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P2P/B2P=>F2P conversions backfire
Kopogero
Member UncommonPosts: 1,685
When a game goes/converts to F2P 1-2 years or sooner after launch it backfires. This creates opinion among many that there is something seriously wrong, bad or flawed about that particular game. More importantly by then the hype has diminished as well as the audience it could potentially attract might flock to other games that might come out through this 1-2 year period.
Bottom line, I don't believe but I already know that the future and the next game that will take over and create its market by storm will be F2P. It's already happened if you look in the other genre games like MOBA's. I believe games like SWTOR, Guild Wars 2, ESO, Secret World, soon Black Desert and many others have lost a lot by wanting too much. Well, they've lost at least from me...
The way it seems the only games these days that can afford going B2P/P2P on launch are those that will be certain they will be the top ones majority will be playing regardless. This is exactly why WOW managed to stay B2P/P2P for a long period.
Bottom line, I don't believe but I already know that the future and the next game that will take over and create its market by storm will be F2P. It's already happened if you look in the other genre games like MOBA's. I believe games like SWTOR, Guild Wars 2, ESO, Secret World, soon Black Desert and many others have lost a lot by wanting too much. Well, they've lost at least from me...
The way it seems the only games these days that can afford going B2P/P2P on launch are those that will be certain they will be the top ones majority will be playing regardless. This is exactly why WOW managed to stay B2P/P2P for a long period.
Comments
if i may, you forgot one : sub aka P2P > B2P > F2P > P2Win > and last but not least P2P2P2Win aka modern mmorpg trend that will put an end to quality gaming and open the door to TESOU style games.
personnal i hope that 2016 will remind the dev of any mmorpg company out there and future upcoming mmorpgs that their employees need a pay check and that pay check cost money , stable money = game quality and Customer service. those 2 stats can only be found in pay per month mmos since they spend time and money to make quality games with Customer service that is there for the Customer.
free to play or p2w or p2p2p2win dont offer any since they let everything in like in the white house and trouble start quality goes down Customer service takes a hit and customers leave to new shit and they replace the losses via gold diggers aka rmt aka gold seller aka w/e da eff you call them now. and when you can count how many game card it will cost you to gear up a character in mmorpg its a sign you need to dump the game and find a new one but guess what! all new mmos out there already are infected with the p2p2p2win disease. even ff14 is infected since they converted to game time cards.
short term profit > long term profit.
long profit = good gaming quality and customer service. god SOE and blizzard were the only ones who actually made good use of that recipe.
before you guys start quoting me think about this:
EQ came out in 1999 and is still played , by a very limited amount of players now i give you that, but the game still lasted nearly 20 years. wow came out a few years after and is also still running exactly because they offered quality and good Customer service via subscription. most recent mmos out there have a life span of 2 years maybe before going down because they lack quality and Customer service that they sacrificed in order to make as much money as possible in the shortest amount of time instead of trying to do their best to offer players a gaming experience that can meet the expectations of the product.
in nearly 20 years EQ probably made hundreds of millions on subscriptions by offerring gaming quality and good service before going down the pay to win lane wich killed them in 2 years.
tesou a modern day mmorpg relies on pay 2 win and in less than 3 years they barely have 10k players in NA. a single realm in ff14 has a cap of 10k players and they need almsot 20 realms that are all FULL. think about that before trying your qutoes guys.
I'm confused why you think any gaming company care about losing you as a customer.
apparently they think it is a good idea to be b2p first and turn them to f2p later.
Attention?
Maybe make a thread about how you believe gravity repels objects away from one another too?
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Wow has a cosmetic cash shop that does exactly what that video complains about.
FFXIV does too, it goes a step further and is pay to win also though. It sells inventory space and no matter how much you play or how good you are you can't get that any other way than paying.
This is the problem, players are stupid and think p2p is better but can't actually give any reason aside from "keeps the vagrants out".
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
I find it amusing how so many thought ESO was going to die. Releasing on the Consoles probably made it the most popular MMO today. You can be sure that ESO has millions of active players on each platform today. If that ain't a success then I don't know what is.
Times are changing, WoW is already on a huge decline. Blizzard is using most of its marketing budget trying to get the players back, but it's just not working for them. Why would they play WoW, when there are other superior MMOs on the market today? It's no wonder that WoW has already lost half of it's playerbase since ESO launched.
But I think it's also bigger than that. Zenimax Media seems to have really challenged Blizzard. Fallout 4 didn't only destroy most of other games (based on sales), but Blizzard also tried to counter it with the new Starcraft's Expansion, which got also completely destroyed in the process. Most players didn't even know it came out. ESO is already doing a great job at finishing off WoW. While it seems ES Legends will challenge Hearthstone. Then there is also Battlecry against Overwatch (but to be honest they both look garbage and waste of resources).
Activision only used Blizzard. I don't think Activision has ever had bigger profits, while Blizzard is doing worse every year. Mostly due to WoW declining, but also due to the fact that all other Blizzard's games combined probably don't make more than 50% of total revenue. Blizzard needs WoW more than you realize, they don't have the games to replace it. Not even close.
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
Dont get me wrong tho, im not saying ESO is a bad game, or a good game. But millions on each platform? Nah, your crazy mate.
I don't understand #1 - granted I didn't watch the video, so maybe it was more clear there. I don't see the difference if I pay upfront or pay as I go, I keep track of what I spend either way. I can understand a child or something not being able to do that, but an adult who can authorize an online payment - they should be capable of balancing their checkbook I would think.
I see just as many bots/spammers in P2P games like FFXIV as I do F2P games. Bots/spammer population seems more proportional with the population and popularity than a game's payment model. Sure, you would think that because there is a payment method required it would be a barrier to entry, but that really hasn't proven true in my experience.
I agree with #3, I am much more likely to stick with a game if I have paid something for it. I am also much less likely to start a game if I have to shell out something for it up front.
#4 though, yeah kinda... you shift from the wallet war to the "who can spend the most time in game" war. Unless your talking some seriously skill-based games (and in MMOs, that isn't common at all, I can only think of a handful), the person with the highest level, most skillpoints, FotM class, or better loot is the winner.
#5 I agree with, although most games with any amount of longevity have had a paid expansion... how does that play in? I can understand publishers putting out paid expansions, and for a B2P game I fully support it, but it's always been a point of contention with me for Sub-based games... shouldn't content releases and continuous development be covered in the price of subscription?
I don't know bro. I think there is actually a topic.
Should developer start the game out as p2p and turn it into f2p 1-2 years down the line. Or should they start out as f2p.
Black desert could be f2p since it is f2p everywhere. But they decided to start out as b2p in the US.
In asia, people isn't accustomed to buy "box" even for p2p games, yet when games released in US, they try to sale the box. I believe you need to buy Aion when it is released in US.
And if all evident point to the same, all f2p cashshop should be the same. But they vary very differently.
I also don't think ESO is in the millions, and almost certainly not active each day. Even WoW's multi-million number is in paying accounts per month, not players per day. Being on the console certainly gave them a boost. But having non-cross-platform play isn't doing it any favors (I understand that isn't necessarily Zenimax's fault though).
Really... get over it already.
At the very least, you get some entertainment out of a new game, be it fleeting or not. It's not like you had anything better to do at the time... because if you did, you would have done it.
Who the hell cares what game is going to be the next big thing... are we that superfluous? Forget about what I like or what I find fun, I need to let the masses decide for me.
Hey this game is fun...
Sorry, but you're playing a dying game, only a loser would continue to play it.
But it's fun...
Fun? How can a dying game be fun? You must be a loser. Go play game X like everybody else.
I don't like game X.
Only a loser would say that, it's the top grossing game in Zimbabwe, clearly you have no idea what fun is.
Payment model has zero to do with fun... if it does, then you and I have an entirely different idea of just what fun is. But then we already deduced that.
The beauty of this B2P shift is that the game is exactly the same as the F2P version, so no extra cost in converting to F2P later...
The previous tactic of selling "starter" or "founder" packs wasn't quite as profitable, because even though they were often much more expensive, they were entirely optional.
B2P up front is brilliant, especially for a F2P designed title such as BD.
OPs motives are suspect since he wants to play the game without paying anything, ever.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I still remember when ALLODS showed a lot of promise,a lot of interest during Beta so they THOUGHT they could charge over the top CS prices,man did they take backlash.Then they had to retract and lower the prices immediately.
Almsot all of these games look liek they should be one purchase price and that is it,they look like single player games with maybe 1% MMO put into them,pretty much a login screen and the ability to see other players.PVP does not warrant any ongoing costs,i play Quake and Unreal multiplayer and it doesn't cost me a cent for over 15 years.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
1: You can pay nothing for a f2p game, at all. Plus when you buy a p2p game you are buying what amounts to a demo, once the 30 days runs out you cannot play it again until more money changes hands.
2: Not true at all, there are more bots and rmt in p2p than most f2p games. Mainly because the publishers like them being there, they make peacemeal attempts to ban them only because they know they will buy the game again if they are given enough time to make a profit.
3: Again, not true. Game hoppers aren't poor, they are simply easily bored. This is why every mmo, f2p or p2p has around a 30% retention rate past the first month.
4: Not true, I already stated that XIV is p2w with inventory space and being able to sell more items. As a crafter this is a huge buff to credit card warriors.
5: See above, to many players looking cool in an mmo where there are others around is p2w. Since p2p and f2p both have cosmetic shops and players are slobbering over themselves to get these pretty outfits asap you can see that there is no difference.
Sure, it does not make as much as WOW, or LOL, but still better than many games.
The thread is not about launching F2P vs. converting F2P. If it was, then there might be a discussion. (Though you'd need to deal with that mountain of "conversions make more as F2P" evidence, and the complete lack of evidence of P2P making more.)
Your final claim is illogical. If F2P was objectively the superior model (and that's what all the evidence shows so far,) why do you think every cash shop would be exactly the same? That makes no sense. For one thing, nobody's perfected the model yet so it's worth trying different things (trying new things is why somebody created F2P in the first place.) For another, even if there was a perfect model companies would attempt to mimic it imperfectly.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Until you will start having no cash-shop MMORPGs again (if that ever happens) talks about payment models is worthless.
In reality division is one fixed price for everybody (no microtransactions/cash shop) vs dynamic price (anything + cash shop/microtansactions).
People here do think that there is a difference between vanity items, and the huge +10000 p2w sword. Not all cash shops are the same.