Of course everything on the left is showing growth. It was a new game and there was high interest. As the game got older it was only natural that people would lose interest and move on . It has nothing to do with the ftp model it's simply a decline in interest and competition from other games. Blizzard eventually had to open their options.
Yeah and my point was all of that growth was with a subscription model. Saying forced subscriptions originally killed the genre is bullshit.
I don't think it's bullshit at all. I think that the idea has been around for quite a long time that people simply don't tend to carry more than one, maybe two, subscriptions. So that's the reason. I think that the push back against any sort of subscription is newer, but the subscription model was limiting for the genre, for sure. It was basically like, "Ok, you're subbed to EQ or WoW and then what?" If anything, F2P actually made the genre viable, since it made barrier to entry minimal and got players playing more than one MMORPG.
The entire birth, growth and development of the MMORPG genre was founded and supported by subscriptions for over a decade before F2P was even a thing.
How can you support the claim that subscriptions killed the genre when they were the entire reason it was even alive?
Because as effective as it was at funding the few games that were out there, it was also limiting in that there was a limit to how many subscriptions people would be willing to pay, so it was limited. I'm not saying it killed the industry, but subscriptions inherently limited the growth of the genre because it wasn't only a consideration of the $50 box price anymore, it was an ongoing expense. Hey! Maybe that's a good thing though, right? Maybe the mainstreaming has diluted the genre with tire kickers, right?
Again, the issue is more the underlying market saturation. You're right; folks aren't going to pay more than one or two subs a month. That worked when there weren't dozens of MMORPGs, released and EA/crowdfunded, vying for cash from the same relatively small niche of gamers.
A deluge of titles is not compatible with such a payment model. Luckily, the western releases seemed to have slowed dramatically, which is much more compatible with creating games centered around longevity for each individual gamer, as opposed to the smash and grab kind of payment model that F2P supports.
Being overlooked here is for whatever reason, players stopped playing the same MMORPG across a long period of time.
The distribution curve for WOW is almost an anomaly by itself, with WOW being one of the few titles experiencing it.
By around 2008 most every MMORPG developer was seeing a huge initial surge of launch day sales and then a rapid drop off begimning at almost at month one, rarely to uptick except at expansion time and never to recover fully and grow beyond launch.
By the time SWTOR and TSW launched it was clear the sub model was no longer sustainable except for a few outliers.
The folks at Zenimax were game to still try a sub only model with ESO but their rapid transition to a new model leads me to think they always had the switch in plan for when the inevitable decline came.
Now it's very debatable why player behavior changed. Some claim devs were releasing uninspiring games not "worthy" of a sub, others point to changes in social media, smart phones, and player lifestyles as the root cause.
Likely it is the combination of multiple factors, but perhaps the next round of indie created sub only games can prove whether the model can truly be viable in the modern age.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"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
You're right; folks aren't going to pay more than one or two subs a month. That worked when there weren't dozens of MMORPGs, released and EA/crowdfunded, vying for cash from the same relatively small niche of gamers.
Lol .. "one or two subs a month"? Try zero. Nowadays, most players don't pay for any subs.
Sure, whales will pay through their nose (or should it be nozzle?) but they are paying to win, not subs.
I've always said that f2p games are a curse on the genre.
We all love our demons and scapegoats.
The funny thing is what was originally killing the genre wasn't f2p, it was a forced subscription model.
Yeah apparently people have forgotten how many of the current F2P titles died once as a full-box price + monthly sub fee and they were given a second chance by F2P model.
and how many can survive in a sea of games....P2P thrived when there wasnt much competition...Once WoW came along many of them started dying off and had to go with different payment options.
I think the reason MMO subscriptions don't seem to be working is that too many players would rather buy an item than "work" at earning it with 20 hours of play time. Early WoW for example, getting a paladin mount took a lot of work. Now you can just buy one. On one hand you had a guild where you played together and did challenges and spent time in a game, the other you buy the shiny things and then get bored. In other words, it is the ingame purchases themselves that are harming games. If you have spent years playing a game with friends, you are unlikely to move on because of a subscription; in my experience at least. I stopped playing MMO's when the challenge left as I watched people buy stuff I earnt. As I posted once on the wow forums, I'd like to see a refinement of the subscription model. One where you pay a dollar when you log in, up to a max of (say) 15 per month. This way you are enticing people to try a game for a day or two. Also if you go on holidays or work / school gets too busy you aren't paying.
Remember, if you aren't paying for something, you are the product that is sold.
Consider this if you will...an example being WoW. You pat $19 for World of Warcraft, then spend $15/month say for 4 yrs. Let's not forget the expansion every 2 yrs, which usually costs $50. BAMM! you have just paid $820.00 for a game. go on, drive on down to Walmart and fork out $820.00 for a game, the wife will divorce you, not to mention having to take out a 2nd mortgage on the house to buy the game at that price. F2p may try to gank you with an item mall, but that is by choice.
This is an incredibly bad explanation.
4 years of being entertained for thousands of hours for only $820 is a steal.
You pay $40 just to see a movie that lasts measly a hour and half.
I can pay my $20 for a game and get 8 hours of entertainment in the first day, and then 20+ hours of entertainment for $15 for the rest of the month.
Well, yes and no. I have spent prolly a grand or more on WoW without buying cosmetics which I don't mind. I have played heroes of the storm for 2.5k hours. Have spent zero money and I have gotten a ton of free skins through lootboxes. That game, they did lootboxes right.
I think the reason MMO subscriptions don't seem to be working is that too many players would rather buy an item than "work" at earning it with 20 hours of play time.
You mean the whales?
So what? I wouldn't care less if others would buy items. I can always play the game the way i want to. Others don't affect 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
Sure .. but there are so few that they don't matter much.
Sub only is rare, but many games offer optional subs of varying degrees of "encouragement" or benefit.
Gone but not forgotten, my, my, hey, hey, subscriptions are here to stay....
There was a time when it seemed that cash shops could be designed to incentivise players to buy the subscription, the so called Turbine model. Well Lotro's Turbine model lasted a year before they gave up on that. From then on it is was get the cash every which way you can and is that way in nearly every MMO today.
Want cosmetic items? Yes we sell those. Want gameplay breaking items? We sell those. Want loot boxes. Yes we sell those. Want a subscription? Yep we sell those too. If they thought old MMO style art books and maps would sell in the cash shop that would be there too. If they thought you would buy a MMO themed car they would put that it, whatever, if it sells.
OP wants to be the Paul Revere of gaming. A patent doesn't mean anything, it is just a way for them to use legally. If they don't like a certain online game cause it does something game X also does they have a patent to try to push to prove fault. That's all it is, the sky isn't falling.
[[ DEAD ]] - Funny - I deleted my account on the site using the cancel account button. Forum user is separate and still exists with no way of deleting it. Delete it admins. Do it, this ends now.
Sure .. but there are so few that they don't matter much.
Sub only is rare, but many games offer optional subs of varying degrees of "encouragement" or benefit.
Gone but not forgotten, my, my, hey, hey, subscriptions are here to stay....
Sure .. so? sub as an option is still f2p if you can play for free. It is pretty irrelevant of whether someone else play a sub, or buy a virtual sword, as long as it is free for me.
This can actually be done right, as in a Premium account that offers the full game features you'd expect vs. the free account that either limits you or places major grinding hurdles in your way. Archeage started off this way in its first month, then they ruined it.
FTP games, however, should limit themselves to account features and not in-game items. The introduction of those items has never ended well. They either get traded around in the game and utterly destroy the economy or they circumvent an intentional feature of the game and break the entire process in your favor.
Sure .. but there are so few that they don't matter much.
Sub only is rare, but many games offer optional subs of varying degrees of "encouragement" or benefit.
Gone but not forgotten, my, my, hey, hey, subscriptions are here to stay....
Sure .. so? sub as an option is still f2p if you can play for free. It is pretty irrelevant of whether someone else play a sub, or buy a virtual sword, as long as it is free for me.
Well no, those other folks paying a sub or buying in a cash shop are "customers" while those not doing so are leeching.
Mom always taught me to pay my own way in life.....
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
Comments
A deluge of titles is not compatible with such a payment model. Luckily, the western releases seemed to have slowed dramatically, which is much more compatible with creating games centered around longevity for each individual gamer, as opposed to the smash and grab kind of payment model that F2P supports.
The distribution curve for WOW is almost an anomaly by itself, with WOW being one of the few titles experiencing it.
By around 2008 most every MMORPG developer was seeing a huge initial surge of launch day sales and then a rapid drop off begimning at almost at month one, rarely to uptick except at expansion time and never to recover fully and grow beyond launch.
By the time SWTOR and TSW launched it was clear the sub model was no longer sustainable except for a few outliers.
The folks at Zenimax were game to still try a sub only model with ESO but their rapid transition to a new model leads me to think they always had the switch in plan for when the inevitable decline came.
Now it's very debatable why player behavior changed. Some claim devs were releasing uninspiring games not "worthy" of a sub, others point to changes in social media, smart phones, and player lifestyles as the root cause.
Likely it is the combination of multiple factors, but perhaps the next round of indie created sub only games can prove whether the model can truly be viable in the modern age.
"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
Subs in general are not dead. Subs as the prices of admission are dead, rotted away, and the bones picked clean though.
Are you a whale? Sure there are millions of millions of gamers and you probably can find some.
But most don't pay in f2p games.
https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/177409-only-0-15-of-players-account-for-50-of-free-to-play-game-revenue
and i quote "Only 0.15% of players account for half of free-to-play game revenue".
"Only 49% of players even make a single purchase in a game." .. so almost half pays nothing ...
and
"By day three (of 14 tracked), players had already spent nearly 75% of the total money they’d spend in-game, assuming they spent any."
So apparently, retaining most players is just not necessarily since most paying players will not pay after 3 days.
Clearly, this is about the whales.
As I posted once on the wow forums, I'd like to see a refinement of the subscription model. One where you pay a dollar when you log in, up to a max of (say) 15 per month. This way you are enticing people to try a game for a day or two. Also if you go on holidays or work / school gets too busy you aren't paying.
Remember, if you aren't paying for something, you are the product that is sold.
You mean the whales?
So what? I wouldn't care less if others would buy items. I can always play the game the way i want to. Others don't affect me.
Donald Trump needs to stop posting lies about F2P vs sub.
Sure .. but there are so few that they don't matter much.
Nari is Trump? Now it all makes sense.
Gone but not forgotten, my, my, hey, hey, subscriptions are here to stay....
"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
There was a time when it seemed that cash shops could be designed to incentivise players to buy the subscription, the so called Turbine model. Well Lotro's Turbine model lasted a year before they gave up on that. From then on it is was get the cash every which way you can and is that way in nearly every MMO today.
Want cosmetic items? Yes we sell those. Want gameplay breaking items? We sell those. Want loot boxes. Yes we sell those. Want a subscription? Yep we sell those too. If they thought old MMO style art books and maps would sell in the cash shop that would be there too. If they thought you would buy a MMO themed car they would put that it, whatever, if it sells.
You are still going on Santa's naughty list, no escape for you!
Sure .. so? sub as an option is still f2p if you can play for free. It is pretty irrelevant of whether someone else play a sub, or buy a virtual sword, as long as it is free for me.
FTP games, however, should limit themselves to account features and not in-game items. The introduction of those items has never ended well. They either get traded around in the game and utterly destroy the economy or they circumvent an intentional feature of the game and break the entire process in your favor.
Mom always taught me to pay my own way in life.....
"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