F2P works because the people who don't use the item shop still provide the audience for the people that do. Both types of players establish the means to profit even though only one type actually buys anything.
Compared to creating worlds that players simply love to game in... sheesh, these devs at F2P studios must despise themselves at the end of the day. I wonder how many people working at Turbine are happy with how things have turned out.
Also, I am sure there is some very nice economic theory that would explain the distribution of spending in these games.
I think most devs realize that the life expectancy of your average mmo player is about two months. And the front end of that time is when players are most excited, and will pay larger sums of money.
Hay....lets get a fast $50 from them before they get sick of our game
Originally posted by kadepsyson Seriously, this threads topic could also be written as "Instead of changing to make more money, why not change to make less money?" No.
Nope.
It's simply changing to reflect the real "value" of your product, in order to attract more players. Let's make 2 examples: WoW has a long story of updates, lots of content, polish, a decent customer support (at least compared to other mmos) and costs $15/month. STO has pretty much no content (mostly the same missions repeated over and over again), 90% of updates are C-Store only, game is still glitchy or incomplete and there is pretty much zero customer service, but it also costs $15/month. Eve Online is among the very few games almost constantly growing, both in users and gameplay and costs $15 a month (but you also can buy game time with ingame currency). Mortal online costs $15/month and, well... just lol. There are many other examples...
I think people will generally stick to 1 sub regardless of price unless it was ridicoulusly low maybe, paying a sub is like making a comittment to that game.
In my humble opinion any amount charged is money people perceive that goes out and it is not the amount but the premise that you pay. So to actually make a difference you have to go free to play not less money to play. There is no impact to charging $10 when others charge $15 so you are still charging what makes you different.
You think the 5 bucks makes it less no free does. Then you can dupe people to trying your game.Then you rope them in and then charge for content. The key here is to get people to try the game so that they might play the game and then became interested enough to spend money on it. If you start by asking people to pay less then you are not making yourself different enough for people to try the game. I hope what I am trying to say got across.
People thinking companies make less money going f2p got it all wrong they are minting. Fools who spend are happily paying and gobbling up the content. At the end of the day they would have been better off with a subscription those types of individual are fodder for these companies and they have finally realised the gold mine that is those players with fat wallets and a unrestrained desire to spend on hobbies.
It is not the f2p that I see is going to be the problem ,it is the ways companies will be thinking of to exploit this that has me worried. People who support f2p are jumping up and down thinking 'oooo whoppie doo' look how wonderful this is when in reality the content and type of game that will be coming out with these models will not be in any way be helping the genre but improving gouging you while they smile all the way to the bank. To be honest I prefer a monthly sub than watching how the genre will change with this money making demon in the mix.
Originally posted by ryuga81 Nope. It's simply changing to reflect the real "value" of your product, in order to attract more players. Let's make 2 examples: WoW has a long story of updates, lots of content, polish, a decent customer support (at least compared to other mmos) and costs $15/month. STO has pretty much no content (mostly the same missions repeated over and over again), 90% of updates are C-Store only, game is still glitchy or incomplete and there is pretty much zero customer service, but it also costs $15/month. Eve Online is among the very few games almost constantly growing, both in users and gameplay and costs $15 a month (but you also can buy game time with ingame currency). Mortal online costs $15/month and, well... just lol. There are many other examples...
Except:
1) There is no such thing as 'real' value. 2) Games are hardly comparable to each other as there are no objective, measurable attributes of entertainment or fun.
I understand that lots of MMORPGs are dieing, due to the clime in number of MMORPGs being released.
But why fold over to F2P model, when you could simply reduce the sub cost, down to say something like 10$ or less.
some games make sense to be F2P, thats because they are NOT MMORPGs.
examples include, but not limited to;
*DDO
*Vindicus
*Guild Wars
the more of a OMRPG(Online Multiplayer Role Playing Game) like Diablo is.
I wouldnt mind subing to more games, if the price was reduced, and it didnt have a item mall. But 15+$ a month, stacks up on you after awhile.
They are different games that appeal to different types of players.
It's not really about the money.
Let's take out the free loaders, the ones that play F2P games until they hit the wall and really really need items in the cash shop, so they quit and go to another F2P game.
You're not getting money from those people in a sub or F2P game.
So that leaves the people paying subs, and the people buying items in cash shops.
People on average spend MORE in cash shops, than in a monthly sub.
In other words the cash shop buyer will buy more than 15 bucks worth of stuff each month, some times MUCH more.
So, for the people that actually pay, it's not about the money.
The Cash shop players think "time" is an unfair way to judge character progress. They want to substitute money for time played.
The argument is "I should be able to play the game they way I want to. After all, I am paying for it. I should determine how fast, or how slow I progress, depending on how much I want to pay."
The sub player thinks money is an unfair way to judge character progress, and instead wants to substitute time.
"It's not fair that people buy their way to the top. Everyone should have to do the same things in the game, kill mobs and do quests, like everyone else, to progress. That is fair!"
Lower sub prices would only appeal to the people tha tlike to measure their characters in "time".
It would not appeal to the people that like to measure their characters in money. So what if the sub is only 5 bucks a month. They dont' want to play if they can't buy an XP potion to level faster than you do without one.
I don't mind 15 at all, to others paying to play a game is crazy but it all depends how much you play compared to pay. I get a lot out the money I pay since MMO's are a major chunk of my entertainment. Now with FFXI doing the 7 bucks if you merge it with your SE account it makes it playing the game even more worth it. That is if you enjoy the game.lol.
But the F2P way but buying the content you want can a blessing or a curse depending how buy happy you are. If you're someone who doesn't really buy anything then its the way to go.. But some people who buy more might end up spending more than they would if they would just pay the 15 a month and have everything unlocked.
Now the Buy to play, I still haven't figured out how they are pulling it off. Yes you have to buy the game but i think that way isn't going to be a steady flow of money each month. Most likely as each month goes buy less and less people buy the game so after a while your funds just stop. I guess they can take the initial money from the game launch put that that money into the expansion development. But where are they getting the money to keep the servers up and running and the connection? Unless they put aside some of that box sales money aside and hope they don't run out.
So either the people at Anet know a little secret that the rest of the MMO devs don't know or all the game devs are just greedy and ripping off all of us. Cuz IMO GW was a pretty successful game in fact they are making a sequel, so they must be doing something right.
I don't mind 15 at all, to others paying to play a game is crazy but it all depends how much you play compared to pay. I get a lot out the money I pay since MMO's are a major chunk of my entertainment. Now with FFXI doing the 7 bucks if you merge it with your SE account it makes it playing the game even more worth it. That is if you enjoy the game.lol.
But the F2P way but buying the content you want can a blessing or a curse depending how buy happy you are. If you're someone who doesn't really buy anything then its the way to go.. But some people who buy more might end up spending more than they would if they would just pay the 15 a month and have everything unlocked.
Now the Buy to play, I still haven't figured out how they are pulling it off. Yes you have to buy the game but i think that way isn't going to be a steady flow of money each month. Most likely as each month goes buy less and less people buy the game so after a while your funds just stop. I guess they can take the initial money from the game launch put that that money into the expansion development. But where are they getting the money to keep the servers up and running and the connection? Unless they put aside some of that box sales money aside and hope they don't run out.
So either the people at Anet know a little secret that the rest of the MMO devs don't know or all the game devs are just greedy and ripping off all of us. Cuz IMO GW was a pretty successful game in fact they are making a sequel, so they must be doing something right.
GW isnt a MMO, so it uses the lower cost free servers seen on the PS3 and Nintendo Wii,
Freemium MMOs work with drug-dealer method. First taste is always free!
People start playing and like it, then look at cash shop, see shiny new mount (5$) and XP scrolls [4,5$) and new area unlock (10$) and they end up paying 20$ for their once 15$ a month game.
Basically, in freemium games the stick is free but carrot will cost ya, therefore its no suprise that its more profitable model for devs than static subscription.
It might just be something borderline illegal.I mean original F2P games over here use the "DONATE" format for drawing in money.So obviously there are ways to bring in money and not pay taxes or problably ways to not have ALL monsy accounted for or followed by tax collector[govmnt].Once you have a sub model then you have a record of all users,500k users x 15 bucks is easy math to follow come tax collection time.Once you start spreading out donations or RMT items,it is cash flow from everywhere at all different angles, it becomes pretty hard to follow .
So far i have not seen a legit format of either a reduced or F2P and even the 15 bucks pay to play is mainly used to fund the next xpac that you are going to be charged to buy.By time you have paid 1 year at 15=180 bucks,imo about 50-80 of that is for bandwidth,the other 100 or so is paying to develope the xpac,so in reality,you are paying well over 100-150+ for those xpacs.No matter what format is used,developers are ripping off the customer.
Many will argue 15 bucks is not much at all to spend for entertaiment,I am one of those,but we can't forget,that you pay NOTHING to play a single player game,so these games that are charging MMO prices,had better be offering a lot more than what a single players game does,and most are not.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
For some reason a lot of gamers have issues with paying a monthly fee. I still have friends who just cannot comprehend what enjoyment I get out of a game that makes me pay a monthly fee. Those same friends have no problem spending $120 a month or more on new console games, but the idea of paying monthly is just too taboo for them. For those type people, F2P is a great way to lure them in and a lot of times they will end up getting more than the standard $15 a month fee without them even realising it.
Think of it this way: The $15 per month model was established over 10 years ago. There wasn't as many players back then and the servers aren't as powerful as they are today.
IOW, given inflation, it should be $17 per month now.
In reality it's still $15 for most games, so effective prices have come down
F2P/Itemmall concepts were, as stated already, created to increase revenue by getting people to spend more money but in smaller increments.
So instead of having your CC debited $15 every 1st of the month, you actively spend $10 a week in the itemmall, effectively therefore spending roughly three times as much as you would have otherwise.
Reducing subscription fees can work to draw in more customers, but as you do so the cost of doing business also goes up (higher serverloads, higher load on your support team) so if you half your subscription fees you'll need to more than double your customerbase to see an increase in profits.
The $10-15 a month most MMOs seem to use is I think pretty much the "sweet spot" for that, much lower won't bring a marked increase in customers while much higher will loose you customers.
When I did support for a company selling shrinkwrapped game addons we had a similar price point that offered the best tradeoff between income and cost, which had been carefully researched. We kept that price point for many years, despite inflation, relying on the increase in customers (due to the devaluation of currency, that pricepoint comes into range for more people) to compensate.
Reducing the fee gets you a moderate population increase.
Removing it gets you a huge population increase.
Why settle for second best? Offer a game free and design a great item shop and everyone's happy.
a lot of people would prefer a smaller community with less trolls and other nastiness that comes free with the f2p concept which draws in a lot of very young players who can't subscribe to a p2p game because they lack a creditcard (or any reliable income to pay with gamecards).
And with increased population comes increased support cost and maintenance cost of your increased number of servers, increased bandwidth cost, etc.
Because going f2p garners more attention and potential customers than simply lowering the monthly fee will do.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
A $5 difference won't change my mind. I am paying in pounds which is 9 pounds per month. What are they gonna charge me? 8? I don't see any difference. If I don't want to pay 15 it is because the game is not worth it. So if they lower the sub to 10 I would still not play it.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Reducing the fee gets you a moderate population increase.
Removing it gets you a huge population increase.
Why settle for second best? Offer a game free and design a great item shop and everyone's happy.
a lot of people would prefer a smaller community with less trolls and other nastiness that comes free with the f2p concept which draws in a lot of very young players who can't subscribe to a p2p game because they lack a creditcard (or any reliable income to pay with gamecards).
And with increased population comes increased support cost and maintenance cost of your increased number of servers, increased bandwidth cost, etc.
Really? I got 3 words for you "World of Warcraft" Largest community, 15/mo sub fee and bar none the worst for trolls, qq,s, and gold hacking/phishing. Your argument needs work.
And to the OP what the heck is this "not mmorpg" who gets to decide if the game isn't a persistant world it loses it's mmo title. That's Bull, Guildwars has millions of players (not sure of the exact number) I would say that's Massive, they play in group and can chat, I would say that's Mulitplayer, And I shouldn't need to say this but it is Online.
As for free to play and item malls i think the real problem here is "competitive people" and "Instant gratification" You can easily sit down and Play DDO, LOTRO, GW1, and many more without using the item shop. Yes it will take you a long time to amass the in game currency to open new stuff or but that nifty pet. But what i think is getting all your goats is, if you want to be the best on the server with all the nicknacks and show off your EPEENs you have to pay alot more in them ingame shops,
In truth does it really matter, have you found a F2P game that you just love to death but you just can't give up your sub game cause it has that nasty item mall? I doubt it.
sorry for ranting, crappy morning
Edit: ok reread the post i quoted, lol sorry , I misread it. Disreguard my first paragraph but i stand by the rest :P
Some people, like myself hate paying per month, and would rather pay one time.
Others don't want to pay at all, and never will
And others want to unlock various aspects of the game, but could care less about the rest of the game.
All in all, a very great idea. When done correctly. (Excluding EQ2X for the ridiculous costs for almost every aspects of the game, $60 for a vampire race anyone?)
Comments
/thread
F2P works because the people who don't use the item shop still provide the audience for the people that do. Both types of players establish the means to profit even though only one type actually buys anything.
Compared to creating worlds that players simply love to game in... sheesh, these devs at F2P studios must despise themselves at the end of the day. I wonder how many people working at Turbine are happy with how things have turned out.
Also, I am sure there is some very nice economic theory that would explain the distribution of spending in these games.
Yes there is look up the economic principle of E-P33N
I think most devs realize that the life expectancy of your average mmo player is about two months. And the front end of that time is when players are most excited, and will pay larger sums of money.
Hay....lets get a fast $50 from them before they get sick of our game
Yes thats very clever and easy.For example a 5 euro per month should be suitable for everyone.
Seems like these guys dont want to make our lives better.
But dont worry guys Gw2 is coming to give a critical hit on other mmos.
I think after gw2 every mmo will start thinking of free to play.
MMo industry is in vein we need freedom and not slavery.
I want to play 4 mmos at the same time but i cant due to monthly fees.
15$ is cheap??? LOOOOL
For that much i can have 20 bread. Thats bread for whole month!
Nope.
It's simply changing to reflect the real "value" of your product, in order to attract more players. Let's make 2 examples: WoW has a long story of updates, lots of content, polish, a decent customer support (at least compared to other mmos) and costs $15/month. STO has pretty much no content (mostly the same missions repeated over and over again), 90% of updates are C-Store only, game is still glitchy or incomplete and there is pretty much zero customer service, but it also costs $15/month.
Eve Online is among the very few games almost constantly growing, both in users and gameplay and costs $15 a month (but you also can buy game time with ingame currency). Mortal online costs $15/month and, well... just lol.
There are many other examples...
I think people will generally stick to 1 sub regardless of price unless it was ridicoulusly low maybe, paying a sub is like making a comittment to that game.
In my humble opinion any amount charged is money people perceive that goes out and it is not the amount but the premise that you pay. So to actually make a difference you have to go free to play not less money to play. There is no impact to charging $10 when others charge $15 so you are still charging what makes you different.
You think the 5 bucks makes it less no free does. Then you can dupe people to trying your game.Then you rope them in and then charge for content. The key here is to get people to try the game so that they might play the game and then became interested enough to spend money on it. If you start by asking people to pay less then you are not making yourself different enough for people to try the game. I hope what I am trying to say got across.
People thinking companies make less money going f2p got it all wrong they are minting. Fools who spend are happily paying and gobbling up the content. At the end of the day they would have been better off with a subscription those types of individual are fodder for these companies and they have finally realised the gold mine that is those players with fat wallets and a unrestrained desire to spend on hobbies.
It is not the f2p that I see is going to be the problem ,it is the ways companies will be thinking of to exploit this that has me worried. People who support f2p are jumping up and down thinking 'oooo whoppie doo' look how wonderful this is when in reality the content and type of game that will be coming out with these models will not be in any way be helping the genre but improving gouging you while they smile all the way to the bank. To be honest I prefer a monthly sub than watching how the genre will change with this money making demon in the mix.
Except:
1) There is no such thing as 'real' value.
2) Games are hardly comparable to each other as there are no objective, measurable attributes of entertainment or fun.
But you made fine trolling attempt there...
They are different games that appeal to different types of players.
It's not really about the money.
Let's take out the free loaders, the ones that play F2P games until they hit the wall and really really need items in the cash shop, so they quit and go to another F2P game.
You're not getting money from those people in a sub or F2P game.
So that leaves the people paying subs, and the people buying items in cash shops.
People on average spend MORE in cash shops, than in a monthly sub.
In other words the cash shop buyer will buy more than 15 bucks worth of stuff each month, some times MUCH more.
So, for the people that actually pay, it's not about the money.
The Cash shop players think "time" is an unfair way to judge character progress. They want to substitute money for time played.
The argument is "I should be able to play the game they way I want to. After all, I am paying for it. I should determine how fast, or how slow I progress, depending on how much I want to pay."
The sub player thinks money is an unfair way to judge character progress, and instead wants to substitute time.
"It's not fair that people buy their way to the top. Everyone should have to do the same things in the game, kill mobs and do quests, like everyone else, to progress. That is fair!"
Lower sub prices would only appeal to the people tha tlike to measure their characters in "time".
It would not appeal to the people that like to measure their characters in money. So what if the sub is only 5 bucks a month. They dont' want to play if they can't buy an XP potion to level faster than you do without one.
GW2 is not free to play, it is buy to play, B2P.
I don't mind 15 at all, to others paying to play a game is crazy but it all depends how much you play compared to pay. I get a lot out the money I pay since MMO's are a major chunk of my entertainment. Now with FFXI doing the 7 bucks if you merge it with your SE account it makes it playing the game even more worth it. That is if you enjoy the game.lol.
But the F2P way but buying the content you want can a blessing or a curse depending how buy happy you are. If you're someone who doesn't really buy anything then its the way to go.. But some people who buy more might end up spending more than they would if they would just pay the 15 a month and have everything unlocked.
Now the Buy to play, I still haven't figured out how they are pulling it off. Yes you have to buy the game but i think that way isn't going to be a steady flow of money each month. Most likely as each month goes buy less and less people buy the game so after a while your funds just stop. I guess they can take the initial money from the game launch put that that money into the expansion development. But where are they getting the money to keep the servers up and running and the connection? Unless they put aside some of that box sales money aside and hope they don't run out.
So either the people at Anet know a little secret that the rest of the MMO devs don't know or all the game devs are just greedy and ripping off all of us. Cuz IMO GW was a pretty successful game in fact they are making a sequel, so they must be doing something right.
GW isnt a MMO, so it uses the lower cost free servers seen on the PS3 and Nintendo Wii,
GW2 will have a more larger in game shop.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Reducing the fee gets you a moderate population increase.
Removing it gets you a huge population increase.
Why settle for second best? Offer a game free and design a great item shop and everyone's happy.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Freemium MMOs work with drug-dealer method. First taste is always free!
People start playing and like it, then look at cash shop, see shiny new mount (5$) and XP scrolls [4,5$) and new area unlock (10$) and they end up paying 20$ for their once 15$ a month game.
Basically, in freemium games the stick is free but carrot will cost ya, therefore its no suprise that its more profitable model for devs than static subscription.
@ the op...
It might just be something borderline illegal.I mean original F2P games over here use the "DONATE" format for drawing in money.So obviously there are ways to bring in money and not pay taxes or problably ways to not have ALL monsy accounted for or followed by tax collector[govmnt].Once you have a sub model then you have a record of all users,500k users x 15 bucks is easy math to follow come tax collection time.Once you start spreading out donations or RMT items,it is cash flow from everywhere at all different angles, it becomes pretty hard to follow .
So far i have not seen a legit format of either a reduced or F2P and even the 15 bucks pay to play is mainly used to fund the next xpac that you are going to be charged to buy.By time you have paid 1 year at 15=180 bucks,imo about 50-80 of that is for bandwidth,the other 100 or so is paying to develope the xpac,so in reality,you are paying well over 100-150+ for those xpacs.No matter what format is used,developers are ripping off the customer.
Many will argue 15 bucks is not much at all to spend for entertaiment,I am one of those,but we can't forget,that you pay NOTHING to play a single player game,so these games that are charging MMO prices,had better be offering a lot more than what a single players game does,and most are not.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
For some reason a lot of gamers have issues with paying a monthly fee. I still have friends who just cannot comprehend what enjoyment I get out of a game that makes me pay a monthly fee. Those same friends have no problem spending $120 a month or more on new console games, but the idea of paying monthly is just too taboo for them. For those type people, F2P is a great way to lure them in and a lot of times they will end up getting more than the standard $15 a month fee without them even realising it.
IOW, given inflation, it should be $17 per month now.
In reality it's still $15 for most games, so effective prices have come down
F2P/Itemmall concepts were, as stated already, created to increase revenue by getting people to spend more money but in smaller increments.
So instead of having your CC debited $15 every 1st of the month, you actively spend $10 a week in the itemmall, effectively therefore spending roughly three times as much as you would have otherwise.
Reducing subscription fees can work to draw in more customers, but as you do so the cost of doing business also goes up (higher serverloads, higher load on your support team) so if you half your subscription fees you'll need to more than double your customerbase to see an increase in profits.
The $10-15 a month most MMOs seem to use is I think pretty much the "sweet spot" for that, much lower won't bring a marked increase in customers while much higher will loose you customers.
When I did support for a company selling shrinkwrapped game addons we had a similar price point that offered the best tradeoff between income and cost, which had been carefully researched. We kept that price point for many years, despite inflation, relying on the increase in customers (due to the devaluation of currency, that pricepoint comes into range for more people) to compensate.
a lot of people would prefer a smaller community with less trolls and other nastiness that comes free with the f2p concept which draws in a lot of very young players who can't subscribe to a p2p game because they lack a creditcard (or any reliable income to pay with gamecards).
And with increased population comes increased support cost and maintenance cost of your increased number of servers, increased bandwidth cost, etc.
Because going f2p garners more attention and potential customers than simply lowering the monthly fee will do.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
A $5 difference won't change my mind. I am paying in pounds which is 9 pounds per month. What are they gonna charge me? 8? I don't see any difference. If I don't want to pay 15 it is because the game is not worth it. So if they lower the sub to 10 I would still not play it.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Really? I got 3 words for you "World of Warcraft" Largest community, 15/mo sub fee and bar none the worst for trolls, qq,s, and gold hacking/phishing. Your argument needs work.
And to the OP what the heck is this "not mmorpg" who gets to decide if the game isn't a persistant world it loses it's mmo title. That's Bull, Guildwars has millions of players (not sure of the exact number) I would say that's Massive, they play in group and can chat, I would say that's Mulitplayer, And I shouldn't need to say this but it is Online.
As for free to play and item malls i think the real problem here is "competitive people" and "Instant gratification" You can easily sit down and Play DDO, LOTRO, GW1, and many more without using the item shop. Yes it will take you a long time to amass the in game currency to open new stuff or but that nifty pet. But what i think is getting all your goats is, if you want to be the best on the server with all the nicknacks and show off your EPEENs you have to pay alot more in them ingame shops,
In truth does it really matter, have you found a F2P game that you just love to death but you just can't give up your sub game cause it has that nasty item mall? I doubt it.
sorry for ranting, crappy morning
Edit: ok reread the post i quoted, lol sorry , I misread it. Disreguard my first paragraph but i stand by the rest :P
No, it won't. You only lose money.
Some people, like myself hate paying per month, and would rather pay one time.
Others don't want to pay at all, and never will
And others want to unlock various aspects of the game, but could care less about the rest of the game.
All in all, a very great idea. When done correctly. (Excluding EQ2X for the ridiculous costs for almost every aspects of the game, $60 for a vampire race anyone?)