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There is nothing wrong with sub based mmo's.
karmath
Member UncommonPosts: 904
There is nothing wrong with sub based mmo's. Most cost $15 maximum a month, pretty easy to see the value in it. A 2 hour movie will cost you easily twice as much. Some games fail because the game itself is badly designed, buggy, laggy ect. Not because people cant afford it.
Sub based games for the most part, are decent quality games with no gimmicks to make you spend cash a upfront fee that gives you total and unrestricted access to the game, were everyone else is on the same level playing field.
The so called f2p games while free to download are gimped in a way where you are really only playing the 'demo' version. These games need flashy gimmicks and marketing to pull you in so they can get your cash.
Most f2p titles rely on people who pay a heck of a lot more than the standard $15 in most cases to actually play the game as intended without limitation to compensate for others who just try the game and troll people in the 'global' chat.
tl;dr f2p is a scam, always has been, always will be.
Comments
How can you possibly expect to be taken seriously when you post such obvious mistruths?
In the vast majority of free to play games, you are given unlimited access to all gameplay content. That is not a "demo". You need to look up what the term "scam" means because it doesn't mean what you think it means. Free to play games let you play the game completely free of charge. They offer optional enhancements items for a fee. There is nothing scammy about that.
Cliffsnotes: I don't like F2P games but really like P2P games. F2P suuucks!!
I hate to say it, but I agree with Gameloading
If WoW = The Beatles
and WAR = Led Zeppelin
Then LotrO = Pink Floyd
some of those f2p do offer things like sword of ultimate noobslaying for 50 bucks and you know it. point being the noobs that get slayed knew it was in the shop when they went out in the woods to die like sheep in a slaughter.
Well one thing I can think of if the recuring charge on your credit card that if you get bored with the game and forget to cancel you get to pay for. I've been busy in my personal life before and kept forgetting to cancel and paid for 3 months time becasue I forgot to cancel. Why don't they make you renew when your time is up? Simple because people like me make them money, so in that sense P2P is a rip-off.
Also your opinion on people paying subs to "play the gaem as intended" is just wrong. How you percieve a game as being played as intended and how a F2P'er see's it are totaly different. Maybe you want to get to end game and maybe someone else just wants to play some of the content.
And this post must be a joke because it's not long enough, even for a person with add, to have to read your tldr.
I can't think of any game that actually offers those kind of weapons.
To the OP...
The market is plenty big enough to support multiple payment models for games. Subscription and micro transactions are both here to stay, get over it.
Are these "F2P is a scam", "F2P is not really free" "F2P is...blablabla" topics pure made because ignorant is popular? or just because people can't think of more original topics to make, or pure done out of boredom?
As the poster above me said, there is plenty of room for both F2P and P2P, I havn't played a F2P game that entertained me, but that doesn't mean there arn't gamers that do enjoy them.
Wish this genre would have more actual mature GAMERS instead of those wanna-be's who create these type of daily topics.
Can you list them for those of us not familair with them?
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Lol.... how time has changed. B2P and F2P's used to be bashed at this site, now it's "nothing wrong with sub based mmo's". Alternative-payment opponents are now on the defensive.
No, there is nothing wrong with sub-based games. But there is something wrong with subscription-based games that can't keep a significant quality edge over F2P and B2P. Sadly, that's what we are seeing lately. Look at the fate of APB and Alganon, and I wonder how long will that upcoming Aerravan last.
Instead of bashing b2p and f2p's, you guys are much better off in pushing for a higher quality product. If you can't, then no amount of smear campaign against other payment models will save you. More illogical bashing/smear posts, more it shows your side is losing.
Yes, time is changing, a b2p like GW2 now is enjoying the same amount of hype that was once reserved for titles like Warhammer and AOC. GW2 will not turn players into a sub-mmo lovers, that much I can tell you.
Trust me, I love F2P games... a lot! It allows me to keep one or two subscription paid games active at any given time, yet allows me to have several F2P games going when I need a change of pace. The difference between me and most F2P gamers is, I will never... ever spend a dime for their cash shops. The reason why SOE is moving all their games to item shop or RMT is $$$$$$$. A traditional subscription based game can only average the monthly rate per subscriber. However, SOE has already proven that the AVERAGE subscriber in F2P games will spend $55 a month on their characters. It makes more sense to average $55 per customer than $15 a month per customer. That is a lot more profit on the bottom line.
Fear not fanbois, we are not trolls, let's take off your tin foil hat and learn what VAPORWARE is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware
"Vaporware is a term used to describe a software or hardware product that is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge after having well exceeded the period of development time that was initially claimed or would normally be expected for the development cycle of a similar product."
There is room for "F2P" and subscription models in the market. I personally spect that in the end, most games will end up with one form or another of the 'hybrid' option. I also think that there's no "One True Plan" that will suit all games. EVE's PLEX system works pretty well - for EVE. It would be a failure in WoW because the economy is simply different. Similarly, the DDO model works well for that game, but it would be a disaster for EVE. And so on.
My prediction is that after a few years of experimentation, most games will fall within 2-3 Hybrid payment option categories, with the pulishers hopefully chosing the hybrid style that fits their game the best.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
I will agree with the OP in that value wise 15 bucks sounds great.However they are still raping players as it probably costs them an actual 5 bucks ,they are using the other 10 bucks to fund other projects,and to build the xpacs.This is the part that bothers me,if they are going to collect MILLIONS of dollars while making the xpacs,they SHOULD be free,that is the fair shake in keeping customers for the long haul,intead they choose to charge you AGAIN on top of the millions they have been collecting.One month of 100k subs at 15 bucks ,you can already see the high amount of cash they collect.Just imagine someone like Wow that has 10 million subs every month,that is an incredible amount of cash,and yet they are going to charge people for Cataclysym.The FACT that GW1 was able to charge nothing,shows that MOST devs do not need 15 bucks,it is EXTRA profit for the most part.
Of course i gave a very vague figure as some devs are more wasteful in spending ...example Blizzard probably needs 10-12 bucks of that 15 to operate,they posted awhile back some incredible wasted spenditures,everything from data readers to people that spy on that embedded program in Wow.Blizzard also along with otehrs gives the NPD group a ton of money for marketing and to hype their products.Eve has a few people that are there just to monitor and inform them on the games economy.There is also little things people don't usually know ,like SOE had at one time sold game logs to marketing and universities for research.
There is yet one more aspect and that is the small developer.If they do not get a large number of initial sales,then they will need that 15 bucks to help recover development costs,i think that is fair,we do need the small guy to stick around and force large developers to keep the quality going.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
So called 'F2P' is an exploitative and dishonest business model being pushed by the corperations on the net via neutral seeming shill sites (both of their own creation and cheaply bought with a little advertising revenue) to an extent one can only call it social engineering.
The lie that has been created, that the model is in the customers best interest and unstoppable as the future, has been swallowed wholesale by so many... Both are not true, but are accepted as so by a generation weened on Runescape and asian F2P games.
F2P means one thing, and thats more profit for less investment from the devs. That extra profit can only come from one place- you, as they charge you for additional content that used to come with the core game as 'extras'.
F2P also changes the very nature of the GAMES we play, and all that means, into 'interactive entertainment product', removing play to achieve and replacing it with pay to achieve.
Sub based games deliver an honest and clearly priced revenue model, while supplying play through content that requires knowledge, discipline, and skill to master. All the while on an even play field that everyone in the game has equal access to.
So called 'gamers' (I prefer the word 'users' for that) that thrive on cash shops should really be playing IMVU or Farmville, or whatever other virtual market place they prefer. They are destroying what it actually means to be a gamer.
Actually, that makes you exactly the same as 80-90 percent of all F2P players.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
A link to this statistic please?
I'm not searching for the article, but Smed says that over 50% of his F2P subscribers spend more in the item malls than if they paid $15 a month to play the game. Remember, publically disclosed financials for SOE prove that they earn more from their F2P games than their subscription based games. So while you and I may not be spending money in item mall games, most people do.
Fear not fanbois, we are not trolls, let's take off your tin foil hat and learn what VAPORWARE is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware
"Vaporware is a term used to describe a software or hardware product that is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge after having well exceeded the period of development time that was initially claimed or would normally be expected for the development cycle of a similar product."
do you even know what a scam is?
There's nothing 'wrong' with either payment model, both offer advantages and disadvantages and it all comes down to which ever one you prefer. Both have their fans and detractors
i prefer P2P games mostly because the traditional F2P model forces the developers into certain design choices that i don't care for.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I guess he means 'scam' as in cash shops being dishonest and exploitative.
They are worth the money if you log in and play every day. I log into WoW once or twice a month to appease my wife and consider that a complete waste of $15. I'd rather take her to see a movie.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
At the 2009 MIT Business in Gaming conference, Robert Ferrari of Sanrio Digital stated that ~15% of the playerbase monetizes the game in F2P.
Joshua Hong of K2 Networks stated "[at release] almost 99.9% of players are free players" and that conversion to paying players doesn't even begin for 3-6 months in this GigaOm interview. The interview also gives a good insight into how service-oriented a F2P is - and has to be - to insure a reasonable level of success.
There's a great Gamasutra article on Puzzle Pirates F2P Revenue Specifcs where Danial James states that "only about 10% of his player base has ever paid him anything."
There's plenty more but those three pretty much nail it down.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Lok, your articles are fine. But not a single one of those explain the success that Smed and company over at SOE are having with their F2P or why their F2P model delivers over 3x the amount of money per subscriber than their P2P games. It just goes to show when you get a real developer that understands their F2P model, good things happen. SOE just released Star War Clone Adventures Online. I can assure you, that game will drive a lot of revenue for SOE, just like Free Realms does. Go over to Wal-Mart, Target, GameStop etc, you'll see $10, $20, and $50 game cards for those F2P games. They don't have cards sitting out there because less than 5% of their subscriber base ever spends a penny in their games.
Fear not fanbois, we are not trolls, let's take off your tin foil hat and learn what VAPORWARE is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware
"Vaporware is a term used to describe a software or hardware product that is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge after having well exceeded the period of development time that was initially claimed or would normally be expected for the development cycle of a similar product."