Subscription is the best way to go with ZERO cash shop.
-Flat rate of $15/month
-You pay for ALL content added to the game via that flat rate, rather than being nickle & dimed
-You're given a level playing field for which you cannot advance further than another player by spending more $$$ than them.
-Content isn't locked in a cash-shop that was developed with the $15 you already paid to access it under the guise of "cosmetic cash shop". You paid for it already, why should you have to pay AGAIN? Nickle and diming....
"FreeToPlay" isn't free, and BuyToPlay requires a cash shop to be a successful & sustainable business model anymore.
Subscription remains king.
You do realize that most sub-based games lock items away in the cash shop now. Even though it's mostly cosmetics, that's basically preventing some customizable options for some players.
Again, that's why i said "P2P without cash shop", and if I didn't I thought i did !
Yea, P2P + CashShop is the worst business plan ever, and it's essentially double-dipping. Your subscription paid for that content to be developed that is in the cash shop. You should have access to it by normal means.
The Theory of Conservative Conservation of Ignorant Stupidity: Having a different opinion must mean you're a troll.
I prefer a monthly sub. I can't stand having to pay for bag or bank space, or to unlock a race or class. Let me pay my monthly and give me the game unfettered.
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!
I think that almost all MMO's that come out these days should be F2P. If GW2 was going to be released as a sub game it would affect one of the reasons why it is so hyped. Just like the last GW, the free online sub is very important. I don't think that almost any MMO out there is worth $15 and the companies out there may as well just accept that and stop messing with their populatons by thinking they can get people to pay $15 bucks a month and drop perhaps another game that they like to play. And that is the real issue, by charging subs, these companies are making people choose between games, instead of just playing a game because they like it. It a game is truly good, it will make even more money through item stores and by providing a large community to keep interest in the game. Just look at DCUO, it was almost dead until it went F2P and then virtually overnight there were over a million people on the game again. I even saw a booth at the comic con with DCUO on demos which is a sign that it is not on the way out. An amazing rebound for a game that looked dead. But thats the point, the game is good, but its not something everyone may want to pay $15 a month to play. Sometimes you get the super hero urge and don't want to pay $15 to fullfill it each time.
#2 and #5 are essentially the same. For both you'll pay a one time fee and you'll probably still be required to pay for commcercial add-ons in case you want to enjoy future content.
Most business models can work fine. I think the only archaic one is the monthly model. It goes against what I enjoy, which is playing many games. I may be subscribed to a game, but what if in the middle of the subscription I want the flavor of another mmo I play for the next month or two? Then I am not using my paid for time. I currently play three MMO's, and none of them have a monthly fee. For all of them, I have voluntarily payed the monthly option at least twice.
B2P all the way, I'm tired of paying a sub because sometimes I don't feel like playing during a month and I'm effectively burning money so companies like Blizzard can buy another Kerrigan statue for their lobby (ie: anyone who says subs are necessary to make a profit is full of shit, ANet said so themselves and they wouldn't say so unless they weren't losing money on B2P).
Besides, I'm an old school gamer. B2P is what I always did. I paid for a game and was therefore allowed to enjoy it without being nickel and dimed by force. The worst part is nowadays subscription games are using cash shops.
Fact: You don't get access to EVERYTHING when you pay a sub these days. Come down from your cloud and realize this.
Instead there would be yearly boxed expansions for all new content.
No to little new content would be free between expansions, but of course there would be constant balancing and patching and maybe some holiday events like any other MMO.
I think subscription is potentially the best model, but only if they actually provide the customer with enough value for their money. The only game doing this now that I know of is Rift. The claims that you pay to access the server for other games is pretty ridiculous in this day and age. People pay to have fun and generally this includes new content, events etc... Companies who want to succeed with a subscription model need to push content out regularly, because free options are getting better and better.
Free to play is generally inconvenient by design, and then you pay cash to have bags that you don't fill up every 5 seconds, or to save you from having to spend 10 minutes walking between quest areas, money for xp boots because without them it takes forever to level etc... etc... So what usually happens is I get frustrated before I get to the point where I am willing to plop down some cash and just quit. For this model to work the game has to be not crippled, fun by design without the built in inconveniences, no locked classes, and a reasonable number of character slots. I think charging for new areas that are released later is fine, as are vanity items.
Subscription is the best way to go with ZERO cash shop.
-Flat rate of $15/month
-You pay for ALL content added to the game via that flat rate, rather than being nickle & dimed
-You're given a level playing field for which you cannot advance further than another player by spending more $$$ than them.
-Content isn't locked in a cash-shop that was developed with the $15 you already paid to access it under the guise of "cosmetic cash shop". You paid for it already, why should you have to pay AGAIN? Nickle and diming....
"FreeToPlay" isn't free, and BuyToPlay requires a cash shop to be a successful & sustainable business model anymore.
Subscription remains king.
More eloquently put than I could've and couldn't agree more.
It baffles me how many people demand to be nickle and dimed to death.
Einherjar_LC says: WTB the true successor to UO or Asheron's Call pst!
There are tons and tons of free to play mmorpgs already saturating the market and yet folks are here wishing for free to play games. Huh? Why aren't you off happily playing the plethora of current free to play games... oh that's right, for the most part, they suck.
Remember folks... you get what you pay for. You pay nothing, you get pretty much... nothing in return.
You cannot expect a developer to be able to put a lot of effort into a game when they know they will not get much back in the way of revenue through box sales, subs or cash shop. You remove the box sales and subs and you are left with a cash shop and you can be darned certain they will pretty much force you to use it because that will be the only way they'll see any financial returns and just maybe a profit.
So to be safe, the free to play content will be quite sparse at best, features will be sorely lacking, customer service will be a joke and anything other than tight, vanilla linear gameplay will cost you. Growth and innovation in the market is not free. Vanilla and stale is.
Consider yourselves lucky. Back in the days of Prodigy and Compuserve, you paid for mmorpg access by the hour. Thank goodness that business model never took hold.
Again... You get what you pay for.
Tabletop RPG gaming since Chainmail and D&D was a blue book with some cheap plastic dice and a crayon. MMORPGing since MOOS/MUDS, when forums were just bulletin boards and players actually roleplayed their characters.
Subscription is the best way to go with ZERO cash shop.
-Flat rate of $15/month
-You pay for ALL content added to the game via that flat rate, rather than being nickle & dimed
-You're given a level playing field for which you cannot advance further than another player by spending more $$$ than them.
-Content isn't locked in a cash-shop that was developed with the $15 you already paid to access it under the guise of "cosmetic cash shop". You paid for it already, why should you have to pay AGAIN? Nickle and diming....
"FreeToPlay" isn't free, and BuyToPlay requires a cash shop to be a successful & sustainable business model anymore.
Subscription remains king.
More eloquently put than I could've and couldn't agree more.
It baffles me how many people demand to be nickle and dimed to death.
The biggest problem is that subscription games often don't see enough updates to warrent the cost. Considering you pay enough to buy a new game every few months, customers need more value for their money for this model to work. Still my favorite model, but it needs to evolve with the times.
Originally posted by Zhylaw Best option is B2P with NO ITEM SHOPInstead there would be yearly boxed expansions for all new content.No to little new content would be free between expansions, but of course there would be constant balancing and patching and maybe some holiday events like any other MMO.Didn't see this option listed for some reason?
Where do the companies make money in this model? Box sales alone with 1 expansion per year will not keep a good game afloat.
Think about it. Crunch some imaginary numbers. How many boxes must be sold to support a company for 1 year? How many developers would need to be kept on hand to upkeep the game? How much are you going to pay these developers? What is the cost for your building or place of business? How about server hardware and improvements? Do you have a marketing department? How happy will your stockholders be?
There is a reason this model has not been done
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Originally posted by Zhylaw Best option is B2P with NO ITEM SHOP
Instead there would be yearly boxed expansions for all new content.
No to little new content would be free between expansions, but of course there would be constant balancing and patching and maybe some holiday events like any other MMO.
Didn't see this option listed for some reason?
Where do the companies make money in this model? Box sales alone with 1 expansion per year will not keep a good game afloat.
Think about it. Crunch some imaginary numbers. How many boxes must be sold to support a company for 1 year? How many developers would need to be kept on hand to upkeep the game? How much are you going to pay these developers? What is the cost for your building or place of business? How about server hardware and improvements? Do you have a marketing department? How happy will your stockholders be?
There is a reason this model has not been done
I see your point....
If were going B2P then with an Item mall, I want ACTUAL content, even if its just an occasional new pvp map, new item skins, and DE's inbetween the inevtiable boxed expansions.
The item mall must only sell vanity items and account stuff ( like character slots and server changes).
And the boxed expansions better not be skimpy.
Aside from that yes I believe the relatively new B2P model is still the way to go.
Actually i kinda think EVE Online has the best sub method around. Being able to pay for some months or all your months sub with ingame currency is something really cool. It's something like PTP/PTP (Pay to Play / Play to Pay).
The Hybrid model is also a good model but sometimes people get it wrong taking the way of "limited game level/content" if they want a true hybrid working sub look at EVE Online (yes I know what I said but actually EVE can be considered a hybrid sub game also considering what I said earlier). Another good hybrid model is the so-called "Pay to FastForward". Baisically all the content is opened for everyone despite some special packs which can be bought only with RM currency, and the packs give you like "+x% exp, +x% gold earned, auction house number of offer is +x" or something like this but even those packs wear off so if you want to go up quick just pay some cash, i'm pretty sure that some ppl will pay.
B2P is also a good model but sometimes B2P can get annoying because it will also go for ingame currency which is like "But i bought the game... come on, now i have to pay again to get some fun stuff?... Ok now if allready gave that much i can give it again, take my money and let me get what i want.".
F2P is not that interesting because F2P goes also for ingame currency mostly just like B2P but the difference here is that there are few F2P games that actually worth playing while B2P really has some nice games.
That was a fair article on the types of subscription. I think we got this article because SWTOR is going hybrid and the number of people on these forums who don't know their hybrids from their F2P is huge.
sure buytp is nice and ftp is easy to get into but subscription and paid expansions lets devs spend more money on a better product .. not that they always do
i think a hybrid of eq1s and eq2s old buisness model maybe a few cosmetic options in a shop would work well like costume slots or say you can get zebras as a mount instead of just a regular horse
To me the only palatable mmo business model is B2P--because at the end of the day hybrid might as well be subscription with a trial. It's not really called options when you have to pay to unlock the main bulk of content that exists within the game. At least with B2P I actually get a feeling of ownership which I don't get with free or subscription games--I know that I can play it whenever I want with little to no gripes. I would take B2P over hybrid and sub any day.
Subscriptions for me. I could theoretically tolerate a hybrid system if one ever came out that didn't bash subscribers over the head with cash shop advertisements around every corner. If I'm subscribing, I want everything in the game to be available to me, including those vanity items you now want to charge me for.
Occasionally, hybrid games do make that cash shop stuff "available," but it's implemented with an intentionally brutal grind attached whose sole purpose is to drive you to the cash shop. I hate that. I really, really hate that. When developers make hybrid games, they should ask themselves why the people who prefer the subscription modelchose that model in the first place.
For me, it's because it's all-inclusive and I never have to think about real world money while I'm playing. I set my subscription and forget about it. Cash shops exist to remind you of your bank account at every opportunity. If developers want the subscription end of any hybrid model to appeal to subscription players, they need to remove anything having to do with a cash shop from the subscriber's game. What they should not do is chuck cash shop currency at them each month as bait. Charge us our monthly fee, sell us the expansions too big to fit in the monthly dev cycle, then leave us the heck alone.
Subscription is the best way to go with ZERO cash shop.
-Flat rate of $15/month
-You pay for ALL content added to the game via that flat rate, rather than being nickle & dimed
-You're given a level playing field for which you cannot advance further than another player by spending more $$$ than them.
-Content isn't locked in a cash-shop that was developed with the $15 you already paid to access it under the guise of "cosmetic cash shop". You paid for it already, why should you have to pay AGAIN? Nickle and diming....
"FreeToPlay" isn't free, and BuyToPlay requires a cash shop to be a successful & sustainable business model anymore.
Subscription remains king.
No Sub is nothing but a scam, esp since when ever a major expansion comes around you got to pay for it to.
Now if expansions was free and subs went down to like 10 dollars, then I might be okay with it.
btp works the best that I seen, you buy the game and buy the major expansions. However patches and updated are free. Which gw1 added in a ton of new events/quest and so on even today every month for free.
The cash shop is a jk, other then character slots. It almost no use, unless you love vanity items and lvling up a small amount quicker.
Play gw1 since 2006 and WoW from 2005-2009. In gw1 I brought teh game and all the expansions, and some character slots. All together is still just a bit over 200 dollars.
Now in WoW, ive spent over 1,000.
So sorry but if gw2 keeps the same cash shop as gw1. Then it will be the best model, ive seen yet.
I think we will soon see a new way to make Subscription Based MMO's. First off, the Developer will develop and introduce a Single Player game. Later on, multiplayer modes would be added to the same framework. Then, persistant zones and corridors that allow travel between the zones would be added as well as persistant grouping. Then the developer would simply need to charge a subscription fee for acccess through the multiplayer pathways and any who won't pay would remain isolated in their own single-player bubble and simple multiplayer modes.
Then, the real party begins when the developer starts include group-based content with gear that's better than the normal gear players can get in the single-player game.
Just watch the people complain it's a Pay-To-Win model, and yet still play because after all they already paid for the original game and who can tolerate their buddy bragging about the cool item they got last night and OH if only you were there... you just needed to pay $15 per month but you didn't... pfft. You suck!
I think we will soon see a new way to make Subscription Based MMO's. First off, the Developer will develop and introduce a Single Player game. Later on, multiplayer modes would be added to the same framework. Then, persistant zones and corridors that allow travel between the zones would be added as well as persistant grouping. Then the developer would simply need to charge a subscription fee for acccess through the multiplayer pathways and any who won't pay would remain isolated in their own single-player bubble and simple multiplayer modes.
Then, the real party begins when the developer starts include group-based content with gear that's better than the normal gear players can get in the single-player game.
Just watch the people complain it's a Pay-To-Win model, and yet still play because after all they already paid for the original game and who can tolerate their buddy bragging about the cool item they got last night and OH if only you were there... you just needed to pay $15 per month but you didn't... pfft. You suck!
I can see EA and Activision doing this and to be honest if it comes down to that, I'll find a nother hobby, maybe fishing...
Comments
Again, that's why i said "P2P without cash shop", and if I didn't I thought i did
!
Yea, P2P + CashShop is the worst business plan ever, and it's essentially double-dipping. Your subscription paid for that content to be developed that is in the cash shop. You should have access to it by normal means.
The Theory of Conservative Conservation of Ignorant Stupidity:
Having a different opinion must mean you're a troll.
Now that SWTOR is going F2P, I feel safe in repeating that the sub model is dead. (Except WoW, which is a special case.)
I prefer a monthly sub. I can't stand having to pay for bag or bank space, or to unlock a race or class. Let me pay my monthly and give me the game unfettered.
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!
I think that almost all MMO's that come out these days should be F2P. If GW2 was going to be released as a sub game it would affect one of the reasons why it is so hyped. Just like the last GW, the free online sub is very important. I don't think that almost any MMO out there is worth $15 and the companies out there may as well just accept that and stop messing with their populatons by thinking they can get people to pay $15 bucks a month and drop perhaps another game that they like to play. And that is the real issue, by charging subs, these companies are making people choose between games, instead of just playing a game because they like it. It a game is truly good, it will make even more money through item stores and by providing a large community to keep interest in the game. Just look at DCUO, it was almost dead until it went F2P and then virtually overnight there were over a million people on the game again. I even saw a booth at the comic con with DCUO on demos which is a sign that it is not on the way out. An amazing rebound for a game that looked dead. But thats the point, the game is good, but its not something everyone may want to pay $15 a month to play. Sometimes you get the super hero urge and don't want to pay $15 to fullfill it each time.
#2 and #5 are essentially the same. For both you'll pay a one time fee and you'll probably still be required to pay for commcercial add-ons in case you want to enjoy future content.
Well, good thing about b2p and f2p... trolls don't have ammo to rag on your game due to declining subs and model switching.
Most business models can work fine. I think the only archaic one is the monthly model. It goes against what I enjoy, which is playing many games. I may be subscribed to a game, but what if in the middle of the subscription I want the flavor of another mmo I play for the next month or two? Then I am not using my paid for time. I currently play three MMO's, and none of them have a monthly fee. For all of them, I have voluntarily payed the monthly option at least twice.
I miss the amount of F2P MMOs vs the amount of P2P ones in that graph.
B2P all the way, I'm tired of paying a sub because sometimes I don't feel like playing during a month and I'm effectively burning money so companies like Blizzard can buy another Kerrigan statue for their lobby (ie: anyone who says subs are necessary to make a profit is full of shit, ANet said so themselves and they wouldn't say so unless they weren't losing money on B2P).
Besides, I'm an old school gamer. B2P is what I always did. I paid for a game and was therefore allowed to enjoy it without being nickel and dimed by force. The worst part is nowadays subscription games are using cash shops.
Fact: You don't get access to EVERYTHING when you pay a sub these days. Come down from your cloud and realize this.
Best option is B2P with NO ITEM SHOP
Instead there would be yearly boxed expansions for all new content.
No to little new content would be free between expansions, but of course there would be constant balancing and patching and maybe some holiday events like any other MMO.
Didn't see this option listed for some reason?
I think subscription is potentially the best model, but only if they actually provide the customer with enough value for their money. The only game doing this now that I know of is Rift. The claims that you pay to access the server for other games is pretty ridiculous in this day and age. People pay to have fun and generally this includes new content, events etc... Companies who want to succeed with a subscription model need to push content out regularly, because free options are getting better and better.
Free to play is generally inconvenient by design, and then you pay cash to have bags that you don't fill up every 5 seconds, or to save you from having to spend 10 minutes walking between quest areas, money for xp boots because without them it takes forever to level etc... etc... So what usually happens is I get frustrated before I get to the point where I am willing to plop down some cash and just quit. For this model to work the game has to be not crippled, fun by design without the built in inconveniences, no locked classes, and a reasonable number of character slots. I think charging for new areas that are released later is fine, as are vanity items.
More eloquently put than I could've and couldn't agree more.
It baffles me how many people demand to be nickle and dimed to death.
Einherjar_LC says: WTB the true successor to UO or Asheron's Call pst!
There are tons and tons of free to play mmorpgs already saturating the market and yet folks are here wishing for free to play games. Huh? Why aren't you off happily playing the plethora of current free to play games... oh that's right, for the most part, they suck.
Remember folks... you get what you pay for. You pay nothing, you get pretty much... nothing in return.
You cannot expect a developer to be able to put a lot of effort into a game when they know they will not get much back in the way of revenue through box sales, subs or cash shop. You remove the box sales and subs and you are left with a cash shop and you can be darned certain they will pretty much force you to use it because that will be the only way they'll see any financial returns and just maybe a profit.
So to be safe, the free to play content will be quite sparse at best, features will be sorely lacking, customer service will be a joke and anything other than tight, vanilla linear gameplay will cost you. Growth and innovation in the market is not free. Vanilla and stale is.
Consider yourselves lucky. Back in the days of Prodigy and Compuserve, you paid for mmorpg access by the hour. Thank goodness that business model never took hold.
Again... You get what you pay for.
Tabletop RPG gaming since Chainmail and D&D was a blue book with some cheap plastic dice and a crayon. MMORPGing since MOOS/MUDS, when forums were just bulletin boards and players actually roleplayed their characters.
The biggest problem is that subscription games often don't see enough updates to warrent the cost. Considering you pay enough to buy a new game every few months, customers need more value for their money for this model to work. Still my favorite model, but it needs to evolve with the times.
Think about it. Crunch some imaginary numbers. How many boxes must be sold to support a company for 1 year? How many developers would need to be kept on hand to upkeep the game? How much are you going to pay these developers? What is the cost for your building or place of business? How about server hardware and improvements? Do you have a marketing department? How happy will your stockholders be?
There is a reason this model has not been done
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
I see your point....
If were going B2P then with an Item mall, I want ACTUAL content, even if its just an occasional new pvp map, new item skins, and DE's inbetween the inevtiable boxed expansions.
The item mall must only sell vanity items and account stuff ( like character slots and server changes).
And the boxed expansions better not be skimpy.
Aside from that yes I believe the relatively new B2P model is still the way to go.
Actually i kinda think EVE Online has the best sub method around. Being able to pay for some months or all your months sub with ingame currency is something really cool. It's something like PTP/PTP (Pay to Play / Play to Pay).
The Hybrid model is also a good model but sometimes people get it wrong taking the way of "limited game level/content" if they want a true hybrid working sub look at EVE Online (yes I know what I said but actually EVE can be considered a hybrid sub game also considering what I said earlier). Another good hybrid model is the so-called "Pay to FastForward". Baisically all the content is opened for everyone despite some special packs which can be bought only with RM currency, and the packs give you like "+x% exp, +x% gold earned, auction house number of offer is +x" or something like this but even those packs wear off so if you want to go up quick just pay some cash, i'm pretty sure that some ppl will pay.
B2P is also a good model but sometimes B2P can get annoying because it will also go for ingame currency which is like "But i bought the game... come on, now i have to pay again to get some fun stuff?... Ok now if allready gave that much i can give it again, take my money and let me get what i want.".
F2P is not that interesting because F2P goes also for ingame currency mostly just like B2P but the difference here is that there are few F2P games that actually worth playing while B2P really has some nice games.
B2p with no p2w cash shop is The winner.Anything else just exists barely
That was a fair article on the types of subscription. I think we got this article because SWTOR is going hybrid and the number of people on these forums who don't know their hybrids from their F2P is huge.
sure buytp is nice and ftp is easy to get into but subscription and paid expansions lets devs spend more money on a better product .. not that they always do
i think a hybrid of eq1s and eq2s old buisness model maybe a few cosmetic options in a shop would work well like costume slots or say you can get zebras as a mount instead of just a regular horse
To me the only palatable mmo business model is B2P--because at the end of the day hybrid might as well be subscription with a trial. It's not really called options when you have to pay to unlock the main bulk of content that exists within the game. At least with B2P I actually get a feeling of ownership which I don't get with free or subscription games--I know that I can play it whenever I want with little to no gripes. I would take B2P over hybrid and sub any day.
Subscriptions for me. I could theoretically tolerate a hybrid system if one ever came out that didn't bash subscribers over the head with cash shop advertisements around every corner. If I'm subscribing, I want everything in the game to be available to me, including those vanity items you now want to charge me for.
Occasionally, hybrid games do make that cash shop stuff "available," but it's implemented with an intentionally brutal grind attached whose sole purpose is to drive you to the cash shop. I hate that. I really, really hate that. When developers make hybrid games, they should ask themselves why the people who prefer the subscription model chose that model in the first place.
For me, it's because it's all-inclusive and I never have to think about real world money while I'm playing. I set my subscription and forget about it. Cash shops exist to remind you of your bank account at every opportunity. If developers want the subscription end of any hybrid model to appeal to subscription players, they need to remove anything having to do with a cash shop from the subscriber's game. What they should not do is chuck cash shop currency at them each month as bait. Charge us our monthly fee, sell us the expansions too big to fit in the monthly dev cycle, then leave us the heck alone.
No Sub is nothing but a scam, esp since when ever a major expansion comes around you got to pay for it to.
Now if expansions was free and subs went down to like 10 dollars, then I might be okay with it.
btp works the best that I seen, you buy the game and buy the major expansions. However patches and updated are free. Which gw1 added in a ton of new events/quest and so on even today every month for free.
The cash shop is a jk, other then character slots. It almost no use, unless you love vanity items and lvling up a small amount quicker.
Play gw1 since 2006 and WoW from 2005-2009. In gw1 I brought teh game and all the expansions, and some character slots. All together is still just a bit over 200 dollars.
Now in WoW, ive spent over 1,000.
So sorry but if gw2 keeps the same cash shop as gw1. Then it will be the best model, ive seen yet.
I think we will soon see a new way to make Subscription Based MMO's. First off, the Developer will develop and introduce a Single Player game. Later on, multiplayer modes would be added to the same framework. Then, persistant zones and corridors that allow travel between the zones would be added as well as persistant grouping. Then the developer would simply need to charge a subscription fee for acccess through the multiplayer pathways and any who won't pay would remain isolated in their own single-player bubble and simple multiplayer modes.
Then, the real party begins when the developer starts include group-based content with gear that's better than the normal gear players can get in the single-player game.
Just watch the people complain it's a Pay-To-Win model, and yet still play because after all they already paid for the original game and who can tolerate their buddy bragging about the cool item they got last night and OH if only you were there... you just needed to pay $15 per month but you didn't... pfft. You suck!
I can see EA and Activision doing this and to be honest if it comes down to that, I'll find a nother hobby, maybe fishing...