B2P will never sustain an MMO's financial needs in the long run. Because B2P is a one-time cost for the customer as well as a one-time gain for the seller, BUT the costs of an MMO are ON-GOING.
So you buy the game and pay NCSoft (for example) $50 bucks. That's fine. Lots of people do that and NCSoft has a lot of money for GW2. BUT THEN WHAT?
2 years later, all those guys still have GW2 because they brought it, and they aren't giving NCSoft any more $50 amounts. Meanwhile, NCSoft has server costs, customer service, update costs, live story costs, and storage costs. And these keep costing NCSoft lots of money every month. Yet no new money is coming in, because everyone already brought the game (besides a very small trickle of new buyers). Compare this to a sub game where in two years, any customer still around would have paid them $300 by then, which is SIX times more than $50. Customer retention would have to be pretty bad at that point to make B2P more profitable.
Now, you might say "But GW2 is doing very well! So you're full of it!", but look at the SOLUTION that GW2 actually implemented to this conundrum in reality. There's a reason why all the new cosmetics are cash-shop only and the cash shop is getting pushed more and more. Yea, it's not really P2W (unless you view fashion as winning in your P2W definition), but neither is Path of Exile pr the other (admittingly few, but whatever) F2P games out there where the cash shop is primarily cosmetic, and they don't have a box price on top of things. If B2P was really earning GW2 enough money by itself, why the cash shop push?
GW2's business model at this point is practically the same as a purely cosmetic cash shop F2P game with a box price tacked on top. When you buy that box, you aren't buying the ENTIRE game, but instead are just buying a large chunk of the game with all the new cosmetics in the cash shop just like several F2P games out there have. At that point, could it really be considered B2P in spirit? Buy-To-Play implies buying the WHOLE game with nothing locked behind the cash shop, doesn't it?
I wouldn't be too surprised if GW2's total cash shop revenue overtakes its total box sale revenue, if it hasn't already (it probably has, already)
Any other B2P game will likely suffer the same fate. Because, again, it is fiscally impossible for B2P to support an MMO in the long run (by itself without on-going sources of revenue, like a cash shop).
.......at any rate, as kinda iterated every where else by several people, I don't think even Buy-To-Play would have saved Wildstar. Sub, F2P, or presumably B2P, a bad game is a bad game, and the only way to really make a bad game a financial success is to go the "Whaling" route (it'll still die if you do that, perhaps even faster than usual, but at least you'd make a ton of money before it does)
Did it really work for TSW? I mean, sure, I guess the game probably turned a profit in its lifetime, but last I heard it wasn't in a particularly healthy financial state at the moment.
Even TSW has a more salvageable core game than Wildstar though, IMHO.
Did it really work for TSW? I mean, sure, I guess the game probably turned a profit in its lifetime, but last I heard it wasn't in a particularly healthy financial state at the moment.
Even TSW has a more salvageable core game than Wildstar though, IMHO.
Did TSW shut down? if not then yes it worked for TSW. Till companies pull the plug on servers... all you can do is speculate.
Comments
B2P will never sustain an MMO's financial needs in the long run. Because B2P is a one-time cost for the customer as well as a one-time gain for the seller, BUT the costs of an MMO are ON-GOING.
So you buy the game and pay NCSoft (for example) $50 bucks. That's fine. Lots of people do that and NCSoft has a lot of money for GW2. BUT THEN WHAT?
2 years later, all those guys still have GW2 because they brought it, and they aren't giving NCSoft any more $50 amounts. Meanwhile, NCSoft has server costs, customer service, update costs, live story costs, and storage costs. And these keep costing NCSoft lots of money every month. Yet no new money is coming in, because everyone already brought the game (besides a very small trickle of new buyers). Compare this to a sub game where in two years, any customer still around would have paid them $300 by then, which is SIX times more than $50. Customer retention would have to be pretty bad at that point to make B2P more profitable.
Now, you might say "But GW2 is doing very well! So you're full of it!", but look at the SOLUTION that GW2 actually implemented to this conundrum in reality. There's a reason why all the new cosmetics are cash-shop only and the cash shop is getting pushed more and more. Yea, it's not really P2W (unless you view fashion as winning in your P2W definition), but neither is Path of Exile pr the other (admittingly few, but whatever) F2P games out there where the cash shop is primarily cosmetic, and they don't have a box price on top of things. If B2P was really earning GW2 enough money by itself, why the cash shop push?
GW2's business model at this point is practically the same as a purely cosmetic cash shop F2P game with a box price tacked on top. When you buy that box, you aren't buying the ENTIRE game, but instead are just buying a large chunk of the game with all the new cosmetics in the cash shop just like several F2P games out there have. At that point, could it really be considered B2P in spirit? Buy-To-Play implies buying the WHOLE game with nothing locked behind the cash shop, doesn't it?
I wouldn't be too surprised if GW2's total cash shop revenue overtakes its total box sale revenue, if it hasn't already (it probably has, already)
Any other B2P game will likely suffer the same fate. Because, again, it is fiscally impossible for B2P to support an MMO in the long run (by itself without on-going sources of revenue, like a cash shop).
.......at any rate, as kinda iterated every where else by several people, I don't think even Buy-To-Play would have saved Wildstar. Sub, F2P, or presumably B2P, a bad game is a bad game, and the only way to really make a bad game a financial success is to go the "Whaling" route (it'll still die if you do that, perhaps even faster than usual, but at least you'd make a ton of money before it does)
B2P + Cash shop. That is going to work for Wildstar. It worked for TSW and yes it is working for GW2.
Did it really work for TSW? I mean, sure, I guess the game probably turned a profit in its lifetime, but last I heard it wasn't in a particularly healthy financial state at the moment.
Even TSW has a more salvageable core game than Wildstar though, IMHO.
Did TSW shut down? if not then yes it worked for TSW. Till companies pull the plug on servers... all you can do is speculate.
Hugh Shelton was, the / a lead developer also left - see earlier thread.
NCSoft are - essentially - also the devrlopers; they bought Carbine and funded the last 7 years.
Did he give an excuse as to why he's leaving?
If he said "the game isn't doing as well as I hoped so I'm outta this sinking ship" he'd get my respect.