The largest growing gamers is our group of 30+. We have a decent disposable income and time is valuable to us (increasingly so). We don't want to be throttled, gated, walled and/or pestered. We want entertainment and will pay a fair value. Companies going down the free to play road are making the same old mistake of trying to create a drug addict type environment for children/students/unemployed sync'ing their lives away. That was me once but everything changes except MMO models it seems.
What's annoying about a lot of "f2P" games is their carrot and stick approach to trying to get you to spend more money. In Star Trek Online, for example, half the enemies will drop Lock-Boxes. You have to buy Keys to open them (either with real money or the in-game player market, but either way, at some point, real money traded hands).
THEN when you open it, you have a random chance of getting crap, crap, more crap, something decent, CRAP, or something pretty cool.
And on top of that, the best ships in the game require you to pay 25-50 bucks for them.
If you have a sub, you can accumulate "Zen" and buy on of those ships after, i dunno, a year? 6 months, maybe? However, all content is free. So it's your choice: Do you wanna fly around in a sub-par ship and barely be able to contribute during raids or team events, or do you want to "Pay 2 Win"?
Counter-Strike: GO (not an MMO) sort of does the same thing where they drop cases and you have to buy keys. Of course, the one nice thing there is that nothing you buy or get as a drop has ANY in-game effectiveness. There's no special drop that gives you an accuracy or damage bonus/ It's all aesthetic. So at least there's no "pay to win" going on there.
I don't think f2p games are dieing, the problem is the market is saturated with crap and people are tired of it. The old stuff has a stale taste of been there done that and the new stuff is so similar to the old stuff you have the same been there feeling.
If something new came out that was fresh and innovative people would play it and spend money in the cash shop.
The single largest source of revenue for F2P games is subscriptions (and/or timecards). It is any surprise that as WoW embraces a larger variety of payment options that they would have an increase in subscriptions. Once they more fully embrace F2P, they should see a much larger increase... just like all the other games that converted to F2P, and saw the same thing.
The game I've found that I like best are a mix of the two. Unrestricted content if a subbing customer, some restrictions if F2P (all of which can be micro transacted around, but its going to cost more. Zero game content that requires any sort of though. Subscribers should get a leg up. Some sort of advantage just for being the study cash flow to the MMO.
One thing I have learned to utterly dispise is "chance box" items of any kind. where a customer has to buy "keys" to unlock. Gated currencies, etc. What I have seen is no one tell's you what your "odds" of getting any particular item is.
Cryptic studio's (Star Trek Online, champions online, neverwinter) and PWI are great practicioners of the fine art of milking the customer for all they can possibly squeeze out of them. A number of game items can only be aquired via chance box. It's really over the top.
I find it morally questionable. It's legal, but is it how a business should be operating? I've also noted that it tends to encourage a great deal of "get it out the door so we can make money on it" and the usuall breeze of marketting gas. The resulting product tends to be no where as good as it could be.
Blizzard. You just go right on doing what your doing. If folks want to see a parallel.. look at game types. Hundreds of FPS games have appeared over the years along with hundreds of RTS games... but what are the titles we all remember? Why do we remember them? Quality of product. That's why WOW is still here.. Product quality, ongoing QA work, and when you get in game.. you play the game.. your not getting bombarded with any advertising...Your not dealing with boldly displayed in the middle screen "player X has won shiney X" which is there to get you to go do what ever player X is doing.. which involves you are someone yanking out a credit card to make a micro transaction. It pervasive in the F2P titles.. and after a while.. very annoying.
I see in the long term, subscription making a serious comeback. There will still be F2P titles, and some will be very successfull, but it'll be the one that produce a quality product, and find a balance between providing content, and self promoting don't that doesn't drive off their own customers.
Originally posted by marcmy Couldn't have said it better, great article. I have seen first hand what free to play model does to otherwise great games. LOTRO was great until f2p.
Would you have rather it shut down? Thats the only other alternative. No game would go F2P unless it has to.....hence why Blizz has stated on multiple occaisions that it has no planes of going F2P...that might change....but only if the subscription numbers drop low enough to warrent it.
Want to charge a monthly fee? Make sure your elder game is worth a monthly fee, a la WoW.
It's impossible to judge WOWs success based on worldwide "sub" numbers. What we need to know is how the sub numbers in regions that don't pay by the hour have been. Heck, even gross revenue per region would be nice.
It amazes me that shareholders aren't given the full scoop when it comes to this stuff. Are they really fooled by sub numbers that mix hourly players with monthly subbers?
I'm just not convinced that the game is more profitable simply because of these numbers. It all depends on where the gains/losses were per region.
With that said, the game is a huge success and their model works well for them. You could end up paying a LOT more in other games with mostly cash shops for income and get a whole lot less.
how many of those are new account by the same person.there was a story about a guy who had 20-30 accounts.yes they still get the money,but what is the real number of people who play wow.not the number of subscriptions.
It only takes into account WoW. The only counterpoint needed is one single F2P game that saw a rise in its playerbase and micro transaction revenue and suddenly everything said in the article is meaningless.
And there are plenty of those examples to use.
+1
A rise of 100k is not a trend in an industry of an estimated 400 million users. This is just people predicting the future based on what they want to happen.
Wow's number are going up because it's a great game and their expansion is hinting at going back to what was the most popular time in wows history.
When did microtransactions EVER have appeal? Since going this route the quality of games has gotten worse. The F2P peasants were wrong when this whole shit storm of bad games started and they continue to be wrong. Your F2P game sucks and you should feel bad for driving the industry in this direction.
There is usually a surge for the patch with the last raid boss of an expansion. People come back to check out the final raid, this is normal. This is not a testament to anything. The fact that the "surge" was so small is probably telling. The interesting data will be for the next 2 quarters and whether or not they can keep subs from falling off a cliff. If they can manage to keep things flat, it will be a good sign. If they drop by more than a million they will have their work cut out for them in WoD.
Originally posted by Lorimar So we actually really don't know if the "subscriptions" (as in paying 15 bucks a month) really went up or if there were simply more asians paying for WoW last month.
What, arn't Asians real customers?
If they pay for 30 days whats the difference?
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
Originally posted by Lorimar So we actually really don't know if the "subscriptions" (as in paying 15 bucks a month) really went up or if there were simply more asians paying for WoW last month.
What, arn't Asians real customers?
If they pay for 30 days whats the difference?
They don't pay for 30 days. They play from internet cafes and are billed for the time they play. It's nothing like how we pay for games.
Im not against free to play. In fact i started my mmorpg journey on a f2p game and ended up paying subs for games that i enjoyed to play.
The first mmo that i played was developed in china by moliyo(pirate king online) and it is pure pay to win. I hit lvl 60 and wanted to try my ass on a dungeon, was geared in vendor whites and stuff that i came across when i was levelling. Well that dungeon is both pve and pvp LOL. Pve as in you could really do the bosses but pvp as in the only group of people that will down the dungeon bosses are the team that wipes out all opposing enemy team before the dungeon entry is closed(it is only about for x minutes).
Guess who are the one who gets the badass equipment? The team of people(they even had their own guild for mallers) that dumps loads of cash to the cash shop. I had a friend in that game who paid 1500 $$ and guess what.. he could only mildly compete. Another real life friend of mine paid 200 $$ and he couldn't even compete... lol.. That $200 would have bought me nearly a year of wow sub and i dont have to worry bout people having +12 and mallers only gem imbued on their swords/staffs whatever u called it.
Then i went to grand fantasia, developed by the creators of aura kingdom, x-legend. Got my stuff to +9 without paying a single cent and realised i couldn't really compete without dumping loads of $$. At that point i basically gave up on f2p and tried my hands on wow private servers and from there i gradually transitioned to paying sub for retail wow which i am still playing now.
The only f2p game that caught my eye and made me play for months and not regret opening up my wallet is tera. They had mounts and costumes on their cs... Im not really worried bout them though.
F2p isnt bad really. Afterall i can't just pay sub for all the mmos i wanna try. Lol. It is that they must draw the fine line between $$ and enjoyment for gamers.
If you don't have time to game much, and feel that makes subscription a bad deal for you? You are playing the wrong genre and maybe even investing in the wrong hobby if your time is that limited. However there are many different game genres for you to enjoy based on limited time.
You pay a subscription, maybe there is a shop that sells mounts, pets, gear, or maybe no shop at all. The point is the content itself, I have full access to, provided I have the skill level and forged social connections within the game (which is the point of a MMO believe it or not). To me this is great, all that is needed is the effort applied towards the aspect of the game I like.
A free to play game? I have to worry about everything from bags, to mounts, to how fast I level, to my gear matching, if I get access to certain areas, if I can complete with just playing the game spending a small amount. Forget that. That and to be honest I hate the idea of playing a game for free and being one of those gaming Hobos. I want to buy the game I play and support a developer with a box sale, and a subscription. Where I know how much I will spend. Lots of hard work was put into the games I enjoy, the least I can do is spend the money for keeping me so immersed.
But it seems like the majority of forum posters and comment posters on gaming sites, want a game that is completely free, with "fun gameplay", where there is no strategy, no roles, or no knowledge needed. A game that allows you to zerg away and kill in PVP or PVE. These games are called bold, the future, and fun. At 33 I'm a grandpa gamer, I get that but count me out of games like that, no interest in playing "ADD the MMO". GW2 comes to mind right off the bat, as a game that was preached about like MMO Jesus, saving everyone from the grind, and subs. Any game not GW2 was ruthlessly attacked and slandered everywhere.
GW2 was easily the most boring modern AAA MMO I have played. Shallow and Empty. I have played single player games more. So if this is the best free to play MMOs have to offer, again count me out.
EDIT
Trolls are everywhere in gaming, just log onto WoW a subscription game and look at trade chat. Subscriptions don't prevent that.
That being said I have found, the Free to play games, really attract the worst the gaming community has to offer, especially the gaming Hobos who want everything for free, because they are broke and deserve it for some reason.
Any kid, low life or hobo, can just download the game no need to ask mommy and daddy for any money. Then troll away as a game in itself. Subscriptions seem like they cut this type of thing down, I know EVE and WoW are notorious for being troll heavens but still, those are older games. It seems, a expensive game, with higher end graphics, with a subscription, tend to not have as bad of a community. Plus free to play games, seem to have worse spammers and bots.
It's funny... I've always thought that WoW's micro-transaction prices were ridiculously high. They always use the same exxcuse for the high prices: If we had low prices, everyone would have them, and people wouldn't feel special for having them. Much like they said they don't want everyone changing races and servers for cheap because there'd be no realm/race pride or some shit.
They bullshit, and players fall for it. At this point, it doesn't matter. Their prices are far too high, and their mounts and pets aren't worth it. But people buy them to feel "special" because they lack self-confidence. I've bought a single realm transfer in my 8 years or so playing off and on, and they'll get nothing more but the sub from me from now on.
They're a greedy company, and that's all there is to it. The game is awesome, but that isn't an excuse.
EDIT: Now is where people say "omg, you don't HAVE to purchase these extras, yada yada yada". It doesn't matter. When you find out a relative, or a friend, is playing on a different server, and you wanna run everything with them, but played the game before you knew what realm they were on, it doesn't matter. Their cross-realm grouping doesn't work for everything.
Comments
What's annoying about a lot of "f2P" games is their carrot and stick approach to trying to get you to spend more money. In Star Trek Online, for example, half the enemies will drop Lock-Boxes. You have to buy Keys to open them (either with real money or the in-game player market, but either way, at some point, real money traded hands).
THEN when you open it, you have a random chance of getting crap, crap, more crap, something decent, CRAP, or something pretty cool.
And on top of that, the best ships in the game require you to pay 25-50 bucks for them.
If you have a sub, you can accumulate "Zen" and buy on of those ships after, i dunno, a year? 6 months, maybe? However, all content is free. So it's your choice: Do you wanna fly around in a sub-par ship and barely be able to contribute during raids or team events, or do you want to "Pay 2 Win"?
Counter-Strike: GO (not an MMO) sort of does the same thing where they drop cases and you have to buy keys. Of course, the one nice thing there is that nothing you buy or get as a drop has ANY in-game effectiveness. There's no special drop that gives you an accuracy or damage bonus/ It's all aesthetic. So at least there's no "pay to win" going on there.
I don't think f2p games are dieing, the problem is the market is saturated with crap and people are tired of it. The old stuff has a stale taste of been there done that and the new stuff is so similar to the old stuff you have the same been there feeling.
If something new came out that was fresh and innovative people would play it and spend money in the cash shop.
Its not micro transactions that are losing their appeal.
Its the half assed development that comes with f2p that never had appeal in the first place.
Heres an idea!! how bout make a really good game in the first place and charge a sub, and do away with F2P!!
Oh never mind, they wanna make crap games with cash shops instead.......AND PEOPLE LOVE IT!
Currently playing: Elder Scrolls Online, Elite: Dangerous | Recently played: FFXIV, Rift, LoTRO, Diablo 3, Path of Exile, Guild Wars 2 | Single player RPGs: Dragon Age Inquisition, Skyrim
The single largest source of revenue for F2P games is subscriptions (and/or timecards). It is any surprise that as WoW embraces a larger variety of payment options that they would have an increase in subscriptions. Once they more fully embrace F2P, they should see a much larger increase... just like all the other games that converted to F2P, and saw the same thing.
The game I've found that I like best are a mix of the two. Unrestricted content if a subbing customer, some restrictions if F2P (all of which can be micro transacted around, but its going to cost more. Zero game content that requires any sort of though. Subscribers should get a leg up. Some sort of advantage just for being the study cash flow to the MMO.
One thing I have learned to utterly dispise is "chance box" items of any kind. where a customer has to buy "keys" to unlock. Gated currencies, etc. What I have seen is no one tell's you what your "odds" of getting any particular item is.
Cryptic studio's (Star Trek Online, champions online, neverwinter) and PWI are great practicioners of the fine art of milking the customer for all they can possibly squeeze out of them. A number of game items can only be aquired via chance box. It's really over the top.
I find it morally questionable. It's legal, but is it how a business should be operating? I've also noted that it tends to encourage a great deal of "get it out the door so we can make money on it" and the usuall breeze of marketting gas. The resulting product tends to be no where as good as it could be.
Blizzard. You just go right on doing what your doing. If folks want to see a parallel.. look at game types. Hundreds of FPS games have appeared over the years along with hundreds of RTS games... but what are the titles we all remember? Why do we remember them? Quality of product. That's why WOW is still here.. Product quality, ongoing QA work, and when you get in game.. you play the game.. your not getting bombarded with any advertising...Your not dealing with boldly displayed in the middle screen "player X has won shiney X" which is there to get you to go do what ever player X is doing.. which involves you are someone yanking out a credit card to make a micro transaction. It pervasive in the F2P titles.. and after a while.. very annoying.
I see in the long term, subscription making a serious comeback. There will still be F2P titles, and some will be very successfull, but it'll be the one that produce a quality product, and find a balance between providing content, and self promoting don't that doesn't drive off their own customers.
Would you have rather it shut down? Thats the only other alternative. No game would go F2P unless it has to.....hence why Blizz has stated on multiple occaisions that it has no planes of going F2P...that might change....but only if the subscription numbers drop low enough to warrent it.
Want to charge a monthly fee? Make sure your elder game is worth a monthly fee, a la WoW.
It amazes me that shareholders aren't given the full scoop when it comes to this stuff. Are they really fooled by sub numbers that mix hourly players with monthly subbers?
I'm just not convinced that the game is more profitable simply because of these numbers. It all depends on where the gains/losses were per region.
With that said, the game is a huge success and their model works well for them. You could end up paying a LOT more in other games with mostly cash shops for income and get a whole lot less.
What DamonVile said.
+1.
When the profits go to charity or a relief effort which Blizzard, Turbine and WG.net have done in the past.
Yeah, list is too long but the cause is great.
What, arn't Asians real customers?
If they pay for 30 days whats the difference?
TSW - AoC - Aion - WOW - EVE - Fallen Earth - Co - Rift - || XNA C# Java Development
They don't pay for 30 days. They play from internet cafes and are billed for the time they play. It's nothing like how we pay for games.
It's just a retest to see if there is potential resistance.
If retest fails we are going free to play all the way
Im not against free to play. In fact i started my mmorpg journey on a f2p game and ended up paying subs for games that i enjoyed to play.
The first mmo that i played was developed in china by moliyo(pirate king online) and it is pure pay to win. I hit lvl 60 and wanted to try my ass on a dungeon, was geared in vendor whites and stuff that i came across when i was levelling. Well that dungeon is both pve and pvp LOL. Pve as in you could really do the bosses but pvp as in the only group of people that will down the dungeon bosses are the team that wipes out all opposing enemy team before the dungeon entry is closed(it is only about for x minutes).
Guess who are the one who gets the badass equipment? The team of people(they even had their own guild for mallers) that dumps loads of cash to the cash shop. I had a friend in that game who paid 1500 $$ and guess what.. he could only mildly compete. Another real life friend of mine paid 200 $$ and he couldn't even compete... lol.. That $200 would have bought me nearly a year of wow sub and i dont have to worry bout people having +12 and mallers only gem imbued on their swords/staffs whatever u called it.
Then i went to grand fantasia, developed by the creators of aura kingdom, x-legend. Got my stuff to +9 without paying a single cent and realised i couldn't really compete without dumping loads of $$. At that point i basically gave up on f2p and tried my hands on wow private servers and from there i gradually transitioned to paying sub for retail wow which i am still playing now.
The only f2p game that caught my eye and made me play for months and not regret opening up my wallet is tera. They had mounts and costumes on their cs... Im not really worried bout them though.
F2p isnt bad really. Afterall i can't just pay sub for all the mmos i wanna try. Lol. It is that they must draw the fine line between $$ and enjoyment for gamers.
Outside of my opinion of which payment system is better and this article in general...
Time played Sub based games: years
Time played F2P based games: days
I understand that some people like F2P games, I just haven't found any F2P games that I thought were worth my time - much less money.
If you don't have time to game much, and feel that makes subscription a bad deal for you? You are playing the wrong genre and maybe even investing in the wrong hobby if your time is that limited. However there are many different game genres for you to enjoy based on limited time.
You pay a subscription, maybe there is a shop that sells mounts, pets, gear, or maybe no shop at all. The point is the content itself, I have full access to, provided I have the skill level and forged social connections within the game (which is the point of a MMO believe it or not). To me this is great, all that is needed is the effort applied towards the aspect of the game I like.
A free to play game? I have to worry about everything from bags, to mounts, to how fast I level, to my gear matching, if I get access to certain areas, if I can complete with just playing the game spending a small amount. Forget that. That and to be honest I hate the idea of playing a game for free and being one of those gaming Hobos. I want to buy the game I play and support a developer with a box sale, and a subscription. Where I know how much I will spend. Lots of hard work was put into the games I enjoy, the least I can do is spend the money for keeping me so immersed.
But it seems like the majority of forum posters and comment posters on gaming sites, want a game that is completely free, with "fun gameplay", where there is no strategy, no roles, or no knowledge needed. A game that allows you to zerg away and kill in PVP or PVE. These games are called bold, the future, and fun. At 33 I'm a grandpa gamer, I get that but count me out of games like that, no interest in playing "ADD the MMO". GW2 comes to mind right off the bat, as a game that was preached about like MMO Jesus, saving everyone from the grind, and subs. Any game not GW2 was ruthlessly attacked and slandered everywhere.
GW2 was easily the most boring modern AAA MMO I have played. Shallow and Empty. I have played single player games more. So if this is the best free to play MMOs have to offer, again count me out.
EDIT
Trolls are everywhere in gaming, just log onto WoW a subscription game and look at trade chat. Subscriptions don't prevent that.
That being said I have found, the Free to play games, really attract the worst the gaming community has to offer, especially the gaming Hobos who want everything for free, because they are broke and deserve it for some reason.
Any kid, low life or hobo, can just download the game no need to ask mommy and daddy for any money. Then troll away as a game in itself. Subscriptions seem like they cut this type of thing down, I know EVE and WoW are notorious for being troll heavens but still, those are older games. It seems, a expensive game, with higher end graphics, with a subscription, tend to not have as bad of a community. Plus free to play games, seem to have worse spammers and bots.
"What tastes like purple?"
It's funny... I've always thought that WoW's micro-transaction prices were ridiculously high. They always use the same exxcuse for the high prices: If we had low prices, everyone would have them, and people wouldn't feel special for having them. Much like they said they don't want everyone changing races and servers for cheap because there'd be no realm/race pride or some shit.
They bullshit, and players fall for it. At this point, it doesn't matter. Their prices are far too high, and their mounts and pets aren't worth it. But people buy them to feel "special" because they lack self-confidence. I've bought a single realm transfer in my 8 years or so playing off and on, and they'll get nothing more but the sub from me from now on.
They're a greedy company, and that's all there is to it. The game is awesome, but that isn't an excuse.