Your argument is meaningless. In what way is a free player content for a paying player? In what game and in what F2P model? And how does that relate to a company making money from advertising?
LoL.
Free players are matched with paying players .. and pvp against each other. Hence, free players are content for paying players.
Your argument is meaningless. In what way is a free player content for a paying player? In what game and in what F2P model? And how does that relate to a company making money from advertising?
LoL.
Free players are matched with paying players .. and pvp against each other. Hence, free players are content for paying players.
And your point was that this is synonymous with a company that earns revenue via advertising. How?
Don't argue a point and then hide behind supercilious responses when it makes no sense.
Originally posted by AG-VukFolks , it's pretty simple. Your concept of free differs from other peoples. So , a companies concept of what constitutes free, will differ for any individuals. The really issue is, there isn't a firm definition as a rule, just a concept.
Companies exist to make money. Employees expect to get paid for their time.
How do they make a profit and employees get paid if no one pays, again?
Don't need 1000001 definitions to know -- no money coming in = no income.
Really is no such thing as a free lunch.
The company's business model is completely irrelevant for the customer choice on what to play. A customer compares products. So if one company gives more for free then the next, you can expect a critical customer to voice their opinion about it and play the better choice. At no point it is the customers' responsibility to think about how that company makes their money.
Also, you don't seem to understand succesfull F2P games. Those games are really FREE to play. The difficult trick is to find a good balance between having an enjoyable free game that makes players stay, while at the same time having exciting shop items for convenience and aesthetics.
Making the F2P game so restricted that players leave before even considering a shop purchase, is shooting yourself in your own foot.
Oh, and there is a free lunch. When someone else pays for it. Unless you mean that there is always someone who pays for things. Well, then you could just as well get rid of the word free. Because something is exchanged for everything. But that is not what we are talking about when talking about F2P.
Your argument is meaningless. In what way is a free player content for a paying player? In what game and in what F2P model? And how does that relate to a company making money from advertising?
LoL.
Free players are matched with paying players .. and pvp against each other. Hence, free players are content for paying players.
And your point was that this is synonymous with a company that earns revenue via advertising. How?
Don't argue a point and then hide behind supercilious responses when it makes no sense.
No. My point is that free players are content for paying players. I am not answering your last question, only the first two.
Your argument is meaningless. In what way is a free player content for a paying player? In what game and in what F2P model? And how does that relate to a company making money from advertising?
LoL.
Free players are matched with paying players .. and pvp against each other. Hence, free players are content for paying players.
And your point was that this is synonymous with a company that earns revenue via advertising. How?
Don't argue a point and then hide behind supercilious responses when it makes no sense.
No. My point is that free players are content for paying players. I am not answering your last question, only the first two.
Oh fair enough, you didn't make that point (which I would note was further up this chain but since deleted) in which case this response is entirely out of context and the argument mute.
Your argument is meaningless. In what way is a free player content for a paying player? In what game and in what F2P model? And how does that relate to a company making money from advertising?
LoL.
Free players are matched with paying players .. and pvp against each other. Hence, free players are content for paying players.
And your point was that this is synonymous with a company that earns revenue via advertising. How?
Don't argue a point and then hide behind supercilious responses when it makes no sense.
No. My point is that free players are content for paying players. I am not answering your last question, only the first two.
Oh fair enough, you didn't make that point (which I would note was further up this chain but since deleted) in which case this response is entirely out of context and the argument mute.
I just want to clear up about the point of free players being content is a completely reasonable view. I am not jumping into any of the other arguments in your posts (hence, don't view me as necessarily disagreeing with you on the other points).
Your argument is meaningless. In what way is a free player content for a paying player? In what game and in what F2P model? And how does that relate to a company making money from advertising?
LoL.
Free players are matched with paying players .. and pvp against each other. Hence, free players are content for paying players.
And your point was that this is synonymous with a company that earns revenue via advertising. How?
Don't argue a point and then hide behind supercilious responses when it makes no sense.
No. My point is that free players are content for paying players. I am not answering your last question, only the first two.
Oh fair enough, you didn't make that point (which I would note was further up this chain but since deleted) in which case this response is entirely out of context and the argument mute.
I just want to clear up about the point of free players being content is a completely reasonable view. I am not jumping into any of the other arguments in your posts (hence, don't view me as necessarily disagreeing with you on the other points).
Yes, I agree with that. (Whether paying players would choose to have that content or not is another matter- it is kind of forced upon them).
Here's why I think people complain about F2Ps: the F2P in question makes it impossible for them to properly experience the game. This is wrong. Why? Well, the F2P model is all about giving you enough of a (hopefully) good thing to entice you to subscribe. If the free player can't enjoy the experience for free, why should he or she upgrade? I play a lot of F2Ps and this, IMO, the factor of not letting you sufficiently get into the game, is where the bad ones fail.
But you're right: paying members DO deserve a better gaming experience.
On the other hand, if they put too much enjoyment into the totally free version, there is no real incentive to pay. The "sweet spot" so to speak would be making it so the free experience isn't actually enjoyable, but is just close enough to it that the player can see how it would be enjoyable if he spent money.
Originally posted by someforumguy
Why always the need to compare games to unrelated rl things? I keep it simple and compare games. Because when I want to play a game, I don't make a choice between a game and some other unrelated free product. But between different games (in this case F2P games).
So if one F2P game gives me a great experience without having to pay anything (Rift), And a different F2P game makes it very difficult to enjoy it for free (SWTOR) to the point that some shop purchases feel mandatory instead of just for convenience. Is it then wrong to voice my opinion about this on the relevant forum? Or does that make me feel entitled because I compare two comparable F2P products?
Voicing an opinion isn't necessarily wrong. If you want to limit yourself to "I would be more likely to play if they did things this way" that would be one thing. Lots of people though go on little crusades where they bitch and moan in every thread they notice that brings up a game about how "terrible" the model is because it doesn't give them enough for free. They get whiny and insulting, hijacking threads that weren't about their moaning. Ultimately, the "entitled" thing comes in from the attitude, not the underlying opinion.
And, ultimately, what would make a given player want to play a game for free really isn't relevant to developers. They want to know how to maximize conversion of free customers to paying customers, and the type of people who have an almost religious opposition to spending money in a MMO are not likely enough to make that jump for it to make sense to make the free model too appealing. Then they would end up actually converting fewer players because they made the free version too inclusive in order to increase the number of non-contributing players. Not a sound business plan.
These companies don't publish all the nitty gritty of their financials, but I have a feeling that TOR is making more money than Rift, which would mean that it has the "better" model between the two.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
I said that F2P games make more money per player than sub ones to which you countered that only a handful of players (whales) spend lots of money while most play for free to which I said that I felt those studies are flawed in that they don't distinguish short term players to longer term ones to which you than went on a rant about people spending to much time playing games.
Per player doesn't matter. Let's say there are two games, one P2P and one F2P. Both have 100 players, just to keep the math easy. The P2P game makes $1500 per month ($15 x 100), clearly an average of $15 per player. The F2P has 10 whales and 90 people who don't pay a penny, but the whales each spend $160 per month, making $1600 for the F2P game. Clearly the F2P game is more profitable for the developer, even though the overwhelming majority don't pay a penny.
My point continues to be people who play F2P games (short term game hoppers aside) for any significant amount of time end up spending more on average than those that sub month after month. You can play a F2P game for hundred hours plus a month for years at a time without spending any or only small amounts of money but your going to have to fight though the pain inflicted by the developers to do it. If you bunny hop from game to game spending only a handful of hours in each one than F2P is a much better bargain than having to buy a game even with a free 30 day sub included in the box price.
Where is your data to support that? You can't just make things up. I play games until I get bored or frustrated with them. I can leave an F2P game when I no longer have fun there, there are hundreds and hundreds of games to choose from if I want to go that route. I honestly have no interest in spending thousand of hours and years of my life on a single game anymore. That's in my past. I have neither the time nor the patience for that these days. If the developers make it too difficult to play the game without paying them large sums of money for pixels, there are plenty of other MMOs in the sea. P2P is only a good deal if you have time to play the game regularly. I can play an F2P game for a month, get busy, go do something else, then come back in 3 months and play again without having to plunk down another $15, even if I might get busy again and not even play the game for another month. F2P gaming is entirely flexible. P2P gaming is not. Now granted, I don't play any MMOs at all anymore so it's all moot. Right now, I'm working my way through the new Shadow Warrior.
I agree with Cephus404 on this.
Hours played means nothing, only the monthly earnings. The studies have shown that F2P is indeed quite viable and that many players prefer the F2P route.
In the end, we only need to ask ourselves one question: Is this game enjoyable for me to play?
Everything can easily be placed in either the "Yes it is" or "No it isn't" category.
I think it would work out better for most people if they adopted the style that Puzzle Pirates did and what I believe you can do with PLEX in EvE (haven't tried that game since sometime in the first year it was around).
Make a game where a sub gets you the full game, access to everything, traditional MMO style. Make a limited free area/free level cap/free trial where you can do some but need a sub to actually get access to everything. Then let the whales buy as much currency as they want which can be used to buy subs (and if deemed necessary items in a store). Then let that currency be traded around in game for different things.
It works for so many because 1) The whales can buy everything they need in game through buying currency and trading it to other players for what it is that they need. 2) Players who don't like to pay for a game can grind out items that are needed by other players to earn currency to fund their gaming.
I'm not sure why so many companies have been resistant to this type of model and have either stuck with sub or gone all the way to f2p with store and no tradable buyable currency. This also makes it easier for people to bring their friends in by giving them enough currency to get their first month to try it out.
Because other models make more money? It is not as easy, in this model, for a whale to click on and buy a $500 sword on an impulse.
It is exactly as easy for a whale to impulse buy. They see sword of awesomesauce on the auction house for 500 creds from another player. On the Auction House tab is a buy creds button. Done.
EvE is still cited at one of the only long running MMOs to continue to grow. Clearly the model can work far better than F2P where games switch to F2P and a year later are struggling to make money and then put ridiculous things on the cash shop for ridiculous prices to milk their customers as much as possible.
EvE is still cited at one of the only long running MMOs to continue to grow. Clearly the model can work far better than F2P where games switch to F2P and a year later are struggling to make money and then put ridiculous things on the cash shop for ridiculous prices to milk their customers as much as possible.
The smaller a game is, the less of an accomplishment it is to continue to grow. It's awesome that EvE continues to grow, but most AAA games, if their numbers were to *drop* to the most players EvE has ever had at once, would be considered in trouble and be looking to either adjust their model or shut down. Comparing EvE to games from EA, Acti-Blizzard, or Sony is like comparing a "successful" self-published book to a sub-par release from Tom Clancy or George R.R. Martin. In case that wasn't clear enough, I am saying that an EvE type runaway success still makes less money overall than a lot of products big companies would consider disappointing returns on investment.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
Lets be honest though, a lot of EvE's growth is players having more and more accounts and paying for them with ISK. Seems like half the players I met in EvE played 5 accounts these days and they could pay all the sub fees just from money made in game.
To me the purpose of F2P is to let you try the full game and decide if you want to spend money on it or not. So to me the F2P model should give you access to almost everything at the early levels and then if they want to charge you for later game stuff I'm ok with it. So something like SWTOR where you can't even do crafting viably while on a F2P account and that constantly is throwing pay to be able to do this messages at you is a failure.
EvE's current model is pretty nice too actually. Charge a low initial fee and then a sub fee. If you are going to do a sub fee that is the way to go about it. Charging $60 and then $15 a month is just ripping people off.
I just want to clear up about the point of free players being content is a completely reasonable view. I am not jumping into any of the other arguments in your posts (hence, don't view me as necessarily disagreeing with you on the other points).
Yes, I agree with that. (Whether paying players would choose to have that content or not is another matter- it is kind of forced upon them).
That is also true depending on the gameplay mechanics. It is true for LoL pvp (and also most other pvp games) where you have no control over whom you are matching with, but less true in pve group settings where you can choose who to group with (since you have some control, but you may not know for sure if a person is a free player).
To me the purpose of F2P is to let you try the full game and decide if you want to spend money on it or not. So to me the F2P model should give you access to almost everything at the early levels and then if they want to charge you for later game stuff I'm ok with it. So something like SWTOR where you can't even do crafting viably while on a F2P account and that constantly is throwing pay to be able to do this messages at you is a failure.
i don't think you decide the purpose of f2p to the developers, or other players.
Some f2p games are designed so that whales can start impulse buying asap. They are not designed as trials.
To me the purpose of F2P is to let you try the full game and decide if you want to spend money on it or not. So to me the F2P model should give you access to almost everything at the early levels and then if they want to charge you for later game stuff I'm ok with it. So something like SWTOR where you can't even do crafting viably while on a F2P account and that constantly is throwing pay to be able to do this messages at you is a failure.
That's the thing though, "success" and "failure" in the real world aren't defined by feelings. They are defined by dollars. If a model results in a profit, it is a success. When comparing two different successful models, the more profitable one is the more successful. How the people paying or not paying "feel" about the experience is relevant only to the extent it impacts those profits.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
Lets be honest though, a lot of EvE's growth is players having more and more accounts and paying for them with ISK. Seems like half the players I met in EvE played 5 accounts these days and they could pay all the sub fees just from money made in game.
Is this a negative thing though? you could even argue it's a net positive for the company, one person paying 5 accounts probably doesn't have them all on at once all the time so actually probably uses less resources than 5 people each using one account
Maybe you could even make an MMO built around encouraging people to have multiple accounts even more than EVE does. Rather than having a game which goes for the widest possible audience have a laser targeted niche game which encourages a high level of financial investment from each player it does have.
I think such a model is atr least worth considering for MMOs of the future.
EvE is still cited at one of the only long running MMOs to continue to grow. Clearly the model can work far better than F2P where games switch to F2P and a year later are struggling to make money and then put ridiculous things on the cash shop for ridiculous prices to milk their customers as much as possible.
The smaller a game is, the less of an accomplishment it is to continue to grow. It's awesome that EvE continues to grow, but most AAA games, if their numbers were to *drop* to the most players EvE has ever had at once, would be considered in trouble and be looking to either adjust their model or shut down. Comparing EvE to games from EA, Acti-Blizzard, or Sony is like comparing a "successful" self-published book to a sub-par release from Tom Clancy or George R.R. Martin. In case that wasn't clear enough, I am saying that an EvE type runaway success still makes less money overall than a lot of products big companies would consider disappointing returns on investment.
People inflate MMO numbers way too often.
Many big name MMOs have a much smaller base (and now in the days of F2P a much smaller paying base) then people suggest. They just assume all of these F2P titles have 300,000 regularly paying players and are making money hand over fist when that is in fact a rarity.
Lets be honest though, a lot of EvE's growth is players having more and more accounts and paying for them with ISK. Seems like half the players I met in EvE played 5 accounts these days and they could pay all the sub fees just from money made in game.
Is this a negative thing though? you could even argue it's a net positive for the company, one person paying 5 accounts probably doesn't have them all on at once all the time so actually probably uses less resources than 5 people each using one account
Maybe you could even make an MMO built around encouraging people to have multiple accounts even more than EVE does. Rather than having a game which goes for the widest possible audience have a laser targeted niche game which encourages a high level of financial investment from each player it does have.
I think such a model is atr least worth considering for MMOs of the future.
There is certainly a market for that model. But we're unlikely to see any games with a AAA budget use it, they need large numbers (at least initially) in order to recover their investment.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
Many big name MMOs have a much smaller base (and now in the days of F2P a much smaller paying base) then people suggest. They just assume all of these F2P titles have 300,000 regularly paying players and are making money hand over fist when that is in fact a rarity.
That's fair. But it is also fair, and as far as we can see entirely accurate, that the numbers EvE has risen to over time are numbers that, when subscription games with AAA budgets drop to them, they get their models adjusted to some form of Freemium. It takes a lot more for a AAA game to reach and maintain success than for low budget niche games to do so.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
Originally posted by CazNeerg Originally posted by Ender4To me the purpose of F2P is to let you try the full game and decide if you want to spend money on it or not. So to me the F2P model should give you access to almost everything at the early levels and then if they want to charge you for later game stuff I'm ok with it. So something like SWTOR where you can't even do crafting viably while on a F2P account and that constantly is throwing pay to be able to do this messages at you is a failure.
That's the thing though, "success" and "failure" in the real world aren't defined by feelings. They are defined by dollars. If a model results in a profit, it is a success. When comparing two different successful models, the more profitable one is the more successful. How the people paying or not paying "feel" about the experience is relevant only to the extent it impacts those profits.
Sure but I think it would be more successful if they changed the model. I don't think people pick up SWTOR and pay $5 to open up a race right away (or whatever it costs). They try the game for a while and if they like it then they might open up a race for their next character. I think they lose a lot of players just turned off by all the earlier barriers and those players could have possibly fell in love with the game if they didn't exist. I don't think they make a ton off of the low level players, they are making it off the players who decided to stick around. Why not let them see all of the game so it is more likely that they do stick around.
Many big name MMOs have a much smaller base (and now in the days of F2P a much smaller paying base) then people suggest. They just assume all of these F2P titles have 300,000 regularly paying players and are making money hand over fist when that is in fact a rarity.
That's fair. But it is also fair, and as far as we can see entirely accurate, that the numbers EvE has risen to over time are numbers that, when subscription games with AAA budgets drop to them, they get their models adjusted to some form of Freemium. It takes a lot more for a AAA game to reach and maintain success than for low budget niche games to do so.
AAA MMOs have huge production and marketing costs to pay off. EVE is an indie MMO with the same few copy pasted graphic environments used everywhere (which they can get away with cos....space). EVE does need to make a lot less money than something like SWTOR or even WoW to start turning a profit and be considered a success
Many big name MMOs have a much smaller base (and now in the days of F2P a much smaller paying base) then people suggest. They just assume all of these F2P titles have 300,000 regularly paying players and are making money hand over fist when that is in fact a rarity.
That's fair. But it is also fair, and as far as we can see entirely accurate, that the numbers EvE has risen to over time are numbers that, when subscription games with AAA budgets drop to them, they get their models adjusted to some form of Freemium. It takes a lot more for a AAA game to reach and maintain success than for low budget niche games to do so.
EvE numbers will only rise even more, since CCP approved the use of IsBox for multi-boxing.
Before that multiple accounts were necessary to skill more than 1 toon at a time, so 500k isn't 500k actual players. Average online presence in the world is 50-55k, and I'd say 1/3 are 2+ accounts by 1 player (as you can see gatecamps and mining ops run that way ingmae).
Many big name MMOs have a much smaller base (and now in the days of F2P a much smaller paying base) then people suggest. They just assume all of these F2P titles have 300,000 regularly paying players and are making money hand over fist when that is in fact a rarity.
That's fair. But it is also fair, and as far as we can see entirely accurate, that the numbers EvE has risen to over time are numbers that, when subscription games with AAA budgets drop to them, they get their models adjusted to some form of Freemium. It takes a lot more for a AAA game to reach and maintain success than for low budget niche games to do so.
AAA MMOs have huge production and marketing costs to pay off. EVE is an indie MMO with the same few copy pasted graphic environments used everywhere (which they can get away with cos....space). EVE does need to make a lot less money than something like SWTOR or even WoW to start turning a profit and be considered a success
Yes, but that is more a failure with the industry (and most of the entertainment industries these days). They've put eye candy so high on the list as necessary that Video Games, Movies, even TV shows are costing hundreds of millions to make. This is causing a lot of failure in all of the industries as well. It is why the movie industry has what it likes to call tent poles. It makes a movie that they banked the entire success of the company on and they need to have that do well to survive.
Gaming companies are doing the same thing which is why there have been shut downs and layoffs mentioned so often. They are over investing and then failing.
A top company could make an MMO for less money than they are now, they are just refusing to because they are afraid to make several smaller games targeted at specific groups instead of one mega-game costing a fortune that is designed to try to get everyone to play.
Of course absolutely none of this at all has anything to do with my topic which is the fact that the majority of the F2P companies are missing out on a F2P implementation that logically makes more sense, allows more people to play for free by directly supplying whales with what they want and allows whales to pay even more. A buyable currency which can be traded in game amongst players and then that currency can be applied to subscriptions (or even a store) is simply a smarter way instead of hoping enough of your player base will buy the newest sparkle pony to keep you in business. It also allows for better gameplay design instead of focusing all of the efforts on what else they can shove into a store.
Many big name MMOs have a much smaller base (and now in the days of F2P a much smaller paying base) then people suggest. They just assume all of these F2P titles have 300,000 regularly paying players and are making money hand over fist when that is in fact a rarity.
That's fair. But it is also fair, and as far as we can see entirely accurate, that the numbers EvE has risen to over time are numbers that, when subscription games with AAA budgets drop to them, they get their models adjusted to some form of Freemium. It takes a lot more for a AAA game to reach and maintain success than for low budget niche games to do so.
EvE numbers will only rise even more, since CCP approved the use of IsBox for multi-boxing.
Before that multiple accounts were necessary to skill more than 1 toon at a time, so 500k isn't 500k actual players. Average online presence in the world is 50-55k, and I'd say 1/3 are 2+ accounts by 1 player (as you can see gatecamps and mining ops run that way ingmae).
Then again I've never played an MMO (and I've played a ton of them) where I didn't know of plenty of multi-boxers playing at any given time. So every MMO suffers from the numbers game where a certain percentage of online players are multi-boxers or macro accounts.
A lot of people are getting way off topic. Arguing about whether a lot of players have an excessive sense of entitlement in many F2P games is not the same thing as arguing whether there should be F2P games, or whether Freemium should be considered the same thing as F2P. It's not about whether a given model is good or bad. It's about whether a subset of players engage in a specific type of bad behavior within those games.
Since someone brought in the fact that lots of industries offer free stuff, let's look at that. With the McDonald's example of a free Big Mac, what do we think of the people who come into the store and say they don't like Big Macs, but they would like some McNuggets, and since the Big Macs were getting given away for free anyway, why not give them the McNuggets free too? When told they won't be getting the McNuggets free, they then proceed to hang out in the store for hours whining to anyone who will listen that McDonald's is run by greedy jerks because they won't give out free McNuggets in addition to the free Big Macs.
When asked what McDonald's should charge for, since somewhere deep down in their pea-brains they understand the company does have to make money, one of them says, "I don't like Diet Coke. They should charge for that." The next says, "No, I like Diet Coke, that should be free. They should charge for the apple pie, I hate apple pie." Synthesize all of their opinions and try to arrive at a universal rule, the only one you could come up with would be "Give away what people want for free, only charge for what people don't want." That is not a viable business plan.
So long story short, yes, many free players act too entitled. That isn't a problem with the games, or the business model, they are probably the same worthless jerks who act obnoxious and entitled in every aspect of their lives.
Hit it right on the nailhead.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
Comments
LoL.
Free players are matched with paying players .. and pvp against each other. Hence, free players are content for paying players.
And your point was that this is synonymous with a company that earns revenue via advertising. How?
Don't argue a point and then hide behind supercilious responses when it makes no sense.
The company's business model is completely irrelevant for the customer choice on what to play. A customer compares products. So if one company gives more for free then the next, you can expect a critical customer to voice their opinion about it and play the better choice. At no point it is the customers' responsibility to think about how that company makes their money.
Also, you don't seem to understand succesfull F2P games. Those games are really FREE to play. The difficult trick is to find a good balance between having an enjoyable free game that makes players stay, while at the same time having exciting shop items for convenience and aesthetics.
Making the F2P game so restricted that players leave before even considering a shop purchase, is shooting yourself in your own foot.
Oh, and there is a free lunch. When someone else pays for it. Unless you mean that there is always someone who pays for things. Well, then you could just as well get rid of the word free. Because something is exchanged for everything. But that is not what we are talking about when talking about F2P.
No. My point is that free players are content for paying players. I am not answering your last question, only the first two.
Oh fair enough, you didn't make that point (which I would note was further up this chain but since deleted) in which case this response is entirely out of context and the argument mute.
I just want to clear up about the point of free players being content is a completely reasonable view. I am not jumping into any of the other arguments in your posts (hence, don't view me as necessarily disagreeing with you on the other points).
Yes, I agree with that. (Whether paying players would choose to have that content or not is another matter- it is kind of forced upon them).
On the other hand, if they put too much enjoyment into the totally free version, there is no real incentive to pay. The "sweet spot" so to speak would be making it so the free experience isn't actually enjoyable, but is just close enough to it that the player can see how it would be enjoyable if he spent money.
Voicing an opinion isn't necessarily wrong. If you want to limit yourself to "I would be more likely to play if they did things this way" that would be one thing. Lots of people though go on little crusades where they bitch and moan in every thread they notice that brings up a game about how "terrible" the model is because it doesn't give them enough for free. They get whiny and insulting, hijacking threads that weren't about their moaning. Ultimately, the "entitled" thing comes in from the attitude, not the underlying opinion.
And, ultimately, what would make a given player want to play a game for free really isn't relevant to developers. They want to know how to maximize conversion of free customers to paying customers, and the type of people who have an almost religious opposition to spending money in a MMO are not likely enough to make that jump for it to make sense to make the free model too appealing. Then they would end up actually converting fewer players because they made the free version too inclusive in order to increase the number of non-contributing players. Not a sound business plan.
These companies don't publish all the nitty gritty of their financials, but I have a feeling that TOR is making more money than Rift, which would mean that it has the "better" model between the two.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
I agree with Cephus404 on this.
Hours played means nothing, only the monthly earnings. The studies have shown that F2P is indeed quite viable and that many players prefer the F2P route.
In the end, we only need to ask ourselves one question: Is this game enjoyable for me to play?
Everything can easily be placed in either the "Yes it is" or "No it isn't" category.
It is exactly as easy for a whale to impulse buy. They see sword of awesomesauce on the auction house for 500 creds from another player. On the Auction House tab is a buy creds button. Done.
EvE is still cited at one of the only long running MMOs to continue to grow. Clearly the model can work far better than F2P where games switch to F2P and a year later are struggling to make money and then put ridiculous things on the cash shop for ridiculous prices to milk their customers as much as possible.
The smaller a game is, the less of an accomplishment it is to continue to grow. It's awesome that EvE continues to grow, but most AAA games, if their numbers were to *drop* to the most players EvE has ever had at once, would be considered in trouble and be looking to either adjust their model or shut down. Comparing EvE to games from EA, Acti-Blizzard, or Sony is like comparing a "successful" self-published book to a sub-par release from Tom Clancy or George R.R. Martin. In case that wasn't clear enough, I am saying that an EvE type runaway success still makes less money overall than a lot of products big companies would consider disappointing returns on investment.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
Lets be honest though, a lot of EvE's growth is players having more and more accounts and paying for them with ISK. Seems like half the players I met in EvE played 5 accounts these days and they could pay all the sub fees just from money made in game.
To me the purpose of F2P is to let you try the full game and decide if you want to spend money on it or not. So to me the F2P model should give you access to almost everything at the early levels and then if they want to charge you for later game stuff I'm ok with it. So something like SWTOR where you can't even do crafting viably while on a F2P account and that constantly is throwing pay to be able to do this messages at you is a failure.
EvE's current model is pretty nice too actually. Charge a low initial fee and then a sub fee. If you are going to do a sub fee that is the way to go about it. Charging $60 and then $15 a month is just ripping people off.
That is also true depending on the gameplay mechanics. It is true for LoL pvp (and also most other pvp games) where you have no control over whom you are matching with, but less true in pve group settings where you can choose who to group with (since you have some control, but you may not know for sure if a person is a free player).
i don't think you decide the purpose of f2p to the developers, or other players.
Some f2p games are designed so that whales can start impulse buying asap. They are not designed as trials.
That's the thing though, "success" and "failure" in the real world aren't defined by feelings. They are defined by dollars. If a model results in a profit, it is a success. When comparing two different successful models, the more profitable one is the more successful. How the people paying or not paying "feel" about the experience is relevant only to the extent it impacts those profits.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
Is this a negative thing though? you could even argue it's a net positive for the company, one person paying 5 accounts probably doesn't have them all on at once all the time so actually probably uses less resources than 5 people each using one account
Maybe you could even make an MMO built around encouraging people to have multiple accounts even more than EVE does. Rather than having a game which goes for the widest possible audience have a laser targeted niche game which encourages a high level of financial investment from each player it does have.
I think such a model is atr least worth considering for MMOs of the future.
People inflate MMO numbers way too often.
Many big name MMOs have a much smaller base (and now in the days of F2P a much smaller paying base) then people suggest. They just assume all of these F2P titles have 300,000 regularly paying players and are making money hand over fist when that is in fact a rarity.
There is certainly a market for that model. But we're unlikely to see any games with a AAA budget use it, they need large numbers (at least initially) in order to recover their investment.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
That's fair. But it is also fair, and as far as we can see entirely accurate, that the numbers EvE has risen to over time are numbers that, when subscription games with AAA budgets drop to them, they get their models adjusted to some form of Freemium. It takes a lot more for a AAA game to reach and maintain success than for low budget niche games to do so.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
Sure but I think it would be more successful if they changed the model. I don't think people pick up SWTOR and pay $5 to open up a race right away (or whatever it costs). They try the game for a while and if they like it then they might open up a race for their next character. I think they lose a lot of players just turned off by all the earlier barriers and those players could have possibly fell in love with the game if they didn't exist. I don't think they make a ton off of the low level players, they are making it off the players who decided to stick around. Why not let them see all of the game so it is more likely that they do stick around.
AAA MMOs have huge production and marketing costs to pay off. EVE is an indie MMO with the same few copy pasted graphic environments used everywhere (which they can get away with cos....space). EVE does need to make a lot less money than something like SWTOR or even WoW to start turning a profit and be considered a success
EvE numbers will only rise even more, since CCP approved the use of IsBox for multi-boxing.
Before that multiple accounts were necessary to skill more than 1 toon at a time, so 500k isn't 500k actual players. Average online presence in the world is 50-55k, and I'd say 1/3 are 2+ accounts by 1 player (as you can see gatecamps and mining ops run that way ingmae).
.:| Kevyne@Shandris - Armory |:. - When WoW was #1 - .:| I AM A HOLY PALADIN - Guild Theme |:.
Yes, but that is more a failure with the industry (and most of the entertainment industries these days). They've put eye candy so high on the list as necessary that Video Games, Movies, even TV shows are costing hundreds of millions to make. This is causing a lot of failure in all of the industries as well. It is why the movie industry has what it likes to call tent poles. It makes a movie that they banked the entire success of the company on and they need to have that do well to survive.
Gaming companies are doing the same thing which is why there have been shut downs and layoffs mentioned so often. They are over investing and then failing.
A top company could make an MMO for less money than they are now, they are just refusing to because they are afraid to make several smaller games targeted at specific groups instead of one mega-game costing a fortune that is designed to try to get everyone to play.
Of course absolutely none of this at all has anything to do with my topic which is the fact that the majority of the F2P companies are missing out on a F2P implementation that logically makes more sense, allows more people to play for free by directly supplying whales with what they want and allows whales to pay even more. A buyable currency which can be traded in game amongst players and then that currency can be applied to subscriptions (or even a store) is simply a smarter way instead of hoping enough of your player base will buy the newest sparkle pony to keep you in business. It also allows for better gameplay design instead of focusing all of the efforts on what else they can shove into a store.
Then again I've never played an MMO (and I've played a ton of them) where I didn't know of plenty of multi-boxers playing at any given time. So every MMO suffers from the numbers game where a certain percentage of online players are multi-boxers or macro accounts.
Hit it right on the nailhead.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche