How much is too much....?

Ilumien

with the plethora of different models available for developers to see a return on their investment of time and effort in making a game, is there a point at which a developer should actually ask their prospective players "how much is too much?".

What I mean by this is that each of the publishers will expect to attach a price to a game to sell the core package (B2P), or will announce it as F2P with a "shop", and a variety of things in the shop that would make using it either essential (P2W/P2 progress) or very enticing in terms of cosmetics. It seems that very few teams are willing to go down the subscriber route now, preferring to use one or more of these models to achieve their end goal of maximising profits.

However, as a player with finite resources and many enticing titles to play then should developers actually start asking the player base at some of their checkpoint stages "how much would you pay/invest in this game if it were a buy to play, a f2p with cash shop, a subscription based game" etc.

I wonder if the results would surprise them now that subscription model has been on back burner for a while...

perhaps there are undiscovered or forgotten models out there.... perhaps a subscription that rewards in game currency similar to ESO is a practical model, perhaps the mixture B2P with cash shop models is the preferred way forward, but...and this is a big but....what if a developer turned to the community and said free to play, forever, but by signing up to play you agree to take part in x number of marketing surveys per month/agree to view x number of adverts per month/agree to watch a short clip for a charity before end of login process.

It usually takes about 30 seconds to log in to most games these days, and most users have high spec machines, perhaps th developer could sell some advertising space that could change during those login screens.

Ok that was some random thoughts from me...

Jakdstripper

when it comes to greed, the entire universe is not enough.

what i mean by this is that when a game is made to make money, then there is no end to how much money will be "enough". as a result, the game will feel just like that: a money grab. 

you sit there and talk about this and that form of payment. payment for what exactly? first make something great. make a game that people actually love and can't get enough of. if you actually manage to do that, people will willingly and happily give huge amounts of money for it (SC the latest example of this).

you will never make such a game by pondering the best way to get money out of people. never. 

WarEnsemble

I took your question in 2 parts.

1) How much is too much to ask for a person to join beta testing.
A. For me, I will not spend more than the cost of a full retail game ($60 USD) to beta a game. To spend $60 on beta testing a game, it has to be something I REALLLLY want to play. It better be AAA and polished if they want that much from me.

2) How much is too much to ask a person to pay for a monthly subscription for a game.
A. I have pretty much stopped paying a subscription for any game and that is because I've paid for one for nearly 20 years and I'm just done with it. I may sub to Pantheon or Camelot Unchained, but that is only because I believe in what those 2 games are doing and it is close to my preferred gaming style.