Game On #88: F2P to Blame for the Problems in the Industry? - General News

System · September 2016

Game On #88: F2P to Blame for the Problems in the Industry? - General News

This week on Game On, Chris and Brax look back at the doom and gloom predictions made by players and pundits before free to play came to the fore. How true were they? They also wish Chris Metzen a happy retirement, break down Marvel Heroes' and The Division's game changing updates, discuss Fallout 4 Far Harbor and Nuka World, and Divinity: Original Sin 2.

Read the full story here

IceAge · September 2016

The answer is simple! Is the simple....YES!

Vesavius · September 2016

More than a few years ago, when the F2P hype train was hitting, and 99% of players were jumping on board and aggressively defending it, I stated that it was a prime case of killing the goose that laid the golden eggs for a short term cash in pay off instead of having golden eggs for years. I called the cash in VCs and devs carpet baggers.

I stand by that to this day, and I do feel that history supports me now.

Cash shops as a sole source of revenue for a game demand the developers to think in an anti-gamer and anti-consumer way. The toxic core design principles that F2P demands of MMORPGs, that most didn't even see at the time and weren't willing to listen to, have severely damaged the genre, yes.

Gdemami · September 2016

Vesavius said:
I stand by that to this day, and I do feel that history supports me now.

Except history does not support you at all....but you aren't a type that cares about such minor things, are you?

LynxJSA · September 2016

When discussing any leisure or entertainment service, in the absence of a monopoly, blaming the business model is absurd. In such a sector, a successful business model is the result of following how people wish to spend their money on that service.

Mujona · September 2016

A financially successful business model does not necessarily mean a moral one, nor does it require a monopoly to generate an situation where consumers are fleeced. This is why there are oversight committees for even normal companies and the likes of the Better Business Bureau for judging the standards of company behavior. For example Cyber Creations, the owners of this site, were dinged by the Better Business Bureau earlier this year.

It's not the job of such groups to specifically stop a company from any given practice, that's ultimately the matter of the responsibility of the consumers and the company in how responsible each feels about upholding any given moral or business standard beyond the present legal limitations. Just because certain behavior is permissible by legal and business standards doesn't make it a reasonable or fair way to conduct oneself however.

And that's sort of where the crutch in certain business models rests. As the development costs for making games increases and changes over time the money to continue the development of games needs to come from somewhere, and there are both honest and dishonest methods to doing things while trying to pursue that.

Octagon7711 · September 2016

Pre-orders are destroying the industry. Along with misleading over-hyped games and season passes. Oh, and kickstarters, I have no problem with early access as you can get a general feel for the game with them, like a demo.

LynxJSA · September 2016

Mujona said:

A financially successful business model does not necessarily mean a moral one, nor does it require a monopoly to generate an situation where consumers are fleeced. This is why there are oversight committees for even normal companies and the likes of the Better Business Bureau for judging the standards of company behavior. For example Cyber Creations, the owners of this site, were dinged by the Better Business Bureau earlier this year.

It's not the job of such groups to specifically stop a company from any given practice, that's ultimately the matter of the responsibility of the consumers and the company in how responsible each feels about upholding any given moral or business standard beyond the present legal limitations. Just because certain behavior is permissible by legal and business standards doesn't make it a reasonable or fair way to conduct oneself however.

And that's sort of where the crutch in certain business models rests. As the development costs for making games increases and changes over time the money to continue the development of games needs to come from somewhere, and there are both honest and dishonest methods to doing things while trying to pursue that.

When discussing any leisure or entertainment service, in the absence of a monopoly, blaming the business model for the problems - the decline of the service, as discussed in the podcast - is absurd.

I didn't think that had to be explained, but after reading your tangent, I realized who you are and I am backing way the hell away from this discussion. Don't bother replying to me, I won't see it.

Mujona · September 2016

A monopoly is not the only way a business practice, service, or sector can be driven towards a model.

This is as obvious to understand as noting the consequences of any majorly successful title and the impact it has on other developers and the products they subsequently release. In the wake of WoW there were a lot of spin-offs of their model. In the wake of LoL we saw the same results. If one thing proves to be financially successful and others feel they can replicate that success, they chase it.

That can and does result in quite a lot of questionable and broken business practices, and as I just noted you can see the consequences in real world games titles, all the same as how the mobile genre is currently spiraling down due to the business practices employed there.

Make whatever copout arguments you want. The market trends offer actual evidence.

goboygo · September 2016

Vesavius said:
I stand by that to this day, and I do feel that history supports me now.

IceAge · October 2016

LynxJSA said:

When discussing any leisure or entertainment service, in the absence of a monopoly, blaming the business model is absurd. In such a sector, a successful business model is the result of following how people wish to spend their money on that service.

You get it all wrong ! People often are .. somehow forced to spend money on F2P game in order to get a taste of that.. "entertainment service" you are talking about !

thinktank001 · October 2016

LynxJSA said:
When discussing any leisure or entertainment service, in the absence of a monopoly, blaming the business model for the problems - the decline of the service, as discussed in the podcast - is absurd.

I would normally agree with that statement, but microtransaction game mechanics are designed to work with the cash shop. It is an integral part to the design process and therefore pointing it out as a problem is fair game.

rodingo · October 2016

In my opinion f2p is more of a result than a cause. It's a result of the extreme saturation of the genre. The East has been cranking out MMOs at a steady pace for a while now and without any let up in site. Since the majority of those are f2p I think the Western studios have taken the, "if you can't beat them, join them" stance in regards to their monetization. So again, f2p isn't a problem as much as saturation is. F2p is just the byproduct.

Mujona · October 2016

IceAge said:

LynxJSA said:

When discussing any leisure or entertainment service, in the absence of a monopoly, blaming the business model is absurd. In such a sector, a successful business model is the result of following how people wish to spend their money on that service.

You get it all wrong ! People often are .. somehow forced to spend money on F2P game in order to get a taste of that.. "entertainment service" you are talking about !

You have no clue what gambling is, do you.

Mujona · October 2016

As something that is pointed out here, there are actually a fair bit of ways to market something like entertainment with the express purpose of extracting money from people by capitalizing on human nature.

"When you consider Zynga’s use of “Fun Pain”, you can see that again this is counter immersive and perhaps even antagonistic to the end user. Roger is correct in saying that if you give players the option of “Grind” vs. “Spam” vs. “Pay”, many of them will not realize that they have a fourth option, which is “leave”. " (source)

daltanious · October 2016

F2P is the worst thing that could ever happen to gaming industry. Period.

LynxJSA · October 2016

DMKano said:

rodingo said:

In my opinion f2p is more of a result than a cause. It's a result of the extreme saturation of the genre. The East has been cranking out MMOs at a steady pace for a while now and without any let up in site. Since the majority of those are f2p I think the Western studios have taken the, "if you can't beat them, join them" stance in regards to their monetization. So again, f2p isn't a problem as much as saturation is. F2p is just the byproduct.

I agree that F2P is the byproduct of market saturation.

However focusing only on F2P completely misses the point.

The article should focus on the real money maker this present in F2P, B2P and P2P games - and that's the cash shop.

I mean when you have a B2P game that has as an aggressive cash shop as a F2P game and also has a subscription - it's worse than a F2P game alone

Agreed. microtransaction sales are present in all of the current business models. If anything, that's where one could attempt to point fingers about decline. However, if one wants to be honest and look at history, that only appeared (in subs before f2p, btw) because players were already doing it, just thru 3rd parties.

bingbongbros · October 2016

The payment model isn't to blame for the decline of mmos. Large soulless corporations, like EA, are to blame. They joined the fray after wow exploded into popularity. They saw a easy money train in mmos.

"Damn, that video game is making millions!! We make video games too! How hard can it be!" Says EA executives.

Enter Warhammer Online.

These companies wanted a piece of the wow subscription model pie but cut all the corners to making a good game. So the games failed hard after the new game hype wore off.

Rinse and repeat for a few years.

Then these mega companies see Asian gaming companies make shit loads of fast cash in their free to play grinders.

"Oh damn! The Asian market is making a killing with this free to play thing! Let's take our failure of mmos and make them f2p!! Everyone will come running back and love our cash shops!" Says the same EA executive.

Then those games quickly die again because the game itself is still dog shit, but now all development time and money go into creating shitty cash shop content. And actual game content gets forgotten since the game is free.

Then the subscriptions died completely and f2p is the new normal. Once in awhile a game will attempt to use subs, but the player base has been conditioned by mega corps to hate subs because of a decade of rushed half assed mmos.

Free to play is actually a cancer on the mmo genre. I don't know why everybody can't pull the wool off of their eyes and see this.

Early mmos were all subs and used that money to improve the game and keep it alive. Like eq, daoc, wow. All content went to the game alone, period.

F2p games create a base game then concentrate solely on cash shop updates. Making the player spend real money to get things they want in game.

Always costing more money then just paying for a sub and getting the item by playing the actual game.

But who wants to play a game to get a new outfit for their character!!? Not me! I'd rather spend 20 dollars, amirite?!

Mujona · October 2016

LynxJSA said:

DMKano said:
I mean when you have a B2P game that has as an aggressive cash shop as a F2P game and also has a subscription - it's worse than a F2P game alone

Agreed. microtransaction sales are present in all of the current business models. If anything, that's where one could attempt to point fingers about decline....

So you disagree when I say such things but agree when he does.

Do you wear a neck brace for all that whiplash?

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Game On #88: F2P to Blame for the Problems in the Industry? - General News

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"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