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If F2P is the most profitable business model...
cranthug
Member UncommonPosts: 102
Why are the majority of AAA MMO's releasing with aspirations of being P2P? Regardless of people's predictions of how many months til a games "inevitable" conversion to a F2P cash shop, P2P is still and will always be the preferred business model for game makers. It benefits the devs and players alike, and if a game has the longevity and the fun factor built into it you should be required to compensate the game makers for providing you this service.
If people want to be nickel and dimed for content that should already be available to them for a small fee each month, more power to them. If kiddies can't get their parents to cough up a credit card so they can game, I say get a damn job. The problem with P2P isn't the business model, it is the fact that there have been no games released in recent memory worth paying a sub for.
Nothing in life is free except the grace and favor of the Lord. Support the developers that give you hours of entertainment. Long live P2P! Huzzah!
Comments
Uh?
Here is a list of recent 2013 MMO releases.
http://games.gamepressure.com/games_encyclopedia.asp?KAT=7&SOR=2
Tell me how many are sub-only.
I failed to locate a AAA mmo on that list, though I did see a few that aspired to P2P but fell to their own short comings. FF XIV, Wildstar, and ESO are all releasing as P2P. I would consider those AAA games. I suppose it's a matter of one's opinion on what a quality AAA game is, my apologies for using my opinion as a blanket statement!
The question remains however...if the three games I mentioned are releasing as P2P, do you think they have made a grievous error in profitability? Because as I see it, if they maintain healthy subscription numbers...will it not be a more profitable and sound endeavor for them? I know I personally take comfort in knowing my monthly budget amount before the bills start rolling in...instead of worrying about selling enough lemonades at my stand to keep my electricity on next month.
Ah .. in that case, i have no problem of your statement. The number of sub-only release is factual, and the specific games going sub-only is also factual.
I don't think anyone knows if they will be profitable. However, it would not surprise me if they have contingency plans, and can turn f2p if they want to. I suppose it boils down to how much money they are going to make. I have no doubt ESO is hoping the name is big enough to keep subs. We know that is not always true from TOR.
They are certainly bucking the trend. If they crash and burn, no one else will probably try sub-only in the west again. If they are successful, may be the market will segment.
Are they really bucking the trend, though? SWTOR and TSW, big games made by big developers, wanted to be P2P. When their game failed to "deliver the goods" that is when they made the switch.
A developer that doesn't rely on investors to produce their game, but funds it from in house, can afford the luxury of attempting a P2P model. They don't have those hungry investors on their backs looking for the big payback, so they can feel things out as far as their games success. They don't have to squeeze their players for every cent before those players get bored and leave.
You are right in that the market is being saturated with F2P games right now. Competition to retain players is high, populations of the games are spread out. But when a quality game finally comes along that uses P2P it will be more profitable for the devs than any one of those F2P games, simply because they require that fee to take the ride.
I do however think that all games should offer a free trial of some sort, paying for the box or otherwise. Faith in their product would go a long way I think. It's the lack of faith in retaining players that is causing this F2P trend, imo. Not necessarily because they think their game is bad or because they stand to make more money F2P, but because of the over saturation of the game market as it is now. People can game jump now more than ever, so they need to get what they can while they can.
When i look at the list of released MMOs ...
http://games.gamepressure.com/games_encyclopedia.asp?KAT=7&SOR=2
Most are F2P. So yes, they are bucking the trend.
TOR and TSW found out they cannot stay sub-only. You can hypothesize all day about what went wrong, but the bottomline is .. they have to go f2p to survive. They are clearly not the only ones. Rift, Tera .. many have converted. By definition, that is also a trend.
I have a biased opinion on the quality of a F2P game vs P2P right out the gate. It is my thought that if a game uses P2P it considers itself a quality game with much to offer in the long run, and not another F2P iteration to be used and tossed aside.
With that being said, the trend I was referring to is one in which "AAA mmos" made by well known developers on big budgets try to use P2P because it is the most profitable in the long run. EQ Next aside, because their whole stable of games has adopted the freemium method so I assume it is only natural that they think to add EQN into that mix. It is working for them. It brings in mass amounts of players throughout all the games and stands to make them a profit, as opposed to any single one of those games having enough staying power to hold high subs in the long run.
I have not researched as thoroughly as you, but are there any big budget games on the horizon, EQN aside, that aren't trying to go P2P? Because as I said, it seems to be that the heavy hitters with potential to retain high sub numbers have been and are still preferring the P2P method.
Personally i think it is not useful to have perceived notion between groups of games because at the end, game preferences are very personal. I would much rather play the game, and decide if i like it or not. For example, i like STO much better than Eve, probably different than most here. Why? Because i tried them both and found the pve combat in Eve is easy, simple with no variation and not fun. And STO ship combat is better. You won't know until you try it out.
Secondly, what is AAA is debatable. So i won't even attempt to go there.
Here is what i know. In the next year, many games will be released as F2P including EQN. 3 will be sub-only. I know which one i am going to try first.
As far as big budget game is concern, there is GTA online, Destiny, Division, ....
But personally i also don't care much about the MMO label, and i watch non-MMO but close enough games too. I am probably more excited about the D3 expansion (btw, i probably will have enough in my RMAH to pay for it, so it is F2P for me ... hhehehehe .. if i happen to spend my D3 money .. well then it will be b2p, but certainly not sub-only) than any MMO.
If these are AAA titles nowadays no wonder the mmorpg genre is a dying breed when it comes to quality and content. I have not seen a single F2P title which is a georgous quality mmorpg in the last years.
They are what they are. If you don't like them. You don't have to play.
And no genre last forever anyway. A lot of the innovation in gaming is not in traditional type of MMOs anyway. Games like Destiny, Division, MOBA, even online ARPG may be more popular than MMOs.
So if mmorpg dies, i will just do something else. It is not like i only play mmorpg today.
I think these statements are completely off-base, in my opinion. The quality of a game is based on the amount of money spent in development and the skill in spending that money wisely. The F2P or P2P option occurs only after the game is complete and is designed to recoup that development cost as quickly as possible. If the revenue generation covers these initial costs and any on-going operational costs, the stockholders will be happy and the game will be a 'success', at least financially.
The business model for generating revenue is in no way tied to the product except in the minds of gamers.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
If you were going to launch an AAA mmo which would you choose.
Launch with a box and sub collecting $60 + 15/month for 6months to a year from everyone that can't wait to play your game. Then switch to free to play and get the huge rush of people coming back getting your game back into the spot light...or
Launch free to play and not cash in on all the P2P games are better!!! people
Because the P2P model brings more profits and brings a certain type of players, and they can always change to f2p model to give the game a kick and bring in the other type of players. This is the best strategy currently avaliable. No one cares about voiced opinions, it is statistics that matter.
I have yet to see a genre that dissappeared, which ones are you refering too? So far every one od them 'lasts forever'. I only see new genres and sub-genres appearing. Even point and click adventure games still get released as often as the more new and fresh genres do.
And what innovation are you talking about in other genres? They seem to be staying true to their origins. FPS, RTS, platformers. All the new games have classic form with some slight improvements in terms of gameplay. I don't count graphics of course. So what are you talking about exactly?
Only mmo players have this weird opinions about genres, change and innovation.
Yes, this ^Text adventures. It was big back in 80s. Now there is still some hobbyist around, but no real commercial development.
Locked room mystery novels. Not written anymore in the US after the old age of masters like John Dickson Carr. To be fair, it has a revival in Japan, but certainly not in the US.
Radio drama is another. I listen to old radio shows produced in the 40s & 50s. They "died" right around 1960.
That's exactly my point. The potential for quality in a game can be based largely around the amount of resources you can throw at it in its development. Not saying that it is any guarantee that the amount of resources used can ensure a successful game, but it surely doesn't hurt. Companies that are paying for the most skilled dev's and using top of the line tech stand a better chance of producing "quality".
F2P mmo's do not throw the same amount of time and money into development as a AAA P2P mmo. They are designed from the start as F2P and cater towards casual users that most likely will not spend years playing. The payment method for a game is known from the beginning. Cash shops aren't added as an afterthought...they are directly connected into the game design.
I think we disconnect at your second paragraph. You seem to indicate that makers of F2P games make their games intentionally substandard and quickly, rolling out the final product only to start the revenue cycle as early as possible. That's a choice of the development team (or more likely, the marketing and accounting departments for the project). But that's not exclusive to any specific revenue model. Games using any type of revenue model can and do use 'good enough' software engineering practices. And this extends well beyond the game development businesses. Microsoft practically pioneered the 'good enough' software concept.
I will grant that cash shops do add some additional design decisions, and usually result in additional work for the art department.
However, a company's revenue model does not say anything about the resulting product, or how that company views and/or treats its customers. Compare the art work in a P2P game, WoW for instance, with a game that is primarily F2P, like PWI. There's not an appreciable difference in the quality of the art, both fit a particular style. There's actually more art work associated with PWI, with the various numbers of special costumes developed over the years. The basic game play between the two games is comparable, and both games contain some very well written story lines. About the only real functional difference is how they approach Auction Houses, WoW with a unified AH/mail system, and PWI with it's individual cat-shops.
As to how much it cost to build both games, I am certainly not aware of the development costs incurred by each project. Both appear to have similar amounts of content, a similar number of game-play mechanics, and even similar amounts of support code. The only difference in costs that I can see is that Blizzard pretty much wrote their own game platform, and PWI was developed in Asia and may have had smaller salary costs. If you have reliable knowledge of specific game development costs for these (or any other) projects, I'd be very interested in seeing them. To my knowledge, access to those kinds of numbers are private, and neither company cares to share them with the general public.
As far as I can see, there is no evidence to indicate that companies making F2P games spend less in development or cater towards casual users or expect those customers to leave. Certainly, there's no direct connection, as you seem to imply.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
I have yet to encounter a gameplay experience for free that offers anything close to the experience I as a "hardcore" mmo vet have had in a successful P2P game. I attribute this to the casual nature of F2P games. Opinion, whatever.
I think though that a publishers revenue model of choice certainly says much about their resulting product and the gameplay. P2P is designed around keeping customers over a long period of time. They are trying to make the game fun or addicting to keep you paying that sub. F2P publishers are catering to game jumpers and casual players. A casual player is less likely to pay a monthly fee, less likely to spend hundreds of hours in front of a computer, but very likely to spend money on something they are enjoying in the moment. F2P games are designed around getting your addiction and then exploiting that by charging you to progress at a rate that isnt a horrible grind. Or charging you for everything they can before you get bored and quit because they lack content. Or charge you to upgrade an item, only to have the possibility of losing that item and upgrade which you paid for in the process. Or selling you lottery tickets for the chance to possibly get the item you want out of a random box. This is based on my observations and experience. I'm sure no F2P publishers will admit to this tactic, but when they milk a player base for a few months and then release a near identical game under a new moniker shortly after...is it not evident?
Do F2P publishers like Nexon not just churn out game after game? They have 22 in their catalog. Perfect World developed and released 7 games in four years...I mean how much quality and innovation can possibly be going into this stuff. I don't think there needs to be evidence to support the claim that game makers like Square Enix and Blizzard are investing more time and money into their games and staff than F2P publishers. Isn't it evident by the amount of F2P games being released vs AAA games?
Edited to remove opinion unrelated to topic. Actually most of this post is off-topic but whatever
I am sure noone will disagree that the successful P2P games of the past and hopefully the future are more profitable than any of the successful F2P games to date. By games meaning AAA mmorpg experience. What we all yearn for.
I'd like to point out that for all these arguments that are thrown around bashing the shady practices in the F2P market, many of us forget about all the equally shady things P2P games did, and still do.
We so easily forget how horribly padded many P2P games were just so that they keep you playing as long as possible, or how often they would punish the player for not keeping their sub going. (Example: In Ultima Online, if you don't log in for 30 days, your house is destroyed. You look me in the eye and tell me that isn't a ploy to keep you paying your sub.)
As for the argument that P2P games translate into quality products: never forget that Mortal Online was a sub game for years. So was vanilla FF14. And Horizons. And Shadowbane. And APB. And Auto Assault. And... well, you get the idea.
This guy (or woman) deserves a medal of intellect. To continue on your thought, problem I got with F2P titles being released like crazy every 2-3 weeks, is that people think the F2P model is awesome since a lot of people play when the game releases. That's true, until the next F2P releases 2-3 weeks later and those same players will flock around the new release and only a handful will stay and play that now 6 week old F2P title. P2P models are still growing in numbers while F2P keep declining because there is no sense of belonging, when I play a F2P title with friends, it's like we're playing with no real purpose but if you put real money to enhance yourself then you'll start being considered like a God and have people wanting to party with you more often. That the illusion and the trap of F2P titles, they make you seem all powerful when in fact you're just feeding more cash to the Devs. And if that F2P ain't profitable anymore, they just release a new one and leave that old title alone with barely no updates. Every P2P title I've played, be it Nexus TK , EVE Online , WoW , FF11, I always felt at home, more at ease and the community is always better on P2P titles then on F2P titles. F2P titles are being released by the 3 dozens a year! Back in the early 90's and early 2000 we would be amazed at a MMORPG being released since it didn't happen that often. Today? We're all pfff another crappy title, it's insane how these games are being more released then movies, there used to be pride in working and releasing a MMO, today it's all about racking in as most cash as possible off a cash shop, once we start losing cash, we'll just release a new cash shop MMO. Sad part about this, people still flock around new releases after new releases giving the false impression that the new releases are good when in fact it's the same playerbase from that 4 week old title that are jumping over to the new release.
You make it sounds like a bad thing.
You get to play more games. More variety, instead of stuck with one.
I don't know about you, but that sounds like a win to me.
And btw, 6 weeks is way longer than SP games already. And who says i cannot go back for more if i like the game enough. It is free .. so it is easy to drop it and pick up later.
Let me see...
Box Sales and using hype to suck buyers into 6 month / year subscriptions.
That sounds about right... What AAA title has stayed pure P2P? None, even WoW has a cash shop. So I really don't see your argument.
Even what you consider AAA titles (completely subjective) have alternate revenue models on release. So I am not seeing the traditional pure sub based P2P MMOs. I am not sure what games you are looking at. Most within 1 year will introduce more micro-transaction options. Your argument sounds more like wishful thinking than actual substantive observation.
-Atziluth-
- Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
The Ultima reference I had never heard about...that is despicable indeed haha! EVE would be in there to a lesser extent as well as you cannot train skills without maintaining a sub. Though the horror of that is arguable.
I am fully aware of the carrot on the stick, I chased the purple dragon for years. It is indeed one of the drawbacks in endgame pve p2p games. But I have had much better impressions from P2P games over F2P. The bots and spammers, the jackassery, the restricted content...jesus lord please just take some money every month and allievate some of that.
And yes I agree that P2P does not equal quality, was simply saying for a quality game P2P is most profitable.
You beat me to the punch. 100% accurate. If driven by revenue it only makes sense to start P2P for a quick cash grab and have the tools already in place to switch to micro-transactions after a few months to a year to get another burst from the micro whales.
-Atziluth-
- Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
FF XIV, pure sub with no cash shop. Wildstar, requires sub to log in. ESO the same? 3 of the 4 AAA mmo's on the horizon in my subjective opinion.
WoW having a cash shop is somewhat irrelevant. It is good business on their part. They have millions of faces looking at their product, why would they not also try to market you fluff? Have they added any items that you must purchase to advance or that don't already have an in game equivalent that your sub grants access to? The game is still P2P because it generates the most revenue possible.
The argument is what is the most profitable business model for a successful game in the long run? Is there any way that a game that keeps high sub numbers for years doesn't do better as P2P as opposed to F2P?
Stuck?
If a game is good enough, there are millions that would gladly stick around for the long term. It use to be that way.
I'm sorry games suck so bad that you have to play a new one every 2-3 weeks. Or you have to follow the crowd every 2-3 weeks because serious gamers subsidize your gaming. That's not a good thing, no matter how you spin it.
Nobody else on these forums is boasting about these types of games you're standing by.....in every single thread with this topic and no other.
I guess you missed the AAA part. All I see on that list is a bunch of crappy F2P games.