One poster summed it up best. It keeps happening because people keep supporting it.Why are people so dumb or are they that dumb?
I feel the answer is obvious>>>>boredom.People do lot's of stupid things because they are bored,buy snacks they don't need,light u pa cigarette,buys games they really would not normally buy or purchase phone apps just because they have phone and are bored.
If you asked someone 20 years ago if they would buy games to play on a phone,the majority would scowl and say "only an idiot".People used to do their homework before making a purchase,now they see some advertising video and right away have to have it ,even unfinished and pre purchase.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
"And if you are a whale, we take Facebook stalking to a whole new level. You spend enough money, we will friend you. Not officially, but with a fake account. Maybe it’s a hot girl who shows too much cleavage? That’s us. We learned as much before friending you, but once you let us in, we have the keys to the kingdom. We will use everything to figure out how to sell to you. I remember we had a whale in one game that loved American Football despite living in Saudi Arabia. We built several custom virtual items in both his favorite team colors and their opponents, just to sell to this one guy. You better believe he bought them. And these are just vanity items. We will flat out adjust a game to make it behave just like it did last time the person bought IAP. Was a level too hard? Well now they are all that same difficulty"
Now do we want to continue to have our personal lives sniffed around just so some CEOs can make moire money off crappy games? Seriously is F2P better? This proves what lenghts these companies go through just to get you to buy shit in their game. That VS a game that you pay a $15 a month sub that wonders what you want to do in game and presents more content in game just to keep you subbing to the game? Do I think every game is worth $15 a month? No but some are worth $9/$10 a month easy. Yea you can complain well I got X amount of subs to deal with. I can play a game for Free. Guess what if these CEOs find out that you are playing for Free they will find a way to throw a wall up against you so you do pay. Well yes you can go else where but wait the other CEOs are sharing that information on you and will do the same. Again Whats better Paying a Sub and not worrying about that and the CEOs only caring about keeping you subbed to the game or making you into their Whale?
Cash shops are external factors playing a role in gameplay. The freemium standard is lower because its free. Its always going to be slippery slope of marketing the cash shop through gameplay vs. providing quality cohesive product for the average gamer.
One poster summed it up best. It keeps happening because people keep supporting it.Why are people so dumb or are they that dumb?
I feel the answer is obvious>>>>boredom.People do lot's of stupid things because they are bored,buy snacks they don't need,light u pa cigarette,buys games they really would not normally buy or purchase phone apps just because they have phone and are bored.
If you asked someone 20 years ago if they would buy games to play on a phone,the majority would scowl and say "only an idiot".People used to do their homework before making a purchase,now they see some advertising video and right away have to have it ,even unfinished and pre purchase.
The answer is yes, we are that dumb. That being said, 100 million people would not BUY Candy Crush. Just wouldn't happen. Even at 99 cents.
Cash shops are external factors playing a role in gameplay. The freemium standard is lower because its free. Its always going to be slippery slope of marketing the cash shop through gameplay vs. providing quality cohesive product for the average gamer.
Yes it is a slippery slop with Marketing. However lets add to the fact that games will start to notice that people like me a refusing F2P games because I REFUSE to spend extra money in a cash shop to go faster because Mike over here without a job wants to play for free. I am done supporting people who do not want to support their habits. With that said so I see cash shops going a way anytime soon? No. And if Server Transfers, faction changes and the like are considered cash shop revenue you will see a lot of money form cash shops because people like me are stupid and spend $600 on server transfers. Will I spend money on FFXIV's egi rings to have a egi ring on my finger? No. Will I buy a character change? Yep. The only good thing about WOW's and FFXIVs cash shops is they are not a large focus of development which is why I Tolerate them more. In a true F2P game? NOPE. Heck I can even Tolerate WOW's F2P scheme because you still have to sub its just someone buying a sub for gold vs Gold Sellers involved.
I will not do AA's Cash Shop ever again, SWTORs, LORTOs,and so on.
Many of these new business models really do suck shit. Suck shit for the consumer. As far as I'm concerned "F2P" is a negative to gaming. Everything is designed around monetization, it's not good for a "game". Too many sleaze ball companies and business models coming to fruition.
I've tried a couple F2P games in the past and I came to the conclusion that I won't support this type of a business model. I won't support it period.
What I want is what I've always wanted and what I expect no matter the kind or type of product.
I want an honest product for an honest price.
One thing I feel I can say with confidence, is that, "I don't believe that F2P is going to give us better games".
I completely agree with this. F2P will not give us better games, having more of the same old garbage does not make the MMORRPG genera Better. Yes fewer games with in-depth game play, fewer choices but each game was different they were not WOW clones, and Subscription base to support the game was much better than what we have now. Right now players hop from game to game never making any commitment, it makes it harder to find players to play with, its also harder to get friends to join a game with us because we been doing nothing but game hopping every few months. Now I did Hop from UO started in 1998 to a brand new MMO in 2003 called SWG, Stayed in SWG until Summer of 2004 when I got into FFXI then when WOW came out in Nov of 2004 I got a copy in Dec of 2004. I ended up not jumping or quitting for 4 years. I always found games better when I played for a long period of time. Yes I tried other games, EQ, EQ2, AC but never got into them like UO, SWG, and WOW.
I am always willing to pay a Subscription for a good MMORPG. I will not pay a Subscription or play for free a crappy game and many F2P games fall into that category.
I totally agree with some of what you are (both) saying. F2P/P2P/Boxed Sales/Subs/Expansions etc are never going to give us better games. Doesn't it seem a bit silly to be looking at how games are monetized/packaged as a method to determine game quality. It is like saying, 'If only the box were blue... the game would be better, but since it is red, the game sucks.'
Game quality is going to come from game design, not from the monetization or packaging. Once you start focusing on that, you might be able to find some better games.
That's not really where I'm coming from. It's the mindset, the mindset of the companies themselves.
Of course every business wants to make money that's a given:
But, is the company in business to create great games, games for their love of games and to make a nice profit along the way.
or
Is the company in business to makes wads of cash. They really don't give a fuck about games, they don't care what kind of crap they produce, what kind of corners they cut, what kind of monetization schemes they put in place. It all about bringing in cash, damn the games.
I know what kind of a company I want to support, and it goes for more than just games.
and that attitude is exactly why most f2p games fail. and that is an insight view from a gamer.
Define "fail"?
The developers/publishers make money. It is a win. Because it is F2P, the consumer doesn't get a say in weather or not a game was fail or not.
Fail, if nobody logs in to play the game. It's done no matter the model, that decided by the individual player.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
You guys are funny. What about F2P games that include subs? Or, sub games that have cash shops and other elements used in F2P games. Everyone is chasing a dream in their imagination, the perfect game...good luck with that.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
You guys are funny. What about F2P games that include subs? Or, sub games that have cash shops and other elements used in F2P games. Everyone is chasing a dream in their imagination, the perfect game...good luck with that.
Let's go back to the first half of the 90's.... before the internet had much of, if any effect on development.
When a game was in development:
Do you think the developers spent a lot of time thinking about how they were going to monetize their game?
or
Do you think the developers spent pretty much all their time, just trying to make a great game?
The only monetization for your game back in those days was how many copies you sold.
I find it kind of funny that so many people think this attitude and type of marketing has anything to do with F2P. Even if the F2P model had never existed, companies would still be using these tactics to get more people to subscribe to their game for longer periods of time or dropping money on expansions regularly. All it takes for millions of players is the right carrot on the right size stick and people will flock to it. Payment model is irrelevant.
Do you think Blizzard cares about making the best game possible? Of course they don't. They care about putting in just enough shinies to make people feel like it is worth paying for, then marketing the hell out of it, and raking in the cash.
Same goes for just about any product / market. Do you think our phones, cars, etc are the best they could possibly be right now? They aren't, and they never will be, so long as people are willing to pay full price for "good enough" because it happens to be the latest model. Why would they bother investing the time, effort, and resources into making them the best possible with our current technology when the majority of people will keep forking over money for sub-par products instead of demanding top of the line or not at all.
I don't get the logic on how this applies to F2P exclusively. Because there is revenue stream B, does that mean the corporation is going to abandon revenue stream A? If you tip a waitress will she refuse her paycheck? Any and all corporations will make the best profit from you that they can.
This doesn't apply to F2P exclusively... or even very much. This approach to big spenders predates the computer, and could easily be tracked back to Rome (and perhaps further). It has always been in the best interest of the merchant to know as much as possible about their big spenders, and to cater to them in the extreme.
You guys are funny. What about F2P games that include subs? Or, sub games that have cash shops and other elements used in F2P games. Everyone is chasing a dream in their imagination, the perfect game...good luck with that.
Let's go back to the first half of the 90's.... before the internet had much of, if any effect on development.
When a game was in development:
Do you think the developers spent a lot of time thinking about how they were going to monetize their game?
or
Do you think the developers spent pretty much all their time, just trying to make a great game?
The only monetization for your game back in those days was how many copies you sold.
Yes I think almost every decision that was made was weighed against whether or not it would add more money (subs) or lose money and whether it justified the cost of adding. Almost every single decision.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
You guys are funny. What about F2P games that include subs? Or, sub games that have cash shops and other elements used in F2P games. Everyone is chasing a dream in their imagination, the perfect game...good luck with that.
Let's go back to the first half of the 90's.... before the internet had much of, if any effect on development.
When a game was in development:
Do you think the developers spent a lot of time thinking about how they were going to monetize their game?
or
Do you think the developers spent pretty much all their time, just trying to make a great game?
The only monetization for your game back in those days was how many copies you sold.
Yes I think almost every decision that was made was weighed against whether or not it would add more money (subs) or lose money and whether it justified the cost of adding. Almost every single decision.
What? Are you trying to tell me that Madden came out with a new version every year just to try to get my money? It wasn't because they had made a great new game? I feel betrayed....
Free to play games and microtransactions are bad for gamers and bad for devs. I avoid both like the plague. Single player games and sub MMOs are what I support. I will never pay for DLC or for a microtransaction. Ever.
So if you play 100 single player games and sub MMOs, and I play 100 f2ps, I guarantee you will spend 100x more than I will.
Summary: Unsurprisingly, F2P is not about the quality of the game, but rather getting you to buy stuff. But the degree to which they research their players is pretty impressive - even going so far as to create a fake facebook profile to get to know one of their whales better so that they can cater to them more.
The article is discussing mobile games, though successful business practices are often adopted by others, because money. And a lot of this is already being done by F2P MMO devs too no doubt, and supporting this financial model only takes us further down the rabbit hole. It sucks as a gamer, but it sounds like it also sucks for those who work on games - people who want to create something, but are tied to marketing trends and have to either compromise or give up their vision.
Thankfully we've seen a very strong resurgence in single player titles these last few years, and this isn't to say that all F2P is inherently bad, there are various models, but it's impact on game design has been significant imo.
This is, I think, is part of a much broader phenomenon that Michael Sandel calls market thinking, which is turning our civil society into a market society. Gaming and online entertainment is only one sphere. We can see it everywhere these days, so it's not surprising that we find it in f2p games.
Poor whales. You know, the ones who always say "i do what i want with my money", always supporting the wrong side of the spectrum. Now suffer.. In your face, they own you, your money, and your data.
Whales don't care.
but what ever makes you feel better in your own life, I guess.
@Torval, today publishers can choose between taking $500-$1000 from 50k players or taking $50-100 from 500k players. In other words a steady low sub with full access and no cash shop ...or a F2P (trial) with B2P/DLC for new content would always triumph because majority aren't willing to play or pay on P2W games for simple facts like how the majority are not loaded with $ IRL...
We play games to compete with others through playing the game not through our real life wallets.
I find it kind of funny that so many people think this attitude and type of marketing has anything to do with F2P. Even if the F2P model had never existed, companies would still be using these tactics to get more people to subscribe to their game for longer periods of time or dropping money on expansions regularly. All it takes for millions of players is the right carrot on the right size stick and people will flock to it. Payment model is irrelevant.
Do you think Blizzard cares about making the best game possible? Of course they don't. They care about putting in just enough shinies to make people feel like it is worth paying for, then marketing the hell out of it, and raking in the cash.
Same goes for just about any product / market. Do you think our phones, cars, etc are the best they could possibly be right now? They aren't, and they never will be, so long as people are willing to pay full price for "good enough" because it happens to be the latest model. Why would they bother investing the time, effort, and resources into making them the best possible with our current technology when the majority of people will keep forking over money for sub-par products instead of demanding top of the line or not at all.
If you are talking about Blizzard After TBC I would agree with you, however when Blizzard made Vanilla WOW they looked at spending around $60 Million and making the initial investment back on WOW on 500K Subs over the course of a year. HOWEVER that changed during WOTLK they wanted numbers so they dumbed down the game to the point that alls they wanted was numbers.
Now all MMOs are going you look at how these can get more people into their games. This happened with the first MMO, Ultima Online. UO had about 125K players Pre T2A where they added Trammel. If you dont know UO split the world into 2 exact copies, Felucca and Trammel. Felucca being an all open world PVP world and Trammel being all PVE where you could only PVP with Guild Members or with people from other guilds. Other than that the world was PVE. Now they did that because there were so many people wanting a PVE game vs a PVP game. It would help out their subscription numbers and help out with more content development. So what happened when T2A dropped? The Subscriptions doubled from 125K to 250K. Some people say it killed the game and so on however others like myself will say Pub 16 where they changed Resist as well as other skills killed the game. In the end the game changed to get more subs to help out the game. Also Origin at the time was a small company and was looking to do anything to get more people to help grow.
Now why do I say this? Is it different? Yes but why?
First they wanting more subs to grow the company to better support the game. They were not racking in piles of cash and could take the game to the bank laughing at people. Origin's design was to make a game for gamers who like this game. So when people asked for a new zone so explorer Origin made it. The Developer listened to the player base during this time and looked at long term stability of their game. They did not sacrifice their game just to reap in major profits. They also did not design the game with the explicated intention to be the next WOW. No Trion did that with Rift. EA Tried to that that with SWTOR. Zenimax with ESO. Carbine with Wildstar. Turbine with LOTRO. UO, EQ1, E2, AC, FFXI and SWG all were created as a game to stand on its own and have their own niche group of players. None of them were out there looking to make WOW like money. They were designed for Entertainment for a set market of players, Not as 1 game to rule them all.
Now there are games out there that had to make changes to be more like WOW to get enough of a player base to keep the game running. Yes I am talking about FFXIV. FFXIV version 1 was a mess, menu driven combat even later that was changed, real hard controls to get you too and so on. The game had to go F2P just to break even. What happened? The game Shut down for a little over a year and got a make over and became more like WOW. However the design was NEVER to bring in the numbers that WOW Does. SE did it because they didnt and still dont like the shadiness of F2P so they wanted a game they could get around 500K subscription based players and be stable making a profit. Just a few months ago YoshiP was asked about F2P and said that 82% of the player base wants P2P. So guess what? The game is staying P2P even though they could make more with F2P for a short time. It will not however keep the game running for years to come which is what SE wants. They want FFXIV to run for a good 10 years before they even had to consider F2P or shut down.
So yes MMOs want players to subscribe. WHY? It cost money to pay for Developers. It Cost Money to just Develop the game. It cost Money to buy and manage servers. It cost money to Support. So yes ANY game will want money and want to make a profit. The Difference is sub based games that aim for about 500K subs and maintain that that are also happy with that out come, end up with far better and more enjoyable games long term than games Spending big trying to be the next WOW and having to go F2P just because they failed at their goal.
The issue is not that people cannot afford to pay irl at all. They have the time to play and they play the game for a far longer period because it is free and yet at no point do they want to pay for that privilege. This is the crux of the matter people who feel they have every right to play a game for as long as they wish while others foot the bill. So game companies and in some cases they are imo borderline criminally inclined to stalking those who do. The extreme measures they are going to take to attract that whale is chilling..... the facebook example brought a chill down my spine far more scary than any recent horror flick I have watched.
Of course I'm aware of putting any information out there whether deliberately or unwittingly by my idiot relatives exposes me to no end of scrutiny but that companies are creating methods to target specific individuals tells me that there is much mullah to be made here. Otherwise why take such extreme measures and I am honestly disgusted by those players who constantly play games and never think of contributing a single penny to the game they are spending ungodly hours at. Their excuse is that the game company has not entertained me enough or that they make money from others so why should I pay . They are the problem and they are what is exacerbating this problem. As for the whales I cannot fault them as they are actually paying and contributing to the games they enjoy.
There is nothing positive to take from all this just some skeevy thoughts about what lengths these companies are taking but recently the Ashley Madison scandal has taught us about how easy it was to make 95% of the men think that the 5.5 million women registered were real when it was closer to 12,000.
Think hard about what you would like for the game you play and one basic rule I always advocate is that you please support the games you play by paying for them . Don't say your presence is enough because it clearly is not no matter what you might say to justify your freeloading habits.
The issue is not that people cannot afford to pay irl at all. They have the time to play and they play the game for a far longer period because it is free and yet at no point do they want to pay for that privilege. This is the crux of the matter people who feel they have every right to play a game for as long as they wish while others foot the bill. So game companies and in some cases they are imo borderline criminally inclined to stalking those who do. The extreme measures they are going to take to attract that whale is chilling..... the facebook example brought a chill down my spine far more scary than any recent horror flick I have watched.
Well, they do have the right to, because the developer lets them. The price of entry isnt just the presence and being content for other players, its also acknowledging that your resolve to play free will be under constant attack from things in the store that you want, that you will be marketed toward.
That being said, ive kicked money into most f2p games i play regularly.
Cash shops are external factors playing a role in gameplay. The freemium standard is lower because its free. Its always going to be slippery slope of marketing the cash shop through gameplay vs. providing quality cohesive product for the average gamer.
Slippery Slope is a logical fallacy implying an inevitable downward spiral without proof. If you're going to claim downward spiral you need to prove it. If not you're just pulling opinions out of your butt and slapping the 'fact' label on them. I call that sphincter logic.
The fact is all online games are designed around monetization. Game designers try and make a fun game people will want to play and pay for. They want to get as much revenue as possible. This is true for subscription games, and those where the sub is optional or non-existent.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, it seemed there was this thought that $15 a month would be enough because millions of people would want to play your game. When the reality that millions of people aren't going to play every subscription game sunk in, publishers started offering other ways to generate revenue for their games. It's a matter of survival.
Torval,
Yes moving from P2P to F2P was a Matter of Survival. For 2 reasons. #1 Too many MMOs in the market vs the number of people who play MMOs. WOW was a outlier and should not be the goal for success. Look at FFXIV they are a P2P game, with a game that was on the low end of the budget for an MMO and are good with 500K to 1 Million subs. The game does not need to be F2P to succeed, it does need a small cash shop to help build another data center, and the extra money goes into development cost.
But lets get back to TOO many MMOs, the Genera was never made for..... What do we got now 30 AAA or once AAA MMO counting games like UO, EQ, AC plus games like WOW, LOTRO, SWTOR, DDO, FFXIV and so on. That still does not include all the browser MMOs. That does not Include MMOs like Mortal Online or Wurm or Minecraft, or Trove. That also does not include games like Star Citizen or Shourds of the Avatar, or Shards Online. There are just too many MMORPGs and lets not even add in MOBAs and the rest of the games like Diablo and so on. The Genera was never meant for this many MMORPGs. I am sorry but it was not. Just because WOW was an outlier does not mean ever MMO will get over 1 Million subs. Its bad business to think you will be the next WOW in a Genera where games normally have around 500K subs. Even good games like LOTRO and DDO which had around 500K subs at one point could have maintained their games had they not tried to be the next WOW.
That leads me into reason 2. All these MMOs that HAVE TO BE F2P to survive is because they spent way too much money and aimmed to high in a genera were the norm is not WOW. Had any of these games tried not to be the next WOW like FFXIV which only changed to make game play more mainstream they would be fine with 500K subs. They also wouldnt have to pay investors back so fast because money would be streaming to the investors fast enough where the investors would push for F2P.
These are the core reasons why MMOs are F2P. Because everyone has a game they want to design and put out there for everyone. That is a BAD and will continue to hurt everyone until we cut down the number of MMOs. Its does not matter if a game has 10 Million Players but they only get $5 a person over the course of a year. Its not s sustainable model for MMORPGs.
Cash shops are external factors playing a role in gameplay. The freemium standard is lower because its free. Its always going to be slippery slope of marketing the cash shop through gameplay vs. providing quality cohesive product for the average gamer.
Slippery Slope is a logical fallacy implying an inevitable downward spiral without proof. If you're going to claim downward spiral you need to prove it. If not you're just pulling opinions out of your butt and slapping the 'fact' label on them. I call that sphincter logic.
The fact is all online games are designed around monetization. Game designers try and make a fun game people will want to play and pay for. They want to get as much revenue as possible. This is true for subscription games, and those where the sub is optional or non-existent.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, it seemed there was this thought that $15 a month would be enough because millions of people would want to play your game. When the reality that millions of people aren't going to play every subscription game sunk in, publishers started offering other ways to generate revenue for their games. It's a matter of survival.
Torval,
Yes moving from P2P to F2P was a Matter of Survival. For 2 reasons. #1 Too many MMOs in the market vs the number of people who play MMOs. WOW was a outlier and should not be the goal for success. Look at FFXIV they are a P2P game, with a game that was on the low end of the budget for an MMO and are good with 500K to 1 Million subs. The game does not need to be F2P to succeed, it does need a small cash shop to help build another data center, and the extra money goes into development cost.
But lets get back to TOO many MMOs, the Genera was never made for..... What do we got now 30 AAA or once AAA MMO counting games like UO, EQ, AC plus games like WOW, LOTRO, SWTOR, DDO, FFXIV and so on. That still does not include all the browser MMOs. That does not Include MMOs like Mortal Online or Wurm or Minecraft, or Trove. That also does not include games like Star Citizen or Shourds of the Avatar, or Shards Online. There are just too many MMORPGs and lets not even add in MOBAs and the rest of the games like Diablo and so on. The Genera was never meant for this many MMORPGs. I am sorry but it was not. Just because WOW was an outlier does not mean ever MMO will get over 1 Million subs. Its bad business to think you will be the next WOW in a Genera where games normally have around 500K subs. Even good games like LOTRO and DDO which had around 500K subs at one point could have maintained their games had they not tried to be the next WOW.
That leads me into reason 2. All these MMOs that HAVE TO BE F2P to survive is because they spent way too much money and aimmed to high in a genera were the norm is not WOW. Had any of these games tried not to be the next WOW like FFXIV which only changed to make game play more mainstream they would be fine with 500K subs. They also wouldnt have to pay investors back so fast because money would be streaming to the investors fast enough where the investors would push for F2P.
These are the core reasons why MMOs are F2P. Because everyone has a game they want to design and put out there for everyone. That is a BAD and will continue to hurt everyone until we cut down the number of MMOs. Its does not matter if a game has 10 Million Players but they only get $5 a person over the course of a year. Its not s sustainable model for MMORPGs.
First of all, you're wrong. There really isn't such a thing as "too many" games. There are hundreds of games released each year and I've never heard someone say "That's too many!" Also, I've never heard a game that was a failure be blamed on "too many games in the genre". The issue isn't too many games...at all!
Let me ask you a question. How many subscription games do you play? Personally, I have played many, but I never maintain more than a single subscription at a time. Why would I? I'm either completely involved with one game, or I'm not. Why would I pay for something I'm not using? I KNOW there's evidence out there supporting this idea, but I can't put my fingers on it. However, the idea is that the majority of people will only maintain one, maybe two subscriptions. How many single-player games have you played recently? I've played 5, at least, in the last 60 days. How many F2P or B2P MMO games have you played in the last 60 days? I've probably played 3 or 4.
In a round-about way you're right. There are too many games to have the subscription model be viable, but it's more about limited capacity than it is about having too many games. Previously, MMORPGs were successful due to a lack of variety. You played X, Y, or Z or you played some other game. That's not really what you are promoting is it? Lack of choice?
With regards to your second point, your numbers are so out-to-lunch it's ridiculous. Games would KILL for 500k subs. You do realize that there are MAYBE a handful (or fewer) games maintaining that number of subscriptions, right? If you're building a subscription MMO and you want it to be sustainable, you better shoot for more around the 10-50k mark. Problem is that aiming low like this, means ROI for investors is beyond what is acceptable. It isn't that investors are, necessarily, in a rush to get their money back, but when the life-span of MMOs is so short, why wouldn't they want money sooner rather than later?
Finally, again, you are so out-to-lunch it's not even funny. If a F2P game could get 10 million people to give them $5 year, every year, they would be jumping up and down for joy. For the vast majority of MMOs, that would be a success. The reality is that when sub numbers start to drop, we need to decide whether to change our model (pro-actively) or wait and see if we're going to have to give Alex and his 4 kids their walking papers and hope he will land on his feet.
Two fundamental reasons why F2P games will never be as good as subscription only games.
BOTs / Cheaters / Exploiters / Gold Farmers
Quality Content / Features
1. Really? Sub prevents botting, cheating, and gold farmers? From UO to Lineage 2 to present day I'm not sure I'm seeing the same pattern you're seeing. Age of Wushu, Wildstar, FF XIV, ArcheAge... all recent sub games, all combating gold spam.
2. F2P games seem to have more in game events, more seasonal events, more content updates and often free expansions. I fully expect the usual "yeah but it's kiddie graphics or 2D" reply, however if you've got some data to back your claim, I'm totally open to it. Can you link to or cite what you are basing that on?
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Comments
It keeps happening because people keep supporting it.Why are people so dumb or are they that dumb?
I feel the answer is obvious>>>>boredom.People do lot's of stupid things because they are bored,buy snacks they don't need,light u pa cigarette,buys games they really would not normally buy or purchase phone apps just because they have phone and are bored.
If you asked someone 20 years ago if they would buy games to play on a phone,the majority would scowl and say "only an idiot".People used to do their homework before making a purchase,now they see some advertising video and right away have to have it ,even unfinished and pre purchase.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Cash shops are external factors playing a role in gameplay. The freemium standard is lower because its free. Its always going to be slippery slope of marketing the cash shop through gameplay vs. providing quality cohesive product for the average gamer.
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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I will not do AA's Cash Shop ever again, SWTORs, LORTOs,and so on.
Of course every business wants to make money that's a given:
But, is the company in business to create great games, games for their love of games and to make a nice profit along the way.
or
Is the company in business to makes wads of cash. They really don't give a fuck about games, they don't care what kind of crap they produce, what kind of corners they cut, what kind of monetization schemes they put in place. It all about bringing in cash, damn the games.
I know what kind of a company I want to support, and it goes for more than just games.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
When a game was in development:
Do you think the developers spent a lot of time thinking about how they were going to monetize their game?
or
Do you think the developers spent pretty much all their time, just trying to make a great game?
The only monetization for your game back in those days was how many copies you sold.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
Do you think Blizzard cares about making the best game possible? Of course they don't. They care about putting in just enough shinies to make people feel like it is worth paying for, then marketing the hell out of it, and raking in the cash.
Same goes for just about any product / market. Do you think our phones, cars, etc are the best they could possibly be right now? They aren't, and they never will be, so long as people are willing to pay full price for "good enough" because it happens to be the latest model. Why would they bother investing the time, effort, and resources into making them the best possible with our current technology when the majority of people will keep forking over money for sub-par products instead of demanding top of the line or not at all.
Yes I think almost every decision that was made was weighed against whether or not it would add more money (subs) or lose money and whether it justified the cost of adding. Almost every single decision.
So if you play 100 single player games and sub MMOs, and I play 100 f2ps, I guarantee you will spend 100x more than I will.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvDpYHyBlgc
but what ever makes you feel better in your own life, I guess.
@Torval, today publishers can choose between taking $500-$1000 from 50k players or taking $50-100 from 500k players. In other words a steady low sub with full access and no cash shop ...or a F2P (trial) with B2P/DLC for new content would always triumph because majority aren't willing to play or pay on P2W games for simple facts like how the majority are not loaded with $ IRL...
We play games to compete with others through playing the game not through our real life wallets.
Path of Exile
F2P isn't innately evil.
Now all MMOs are going you look at how these can get more people into their games. This happened with the first MMO, Ultima Online. UO had about 125K players Pre T2A where they added Trammel. If you dont know UO split the world into 2 exact copies, Felucca and Trammel. Felucca being an all open world PVP world and Trammel being all PVE where you could only PVP with Guild Members or with people from other guilds. Other than that the world was PVE. Now they did that because there were so many people wanting a PVE game vs a PVP game. It would help out their subscription numbers and help out with more content development. So what happened when T2A dropped? The Subscriptions doubled from 125K to 250K. Some people say it killed the game and so on however others like myself will say Pub 16 where they changed Resist as well as other skills killed the game. In the end the game changed to get more subs to help out the game. Also Origin at the time was a small company and was looking to do anything to get more people to help grow.
Now why do I say this? Is it different? Yes but why?
First they wanting more subs to grow the company to better support the game. They were not racking in piles of cash and could take the game to the bank laughing at people. Origin's design was to make a game for gamers who like this game. So when people asked for a new zone so explorer Origin made it. The Developer listened to the player base during this time and looked at long term stability of their game. They did not sacrifice their game just to reap in major profits. They also did not design the game with the explicated intention to be the next WOW. No Trion did that with Rift. EA Tried to that that with SWTOR. Zenimax with ESO. Carbine with Wildstar. Turbine with LOTRO. UO, EQ1, E2, AC, FFXI and SWG all were created as a game to stand on its own and have their own niche group of players. None of them were out there looking to make WOW like money. They were designed for Entertainment for a set market of players, Not as 1 game to rule them all.
Now there are games out there that had to make changes to be more like WOW to get enough of a player base to keep the game running. Yes I am talking about FFXIV. FFXIV version 1 was a mess, menu driven combat even later that was changed, real hard controls to get you too and so on. The game had to go F2P just to break even. What happened? The game Shut down for a little over a year and got a make over and became more like WOW. However the design was NEVER to bring in the numbers that WOW Does. SE did it because they didnt and still dont like the shadiness of F2P so they wanted a game they could get around 500K subscription based players and be stable making a profit. Just a few months ago YoshiP was asked about F2P and said that 82% of the player base wants P2P. So guess what? The game is staying P2P even though they could make more with F2P for a short time. It will not however keep the game running for years to come which is what SE wants. They want FFXIV to run for a good 10 years before they even had to consider F2P or shut down.
So yes MMOs want players to subscribe. WHY? It cost money to pay for Developers. It Cost Money to just Develop the game. It cost Money to buy and manage servers. It cost money to Support. So yes ANY game will want money and want to make a profit. The Difference is sub based games that aim for about 500K subs and maintain that that are also happy with that out come, end up with far better and more enjoyable games long term than games Spending big trying to be the next WOW and having to go F2P just because they failed at their goal.
Of course I'm aware of putting any information out there whether deliberately or unwittingly by my idiot relatives exposes me to no end of scrutiny but that companies are creating methods to target specific individuals tells me that there is much mullah to be made here. Otherwise why take such extreme measures and I am honestly disgusted by those players who constantly play games and never think of contributing a single penny to the game they are spending ungodly hours at. Their excuse is that the game company has not entertained me enough or that they make money from others so why should I pay . They are the problem and they are what is exacerbating this problem. As for the whales I cannot fault them as they are actually paying and contributing to the games they enjoy.
There is nothing positive to take from all this just some skeevy thoughts about what lengths these companies are taking but recently the Ashley Madison scandal has taught us about how easy it was to make 95% of the men think that the 5.5 million women registered were real when it was closer to 12,000.
Think hard about what you would like for the game you play and one basic rule I always advocate is that you please support the games you play by paying for them . Don't say your presence is enough because it clearly is not no matter what you might say to justify your freeloading habits.
That being said, ive kicked money into most f2p games i play regularly.
Torval,
Yes moving from P2P to F2P was a Matter of Survival. For 2 reasons. #1 Too many MMOs in the market vs the number of people who play MMOs. WOW was a outlier and should not be the goal for success. Look at FFXIV they are a P2P game, with a game that was on the low end of the budget for an MMO and are good with 500K to 1 Million subs. The game does not need to be F2P to succeed, it does need a small cash shop to help build another data center, and the extra money goes into development cost.
But lets get back to TOO many MMOs, the Genera was never made for..... What do we got now 30 AAA or once AAA MMO counting games like UO, EQ, AC plus games like WOW, LOTRO, SWTOR, DDO, FFXIV and so on. That still does not include all the browser MMOs. That does not Include MMOs like Mortal Online or Wurm or Minecraft, or Trove. That also does not include games like Star Citizen or Shourds of the Avatar, or Shards Online. There are just too many MMORPGs and lets not even add in MOBAs and the rest of the games like Diablo and so on. The Genera was never meant for this many MMORPGs. I am sorry but it was not. Just because WOW was an outlier does not mean ever MMO will get over 1 Million subs. Its bad business to think you will be the next WOW in a Genera where games normally have around 500K subs. Even good games like LOTRO and DDO which had around 500K subs at one point could have maintained their games had they not tried to be the next WOW.
That leads me into reason 2. All these MMOs that HAVE TO BE F2P to survive is because they spent way too much money and aimmed to high in a genera were the norm is not WOW. Had any of these games tried not to be the next WOW like FFXIV which only changed to make game play more mainstream they would be fine with 500K subs. They also wouldnt have to pay investors back so fast because money would be streaming to the investors fast enough where the investors would push for F2P.
These are the core reasons why MMOs are F2P. Because everyone has a game they want to design and put out there for everyone. That is a BAD and will continue to hurt everyone until we cut down the number of MMOs. Its does not matter if a game has 10 Million Players but they only get $5 a person over the course of a year. Its not s sustainable model for MMORPGs.
First of all, you're wrong. There really isn't such a thing as "too many" games. There are hundreds of games released each year and I've never heard someone say "That's too many!" Also, I've never heard a game that was a failure be blamed on "too many games in the genre". The issue isn't too many games...at all!
Let me ask you a question. How many subscription games do you play? Personally, I have played many, but I never maintain more than a single subscription at a time. Why would I? I'm either completely involved with one game, or I'm not. Why would I pay for something I'm not using? I KNOW there's evidence out there supporting this idea, but I can't put my fingers on it. However, the idea is that the majority of people will only maintain one, maybe two subscriptions. How many single-player games have you played recently? I've played 5, at least, in the last 60 days. How many F2P or B2P MMO games have you played in the last 60 days? I've probably played 3 or 4.
In a round-about way you're right. There are too many games to have the subscription model be viable, but it's more about limited capacity than it is about having too many games. Previously, MMORPGs were successful due to a lack of variety. You played X, Y, or Z or you played some other game. That's not really what you are promoting is it? Lack of choice?
With regards to your second point, your numbers are so out-to-lunch it's ridiculous. Games would KILL for 500k subs. You do realize that there are MAYBE a handful (or fewer) games maintaining that number of subscriptions, right? If you're building a subscription MMO and you want it to be sustainable, you better shoot for more around the 10-50k mark. Problem is that aiming low like this, means ROI for investors is beyond what is acceptable. It isn't that investors are, necessarily, in a rush to get their money back, but when the life-span of MMOs is so short, why wouldn't they want money sooner rather than later?
Finally, again, you are so out-to-lunch it's not even funny. If a F2P game could get 10 million people to give them $5 year, every year, they would be jumping up and down for joy. For the vast majority of MMOs, that would be a success. The reality is that when sub numbers start to drop, we need to decide whether to change our model (pro-actively) or wait and see if we're going to have to give Alex and his 4 kids their walking papers and hope he will land on his feet.
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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1. Really? Sub prevents botting, cheating, and gold farmers? From UO to Lineage 2 to present day I'm not sure I'm seeing the same pattern you're seeing. Age of Wushu, Wildstar, FF XIV, ArcheAge... all recent sub games, all combating gold spam.
2. F2P games seem to have more in game events, more seasonal events, more content updates and often free expansions. I fully expect the usual "yeah but it's kiddie graphics or 2D" reply, however if you've got some data to back your claim, I'm totally open to it. Can you link to or cite what you are basing that on?
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre