every time this has been tried the same thing happens - subscription players leave for free servers or simply quit.
over time Subscription servers dwindle in population and get shut down, while F2P remain.
bottom line - mixing pay models doesnt work long term as nobody wants to pay long term for something they could get for free.
That's the reason that F2P with cash shops has taken over every MMO. Pay to play is a dead model without enough supporters to make it work.
Even in subscription based games where you prefer that model and are more than willing to put out 15$ a month, what if your friend or family member wants to pay with you but is not willing to spend the money to play? In a freemium or pay to win title this is no issue. In a subscription based game this is a very large issue.
And I guarantee many of the staunchest of defenders will switch to F2P titles if they value those relationships over their hatred of cash shops.
And that is why freemium with cash shops has already won out against subscribe to play.
Personally I hate pay to win games and stuck with 15$ a month for any and full access games for a very long time. Now I cap myself at 15$ a month and will play any game that allows me to be 90% viable for that 15$/mo. I actually prefer that my friends be able to play for free if they wish.
It will create more interest ,however i have seen it in action and don't like it,well to be honest,i hate ANY game with a cash shop.
We saw it with and likely the FIRST to do it,EQ2. What happened was choice as you say but eventually Smedley saw that the CS version made more money and just abolished the subscription model.yes yes i know,Smedley is a bad example to use,he can ruin anything.However you will also likely see on the cash shop side way more effort towards cash shop,meaning less effort to the free part of the game. The best scenario would be if EVERYTHING is identical as far as content and items,just one you can buy your way to those ideas and the other you cannot.However ,like i said,i don't want a developer designing,creating stuff JUST for the sake of the cash shop and we have to endure that same stuff/ideas on the subscription server as well.
Long story short,as i already mentioned,keep cash shop gaming,right out of my game,no matter what server it is on.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
What do you think of an MMO game that has two servers you can join. One is a subscription based model and no cash shop, the other is free to play with a cash shop and an acceptable amount of pay to win. You can choose which one you want to play on.
Do you think this would attract more player base? Would all the people willing to pay all be on the subscription server? Would the F2P server be dominated by non-paying players but with a small handful of big whales?
Would this be a good or bad thing?
This would be the ultimate scam. The sub side would be paying for all those freeloaders. I would not do it either way.
every time this has been tried the same thing happens - subscription players leave for free servers or simply quit.
over time Subscription servers dwindle in population and get shut down, while F2P remain.
bottom line - mixing pay models doesnt work long term as nobody wants to pay long term for something they could get for free.
Aside from someone mentioning Allods in this thread. I have NEVER heard of game company doing this. Maybe I live under a rock, but I would sure love to know which mainstream MMO's you've played that have done this.
4th Coming (1999) and Puzzle Pirates (2004) did this, as well.
The scenario DMKano presented is pretty consistent, which is one of the reasons it isn't done anymore. Another is that you're also dealing with two different code bases and... bleh.
-- Whammy - a 64x64 miniRPG - RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right? - FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
What do you think of an MMO game that has two servers you can join. One is a subscription based model and no cash shop, the other is free to play with a cash shop and an acceptable amount of pay to win. You can choose which one you want to play on.
Do you think this would attract more player base? Would all the people willing to pay all be on the subscription server? Would the F2P server be dominated by non-paying players but with a small handful of big whales?
Would this be a good or bad thing?
This would be the ultimate scam. The sub side would be paying for all those freeloaders. I would not do it either way.
how is it different from f2p games where few whales make up for the non-paying 98 or so percent of players?
every time this has been tried the same thing happens - subscription players leave for free servers or simply quit.
over time Subscription servers dwindle in population and get shut down, while F2P remain.
bottom line - mixing pay models doesnt work long term as nobody wants to pay long term for something they could get for free.
If you can competitive play for less people will choose that method, yes. But if you instead force people to buy a lot of stuff people would go for the P2P instead.
For it to work both models need to feel as worth the money as the other or players will usually choose the best deal. That is of course pretty hard so very few games bother trying and most who do tend to fail.
It is harder for players to feel like they are getting their moneys worth for P2P as well since you immediately see what you get when you buy a specific thing, P2P players often feel cheated if they feel that the updates isn't coming in at a steady pace, it happened to Wow last year and lost them plenty of players.
I'm still a fan of subscriptions as a business model but I do understand the pitfalls. I really hate F2P. Again, I understand the benefits so understand why so many games have gone that route.
For me though, it always comes down to the quality of the gameplay. In my experience, F2P ruins every game. It shouldn't, but it does. It starts with the advertising - seeing the shop buttons in game and being regularly reminded that I can buy stuff in the shop pretty much kills the experience straight away. Then you usually start encountering restrictions that you have to unlock via the shop. Then you see boosts, then you start seeing p2w. almost always, f2p games release less content too, even if that content is chargable.
The result is that I just can't enjoy F2P games. I don't have particularly good ethics IRL but I care passionately about business ethics. I just can't support companies who knowingly rip off their customers or use questionable tactics to target vulnerable players (e.g. lockboxes). I might be able to support such practices if the companies put the money to good use and provided a ton of excellent content (because I believe in sacrificing the few for the good of the many) but they don't even do that.
Even games that offer sub or f2p (like lotro or swtor) I ended up quitting not long after F2P as the games just went rapidly downhill following the switch.
I think my preferred business model these days would be to go the B2P + DLC route.
No cash shop or anything, but you buy that base game for £40 and have permanent access for free from then on. Then, every bit of new content should be considered a DLC and be reasonably priced. For example, new raid / instance cluster? £5. New zone with 100 quests? £5. New PvP arena? £1. New class? £5.
In my opinion, this makes the pricing completely transparent to the playerbase whilst still putting control in the players hands. It is ethical, so nobody gets ripped off. Over time, I would also hope that it makes the direction of the game a bit more democratic. For example, if 90% of the playerbase buys a new zone but only 5% buys the new pvp arena, that is great feedback. The devs can then compare it to development costs. It might turn out that 90% sale of the new zone results in 10% profit, letting them know they need to streamline their zone creation process, whereas the pvp arena might be 50% profit so they know they're doing a good job there, even if not many people buy it.
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Even in subscription based games where you prefer that model and are more than willing to put out 15$ a month, what if your friend or family member wants to pay with you but is not willing to spend the money to play? In a freemium or pay to win title this is no issue. In a subscription based game this is a very large issue.
And I guarantee many of the staunchest of defenders will switch to F2P titles if they value those relationships over their hatred of cash shops.
And that is why freemium with cash shops has already won out against subscribe to play.
Personally I hate pay to win games and stuck with 15$ a month for any and full access games for a very long time. Now I cap myself at 15$ a month and will play any game that allows me to be 90% viable for that 15$/mo. I actually prefer that my friends be able to play for free if they wish.
We saw it with and likely the FIRST to do it,EQ2.
What happened was choice as you say but eventually Smedley saw that the CS version made more money and just abolished the subscription model.yes yes i know,Smedley is a bad example to use,he can ruin anything.However you will also likely see on the cash shop side way more effort towards cash shop,meaning less effort to the free part of the game.
The best scenario would be if EVERYTHING is identical as far as content and items,just one you can buy your way to those ideas and the other you cannot.However ,like i said,i don't want a developer designing,creating stuff JUST for the sake of the cash shop and we have to endure that same stuff/ideas on the subscription server as well.
Long story short,as i already mentioned,keep cash shop gaming,right out of my game,no matter what server it is on.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Let's party like it is 1863!
The scenario DMKano presented is pretty consistent, which is one of the reasons it isn't done anymore. Another is that you're also dealing with two different code bases and... bleh.
- RPG Quiz - can you get all 25 right?
- FPS Quiz - how well do you know your shooters?
how is it different from f2p games where few whales make up for the non-paying 98 or so percent of players?
For it to work both models need to feel as worth the money as the other or players will usually choose the best deal. That is of course pretty hard so very few games bother trying and most who do tend to fail.
It is harder for players to feel like they are getting their moneys worth for P2P as well since you immediately see what you get when you buy a specific thing, P2P players often feel cheated if they feel that the updates isn't coming in at a steady pace, it happened to Wow last year and lost them plenty of players.
For me though, it always comes down to the quality of the gameplay. In my experience, F2P ruins every game. It shouldn't, but it does. It starts with the advertising - seeing the shop buttons in game and being regularly reminded that I can buy stuff in the shop pretty much kills the experience straight away. Then you usually start encountering restrictions that you have to unlock via the shop. Then you see boosts, then you start seeing p2w. almost always, f2p games release less content too, even if that content is chargable.
The result is that I just can't enjoy F2P games. I don't have particularly good ethics IRL but I care passionately about business ethics. I just can't support companies who knowingly rip off their customers or use questionable tactics to target vulnerable players (e.g. lockboxes). I might be able to support such practices if the companies put the money to good use and provided a ton of excellent content (because I believe in sacrificing the few for the good of the many) but they don't even do that.
Even games that offer sub or f2p (like lotro or swtor) I ended up quitting not long after F2P as the games just went rapidly downhill following the switch.
I think my preferred business model these days would be to go the B2P + DLC route.
No cash shop or anything, but you buy that base game for £40 and have permanent access for free from then on. Then, every bit of new content should be considered a DLC and be reasonably priced. For example, new raid / instance cluster? £5. New zone with 100 quests? £5. New PvP arena? £1. New class? £5.
In my opinion, this makes the pricing completely transparent to the playerbase whilst still putting control in the players hands. It is ethical, so nobody gets ripped off. Over time, I would also hope that it makes the direction of the game a bit more democratic. For example, if 90% of the playerbase buys a new zone but only 5% buys the new pvp arena, that is great feedback. The devs can then compare it to development costs. It might turn out that 90% sale of the new zone results in 10% profit, letting them know they need to streamline their zone creation process, whereas the pvp arena might be 50% profit so they know they're doing a good job there, even if not many people buy it.