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Free to Play or Pay to Play?? Any Pros and Cons??
blazersmack
Member Posts: 6
This is one of the biggest questions to be considered in finding the good or the best MMORPG to play. MMORPGs can be classified into two different categories namely: free-to-play and pay-to-play games. Both have their pros and cons, but both are surely designed to satisfy the players and the game makers’ needs. Choosing the ideal type of game that suits your financial budget will determine your success in gaming.
Basically, the pay to play MMORPG obligates you to pay a sum of money either per hour that you consume playing that particular game, hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, and others let you pay once for the perpetual access of the game. And that’s it, you can play as long as you want as long as you pay for the time you are logging on for that particular game.
On the other hand, the free-to-play MMORPG does not require you to pay a sum of money to log on their server and play on their gaming world. Sounds good right? Playing cool online games as long as you want without paying a cent on the game makers, servers, programmers, producers, etc, etc. But not as cool when you discover where they are getting money the money to sustain their servers and pay their employees salaries. The thing is they can collect even larger sum of money compared to pay-to-play games. They accept what they called as “donates” which means cash that can be done thru paying in online transactions for money transfers. You can use the money to buy premium in-game items that boost you character’s stats and skills or just buying your character and avatar or armor and weapon set that will give you a big advantage compared to other players that doesn’t donate. To make it simply understandable, I’ve listed the pros and cons of the two type of gaming industry.
Comments
Some games have both a free version, and a pay-to-play version that offers the full version of the game and all available updates.
Free-to-play games with pay-to-play components utilize the freebie marketing technique to draw in a user base with this advanced type of game demo. The term "free-to-play" is frequently heard in the context of MMOs. In comparison, the term "forever free-to-play game" (FF2P) is used to distinguish MMOGs that promise to never charge a subscription fee from those that are currently free-to-play but may become pay-to-play in the future. It applies only to online games, because while a conventional single-player freeware game becomes free forever as soon as it is downloaded to the player's hard drive, a free online game may start charging a fee and instantly convert into a pay-to-play game.
So it's in your decision which will you choose to spend your time and of course, your money.
Pay to Play = a monthly fee and some microtransactions / cash shop on the side.
Buy to Play = no monthly fee and some microtransactions / cash shop on the side.
Hmmmm....which should I choose......
straight up p2p without a cash shop is actually rare these days. sad because its what I prefer.
Well GW2 is B2P. Buy to Play. And Im all for that.
I mean all these mmos seem obsessed with at least some form of microtransactions or cash shops. Im not going to pay a sub while they're adding content to a cash shop. Every time I see something added to a cash shop while Im paying a subscription I sort of get slightly angry. I feel Im paying a sub for further development to a game.
So why is that further development being put behind a cash wall? I dont care how small it is. I bought the box, I pay a sub, gimme. Gimme now. No....Im not paying more for that. I already paid you. This month, last month, and the month before that.
So if they just insist on having microtransactions, fine. But Im not paying a monthly fee. They can have it one way or the other. Im just one guy and I certainly dont speak for everyone but they can have my money one of two ways. Not both. Not happening.
GW 1/2 is Buy to play, not free to play there is a difference. Also the topic have been discussed before and many favors p2p because of obvious reasons.
Pay to Play i think its a good model... unless you add cash shop then its double dipping... then again most or all MMOs have cash shops on top of their sub because PEOPLE KEEP BUYING SPARKLY RAINBOW PISSING UNICORNS FOR 40$ and a 5 x5pixel monocle FOR 70 $$$$ GEZUSS!!!!
Buy to Play with cash services (character name change, server change, sex change, recustomize character etc) thats also fine, it works in Guild Wars 1, they also added some extra bonus mission packs but they where what 5-10$? no biggie when the whole game is free FOREVER!!! and i have also no problem buying expansions every 6 months to keep money going to the company to develop more shit.
then you have the DDO/LOTRO buy to play, where you buy dungeon packs or quest lines, im also fine with that. just dont ADD the stupid cash shop for SPARKLY RAINBOW PISSING UNICORNS. this makes me feel like old school dungeons& dragons where i would buy the books and the editions to play. buy it once and keep the dungeon pack. this also leaves the developpers the opportunity to make more dungeons and sell them at a reasonable price (10$ per pack? sure i have no problem with that) as long as i dont get a monthly fee attached to it.
then you have the FTP. free game, free download, free to play, until you reach lvl 3 where they require you to buy some sort of stones of some god to keep you alive or you instantly die if you dont use one up in the next 15 minutes... oh and each stone is worth 10$. or you get a piece a paper for your armor and a tooth pick made of play-doh for a sword. so you also need to buy a wooden sword and a shirt for 20$. and in the end you end up paying 70$/month just to remain alive... and PEOPLE PAY IT!!! ELSE THESE GAMES WOULD BE LONG DEAD!!!!
christ.... i think med school was not the best choice to get a moneyz... korean game developping studio CEO sounds more fruitfull.
P2P Fair competition against other players, you don’t have to worry of big-cash-bullies who are paying a large sum of money to become a god-like player and kills you in the PvP room in one slash!
F2P Recommended for players who uses their real-money resources as an advantage in their online gaming world. The more money you spend the better, richer, stronger, more popular your character will be.
F2P - I personally feel is awful full of micro-transactions that for the most part end up causing you to spend more money then actual pay to plays. If you have a choice between the two. Then choose P2P. Its for the best. Honestly.
I think a lot of people are making a lot of generalizations in this thread.
Not all P2P games are "good", not all microtransactions are vampiric..
Some, I grant you, are. But not all.
If a game cost $45/mo P2P - just because it's a P2P game doesn't make it better, it's just a very expensive P2P. Some people may think it's worthwhile. Others may think it's just too expensive no matter how good it is.
The same goes with F2P - some games are really good about avoid the "Pay2Win" scenario. Others see it as a huge cash cow - because, hey, who doesn't want to win.
Bottom line - not all P2P are inherently higher quality or more worthy just because they are P2P. Not all F2P are money sucking vampires that turn players into uncontrollable addicts with a credit card on file.
Bottom line is that designers, developers, and publishers need to make some money, otherwise they can't create, program, and distribute these games we love to play. Which means that to play it and enjoy it, in the long run, you need to help fund it. Different companies come up with different ways to make you want to pay for their product. That's all the difference is: different ways to make money.
Realistically, if the game is fun, and I enjoy it, I don't really care what payment model they pick. I have no problem giving them a reasonable amount of money for a product that I enjoy spending time with. Payment model really has very little to do with the game, or gameplay, and it really shouldn't.
You can tell when a company just starts lining it's pockets with all the profit and isn't re-investing in their products. It's pretty obvious for a lot of distributors (*cough*SoE), others are really good about re-investing into their products, and they tend to see their gaming communities grow and prosper. Blizzard may make a lot of money from their 11-12 million subscriptions and upteen thousand glitter ponies, but they also invest a lot of money back into their game, and it shows. CCP does the same thing (or at least used to, not so sure about lately).
How do they cause you to spend more money? Ive played games with microtransactions. I never bought a single thing. I didnt really miss the things I didnt buy either. Occasionally there might a character slot to buy. But to me thats far cheaper than paying a monthly.
Microtransactions are totally in your control. You either buy them or you dont. If you're not a fan of them, never buy one. Ever. From any game. Thats what I do. Im not sure about the F2P concept yet, but I'll take B2P any day.
I also hear the term "Pay to Win" a lot. I know what it means, but so far Ive never seen any real extreme example of this. What games with microtransactions are really "pay to win"? Im asking a real question because I had no idea it was really that common.
P2Ps big disadvantage now is that most P2P games already have added microtransaction themselves so it is a lot harder to justify those 15 bucks a month now than it was just 2 years ago.
The classic P2P pro before was that you got everything included for 15 bucks a month so you always knew exactly what you paid for and equal gametime meant equal opportunities.
Now even I as a big P2P fan have started looking at the F2P games, even though I hope we see more B2P games in the future.
My big issues is that there are often some ridiculous restrictions to the game. The that sticks out is (I think it's Everqeust 2) that you can't send mail. I mean... that seems like a pretty serious disadvantage to me in some regards that I can't even send my buddy a piece of mail? Maybe disadvantage is the wrong word but it kind of sucks. Of course, all of this is done so you will eventually pay per month to play. For the most part, I'll just stick to my subscription games so I can get the full game, the way it's meant to be played.
Agree with this guy. I am more than happy to P2P, but P2P + cash shop is the best of both worlds for the business, not for the consumer. The flavour of the month business model seems to be B2P a little bit more than average box price... with a P2P element which will be roughly $15 in line with other P2P games + Cash shop on top of this selling MOSTLY cosmetic gear.
THis model is just plain greedy and just encourages me to go and find some private servers if I want to play the game or alternativel go and play something else.. I went with WoW rather then GW when they cfirst came out because wow was P2P only.. Well now I am seriously considering GW2 rather than TSW and prob SWTOR due to P2P + cash shop.. (not yet confirmed for swtor but justw aiting for the announcement)
I think there's quite a few people like me who will also play GW2 for this reason rather then the other AAA games.
P2P - if there is only subscription + maybe fee for server transfers or recover deleted character then it is hands down best possible model.
P2P + ITEM SHOP/ microtransactions - this is worst model
F2P - it is in mmorpg's usually bad model , as it destroy immersion and brings price-tag on what you do in game (work for something for 10 hours or pay 15$ in our item shop to get it instantly ! ) , so kinda defeat the purpse of playing mmorpg's.
In non-mmorpg's games like Dota games like LoL - f2p model can be good actually
B2P - will have to wait and see how GW2 will turn out, will be reety clear after first year of GW2 on the market.
The pros I see with pay-to-play is that it's a flat fee of $15 or so dollars in which everyone has to pay and nobody has exclusive content, limitations, etc. However, the cons for that is it can be too expensive (especially if you play more than one MMO) and it really benefits more to those with time and dedication. Say, for example, you only put a few hours a week in World of Warcraft don't expect to get through the content (though I haven't played in a couple years).
Free-to-play is great because being able to pay what you want/when you want could bring in more players and in return more revenue for development (which is why a lot of games switched systems). It's also a great system for those who feel like they're wasting money by not playing actively within a P2P game (such as playing a few hours a week yet still paying full price). However, my gripes with this system is that for people who like to play exclusively/dedicatedly they're potentially going to end up paying more than those with a monthly fee due to all the microtransactions; such as more bag/bank space, dungeons, zones (points finger at D&DO). It also makes things unfair because those with money could easily beat skill (this is abused in PVP games where players can buy better weapons); such as in UWO.
I think I would prefer free-to-play games, but I hate that feeling of being charged for everything I do. It would be really awesome if they had a purchase fee and then microtransactions with perks being cosmetic and/or character benefits (such as experience scrolls, more reputation, faster mounts, character slots, etc.). Then if an expansion is released you have to purchase that.
Currently Playing:
Nothing.
P2P - You know exactly how much money you'll be spending to get the full game -- provided it's not one of the sub MMOs that double dips with an item mall.
F2P - Your quality of gameplay will vary widely depending on how restrictive the game is towards "free" players, and what the purchasable portions of the game are. In some cases you would end up having to pay far more than the standard $12-15 a month, which most P2P games ask for, just to get a full gameplay experience in a so called "free" to play game.
Pay To Play MMORPGs
• superior graphics
• more support
• more updates
• more servers
• less bugs
• more longevity
Free MMORPGs
• do not have to buy the box
• no subscription fee or offers a free plan
• more original games
• more innovative
• closer communities
• can be more niche since not as mainstream
THIS IS WHAT I THINK
Check out Runes of Magic - it's a classic Pay2Win.
Granted it is technically possible to play all the way up to max levels without buying a single thing from the item shop, you will not be able to compete at all with the standard player base who is running around with +9 enchanted everything. At one point it was possible to trade in-game currency for item shop currency, but it's been changed around a bit since I last played, and the exchange rate was pretty prohibitive unless you had a pretty tricked out character who could farm gold pretty efficiently.
The act of balancing your game with enticing micro transactions can be a bit tricky; lucky for developers we as people seem to be just as obsessed with vanity in-game as they are out-of-game. Developers have been able to offer unique items in their game that don’t exactly make someone ‘better’, but gives them more variety. Vanity items are huge in some online games, they’re sort-of like a status symbol within the game world and you want to sit at the cool kids table at virtual lunch, don’t you? There are a vast variety of games that have taken on the model of micro transactions using it in ways that best benefit them and their community. Some using the strict vanity items in virtual stores, some that give you bonus to in game gains (money or experience), and others allow you to purchase items, characters and other unlockable items.
I lean more towards Free to play with micro. Now let me please explain why. Now the monthly fee exist for two purpose the first of which is to continue to pay for maintain servers. The second reason is to bring new content to the game. Now back in day we would see new content on a montly bases. However now days most games only see three maybe four big content updates a year. The rest of the time it's just fixes and tweaks to the game.
Now the problem I have with monthly fee is that I am paying $15 dollars a month just so the company can fix things in game. Now my belief is that players shouldn't have to pay money every month so developers can just offer fixes and tweaks to the game that we should be getting for free. I would much rather pay a fee three or four times a month for major updates then to pay $15 dollars to get something I should be getting for free.
I think between major updates, bounce items and other usefull things they could make more then enough money to keep a game going. In fact lots of games have done this and have survived quite nicely doing so. However I except that will probably never happen across the board and will pay the $15 dollars a month.
You should choose the game that you enjoy to play most.
There's one thing for me why I choose a P2P mmorpg over F2P, it's the fact that some of the P2P games have been very enjoyable games that I've played past the free month, sometimes for a very long time, but all the F2P games I've tried have been very bad, where I did not enjoy the game pretty much at all, it felt too B-grade. I've tried a bunch of the F2P games and they all had the same problem. I couldnt care less if it's free if I dont feel like playing it, the financial/revenue model does NOT make the game better or worse in terms of enjoyment of playing the game.
Maybe in future we get more serious F2P games like Firefall might be one, or more B2P quality games like GW2 is aiming at.
the thing is that you ALREADY pay for Major updates in the form of expansions so in 1 year you pay 120$ for your major updates. ADD to that 15$/month so they can fix your bugs (that should have been dealt in the closed/open beta or game testers session) and ADD to that say something reasonable 10-20$/month on vanity or that rainbow pissing unicorn with wings...
so a free game with no sub SHOULD (and has to) have cash shop... things in there should be convenience
one thing that bewilders me, i saw this in ragnarok online,
http://www.playragnarok.com/kafrashop/detail.aspx?i=97&p=1&c=5
note its a rental item... so you pay and you dont have it anymore after 7 days... now thats just low... and its about 2,50$ aprox
oh yes it buffs up your character... 10% extra critical hits...
then you have the hats that are for keeps that range from 2-10$
http://www.playragnarok.com/kafrashop/list.aspx?c=2&page=3
yes that also buff up your stats...
basically... pay to be stronger... (and for some items keep paying on a regular base)
this is just one game, i heard that allods is worse? don t know if they changed the pricing or not.
Alright, one this is a MAJOR biased opinion.. P2P isn’t just grind and play, and in my opinion people who play F2P games are a bit more raging when there confronted with an issue (out of this article i sensed that you say that P2Pers rage when confronted) involving there gaming PoV. I play both F2P and P2P, World of Warcraft, Atlantica Online, DnD online, Etc, P2P to me is a break from WoW, and WoW is my main source of fun, not because i sit there and enjoy grinding my life away, but because its more content filled.. All you did was bash P2P games saying that little kids with no life play them.. Which is totally unfair, and you sit there and completely compliment F2P players, which for someone who judges games.. Your looking at this whole view in a very.. 1 Sided way. P2P is for people who want More out of there gaming experience not just PvP and end game raiding etc.. They want to hang out with more people do quests dungeons etc.. So when you say that you get to end-game faster with those little, usually 10% more exp which costs either 5-10$ Because you cant just spend 1$ minimum is always 5 or 10$, you could get 1/3 of a HUGE game for 1 month, or 1/2 for some P2P games, But my main point here is, if your gonna make this thread Pay to Pay vs Free to Play, give both of them detailed information, through in your opinions but dont sit here and say P2P is nothing and F2P is everything, cause thats what this whole post was.
Pros and cons... let's see.
Free to play: Buy to win on a lot of games. But there are actual twitch based games so that's cool.
Pay to play: Paying monthly for what might as well be clicking shortcuts.