The basic model is still the most lucrative. A free 15 days trial to the complete product. Then pay to play. However, the free to play with item shop model is an innovation indeed as it not only altered the way you pay for playing but the game mechanics also changed to support it. You just need to use the item mall after a point of time and from there the progression is depending on what you dish out to use item mall.
Innovation indeed it is. They innovated ideas which actually made a game within. The challenge put on the platter was more like, How many days can you play this F2P without paying? This introduced so many new systems from keys to charms to Raid Boss Loot Tokens and this front is still continuing.
It is wonderful to see that the development for the past 10 years had been working towards launching a F2P model and also working towards to find new ways to implement hidden costs. This was way simpler when we just had the subscription model with a trial. I do think that the subscription model is on it's way back. Sooner or later we will again see the likes of offering made by Anarchy Online with F2P as the basic game and the expansions need to be bought or subscribed too.
Yes, I do play F2P games these days for just the FUN of finding, if I can find any loop holes that do not force me to pay or I just find the wall were I am just forced to pay. This gives me the game within the game.
Cheers Sourajit Nandi
" Don't listen to anyone who tells you that you can't play this or that. That's nonsense. Make up your mind,and you'll never whine or repent about gaming hours anymore, then have a go at every Game. Open up the Internet, join in all the Mmorpgs you can. Go make the Guild. But never, never let them persuade you that things are too difficult or impossible. "
They didn't? Seems almost every MMO in the past 10 years modified their monetization models, can't think of more than a handful that didnt.
Was "innovation" in the thread title just intended as clickbait then?
All innovation is change, but not all change is innovation. When your friend buys a coffee maker, that's a change in his life -- but when he claims to be an innovator you laugh at him and point out the broader context: lots of people have coffee makers and he's not doing anything new.
Many games have changed their model. Almost none of that change was innovation. (Only the changes that brought the industry new ideas, like "having a subscription in a F2P model", are innovations.)
Meanwhile there are very few games which applied zero innovation to game mechanics. I bet even Alganon -- one of the cloniest WOW clones -- ended up having features that distinguished it from other MMORPGs.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The title was a bit tongue in cheek, (or a bit facetious) but the fact remains we went from literally having one platform to play online games with to several (PCs, consoles, smartphones).
What started as a single payment model, hourly, has evolved/blossomed into numerous "opportunities" (there's that tongue in cheek humor again) for players to be seperated from their money.
Take EVE, started out as box price with sub only, then they added some services like character apperance changes, plex, character transfer etc.
5 years ago, the cash shop showed up with the addition of the Arum store ,another innovation they borrowed including a special, additional store only currency, which most cash shops have today.
Just recently they stepped it, adding skill point extractors, which you buy from them, special discount for 10 packs btw.
These aren't just any old cash shop item, as far as I know it is the first time ever a MMO lets you transfer experience (which was previously only gained by sub time, not effort) from one character to another.
Sure, there has been tons of innovation or change to games over the years, but IMNHO, none equal or have had more impact on players than the changes in monetization.
As Nari said, it even lets a majority of people play totally free, at least for some games, though we are seeing even those change by adding starter packs, or as BDO recently did, add an upfront fee to what is clearly F2P from the start designed game.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
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
and i quote "World of Tanks also sports a superb conversion rate (share of users who pay) of over 25%, which is also sky-high in this industry."
I suppose not all those 25% are whales .. there are dolphins too. I forget the definition, but you can look it up.
And yeah, there are more and more ways to get the whales. Are you one of them?
"Are you a whale?" And they used to say we were having a bash at people when we asked them if they were locusts. In fact I never asked them just told them that's what they were.
This 25% figure, I am sure I have seen far higher figures for those that have bought at least one thing in a F2P MMO. Now just one thing, that's not even a dolphin but I too think it was from one of Nari's beloved superdata threads.
What I was getting at back then and repeat now, does anyone here think these companies are happy with just getting money from whales? That's why we now have dolphins (not sure that term existed when we first talked about this), the games are being designed to tempt one and all. The ultimate aim must be to rely on the whole playerbase for income. They are aiming now at the "fish", that's you, the guy who pays nothing.
Not saying all will end up paying something, but a greater proportion will. That brings into question the premise of F2P. What percentage need to be paying for being able to play for free means rather little?
Sure, there has been tons of innovation or change to games over the years, but IMNHO, none equal or have had more impact on players than the changes in monetization.
Well it's just strange to concede the rest of that stuff, and then stick with this conclusion. Changes to gameplay affect what you're actually doing in games, and that impact feels a lot more noticeable (given that it's the main point of games) than the monetization model (which for most players isn't what they focus on at all.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
and i quote "World of Tanks also sports a superb conversion rate (share of users who pay) of over 25%, which is also sky-high in this industry."
I suppose not all those 25% are whales .. there are dolphins too. I forget the definition, but you can look it up.
And yeah, there are more and more ways to get the whales. Are you one of them?
"Are you a whale?" And they used to say we were having a bash at people when we asked them if they were locusts. In fact I never asked them just told them that's what they were.
This 25% figure, I am sure I have seen far higher figures for those that have bought at least one thing in a F2P MMO. Now just one thing, that's not even a dolphin but I too think it was from one of Nari's beloved superdata threads.
What I was getting at back then and repeat now, does anyone here think these companies are happy with just getting money from whales? That's why we now have dolphins (not sure that term existed when we first talked about this), the games are being designed to tempt one and all. The ultimate aim must be to rely on the whole playerbase for income. They are aiming now at the "fish", that's you, the guy who pays nothing.
Not saying all will end up paying something, but a greater proportion will. That brings into question the premise of F2P. What percentage need to be playing when being able to play for free means rather little?
Great points, much of the recent change in F2P models is an attempt to get more players paying something.
AA, Neverwinter, BDO all have early access or up front fees on what is clearly a F2P backbone. I think B&S added a fee to avoid waiting in the early launch day queues.
You are correct, maybe whales have been funding online games in a big way though I believe titles such as LOL have a much higher percentage of "fish" paying than 25%, small amounts so maybe they are minnows?
It is clear devs are trying different methods to increase the number of people paying for games judging from the many new options they keep coming up with.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
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
and i quote "World of Tanks also sports a superb conversion rate (share of users who pay) of over 25%, which is also sky-high in this industry."
I suppose not all those 25% are whales .. there are dolphins too. I forget the definition, but you can look it up.
And yeah, there are more and more ways to get the whales. Are you one of them?
"Are you a whale?" And they used to say we were having a bash at people when we asked them if they were locusts. In fact I never asked them just told them that's what they were.
This 25% figure, I am sure I have seen far higher figures for those that have bought at least one thing in a F2P MMO. Now just one thing, that's not even a dolphin but I too think it was from one of Nari's beloved superdata threads.
What I was getting at back then and repeat now, does anyone here think these companies are happy with just getting money from whales? That's why we now have dolphins (not sure that term existed when we first talked about this), the games are being designed to tempt one and all. The ultimate aim must be to rely on the whole playerbase for income. They are aiming now at the "fish", that's you, the guy who pays nothing.
Not saying all will end up paying something, but a greater proportion will. That brings into question the premise of F2P. What percentage need to be playing when being able to play for free means rather little?
More people ARE paying. There is actually evidence that F2P conversion rates are increasing, but since the number is so small, it doesn't really matter. In the article above, the Q3 conversion rates were around 3.5% on average. So even with a large 33% increase year over year, it's minuscule.
Honestly, I wouldn't see someone eclipsing the 25% figure unless they were some sort of a hybrid model. Someone like SWTOR makes it very easy to convert to a subscription because once you start paying for expansions, have restricted content, reduced slots, have reduced XP gains, it becomes very easy to justify. However, were do you classify that income?
You are right, there are more developers aiming at these so-called fish, but it's not an industry-wide thing. If they were trying to ACTUALLY entice people to make purchases then they would reduce the overall price on these cash shop items, which they don't. It's still $40-50 a mount. Mobile games are even worse. You often see cash shop offers over $100 in many mobile games.
The reason? Quite simply, there are plenty of people who SAY that "if only it was a little cheaper, I'd pay for it", but the reality is that they don't. There are people on this site who say "I haven't spent money on a game in 5 years because I haven't found one that's worthy of my money." Perfect example.
So, I would challenge your conclusion. All of the evidence points to single-digit conversion rates. Furthermore, it shows that a fraction of 1% (like 0.2%) of the players pays 50% of all revenues. So I'd be very interested to see some recent articles showing differently. I can't say I've seen them beyond Wargaming (which I would consider to be an anomaly). I highly doubt that there are any out there, never mind this mythical 60% unicorn.
This 25% figure, I am sure I have seen far higher figures for those that have bought at least one thing in a F2P MMO. Now just one thing, that's not even a dolphin but I too think it was from one of Nari's beloved superdata threads.
What I was getting at back then and repeat now, does anyone here think these companies are happy with just getting money from whales? That's why we now have dolphins (not sure that term existed when we first talked about this), the games are being designed to tempt one and all. The ultimate aim must be to rely on the whole playerbase for income. They are aiming now at the "fish", that's you, the guy who pays nothing.
Not saying all will end up paying something, but a greater proportion will. That brings into question the premise of F2P. What percentage need to be playing when being able to play for free means rather little?
Go find the link? I believe WoT is always touting to have the highest conversion rate, and that is less than 30%.
Companies are happy? Obviously devs of LoL and WoT are happy. They are running very successful businesses. Why would they care if they are getting money from whales or dolphins? Money is money.
Certainly they can try aiming at me ... that does not mean that I will spend a dime. And certainly if most people want to be some kind of fish and spend money on f2p games, it is their right to do so. I have nothing against that.
It is not like i don't pay for some of my games. I just paid $60 a few days ago for The Division.
I remember when micro transactions were first coming out, everyone made fun of them and none of the big players wanted anything to do with them. Now, the AAAs are complaining that the free to play market is sucking all the money away. I think they went all "Blockbuster Video after Netflix and Redbox Came out" and are going to bankrupt themselves
and i quote "World of Tanks also sports a superb conversion rate (share of users who pay) of over 25%, which is also sky-high in this industry."
I suppose not all those 25% are whales .. there are dolphins too. I forget the definition, but you can look it up.
And yeah, there are more and more ways to get the whales. Are you one of them?
"Are you a whale?" And they used to say we were having a bash at people when we asked them if they were locusts. In fact I never asked them just told them that's what they were.
This 25% figure, I am sure I have seen far higher figures for those that have bought at least one thing in a F2P MMO. Now just one thing, that's not even a dolphin but I too think it was from one of Nari's beloved superdata threads.
What I was getting at back then and repeat now, does anyone here think these companies are happy with just getting money from whales? That's why we now have dolphins (not sure that term existed when we first talked about this), the games are being designed to tempt one and all. The ultimate aim must be to rely on the whole playerbase for income. They are aiming now at the "fish", that's you, the guy who pays nothing.
Not saying all will end up paying something, but a greater proportion will. That brings into question the premise of F2P. What percentage need to be playing when being able to play for free means rather little?
More people ARE paying. There is actually evidence that F2P conversion rates are increasing, but since the number is so small, it doesn't really matter. In the article above, the Q3 conversion rates were around 3.5% on average. So even with a large 33% increase year over year, it's minuscule.
Honestly, I wouldn't see someone eclipsing the 25% figure unless they were some sort of a hybrid model. Someone like SWTOR makes it very easy to convert to a subscription because once you start paying for expansions, have restricted content, reduced slots, have reduced XP gains, it becomes very easy to justify. However, were do you classify that income?
You are right, there are more developers aiming at these so-called fish, but it's not an industry-wide thing. If they were trying to ACTUALLY entice people to make purchases then they would reduce the overall price on these cash shop items, which they don't. It's still $40-50 a mount. Mobile games are even worse. You often see cash shop offers over $100 in many mobile games.
The reason? Quite simply, there are plenty of people who SAY that "if only it was a little cheaper, I'd pay for it", but the reality is that they don't. There are people on this site who say "I haven't spent money on a game in 5 years because I haven't found one that's worthy of my money." Perfect example.
So, I would challenge your conclusion. All of the evidence points to single-digit conversion rates. Furthermore, it shows that a fraction of 1% (like 0.2%) of the players pays 50% of all revenues. So I'd be very interested to see some recent articles showing differently. I can't say I've seen them beyond Wargaming (which I would consider to be an anomaly). I highly doubt that there are any out there, never mind this mythical 60% unicorn.
Not saying industry is leaping in the direction of more players paying in F2P, but it has started as I said I am not sure the term dolphin existed when we talked about this two (?) years ago. Freeloaders are a gold mine that have not yet been mined.
Kyleran went over some of the ways they are doing this, do you have to be a whale to want early access etc? Some models claim to be designed to make you want to go from F2P to subscription. That was Turbines declared intention for Lotro, not sure how well that worked out. You mentioned SWTOR, I suggest it is old P2P MMOs which went hybrid that have more of a chance of getting conversions because they are better games than those which start as F2P.
You mentioned the cost of items in shops and how small reductions change little. I think you are right there. But they may aim at different types of items for "the fish". Mounts are costly, is a fish going to buy a mount? I see it being more in terms of more xp, or PvP advantage. If that sort of item went down in price you might get more fish taking a bite. And would you expect a fish to bite again? Maybe not but if you get $2 of people who never normally pay that's a big success.
@Nari - You just paid $60 for the Division? You sit down and have a cup of tea, take it easy for the rest of the day. Must have really stressed you out.
I would never call it an innovation. More along the lines of a travesty. It may have started as an OK idea but it's being taken too far, to the point where some developers are now charging us the full price for some games which are clearly not finished, and then charging us the same again for a "season pass" to get the rest of the content, plus cash shop items.
I'm not saying it's like this with all games, but enough to make it a worrying trend.
You are right this is the biggest innovation for the developers and publishers, they can now effectively release bland mmo's devoid of any original content and still manage to make a buck with the masses of players they get from the free to play model and even tho most won't spend a dime the few that do will usually spend more than they would otherwise with a sub...
Not only that but they actually get great and undeserved reviews solely based on the fact that they don't charge for the baseline game.
Now don't get me wrong there are a few decent free to play/ buy to play games out there my point is basically that if this so called revolution had never happened we would have maybe fewer mmo's on the market but we would significantly more quality ones.
You can't launch an half baked mmo and ask for a sub but you can do it with a different business model and get away with it just fine.
So yeah your right this is the greatest innovation in the industry and simply because this innovation in itself is making the need to innovate obsolete, it wins by default.
I would never call it an innovation. More along the lines of a travesty. It may have started as an OK idea but it's being taken too far, to the point where some developers are now charging us the full price for some games which are clearly not finished, and then charging us the same again for a "season pass" to get the rest of the content, plus cash shop items.
I'm not saying it's like this with all games, but enough to make it a worrying trend.
No. They are not charging "us". They are charging those who are willing to pay, and that is NOT me.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
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
Free to play and buy to play models were an inevitability once the market became crowded with MMOs. I'm not a big fan of F2P. In fact at first I was downright hostile to the idea. But then I saw the sh*t being pulled in mobile gaming and cash shops for cosmetic items now seems all rather tame in comparison. Besides, the market is so competitive that only a few games can contemplate charging a subscription alongside the cost of the box and future expansion.
But I think most people are clever enough to avoid games that take it step too far and the majority of publishers seemingly wise enough to avoid the bad publicity that comes with trying to exploit the consumer.
The innovation I'm still waiting for is the "Loot Token". When a (raid, heroic, etc) group kills a boss, loot rolls proceed and the winner gets the loot.
Everyone else would get a "Loot Token" which could be used in the Cash Shop, along with a small fee, to purchase a specific item of loot that is usually available from that boss.
Guildwars 2 have something similar for dungeons already, only difference is that the dungeons have their own shops instead of giving bonuses in the cashshop.
So the invention do exist even if you need to clear the dungeon more than once to get something worthwhile.
The innovation I'm still waiting for is the "Loot Token". When a (raid, heroic, etc) group kills a boss, loot rolls proceed and the winner gets the loot.
Everyone else would get a "Loot Token" which could be used in the Cash Shop, along with a small fee, to purchase a specific item of loot that is usually available from that boss.
Guildwars 2 have something similar for dungeons already, only difference is that the dungeons have their own shops instead of giving bonuses in the cashshop.
So the invention do exist even if you need to clear the dungeon more than once to get something worthwhile.
DDO did a similar thing with some raids where if you complete it X number of times you get a guaranteed loot table to pick a reward from.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
Free-to-Play pretty much always equals Pay-to-Win or Pay-to-Succeed. Players should have no problem paying for a game they enjoy, but they shouldn't be asked to pay more than they would if they bought a subscription.
Free-to-Play pretty much always equals Pay-to-Win or Pay-to-Succeed. Players should have no problem paying for a game they enjoy, but they shouldn't be asked to pay more than they would if they bought a subscription.
why not? It is a free world. Devs can ask for anything. You don't have to give it.
Then, we were expected to buy games, and buy expansions to make our games better.
Then we were expected to buy broken games, which the developers would hopefully fix for us with patches.
Then we were expected to buy games that weren't good unless we subscribed a service to activate it.
Then we bought things that resembled games, for a time, until the publisher got sick of them and took them away.
Then we were given some stupid download for free, and bought the things that made it good (FTP).
These days, however, we don't even buy games. We buy promises of games that we think are cool, in the hope that they raise enough money to make good on the promise.
__________________________ "Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it." --Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints." --Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls." --Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
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
These days, however, we don't even buy games. We buy promises of games that we think are cool, in the hope that they raise enough money to make good on the promise.
who are we? May be you buy promises. I don't.
Not only i don't buy promises, i buy games with satisfaction guarantees. If i don't like a game, i return it.
Comments
Innovation indeed it is. They innovated ideas which actually made a game within. The challenge put on the platter was more like, How many days can you play this F2P without paying? This introduced so many new systems from keys to charms to Raid Boss Loot Tokens and this front is still continuing.
It is wonderful to see that the development for the past 10 years had been working towards launching a F2P model and also working towards to find new ways to implement hidden costs. This was way simpler when we just had the subscription model with a trial. I do think that the subscription model is on it's way back. Sooner or later we will again see the likes of offering made by Anarchy Online with F2P as the basic game and the expansions need to be bought or subscribed too.
Yes, I do play F2P games these days for just the FUN of finding, if I can find any loop holes that do not force me to pay or I just find the wall were I am just forced to pay. This gives me the game within the game.
Cheers
Sourajit Nandi
" Don't listen to anyone who tells you that you can't play this or that. That's nonsense. Make up your mind,and you'll never whine or repent about gaming hours anymore, then have a go at every Game. Open up the Internet, join in all the Mmorpgs you can. Go make the Guild. But never, never let them persuade you that things are too difficult or impossible. "
Once An Addict Always An Addict .
All innovation is change, but not all change is innovation. When your friend buys a coffee maker, that's a change in his life -- but when he claims to be an innovator you laugh at him and point out the broader context: lots of people have coffee makers and he's not doing anything new.
Many games have changed their model. Almost none of that change was innovation. (Only the changes that brought the industry new ideas, like "having a subscription in a F2P model", are innovations.)
Meanwhile there are very few games which applied zero innovation to game mechanics. I bet even Alganon -- one of the cloniest WOW clones -- ended up having features that distinguished it from other MMORPGs.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
What started as a single payment model, hourly, has evolved/blossomed into numerous "opportunities" (there's that tongue in cheek humor again) for players to be seperated from their money.
Take EVE, started out as box price with sub only, then they added some services like character apperance changes, plex, character transfer etc.
5 years ago, the cash shop showed up with the addition of the Arum store ,another innovation they borrowed including a special, additional store only currency, which most cash shops have today.
Just recently they stepped it, adding skill point extractors, which you buy from them, special discount for 10 packs btw.
These aren't just any old cash shop item, as far as I know it is the first time ever a MMO lets you transfer experience (which was previously only gained by sub time, not effort) from one character to another.
Sure, there has been tons of innovation or change to games over the years, but IMNHO, none equal or have had more impact on players than the changes in monetization.
As Nari said, it even lets a majority of people play totally free, at least for some games, though we are seeing even those change by adding starter packs, or as BDO recently did, add an upfront fee to what is clearly F2P from the start designed game.
"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
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
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
"Are you a whale?" And they used to say we were having a bash at people when we asked them if they were locusts. In fact I never asked them just told them that's what they were.
This 25% figure, I am sure I have seen far higher figures for those that have bought at least one thing in a F2P MMO. Now just one thing, that's not even a dolphin but I too think it was from one of Nari's beloved superdata threads.
What I was getting at back then and repeat now, does anyone here think these companies are happy with just getting money from whales? That's why we now have dolphins (not sure that term existed when we first talked about this), the games are being designed to tempt one and all. The ultimate aim must be to rely on the whole playerbase for income. They are aiming now at the "fish", that's you, the guy who pays nothing.
Not saying all will end up paying something, but a greater proportion will. That brings into question the premise of F2P. What percentage need to be paying for being able to play for free means rather little?
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
AA, Neverwinter, BDO all have early access or up front fees on what is clearly a F2P backbone. I think B&S added a fee to avoid waiting in the early launch day queues.
You are correct, maybe whales have been funding online games in a big way though I believe titles such as LOL have a much higher percentage of "fish" paying than 25%, small amounts so maybe they are minnows?
It is clear devs are trying different methods to increase the number of people paying for games judging from the many new options they keep coming up with.
"Innovation" at it's finest in my book.
(being facetious again folks)
"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
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
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
More people ARE paying. There is actually evidence that F2P conversion rates are increasing, but since the number is so small, it doesn't really matter. In the article above, the Q3 conversion rates were around 3.5% on average. So even with a large 33% increase year over year, it's minuscule.
Honestly, I wouldn't see someone eclipsing the 25% figure unless they were some sort of a hybrid model. Someone like SWTOR makes it very easy to convert to a subscription because once you start paying for expansions, have restricted content, reduced slots, have reduced XP gains, it becomes very easy to justify. However, were do you classify that income?
You are right, there are more developers aiming at these so-called fish, but it's not an industry-wide thing. If they were trying to ACTUALLY entice people to make purchases then they would reduce the overall price on these cash shop items, which they don't. It's still $40-50 a mount. Mobile games are even worse. You often see cash shop offers over $100 in many mobile games.
The reason? Quite simply, there are plenty of people who SAY that "if only it was a little cheaper, I'd pay for it", but the reality is that they don't. There are people on this site who say "I haven't spent money on a game in 5 years because I haven't found one that's worthy of my money." Perfect example.
So, I would challenge your conclusion. All of the evidence points to single-digit conversion rates. Furthermore, it shows that a fraction of 1% (like 0.2%) of the players pays 50% of all revenues. So I'd be very interested to see some recent articles showing differently. I can't say I've seen them beyond Wargaming (which I would consider to be an anomaly). I highly doubt that there are any out there, never mind this mythical 60% unicorn.
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
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Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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Companies are happy? Obviously devs of LoL and WoT are happy. They are running very successful businesses. Why would they care if they are getting money from whales or dolphins? Money is money.
Certainly they can try aiming at me ... that does not mean that I will spend a dime. And certainly if most people want to be some kind of fish and spend money on f2p games, it is their right to do so. I have nothing against that.
It is not like i don't pay for some of my games. I just paid $60 a few days ago for The Division.
http://baronsofthegalaxy.com/ An MMO game I created, solo. It's live now and absolutely free to play!
Not saying industry is leaping in the direction of more players paying in F2P, but it has started as I said I am not sure the term dolphin existed when we talked about this two (?) years ago. Freeloaders are a gold mine that have not yet been mined.
Kyleran went over some of the ways they are doing this, do you have to be a whale to want early access etc? Some models claim to be designed to make you want to go from F2P to subscription. That was Turbines declared intention for Lotro, not sure how well that worked out. You mentioned SWTOR, I suggest it is old P2P MMOs which went hybrid that have more of a chance of getting conversions because they are better games than those which start as F2P.
You mentioned the cost of items in shops and how small reductions change little. I think you are right there. But they may aim at different types of items for "the fish". Mounts are costly, is a fish going to buy a mount? I see it being more in terms of more xp, or PvP advantage. If that sort of item went down in price you might get more fish taking a bite. And would you expect a fish to bite again? Maybe not but if you get $2 of people who never normally pay that's a big success.
@Nari - You just paid $60 for the Division? You sit down and have a cup of tea, take it easy for the rest of the day. Must have really stressed you out.
I'm not saying it's like this with all games, but enough to make it a worrying trend.
Not only that but they actually get great and undeserved reviews solely based on the fact that they don't charge for the baseline game.
Now don't get me wrong there are a few decent free to play/ buy to play games out there my point is basically that if this so called revolution had never happened we would have maybe fewer mmo's on the market but we would significantly more quality ones.
You can't launch an half baked mmo and ask for a sub but you can do it with a different business model and get away with it just fine.
So yeah your right this is the greatest innovation in the industry and simply because this innovation in itself is making the need to innovate obsolete, it wins by default.
"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
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
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
But I think most people are clever enough to avoid games that take it step too far and the majority of publishers seemingly wise enough to avoid the bad publicity that comes with trying to exploit the consumer.
So the invention do exist even if you need to clear the dungeon more than once to get something worthwhile.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
VG
No fate but what we make, so make me a ham sandwich please.
Then, we were expected to buy games, and buy expansions to make our games better.
Then we were expected to buy broken games, which the developers would hopefully fix for us with patches.
Then we were expected to buy games that weren't good unless we subscribed a service to activate it.
Then we bought things that resembled games, for a time, until the publisher got sick of them and took them away.
Then we were given some stupid download for free, and bought the things that made it good (FTP).
These days, however, we don't even buy games. We buy promises of games that we think are cool, in the hope that they raise enough money to make good on the promise.
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"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
"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
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
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
Not only i don't buy promises, i buy games with satisfaction guarantees. If i don't like a game, i return it.