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MMOs didn't go free because they have good hearts
TheScavenger
Member EpicPosts: 3,321
There is a reason MMOs are free. No game company or any other company sends out free products out of the goodness of their hearts
No, they saw that going free gave them a HUGE income boost since people spend far more on free MMOs than pay to play MMOs. People think they are getting a GREAT deal with free to play MMOs...when in reality they are spending more to play them than they would otherwise if it was pay to play. The people that don't spend money on said MMOs are severely limited compared to those who pay.
As they say, you get what you pay for. People on reddit and this forum want the good old times back...but that will never happen if they keep supporting free to play MMOs, which people keep doing. Seems weird to want the good old MMOs back, when you actually really do not want that.
In real life example for understanding...its like a casino where its free to enter and they may even offer free things (food/drink etc), but you end up spending 1000s, 10s of thousands, some people even millions or/and your entire bank account at the slot machines. They lure you in with "free" and sometimes even "goodies", but its actually a bait and switch.
The MMO industry started getting worse...and you may deny it...when MMO companies saw the huge pay off of free to play MMOs because so many people spend more than they would in a pay to play MMO...but don't want to spend money on a pay to play MMO because it isn't "free" even if it would be much cheaper to play
The only people who will deny this, are those who have been suckered in with the lure of "free" and don't want to admit they spend more than they otherwise would.
Free=ALWAYS worse quality game than buy to play or pay to play.
No, they saw that going free gave them a HUGE income boost since people spend far more on free MMOs than pay to play MMOs. People think they are getting a GREAT deal with free to play MMOs...when in reality they are spending more to play them than they would otherwise if it was pay to play. The people that don't spend money on said MMOs are severely limited compared to those who pay.
As they say, you get what you pay for. People on reddit and this forum want the good old times back...but that will never happen if they keep supporting free to play MMOs, which people keep doing. Seems weird to want the good old MMOs back, when you actually really do not want that.
In real life example for understanding...its like a casino where its free to enter and they may even offer free things (food/drink etc), but you end up spending 1000s, 10s of thousands, some people even millions or/and your entire bank account at the slot machines. They lure you in with "free" and sometimes even "goodies", but its actually a bait and switch.
The MMO industry started getting worse...and you may deny it...when MMO companies saw the huge pay off of free to play MMOs because so many people spend more than they would in a pay to play MMO...but don't want to spend money on a pay to play MMO because it isn't "free" even if it would be much cheaper to play
The only people who will deny this, are those who have been suckered in with the lure of "free" and don't want to admit they spend more than they otherwise would.
Free=ALWAYS worse quality game than buy to play or pay to play.
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/skyrim-anime-overhaul
Comments
They had a lot of players paying a sub. Some (not all) were willing to pay more, but there was no way for them to do that. So how do you, as a publisher, come up with creative ways for people to pay more money for your product, without alienating those that feel they are already paying enough (or too much)?
At first, they tried a "Premium" sub, it went for like $20, and you got to play on a special server that was supposed to have faster GM response, more GM-run events, etc.
Eventually, they moved to a F2P model, the "Pay What you Want" - which actually wasn't horrible. The option to sub was still there. But if you didn't want to sub, you could pay for parts of the game piecemeal (which didn't make a lot of sense dollar-wise, but it was an option). And of course, a lot of the typical cash-shop type stuff: cosmetic items, XP boosts, etc.
Turns out, the people that are willing to pay more, are willing to pay a ~whole~ lot more. Hence, whaling started. They are wiling to pay so much that the entire subscription becomes not necessary, and all the free players just become "free" content for the developer to use to attract more whales.
But I do try out a lot more games. The box fee has more to do with that than subscription though.
SWG (pre-cu) - AoC (pre-f2p) - PotBS (pre-boarder) - DDO - LotRO (pre-f2p) - STO (pre-f2p) - GnH (beta tester) - SWTOR - Neverwinter
You can say it was from Mobile gaming, but that isn't really true. Yes, Mobile did push that payment model in the West, but that was mostly for games like Candy Crush and Clash of Clans. What really pushed it were Asian games.1
DDO was the first major PC MMO to go entirely F2P. Because when it first came out, it wasn't exactly a hit. Turbine had decent success with Asherons Call and LOTRO, but DDO just didn't quite make it as the typical sub-based MMO when it released in 2006 (before the OMG Mobile craze).
In 2009, Turbine announced that DDO would go completely F2P with Cash Shop and optional "VIP Subscription" service.
It was a hit. Players came to DDO. In an interview with Adam Mersky in 2009 (Turbine Director of Communication at the time), Adam stated that the model for DDO came primarily after Turbine had issued the release of LOTRO and DDO in the Chinese and and other SEA markets.
The success of DDO opened the flood gates, so to speak, for the F2P model in the West.
You can argue LOTRO is worth playing...and...it actually WAS worth subbing to (wasn't worth playing for free lol, too limited). But they turned the game heavily pay to win recently, so no longer worth playing.
As a real world example. I can be given someones spat in, feces covered hamburger for free...or I can pay 6 dollars for a fast food hamburger. Depending on the fast food place, can be a pretty decent hamburger...
but most free MMOers will take the feces covered spat in hamburger because its free lol
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/skyrim-anime-overhaul
The people who want subscription represent 10% of the player base. 90% of the players either want to play for free and never pay without caring much if they are winning or people who only find enjoyment in paying disposable income to "win". Everyone is happy, well at least 90% are happy. Welcome to Democratic Capitalism!
http://baronsofthegalaxy.com/ An MMO game I created, solo. It's live now and absolutely free to play!
Its like a regular Honda CRX, and another one with a "R-Type" sticker on it. THe second oen cost $3000 more and is the "winning" vehicle. This is all common sense man!
http://baronsofthegalaxy.com/ An MMO game I created, solo. It's live now and absolutely free to play!
winner Path of Exile.
/checkmate
1. You never know when the 'only optional items' in the cash shop will slowly (or not so slowly) migrate to those familiar pay to win items.
2. The community tends to go downhill when a subscription mmo goes ftp. Someone gets banned for abuse - they just make another free account.
3. Gold sellers, in some games you cannot keep up with blacklisting the names due to the numbers.
That being said, i also think there's nothing wrong if someone does enjoy these games and pays for playing them. Heck, i've spent thousands of euros for MTG cards knowing full well the game is P2W from the ground up and my skills will never bring me to the top. Can you judge me for doing so if i have had a good time?
i'll gladly pay for quality games. i have a job. all you 8 hour a day playin, no job havin asshats can have your free turd games.
"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
I should point to a very good example as to the difference from lame developers and not.
POE and exact identical game to Diablo,guess which one costs a lot of money to buy and guess which one doesn't cost a dime.You can spend a little in POE and still play the entire game,likely for some added space but they do give you enough space to play one character class easily.
I am not alone in saying that POE is perhaps better than Diablo games ,so sometimes there is the odd case where we over pay right out of the box before we get to any cash shop or loot boxes.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
The weirdness of PoE Supporter Packs
https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2030703/page/1#p15027520
"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
What's next? Telling us that companies want to earn money?
"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
BTW Free to Play is the best way? That is 100% Subjective though you will find more people willing to play Subscriptions for a quality game then the Crap games that F2P bring out. People are willing to Play for Quality, you can see that just by looking at WOW Pre Cata and you can see that. F2P became a thing after that when the games became extremely casual to the point you can clear an entire expansion worth of content in 2 months as a casual player. This does not work well with the Subscription model period.
P2P works well with the old model of MMORPGS Pre WOTLK where it would take you 2 years or more to clear the hardest content. Look at FFXI how long it took you to level there; or how SWG or UO played? These games were designed so that the journey mattered not the next raid coming out next month to get the next shinny piece of loot.
The payment model has more to do with the game design than with anything. Another example is Rift, its a WOW knock off and was not worth the $14.99 a month compared to WOW. Why do you think it was not a success? It went F2P and now you can buy raid gear off the cash shop. Now if the game was $8.99 a month (Not with a year's sub) I would likely play it again if it was a Sub Only game, maybe having a FFXIV like cash shop ok. Problem is Rift is not in my eyes worth $14.99. So I dont play. If Rift launch and was a $8 or $9 sub and listened to the player base who called for 10 man raids and not 20 man raids it likely would have done much better. Even if they scaled the raids it would have been better. FFXIV has 8 man raids as their progression raids and it does better than Rift. O and FFXIV does only do short F2P setups to bring players back. Yet has a very strong P2P player base. It also releases content every few months.
FFXIV is Quality it also focused on content coming out all the time, AND smaller raid sizes.
Rift is a cheap WOW knock off that takes time for content to come out and focused on 20 man raid sizes. This made it harder to get end game content going.
Rift is F2P with a crappy Cash shop. FFXIV is a P2P game with a cosmetic cash shop were a lot of stuff you can already get in game. FFXIV clearly does better with the population vs Rift.
One of the reasons FF14 never switched to f2p is because Yoshi-P strongly oppose F2P model and also because of corporate culture.
1) Barrier to entry
This is the single greatest reason for switching to F2P. If one game costs £40 and the other is free, more people are likely to play the free one. It doesn't matter that the free one would cost you more over time through microtransactions, at the point of purchase you've no idea whether you'll enjoy it or not so the free game is less risky.
2) The Asian Market
The Asian market does not like to pay for games up front. It's their culture, its what has worked for them for years and works well. So, developers were having to maintain multiple business models to service different parts of the world. By making everyone F2P, it meant less development was required.
3) Pay Ceiling
With box + sub, there is a maximum amount of money any player can spend in a year. By adding microtransactions to a F2P model, you can dramatically increase or remove altogether that ceiling, thus potentially getting a lot more money out of the same customers. If a player ever does hit that ceiling, all you need to do is add more stuff to the cash shop to increase the ceiling further.
These all fall under the general business rules of lower costs and increase income. Do they genuinely need to increase income, or is it just greed? Raph Koster did a great blog post last year about game economics that is worth a read if you're interested, I'm not 100% convinced on his conclusions / reasoning but he certainly opened my eyes to a few things I was unaware of.
He said it in one of his letters from the producer. I don't remember which one but Google could tell you.
Each time they went for a larger playerbase secure in the knowledge that if they could appeal to the baulk of the new players it would not matter what the old smaller playerbase thought.
We have had half a generation brought up on F2P MMOs, it is now the norm. It has taken the introduction of gambling in MMOs for there to be any backlash for publishers. But there are still MMOs out there that are not as bad as the others, still something for us to play.