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Buy-To-Play vs. Free-To-Play
laxie
Member RarePosts: 1,123
I know many of the members here have good insights into payment models.
It would be awesome to get your opinions on this.
I've been working on an online game for about a year. Recently, I decided to eventually publish it and build a community. It is a social MMO based around crafting, economy and land ownership. With this in mind, I've been thinking about the best payment models.
I am a big fan of Buy To Play, with a completely optional (non pay-to-win) subscription. This leaves everyone on an equal footing and doesn't encourage me, the developer, to constantly push out new paid content. It would also filter out uninterested people, perhaps making for a more tight community.
Free To Play, on the other hand, would bring in a lot more people. That said, a good number of them would likely leave. These fluctuations in players could make it very difficult for me to run a server (it's a fairly small project after all). It would also mean having to encourage people to spend on micro-transactions, which is a slippery slope in my opinion.
Here are my questions:
It would be awesome to get your opinions on this.
I've been working on an online game for about a year. Recently, I decided to eventually publish it and build a community. It is a social MMO based around crafting, economy and land ownership. With this in mind, I've been thinking about the best payment models.
I am a big fan of Buy To Play, with a completely optional (non pay-to-win) subscription. This leaves everyone on an equal footing and doesn't encourage me, the developer, to constantly push out new paid content. It would also filter out uninterested people, perhaps making for a more tight community.
Free To Play, on the other hand, would bring in a lot more people. That said, a good number of them would likely leave. These fluctuations in players could make it very difficult for me to run a server (it's a fairly small project after all). It would also mean having to encourage people to spend on micro-transactions, which is a slippery slope in my opinion.
Here are my questions:
- Is it even viable to go an optional subscription route these days? I understand this puts a cap on how much a single person can spend, which is why micro transactions are so profitable. I wonder if it's delusional to abandon micro transactions altogether.
- Would a small buy-to-play game struggle building up a community? The initial payment is a clear barrier to entry. I wonder if this is a good thing (weeding out uninterested people), or if it is bad (smaller community overall).
- Is there any other disadvantage to the buy-to-play + subscription model? Some factor I missed completely perhaps?
Comments
People will be hesitant to take it seriously. However on the flip side, for free people will play anyway and you better have a lot of extra servers for the freebees !!
@laxie
B2P is best for me
Pardon my English as it is not my 1st language
Whatever pay model they use it will show in the game design.Every decision is based on projected profit loss with little care either way if using OUR money.
If the developer attains their own funding they will put out a better effort but still the game's design and pay model will go hand in hand.
B2p will garner you a single player game type design.
F2p will be a super cheap game ,a better idea for all the cheap moba's and Overwatch type games that have VERY little if any content.
Sub fee-is at least the best possible game on paper but of course does not mean anything if the developer is simply looking to grind added money in subs if they feel they can get it.
My opinion has changed over the years,i now fully support a sub fee design but i do NOT want to pay any extra for expansions,our sub fees should cover that and then some.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Back to free-to-play. The other big part of this payment model is that you're asking the haves and the wills to pay for the have-nots and the will-nots. Socialism in action.
Subscription is best. But your game has to be good enough for people to want to pay monthly to play it.
I think a subscription cheap enough would bring in the same amount of players as a B2P product. I don't know what most new games are priced at now ($60), but giving players a year long subscription for that price would have the same effect short term effect.
@delete5230
Why do you have to stay away from F2P? It doesn't destroy integrity of MMO's. There are many F2P MMO's that are worth playing that every player can enjoy. I am currently playing an F2P kind of MMO and I am taking it very seriously even if i'm not paying, I grind almost everyday just to acquire better gears.
Follow my Blog at: http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/123bentilador
Agreed.
F2P Master-Race, they will always follow the model that provides them with most players & money.
You say you've been building this game yourself, so its an indie title. Its focused on crafting and land ownership, so pretty niche audience. Your predicted playerbase must be pretty small.
So, figure out how much money you need to make out of the game and then start playing with the numbers.
My personal advice would be the following:
1) Start B2P with a low price - say £5 - and gauge market interest. You're going to struggle to make any impact on the market given the vast amount of indie titles out there, so you need to keep barrier to entry low whilst trying to recoup your costs asap.
2) Collect Data - data should be the backbone of your decision making process. Watch what you're players are doing in game, monitor retention rates, examine your sales figures , look into server costs again.
3) Decide on a direction for the game - you've had a good idea for a game, you've built it and then launched. I'm sure you already have plans for the future of the game, but chances are the data from step 2 is gonna screw those plans up. Re-evaluate your plans using the data.
B2P is the easiest model to understand and by far the easiest for you to implement, so I'd personally stick with that model for an indie title such as yours. You can tweak the price easily and won't have to worry about ongoing payments and linking all that shit up with your account management system.
If the data is showing you good retention then I would focus your future development on DLCs - again, this keeps management of content and prices easy for you and your playerbase and makes planning easier.
If the data is showing bad retention but good churn rate, then I would focus on improving the early experiences and probably add a small cash shop for cosmetics. The cash shop will help monetise the players for the short amount of time they're there, whilst the improvements to the early experiences should start to move you away from churn and towards better retention.
If the data is showing bad retention and bad churn rate, either cut your losses and move on, or go fully F2P. Going F2P removes the low barrier to entry, so more people should start playing, then you monetise with the cash shop. However, if you've reached this stage then, in reality, you've made a bad game. If you can figure out why then it might be worth trying to salvage it with more dev work, but for an indie title I'd probably just quit. If you've made enough money from initial launch then be nice and keep the servers running for a year, or if possible just release the source code so a fan can take it over.
Blade And Soul / TERA have this type.
1) pay-to play only with no cash shop. Pros: zero "pay to win", everything is doable (let us say, solo). Cons: for new game, risk paying only to get dissatisfied?
2) free to play. Before someone screams - Istaria type. I.e. - you have, say, 9 races, f2p entitled to Human race only. If you pay, you may have a plot of land to build stuff; if you don't -no plot of land to build stuff. Cash shop may exist ONLY to sell cosmetics, like Huge Cloak of Rainbow Monkeys or Shining Pig Pet. In this case user must see that subbing gives real benefits (these fade if you are not subscriber). Pros: it's free! Cons: may attract thosw who play, but not pay (like me).
I won't go to buy-to-play though. Do not consider this to be stable income souce.
http://www.mmoblogg.wordpress.com
F2P is alright as long as the cash shop is cosmetic, and convenience only!
HOWEVER!!! If you are able to find a core group of 1000, 2000, 10,000 people who will pay for your game, then you could be quite successful with a P2P model. It's all about managing your expectations. I think that this type of game would be most successful when creating an environment where community is a focus. If you do that, I think people will pay.
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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Yes.... that is ideal..... Hey! You could always do F2P w/ Donation. Orrrrrr, you could do a V2P model. Don't know how annoying that would be. I know there was talk of a V2P model emerging a while back. My guess is that if we haven't seen it yet then it's probably not viable from a AAA perspective. Not sure about lower level though.
Crazkanuk
----------------
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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From a business perspective, a pretty big risk of going B2P without a sub is that you must constantly be converting customers if you want to stay profitable. I'd stay away from this unless you are confident you are going to have a pretty big market footprint.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
'Buy To Play, with a completely optional (non pay-to-win) subscription.' My take is Why would I even want to sub if I bought it if I don't have to?
But with that aside I think you need to decide if this game is
1) a labor of love and you don't care if you make money on it or not. It's something YOU want to play and hope others will play it with you
or
2) you hope to make money on it, either for extra cash or as your primary job
If it's 1, then you may as well eat the costs and go F2p
if it's 2, then look at what all your costs are going to be; electricity, computer wear and tear, server rental etc... Ask yourself how the customer will get the money to you. If you hire someone (like companies did with SOE and do now with Daybreak - though I'm sure they're others) that's going to be a cost. Can you do it via PayPal or some other like service? and will all the countries you hope to reach allow your method (I talked with someone in Eastern Europe on one of my games and they don't have debit cards or pre-paid Visa cards like we do in the US).
I think you started at the wrong end of the question; not what should you do, but what do you need to do to make your game successful. Also who do you see as your player base? Younger players have more surplus cash to spend on games and such, where many older are on tighter budgets.
IMHO I think Vendetta: Online has had one of the better setup's. You get a 7 day free trial and if you sub afterwards it's (used to be) $5.99 a month or Mount & Blade where it was play to level 7 and then B2p (M&B of course started out as must a SPG and is now multi-player with their servers).
Some games to look at to help:
-Vendetta: Online - Indie game with 3 developers (friends) at the start and still going
-Pirates of the Burning Seas - Indie game developed as a game THEY wanted to play, which in the long run didn't go over well with the customer base. Original company now gone, new company created by a few from the old team and living on borrowed time.
-Mount & Blade - Indie team of a guy, his wife and 1 other. Run independent until hooking up with Paradox Games and now has 6 versions with another on the way.
SWG (pre-cu) - AoC (pre-f2p) - PotBS (pre-boarder) - DDO - LotRO (pre-f2p) - STO (pre-f2p) - GnH (beta tester) - SWTOR - Neverwinter
But if it's a really good game, people will play no matter how you have it setup. Also people leave games for what-ever reason no matter how it's setup. A lot want to race through it and move on to the next. So no matter what you do people will come and go.
"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
I retired retroactively..Haha
1) FTP can spend as much as you want. (Whales and Prey)
2) $5 sub tier required, $50 spend per month maximum. (People who want to spend a little and those who want protection from whales -- the $50 mark is to encourage people to spend more than they otherwise might).
You can always move down to the FTP server, but moving up to the limited spend server is restricted.
I do agree with B2P not being ideal, as I'm unlikely to keep generating large numbers of sales on a regular basis, especially early on.
I wonder if people would actually pay a mandatory subscription these days at all. I'd imagine most people find the concept completely foreign at this point in time.