Just pondering...which games do you tend to stay around the longest in; subbed MMOs or F2P?
I spent YEARS in each Ultima Online, Asheron's Call, Star Wars Galaxies, Eve Online, and Horizons (now Istaria). However I find myself only playing for a couple of months in games that are F2P. Sure, I've also played in sub-only games that only hold my attention for a couple of months as well, but those were obviously not games that I honestly enjoyed.
There is just something about F2P games that always turns me off. Even if the design is great and I am having a blast, the F2P nature and all it entails inevitably drives me away.*cough*AgeofWushu*cough*
Bad translations, bad support, P2W, horrible community, sociopathic players, gold sellers, slow actual game development vs new cash-shop feather hat of the week, and the lack of any sense of responsibility for fixing any of the above from the developers since it is "free" all add up in a very short period of time. Most of all, though, I am turned off when the game forces you to pay to get any actual enjoyment out of it. Things like ridiculous limits on xp gain or bag slots or mounts or housing being restricted without shelling out cash is a huge mark against the game in question.
If I do choose to pay, I am forced to deal with all the negatives of a F2P game on top of that, when I could just pay a sub and get all the content and not have to deal with most of the negatives of F2P.
Also please note that I am comparing a "good" sub MMO to a "good" F2P game. Yes I know there are crap sub games with most of or all the same problems as any other, but even in a good F2P a lot of the issues are forced on you whether you pay or not.
tl;dr
Do you play sub-games longer than F2P games? I do, the good ones anyway. Just too many issues with F2P that overshadow any fun/neat/innovative features.
Basically: Bad sub MMO I don't play, bad F2P MMO I don't play, good F2P MMO I can only stand for a couple of months at most, good sub MMO I will play for years.
Do you play sub-games longer than F2P games? I do, the good ones anyway.
Good for you. Personally, I don't play pricing models, I play games If I like a game, I play it, regardless of its pricing model. Likewise, I wouldn't touch a game I don't like even if they pay me a monthly fee for playing it.
With that in mind, I can't anwer for the question. My longest /played games would be LotRO, AoC and CoH - all of them were on both the subscription and the freemium side as well, and I've played all of them both before and after the pricing model switch. (and of course in LotRO and AoC's case still playing them, poor CoH was cancelled)
Same with TSW and STO and CO and... the list could go along. I also have almost a year so far in Neverwinter, which never was a sub game and with that a nice example of that an f2p-built game can be fun too.
I don't play sub games right now (except AoC which I play subbed when I go back, and TSW), but it has nothing to do with the pricing model either, simply there's no game for me right now which is good enough, and on the side sub-only.
FF XIV ARR is maybe the closest candidate, I was in it at the first launch (it was painful ), and not went back since then, but the latest housing revamp is really tempting... probably if I'll have a free month to spare (maybe before LotRO's Anniversary festival) I'll reactivate my acc. The rest are crap - and not because of their model.
I'll play Wildstar, can't wait to be a settler and again, it has nothing to do being sub-based. I'm still on the fence with ESO - and yep, it's not because it's sub-based either.
To be honest, right since DDO's f2p switch I find this whole "I play only sub / F2p games suck / p2p is the way / get the pitchforks and burn the f2p" attitude laughable It's the same, weak and pointless "fight" as scf-fi vs. fantasy, or tab-target vs. action combat. Those have nothing to do with a game's quality and entertaining factor. Objectively, I mean, since obviously for some those are deal-breaking issues...
F2P is ideal for the little "timewaster" games people play on their mobile phones and ipads. That's where the model shines (Candy Crush Saga ?)
I imagine that MMO's are usually not played in short 15min or half-hour bursts, the situation is completely different. But many F2P game developers seem to try to shoe-horn the Candy Crush designs into their "MMO's", and that's where it all goes horribly wrong...
Just because one monetization model works well in a certain scenario does not mean it works well in all scenarios.
Turbine just announced another round of layoffs. I don't think LOTRO can be used in an argument against this article. The way I see it, if LOTRO flopped completely, those devs would have been out of a job a long time ago and would already be working on another project (most likely not F2P).
Sorry but LOTRO was just garbage from the start. Take away the licence & no one woulda given it a second look. Shifting it to f2p just took a crap game & made it even worse IMHO.
1. devs are forced to focus more time on cash shop items, etc than game content.
2. when devs are finally allowed to make actual content for the game it's normally gated by a paywall (looking at you, SWTOR...worst 'f2p' model ever)
3. you end up paying more for some f2p titles than you do for sub games...buying bag space PER CHARACTER (GW2, SWTOR, etc), armor, weapons, etc.
4. customer support is lacking or non-existent for f2p...even if you're paying
5. most f2p games are just bad. if they started out as sub and went f2p they count as f2p to me...and I stand by most of them are bad....not all, but most
This is all my opinion. To each their own.
Referring to GW2, you are not forced to spend money in their cashshop in order to compete.
You can easily make gold ingame and use that to buy extra perks like bags or character slots.
Gearwise you do not get advantages using the cashshop.
You only go to the gW2 cashshop if you want to take shortcuts, like XP boosts, shiny armor or want it all without playing the game.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
There are so many variables that have led to the games we have to do that no one cause can be pinned.
Greed is the biggest limiting factor. Too many people look at games today that have made a killing and think they can remake it only with some different shades of grey and expect to be just as successful. The MMO genre for the last 10 years has been doing just that.
Lets look at some of the things that F2P/Freemium offers for better/worse:
* Low barrier to entry for more people to play the game - more people playing/enjoying your game is what most people in the industry start out in the business for. More players, particularly in mmos, usually means more word of mouth which usually ropes in more players.
* Higher populations generally require less transactions to be successful/. A game where 1 million players are spending on average $0-5 is still more than ~10000 paying $15.
* Gives the consumer buying power when t hey choose. So if this month I want to spend $100 on this cool set of clothes or boost my xp rate in the first month so I can catch up to friends I can.
* Allows the working demographic - typically the people who do spend money on the games - options to keep up while still holding down a 40 hr+ working week +- kids/family. This still allows the non-working demographic - typically the guys not paying - to play and populate the world, dedicate lots of time and be the loud ones saying Im so awesome I havent paid a cent and im owning all the P2Players.
On the final note - look at some of the good f2p games such as Planetside2 and GW2. You can see a good balance of cash earned, content generated and fun had. You can also see how the model works on different game types without limiting its user base. Then look at some of the subscription games over the last 10 years and see how they have performed. I can think of several where the content and features were lacking and we were expected to pay subs for years that yielded nothing. A good example of this was Darkfall (which I loved btw) - where we paid multiple subs for multi chars we pretty much needed, we also got very little patches and very little content additions in the years it was available. Another example would be the ever hyped Warhammer online and probably TESO.
Originally posted by mohit9206 I admit i love free2play.I avoid or quickly uninstall the bad ones but invest lots of time in good ones that i enjoy.I have never spent anything in a f2p and probably never will,i just want to get the maximum amount of enjoyment for the least amount of money i don't care about the developers or publishers there are enough whales out there to fund them.All you need to do is avoid bad f2p games and keep playing the good ones so that soon enough the industry will realize that fair implementation of f2p is vital to retaining playerbase.
Since you have declared you've never spent anything in f2p and probably never will, you're only showing the industry that they need to try harder to milk money out of you.
Originally posted by mohit9206 I admit i love free2play.I avoid or quickly uninstall the bad ones but invest lots of time in good ones that i enjoy.I have never spent anything in a f2p and probably never will,i just want to get the maximum amount of enjoyment for the least amount of money i don't care about the developers or publishers there are enough whales out there to fund them.All you need to do is avoid bad f2p games and keep playing the good ones so that soon enough the industry will realize that fair implementation of f2p is vital to retaining playerbase.
If everyone was like you we wouldn't have a games industry.
F2P needs to go away and the faster the better.
I'm not defending the F2P model, but you are obviously a subscription based model generation. Know that games didn't start with this model, but with the B2P model.
Personally i don't find it fair to be paying monthly for a game, for no actual reason but for the managing company's interest. Do not step into the trap of thinking they have costs and maintenances to face because on the other side, so do the gamers. Think of all the mice, keyboards, or various cards you've changed during the online life of your favorite mmo. This is without counting the most unfortunate of us, those that had to change their whole computer. I never heard of any company offering some sort of incentive to a gamer who had to face these kind of expenses . So why would i need to support them monthly, more so when they release new content, in the form of expansions and want again our money?
ye but did MMOs start that way i dont kow for sure, i didnt play the very first one back in what was it late 80s i think i cant rember.
also its not a trap that they have costs and expenses, where do you get the idea from that a team of computer experts dont need to eat.
F2P may be the way of the future, but ya know they dont make them like they used to Proper Grammer & spelling are extra, corrections will be LOL at.
To me, one of the fundamental problems with F2P games are the built in mechanics that roadblock players to funnel them into the cash shop. In my experience, that is where most of the development seems to revolve around.
The most I spent in one was in Rappelz where I made it to level 90 something. I forget the exact level. In terms of innovation, that game was decent. Certainly, it was a little different than the typical WoW clone. I enjoyed the way my character specialized down a choice of multiple paths. Combat was good. To this day, I think the game has the best pet system of any MMORPG I've played. Well, it lacked content. It was a Korean dungeon grinder, but I still found it fun to play.
Anyway, the game, in its day, had a lot to offer, But all of its qualities were overshadowed by it's RNG system. It wasn't P2W in the sense that you bought stats. Everyone had access to the same gear. The game was P2W because the Cash shop sold items that would give better odds of successfully improving your pets and gear.
Since the game mechanics were built around this RNG pay-wall, you had no choice. And as I began to rise to the higer levels of the game, I was seeing how in order to progress further, I'd need to start spending a whole lot more money than what I could play WoW with. Even now, I am playing GW2. It's a good solid game. But the game itself is far too RNG heavy. It's one of my criticisms of the game.
Even Sub games that implemented shops altered their game so that development centers on the shop. Anarchy is one such game. I was already paying 30 bucks a month for 2 accounts. But that wasn't enough for Funcom. They systematically began attacking areas of the game where players made money. Then, major issues with the game that players had been asking for fixes for for years finally started to see development. Yep, you could buy fixes for game breaking problems right from the cash shop.
But the developers get paid if the game is F2P or not. So the cost of the game to the consumer doesn't come into play here in my eyes. The problem is publishing. We don't have an easy market for new ideas to survive. I think crowdsourcing is a step in the right direction. Mainstream publishers never cared about the gamers or the games just the money it makes. Fine. I get that. What I question is to the extent that the gaming 'public' purchase and deal with such crap. And then they wonder why people ask for more F2P.
Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but the top 10% of F2P games make more money than the top 10% of p2p and b2p games combined, so without being a complete a-hole, sorry Neilie, but your whole idea that F2P is a fad is misinformed and sad.
If f2p were so good, then considering all these game companies talk about what a windfall they are receiving after going f2p, where exactly is the money going? Because it isn't going to develop new worthwhile content. It's going to develop more flash in the pan content that requires us to spend money. I hate f2p. It brings in the lowest rung of gamers who expect very little and are suffering from ADD.
Comments
Word, brutha.
Good for you. Personally, I don't play pricing models, I play games
If I like a game, I play it, regardless of its pricing model. Likewise, I wouldn't touch a game I don't like even if they pay me a monthly fee for playing it.
With that in mind, I can't anwer for the question. My longest /played games would be LotRO, AoC and CoH - all of them were on both the subscription and the freemium side as well, and I've played all of them both before and after the pricing model switch. (and of course in LotRO and AoC's case still playing them, poor CoH was cancelled)
Same with TSW and STO and CO and... the list could go along. I also have almost a year so far in Neverwinter, which never was a sub game and with that a nice example of that an f2p-built game can be fun too.
I don't play sub games right now (except AoC which I play subbed when I go back, and TSW), but it has nothing to do with the pricing model either, simply there's no game for me right now which is good enough, and on the side sub-only.
FF XIV ARR is maybe the closest candidate, I was in it at the first launch (it was painful
), and not went back since then, but the latest housing revamp is really tempting... probably if I'll have a free month to spare (maybe before LotRO's Anniversary festival) I'll reactivate my acc. The rest are crap - and not because of their model.
I'll play Wildstar, can't wait to be a settler
and again, it has nothing to do being sub-based. I'm still on the fence with ESO - and yep, it's not because it's sub-based either.
To be honest, right since DDO's f2p switch I find this whole "I play only sub / F2p games suck / p2p is the way / get the pitchforks and burn the f2p" attitude laughable
It's the same, weak and pointless "fight" as scf-fi vs. fantasy, or tab-target vs. action combat. Those have nothing to do with a game's quality and entertaining factor. Objectively, I mean, since obviously for some those are deal-breaking issues... 
F2P is ideal for the little "timewaster" games people play on their mobile phones and ipads. That's where the model shines (Candy Crush Saga ?)
I imagine that MMO's are usually not played in short 15min or half-hour bursts, the situation is completely different. But many F2P game developers seem to try to shoe-horn the Candy Crush designs into their "MMO's", and that's where it all goes horribly wrong...
Just because one monetization model works well in a certain scenario does not mean it works well in all scenarios.
Sorry but LOTRO was just garbage from the start. Take away the licence & no one woulda given it a second look. Shifting it to f2p just took a crap game & made it even worse IMHO.Referring to GW2, you are not forced to spend money in their cashshop in order to compete.
You can easily make gold ingame and use that to buy extra perks like bags or character slots.
Gearwise you do not get advantages using the cashshop.
You only go to the gW2 cashshop if you want to take shortcuts, like XP boosts, shiny armor or want it all without playing the game.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
Seriously, what a joke of an article.
There are so many variables that have led to the games we have to do that no one cause can be pinned.
Greed is the biggest limiting factor. Too many people look at games today that have made a killing and think they can remake it only with some different shades of grey and expect to be just as successful. The MMO genre for the last 10 years has been doing just that.
Lets look at some of the things that F2P/Freemium offers for better/worse:
* Low barrier to entry for more people to play the game - more people playing/enjoying your game is what most people in the industry start out in the business for. More players, particularly in mmos, usually means more word of mouth which usually ropes in more players.
* Higher populations generally require less transactions to be successful/. A game where 1 million players are spending on average $0-5 is still more than ~10000 paying $15.
* Gives the consumer buying power when t hey choose. So if this month I want to spend $100 on this cool set of clothes or boost my xp rate in the first month so I can catch up to friends I can.
* Allows the working demographic - typically the people who do spend money on the games - options to keep up while still holding down a 40 hr+ working week +- kids/family. This still allows the non-working demographic - typically the guys not paying - to play and populate the world, dedicate lots of time and be the loud ones saying Im so awesome I havent paid a cent and im owning all the P2Players.
On the final note - look at some of the good f2p games such as Planetside2 and GW2. You can see a good balance of cash earned, content generated and fun had. You can also see how the model works on different game types without limiting its user base. Then look at some of the subscription games over the last 10 years and see how they have performed. I can think of several where the content and features were lacking and we were expected to pay subs for years that yielded nothing. A good example of this was Darkfall (which I loved btw) - where we paid multiple subs for multi chars we pretty much needed, we also got very little patches and very little content additions in the years it was available. Another example would be the ever hyped Warhammer online and probably TESO.
Since you have declared you've never spent anything in f2p and probably never will, you're only showing the industry that they need to try harder to milk money out of you.
ye but did MMOs start that way i dont kow for sure, i didnt play the very first one back in what was it late 80s i think i cant rember.
also its not a trap that they have costs and expenses, where do you get the idea from that a team of computer experts dont need to eat.
F2P may be the way of the future, but ya know they dont make them like they used to
Proper Grammer & spelling are extra, corrections will be LOL at.
To me, one of the fundamental problems with F2P games are the built in mechanics that roadblock players to funnel them into the cash shop. In my experience, that is where most of the development seems to revolve around.
The most I spent in one was in Rappelz where I made it to level 90 something. I forget the exact level. In terms of innovation, that game was decent. Certainly, it was a little different than the typical WoW clone. I enjoyed the way my character specialized down a choice of multiple paths. Combat was good. To this day, I think the game has the best pet system of any MMORPG I've played. Well, it lacked content. It was a Korean dungeon grinder, but I still found it fun to play.
Anyway, the game, in its day, had a lot to offer, But all of its qualities were overshadowed by it's RNG system. It wasn't P2W in the sense that you bought stats. Everyone had access to the same gear. The game was P2W because the Cash shop sold items that would give better odds of successfully improving your pets and gear.
Since the game mechanics were built around this RNG pay-wall, you had no choice. And as I began to rise to the higer levels of the game, I was seeing how in order to progress further, I'd need to start spending a whole lot more money than what I could play WoW with. Even now, I am playing GW2. It's a good solid game. But the game itself is far too RNG heavy. It's one of my criticisms of the game.
Even Sub games that implemented shops altered their game so that development centers on the shop. Anarchy is one such game. I was already paying 30 bucks a month for 2 accounts. But that wasn't enough for Funcom. They systematically began attacking areas of the game where players made money. Then, major issues with the game that players had been asking for fixes for for years finally started to see development. Yep, you could buy fixes for game breaking problems right from the cash shop.
But the developers get paid if the game is F2P or not. So the cost of the game to the consumer doesn't come into play here in my eyes. The problem is publishing. We don't have an easy market for new ideas to survive. I think crowdsourcing is a step in the right direction. Mainstream publishers never cared about the gamers or the games just the money it makes. Fine. I get that. What I question is to the extent that the gaming 'public' purchase and deal with such crap. And then they wonder why people ask for more F2P.
Crazkanuk
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