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Will Play to Earn Become the New Free to Play? | MMORPG.com
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Will Play to Earn Become the New Free to Play? | MMORPG.com
Before the age of Satoshi's, meme coins and the overwhelming rejection of acronyms such as NFT, we MMORPG players were graced with another distasteful choice in monetization schemes. The rise of the, once hated, but now widely accepted, Free to Play model has stood the test of time. Will Play to Earn go the same way?
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https://steamcharts.com/top
You really using Steamcharts to compare the population of games like FFXIV, etc?
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Its just a tool to keep people in their eco system. Any game could implement this, even WoW or ESO. How could a payment system make a game mindless? Payment model's F2P to Monthly sub have turned out good and bad games. We used to flip out games with Cash Shops and games like GW2 have proven you can have a good game with a fair cash shop. P2E games will be much the same, mostly trash with some gems, Im sure.
Games that use crypto, normally sell for 1-24 cents. Some get close to a buck. This is not Bitcoin. Most of this will be spent in buying in game things like ESO sub that gives you more access and extra perks, cosmetics. Not gonna buy a fridge with it. Also the more games that add this type of crypto, the less it will be worth. It just to keep people in their eco system and I am sure people will be buy and selling the games crypto for in game gold, much like WoWs token you can trade a sub cost for in game gold. Or earn with gold in game.
The premise that P2E/P&E could replace F2P is silly. They don't do the same things, or even compete with each other. Lets start with what each is, and what it brings to the table (for the developer/publisher).
F2P is a marketing tool designed to reduce customer acquisition cost. It leverages the game itself for the marketing and conversion. It is diametrically opposed to P2P (which it competes against) which uses marketing spend to bring in customers, and charges them to access the game. F2P has allowed publishers to bring in a large playerbase very cheaply, and then to minimize the conversion cost per customer. This is why it is the dominant form of gaming today... it significantly reduced upfront costs, and allowed for sliding conversion costs.
P2E/P&E is a marketing tool designed to bring in DAU/MAU by paying them with virtual assets that have almost no cost, and limited long term value. It allows a publisher to create demand as needed to fill the game. This is basically the same as buying social media followers/likes. It creates an illusion of popularity. This can be useful in several ways. It can be used to raise funding for your game/company. It can be used to create hype/energy for your game/company. It can be used to provide content for your paying customers. This can be very useful tool for a publisher. It can be indirectly related to marketing when used for hype/promotional purposes, but it is not in any way a replacement for an actual marketing plan.
It will take a little while, but eventually P&E will be a common component in most games, as it can be a very valuable tool for a publisher. However, just like with anything new in the gaming industry, it will take years (and many terrible mistakes) before publishers understand how to use this effectively.
Over the next few years P2E is going to explode, it will replace F2P I don't see why that is in question. I certainly think you are right about mistakes being made, that's natural with any new system.
Game 'A' uses F2P, P2E comes in and Game A is no longer F2P. It may have free entry and will certainly have a cash shop, is that what you are getting at?
I see what you are saying about the different expectations studios have on what these systems deliver but I am not sure that matters. What it comes down to is what is the most important things for the players, that the game has free entry and a cash shop or that they think they are earning as they play?
For me this would be only used in a way I would approve for a game. Anything earned, like cash shop games, would only work for me if it was cosmetics or convenance items. I dont mind people earning game time by buying a sub with cyrpto. But the second you can buy gear that gives a player an edge, or you can sell your raid/crafted gear for crypto, thats a game I would not play.
Measuring the success of P2E games in no way can be done now. Its interesting that some have already gained traction. My guess, it wont be long till allot if not most games add this. There is no risk for a company to do this. How heavy handed its done will be the only risk. Much like a heavy handed cash shop vs one like GW2.
You know mir4 has its own launcher too? It's on multiple platforms too. It's in a lot of other regions too.
I'm not trying to say that mir4 has more players, but I can easily show you numbers that show how it's active players are at least as high or higher than some of the games you mention. At least in steam and mobile.
It's already higher than new world, which is only on steam. You shouldn't be so sure of yourself that play 2 earn is going to fade away because it's "unpopular." That's the exact opposite of what the numbers show. Unless you have actual numbers that say otherwise.
Brenics ~ Just to point out I do believe Chris Roberts is going down as the man who cheated backers and took down crowdfunding for gaming.
You are right, people are going NFT nuts. I was talking crypto. By your comment, stealing 600 mill would be a cypto thing is it not? Money earned from NFT's are in the sellers account. So getting to 600 million, you would need a game so popular it would rival WoW in its hay day.
Both styles could be considered marketing tools, but the main difference is the conversion rate. For play to earn (or play and earn, which is now becoming more just marketing speak than an actual change in theory) the systems are complimentary to a point, and that point is where the earn comes in.
When you earn an asset in game, it really isn't different than earning any other in game, at least on the surface. But when you're providing a monetized asset you've already turned the player into a customer.
The systems aren't against each other, but one is an evolution of the other imo. Because of the way smart contracts within these NFTs are crafted, developers can just let players create and sell these items on their own, and as long as there are buyers, you may never personally spend money... you may actually be making money... but you still contribute to the cost of development. It's not necessarily the same as "buying followers" because the followers you would buy don't directly earn you anything. In this case, if I, the developer, give you a +1 sword of swiftness for free, as long as you have a buyer for it, I earn... no investors or additional marketing needed. More likely you become my marketing tool, because if you want to sell it, you put it up for sale, and you can advertise it.
As long as someone is buying... it doesn't matter if you're the one earning the sword, or if the developers are just giving items away for free (which they do... all the time, and now you know why - cause they expect you to sell them) either way the developer profits when its sold.
The real question is, who is buying? That's where it becomes unsustainable. Obviously there are a lot of buyers right now, but if the game isn't good and there's no reason to play, that's where you end up losing traction. That's why I think even though play2earn might succeed in the short term for bless, it's such a crap game that eventually players just won't want to buy anything.
The aggregate effect is poor.
Yet you still based the population on Steamcharts. You mentioned nothing about the other launchers. For all we know, only 1% of players use Steam for FFXIV etc, whereas more like 50%+ could use it for MIR4. Neither of us know the numbers, so there's no accuracy whatsoever in you using Steamcharts to compare populations of MMOs. Yet the way you worded your original post made it look like it's definitive proof that MIR4 has more players than FFXIV etc. I thought this was already known? Guess you missed the memo.
I'm not saying that mir4 has more players or is a better game, I'm just saying when you say that it isn't going to compete with AAA games, but on steam the active player numbers show it surpassing many of them, some that are steam only games, it goes against that point.
I'm not saying that mir4 is good, it's clearly not, or more popular than ffxiv, which I hope it isn't, but it's not some kind of failure either based on those numbers.
I get what you meant now that you've explained it, and I actually agree. Sorry
Not always, it is 100% on the company to define the P2E aspect, much like every F2P/Cash shop game is a different flavor. P2E will look like everything from heavy handed looking to market everything in the game to games that will let you earn cosmetics and game time and nothing else. Some will dive into NFTs trying to sell their Crypto to the world, others will be looking to use it like a loyalty program to keep people playing. P2E will be as varied as F2P games.