountain of other games that they haven't finished yet. That only happens with extremely loyal customers, and that level of loyalty is hard to build in the amount of time it takes to finish the launch content in recent MMOs. It's not a quality issue, it's a quantity issue.
If the issue were quality, these games wouldn't be converting to freemium *after* most of their subscribers finish the content. They would be shutting the doors entirely because most of the subscribers wouldn't be bothering to finish the content.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.