Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
f2p projected to be $2.5B market in 2013
nariusseldon
Member EpicPosts: 27,775
http://www.superdataresearch.com/blog/everquest-next-claim-free-to-play-mmo/
"it’s clear that Sony has no intention of slowing down, setting its sights on claiming a piece of the free-to-play MMO market. Our early estimates for the US market put the total spending for 2013E at $2.5 billion, growing 57% year-over-year."
"said John Smedley: There is no purer way to see whether you have a good game or not than by saying 'this is free, do you want to play it?'"
Comments
I hope that we have to pay for each life we use as a character; I would really like to see a move back to the arcade era. I really liked the fact that when I died playing Pac Man I had to pay more money to keep playing the game.
I think that the MMO market is moving in the right direction. Game companies should offer the gameplay for free and allow the user to purchase things like allowing their character to have running animations and animations for when a character jumps: purely cosmetic things.
I really enjoy free to play games, and I enjoy them because said games allow me to play it my way. Free to play games do not force me to pay for cosmetic things that I find useless like spell effects or textures. Instead, I can get the important stuff for FREE (how awesome is that)!
Anyways, I am really looking forward to EQ: Next because I believe that it will everything that I am looking for in a game. I have always wanted to play an eight foot tall Ogre character with charmingly good looks that could sneak up on people and assassinate them, and no game has allowed me to do something like this before. I believe that EQ: Next will be the next WoW killer.
Little forum boys with their polished cyber toys: whine whine, boo-hoo, talk talk.
Well, if a consumer would not use your services for free, why would they pay for it?
I think that is what it means.
I know it certainly does not mean that by dividing up content into smaller microtransactions a consumer will have to pay more for the whole package in the end.
Businesses truly care about their customers; they just want to give the best services possible for the most affordable price to their products' consumers.
Little forum boys with their polished cyber toys: whine whine, boo-hoo, talk talk.
Pay to have a running animation? So if you don't buy the animation your character moves like they do in South Park? Smed also said he will charging for Ogres by the foot so your eight foot tall one might be pretty pricey
Problem is that some Pay to play games cost 200 mil to make. For example, GTA V, and GTA online took 250 mil I think. Swtor took 200 mil. So the metrics mentioned does not seem all that significant. Problem with free to play is that they tend to spend less money on it, and quality suffers.
I'd like nothing more than a no strings attached game, but this is unfortunately unnatainable with the business model that currently exist.
What if they did something as follows:
Subscription for 20 hours play - free of charge
subscription for 50 hours- 4 dollars
subscription for 100 hours -8 dollars
etc.
This way they do not sacrifice quality, and enforce content blocks.
I really like the way that Sony is doing things, and I actively play Free to play games Neverwinter, and I have tried Firefall, Planetside 2, Dragons Prophet, Scarlet blade, etc, etc but for me they had no staying power
My measure of standards differ from others, but I think that Sony produced games are pretty good. Sony published games differ though, for example Dragons Prophet which came out uncompleted and seems to be going down the same road of Raiderz if nothing changes soon.
I do not know if it is sustainable though as I cannot see Sony games grossing that much money.
Bottom line, Sony has a hook. It help them sell their gamin platform, but are all others doomed?
Ah, yes, but these things are all cosmetic! Do you not see the beauty of the choice that we now have! I can not tell you how many times I played Mario and wished I did not have to deal with all those dumb levels that come before the Bowser fight. It would have been so much better if Nintendo had just charged for each level after the first. That way I could stop wasting time and just buy the Bowser level, get my achievements, and move on to the Wario games.
I also dislike how I can not just buy the Fire Flower power up whenever I want; it is my favorite part of the game. However, I am stuck waiting until I find a Fire Flower (waiting... how lame is that?) in order to have fun in the game. Game developers have no clue sometimes. If I do not get exactly what I want right now why would I not move on to another game?
Little forum boys with their polished cyber toys: whine whine, boo-hoo, talk talk.
I wouldn't waste a single minute playing a game that charged me for running animations.. Nickel and diming sucks in MMOs and your ideas are the worste that I've seen. I hope you are just trolling.
"You are all going to poop yourselves." BillMurphy
"Laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone."
Yes, it does. Why would one waste anytime on a game considered "not good"?
The only issue here is what "good" means .. which is subjective.
I hope they come up with a more uniform model, not one so dependant on the 'whales'. I really dislike a lot of the models used currently, they are too over the line, or pay to win imo.
I would prefer a hybrid model, to where it can be f2p, or sub, and if you sub, you eliminate the cash shop, would be fine with eliminating it minus true cosmetic (i.e. not even xp potions, loot drop potions, rare drop etc...). Some may argue that in turn is pay to win, but I would say it is 'normal' mode, then if you do not want to pay, you are on 'trial' mode, which still does not need to pay, but it is gimped for not subbing (since they have to make money still, and try to get people to sub or use the cash shop while in trial mode).
I still prefer straight up p2p, and some non-mmos have good f2p systems (LoL imo, but it wouldn't work good in a traditional mmo imo), but I have not been too thrilled with most mmo f2p systems I see., even b2p ones suck usually.
Pretty small number when you consider 99% of the games out now are f2p/cash shop/rmt.This is basically giving us a number for the entire industry and is not very good.
So i would say going cheaper to support f2p models is NOT helping the industry and very soon these devs will run out of marketing gimmicks to coerce players into playing their very average games.
I have to wonder where some firm would even come up with any number at all,the f2p/cash shop idea is far too big,it covers browser games,social media games,iphones ect ect,no way could any firm be even remotely close on it's numbers.
I don't need to ever see any marketing firm's predictions or any numbers at all,i know enough about game design that i can easily see where the quality and lack of exists.I choose my gaming based on quality,i don't like to support half ass effort.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
“THE BAD
One point of weakness might be the saturation of fantasy-based MMOs and their specific mechanics. “ - Superdata
The F2P model is growing but I fear there won’t be enough players to sustain all the new games entering the market.
Total saturation will be whenever WOW decides to go free to play. When that happens, I think several current FTP games will fail because of an overextended player base.
So? There are so many F2P games that so what if some of even a lot of them fail? It would impact my entertainment very minimally even if half of the f2p MMOs fail tomorrow. There are plenty of other games (f2p mmo, or not), and other entertainment options for me.
They already did. The LoL and Marvel Heroes (based on buying characters) is not as whale targeting as many of the P2W models.
I think that you are missing out on how awesome this is though. Running animations are not fundamental to gameplay; they are purely cosmetic. I can not tell you how many times I have purchased a game for 60$ and the running animations were just terrible, yet I still had to pay for them even though I did not want them.
By allowing users to play the GAME for free and putting all of the COSMETIC stuff into microtransaction form it allows the players to PLAY IT THEIR WAY. There are so many useless things that game companies have MADE players pay for even though the player may not want that particular thing. Who is to say that every player wants to pay for running animations or textures or shaders?
Free to play is one of the best things to happen to the game industry in a very long time.
Little forum boys with their polished cyber toys: whine whine, boo-hoo, talk talk.
Yes, its subjective, some people sit around and play solitare on their computer for hours.
Some people love the f2p market and the direction of mmos in the past 6 years or so. I am not a big fan myself, and I play RTS/MOBA and other types of non-mmos more now. I cannot get into what I consider shallow mmos, that are burn and turn. I use to play mmos 90%+ of my game time, now it as currently at 0%.
I could get more on board with f2p, if the average mmo didn't feel like a slot machine anymore. I like to know what I am paying, and if it is set up to p2w imo, I wont touch it. I make good money, so I could play the pay game, but it really just turns me off...right or wrong....Some people hate p2p. I agree they have problems too, they should launch with a free trial, it might hurt box sales, but if they made a good game and want to do p2p, they should be confident to do it.
It's funny because you have recently admitted to having played a P2P MMO for a year or so that you described as "horrible" and "not fun (for me, of course)".
Apparently there are those that would actually pay for a "not good" gaming experience. What a wild world we live in, huh?
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
I have been saying the same thing for a while now. In the early 2000's you had a handful of MMO's and the population in each game was very healthy. Now, you have hundreds of F2P MMO's that are spreading the population numbers way too thin. I look for there to be a surge in co-op console games in the near future because people will get tired of playing dead MMO's.
I just brought LoL up in a response before I saw this and said I liked it....But then I also said it works for the MOBA, but no so sure for a real MMO....You can buy xp type stuff in LoL, but it is really kind of useless to do so imo... I never felt the need to buy that stuff. I have purchased champions, but more in a gratitude, for playing the game. If I play something, and it is free, and I like it, then I will give them money for my appreciation.
As long as MMOs allow you to play the game by yourself, I do not see a problem with thin populations. The only downside I see is that there will not be as many people for me to show off to in the game after I have solo grinded gold for the most expensive items.
Little forum boys with their polished cyber toys: whine whine, boo-hoo, talk talk.
Marvel Heroes have the same model and it works for them. Now obviously not every MMO can use that model (since Marvel does have a lot of characters) but certainly there are other models than pure p2w or cosmetic stuff.
p2p makes the whole difference. It is the sunk cost fallacy. Plus, there are much fewer choices 14 years ago.
If there are so many f2p offerings today, i doubt i would be playing a sub-par sub games for a year. Heck, it wouldn't last 2 hours today.
I haven't tried it, not a big super hero genre person, but may have to read up on it.
The biggest part of the cash shop is to sell heroes, and their costumes. You can earn those in-game too, but very slow.
They only offer like 5 starting heroes for you to choose from, and obviously not the most popular ones like spiderman or iron man.
And iron man will set you back like $20.
I don't know about you .. but quite a few for me (STO, Marvel Heroes, NWO ...).
my guess is that there is more to this quote.
Something like "There is no purer way to see whether you have a good game or not than by saying 'this is free, do you want to play it?' And if they still give you money even though the game is free you know you have something".
or something like that.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo