Originally posted by Superman0X The math for all of this is pretty simple.It looks something like thisP2P1k Users Paying $15 a monthF2P9k Users Paying $0900 Users Paying $15 (on average)$100 Users Paying $150 (on average)Total is more than P2P, and most comes from the 'whales'. The 9K users dont care about P2Win. They are not planning on paying any money, and dont care about those that do.The 900 Users are extremely virolent about P2Win, as they are putting in money, but not as much as others.The 100 Users dont care about P2Win, as they are putting in enough money to be on top.
That pretty much sums it up. The kicker is the 900 and the 100 don't spend without the other 9k present.
It's also closer to a 46/54 split between those that pay and those that don't. Probably what you really have with 10k users is 5k users spending nothing, 4k users spending a little, 900 users spending more and 100 "whales".
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
There has always been a pay to win scenario from buying aimbots to RMT so you can pay top dollar for the best items in game without earning them.
I might also add that even if many players are stupid enough to over pay via cash shop and i am one of them that have done that,it still does not make it right or mean it is a good system.
Cash shops are 100% a terrible system,it does nothing to make a game better as in the end you get what you pay for.Most of the time ,especially of late f2p is an after thought because nobody wants to pay to play your game.That means less profit than forecasted ,that means content updates will be cheap content that takes a small staff to pull off.
Nothing like seeing an xpack pop up for sale when the game is missing tons of obvious content that SHOULD have been there from release.You can't simply add it in later as an xpack,that is like selling the players the otehr half the game but now they paid twice to get the whole game.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I am rather shocked at how the market has developed in this day and age. Now developers create free to play games, they put in place gimics to get you to spend your money. Items you buy for a chance to get a nice item, increased exp rates, equipment that beats out what can be found in game, they lock away content, they seal up the game until you pay money.
People quote often that atleast 90% of people who play free to play games avoid spending any cash on them. This is to you 90% who complain about pay to win, who moan about how long it takes to achieve what someone purchasing from the shop can acheve.
You made this happen.
In a subscription game, 100% of the people pay $15 / £9 a month. Everything is open, nothing is pay to win.
In a play for free game, a better rate of income is achieved inside the 10% of people who play, than that of a subscription game. To compare, this is like 9 people playing WoW for free, and the tenth guy paying 10 times as much, plus some on the top because as we know, play for free is more profitable.
So when that tenth guy come along with his great gear, his fast leveling, and his lovely cosmetic items, do not complain that he paid to win, he paid to win because the developers offered those items, they offered those items - because they need to properly monetize their game.
I play Planetside 2, in the past month I have spent about £40 on it. Roughly on par with a purchased game box and a subscription. i won't be needing to spend this much in the future, I have what I need now and I am pleased with it. People complain that certification gains are to slow, they they can't farm up enough to buy guns with cert points. Now cert gain is fine if you buy the guns off the market with station cash and use your cert points to upgrade the guns and your selected classes.
You see what so many free to play people forget is that though the game might be free to log in, the developers never intended you to free ride your way through the game, they didn't intend for you to have your cake and eat it, to let the crazy 10% support your free loading.
heres a novel thought, spend a bit on the market every now and then and developers might not need to implement pay to win options, gear, exp increases and random chance loot bags.
I will do just that...once there exists a F2P game that is worth spending money on. The problem is, right now NO F2P game is worth it in my opinion. I've played a huge amount of games in my life, including quite a fair number of MMOs both free and subbed (the quantity of those alone is well into the double digits, I couldn't list them all if I tried), and have developed a minimum quality requirement for an MMO to warrant paying for it. Out of all the MMOs I have played, and the countless others I have investigated before considering trying them, only one has ever been good enough to earn my money. Only one has had the variety of content and adrenaline-rush gameplay that I would pay for, and am still paying for today:
Eve Online.
You find me a F2P game with even a third of what Eve has and I will try it out and maybe even consider paying for something in the cash shop. Good freaking luck though, you're gonna need it.
There has always been a pay to win scenario from buying aimbots to RMT so you can pay top dollar for the best items in game without earning them.
I might also add that even if many players are stupid enough to over pay via cash shop and i am one of them that have done that,it still does not make it right or mean it is a good system.
It doesn't make it a bad system either
Cash shops are 100% a terrible system,it does nothing to make a game better as in the end you get what you pay for.Most of the time ,especially of late f2p is an after thought because nobody wants to pay to play your game.That means less profit than forecasted ,that means content updates will be cheap content that takes a small staff to pull off.
A 100% terrible system is completely subjective and one I happen to disagree with. Yes there can be bad ones, there are also good ones, and acceptable ones. There are also enough f2p games providing regular content to make your 3rd sentance here false.
Nothing like seeing an xpack pop up for sale when the game is missing tons of obvious content that SHOULD have been there from release.You can't simply add it in later as an xpack,that is like selling the players the otehr half the game but now they paid twice to get the whole game.
As long as they state up front what will and will not be at release and what will or will not be in the dlc, I have no issues with it. They have provided enough information to make an informed decision.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Originally posted by daltaniousAgree in full with OP. I really HATE F2P games and cheap people that are cause for this, they are destroyers of quality gaming. No money, no quality. Simple as that. You can not run quality restaurant and feeding for free everyone that have few minutes to spare to eat for free. GW2 is so far only exception but is also B2P. Any game that have in time maybe switched to f2p model will only play again if they have also sub model. For me is - reluctantly - acceptable to have shops with STRICTLY vanity objects.
Why don't you become a whale and pump lots of money into the genre?
BTW, you don't have to accept anything, reluctant or not .. you can always quit and do something else.
And hatred is really getting you no where, since you really can't force "cheap" people to pay.
Or go in the alternative direction where the games just close down. The path where everyone pays and happy, fluffy, bunny land ensues is the least likely scenario.
You also don't have a choice in that either. It is pretty clear that F2P is gaining ground. So i am paying PS2 last night, and probably tonight. So how are you going to "close it down"?
You find me a F2P game with even a third of what Eve has and I will try it out and maybe even consider paying for something in the cash shop. Good freaking luck though, you're gonna need it.
And i found Eve horribly easy, and boring in the PvE, and many F2P games have better combat (like STO, DCUO, PS2).
Your point? Everyone has different preferences. And the F2P is becoming more popular in the industry.
As a potential customer, companies have to convince me to buy their products. If they fail to do that, I won't buy anything and that is their problem.
The odd thing with some MMO players is that they want to pay money upfront with the hope that it will improve the final product. Which is plain naieve imo. It doesn't work like that in commercial business.
You find me a F2P game with even a third of what Eve has and I will try it out and maybe even consider paying for something in the cash shop. Good freaking luck though, you're gonna need it.
And i found Eve horribly easy, and boring in the PvE, and many F2P games have better combat (like STO, DCUO, PS2).
Your point? Everyone has different preferences. And the F2P is becoming more popular in the industry.
Then you must not have made it much past the trial period. I don't play Eve for the PvE, that's only 10% of what it has to offer. I'm talking about all that OTHER meaty juicy stuff in it.
You find me a F2P game with even a third of what Eve has and I will try it out and maybe even consider paying for something in the cash shop. Good freaking luck though, you're gonna need it.
And i found Eve horribly easy, and boring in the PvE, and many F2P games have better combat (like STO, DCUO, PS2).
Your point? Everyone has different preferences. And the F2P is becoming more popular in the industry.
Then you must not have made it much past the trial period. I don't play Eve for the PvE, that's only 10% of what it has to offer. I'm talking about all that OTHER meaty juicy stuff in it.
Nope .. too boring even for 21 days. And if the game cannot convince me that combat is fun, i move on. It is their job to convince me a game is fun, i have no obligation to dig around until some interesting things come up.
PS2 is a good example. Also pvp focus like Eve .. none of this boring shit in the beginning. I jump in and start head shooting players day 1 (admitting there are of course other play styles).
if corporation advertise their games as free-to-play why shouldnt customers play them for free?
this bend over backwards attitude towards corporations is the reason why video games suck.
Yeh .. i was laughing with all the talk about "contributing", "good for the game" .. and so on.
It is quite simple. Devs try to lure players by F2P ..either want them to add fun to paying customers, or to convert them into paying customers.
I am under zero obligation to do anything except having fun in a game.
Going over the MMOs I`ve played over the past half decade or so, I can`t think of many that obligated me to have fun let alone provided an environment for me to actually find any fun.
As a gamer, I do not want to feel as though I am being ``lured`` like some species of fish. The game should speak for itself.
It`s a sign of the times when the community openly uses words like that to describe their relationship with the studios who should be bringing so much more in damn near 2013. It`s a shame.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
heres a novel thought, spend a bit on the market every now and then and developers might not need to implement pay to win options, gear, exp increases and random chance loot bags.
Sorry not going to happen. If I like a game good enough I will pay the sub. The free to play fremium stuff just milking customers. If the game was good they would have made money with a sub. I am not going to use the store, a sub yes the store no. I find most stores have way to much programming put in them, and not enough programming put into the game to make it better.
The OP would be right, except, even Sub games today have F2P elements. Not everyone who pays a sub gets everything anymore, and hasn't for several years. Let's see all the mounts and pets in WoW that are on a cash shop. Sony has blitzed their games with all sorts of F2P options, including XP pots and such, even for those who pay a subscription for the game. Look what happened with Eve when they tried to add a cash shop (I'm not sure if that even stayed live, I haven't played Eve in a long time).
You can start to argue that sub games with a cash shop has stuff that doesn't matter - but that's a matter of opinion - it doesn't change the fact that it still discredits the premise that subscription games offer everything to everyone, whereas cash shops discriminate toward only those that pay. Even if it doesn't matter, it's only offered to those that chose to pay extra.
You could even go so far as to argue that paid expansions are F2P elements - as even people who have a subscription don't get access to the new content unless they pony up more money on top of that.
There is no such thing as a pure subscription model anymore, and hasn't been for a really long time now. It's either Subscription with cash shop, or just cash shop - damned if you do and damned if you don't.
I am rather shocked at how the market has developed in this day and age. Now developers create free to play games, they put in place gimics to get you to spend your money. Items you buy for a chance to get a nice item, increased exp rates, equipment that beats out what can be found in game, they lock away content, they seal up the game until you pay money.
People quote often that atleast 90% of people who play free to play games avoid spending any cash on them. This is to you 90% who complain about pay to win, who moan about how long it takes to achieve what someone purchasing from the shop can acheve.
You made this happen.
In a subscription game, 100% of the people pay $15 / £9 a month. Everything is open, nothing is pay to win.
In a play for free game, a better rate of income is achieved inside the 10% of people who play, than that of a subscription game. To compare, this is like 9 people playing WoW for free, and the tenth guy paying 10 times as much, plus some on the top because as we know, play for free is more profitable.
So when that tenth guy come along with his great gear, his fast leveling, and his lovely cosmetic items, do not complain that he paid to win, he paid to win because the developers offered those items, they offered those items - because they need to properly monetize their game.
I play Planetside 2, in the past month I have spent about £40 on it. Roughly on par with a purchased game box and a subscription. i won't be needing to spend this much in the future, I have what I need now and I am pleased with it. People complain that certification gains are to slow, they they can't farm up enough to buy guns with cert points. Now cert gain is fine if you buy the guns off the market with station cash and use your cert points to upgrade the guns and your selected classes.
You see what so many free to play people forget is that though the game might be free to log in, the developers never intended you to free ride your way through the game, they didn't intend for you to have your cake and eat it, to let the crazy 10% support your free loading.
heres a novel thought, spend a bit on the market every now and then and developers might not need to implement pay to win options, gear, exp increases and random chance loot bags.
Another way to see it is that people who play F2P mmos want everyone to churn cream to get their butter. With cosmetic shops to buy from that maybe get you a cute apron or put a pretty shade of pink on your churning barrel. Where a m---af----a like me will go straight for the budda babee! Ain't nobody got time for dat! I got hungry kids to feed. And I can do a whole lot more cooking if I didn't have to churn the damn butter first. Well at least when it comes to PS2. In mmorpgs I enjoy churning for butter!
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
You find me a F2P game with even a third of what Eve has and I will try it out and maybe even consider paying for something in the cash shop. Good freaking luck though, you're gonna need it.
And i found Eve horribly easy, and boring in the PvE, and many F2P games have better combat (like STO, DCUO, PS2).
Your point? Everyone has different preferences. And the F2P is becoming more popular in the industry.
You found Eve easy? I take it you never ventured to 0.0 space? Sitting in dock all day MAKES the game boring, we can only wonder if that is what you did. (I will not assume since it is against forum rules)
Eve online is a pay to play game. It should not even be brought up in this topic, same as Borecraft. Try to stay on topic, carrot following dwellers.
To the OP, I have no idea why you care so much about your own topic. The Free to Play model allows everyone to play the game freely with no commitment to ever having to buy a thing. Of course some games limit what you can do, however, there are some that have everything unlocked and are actual "Free to Play" games. Lineage 2 and Aion are a few to name. Some items help with leveling, and of course sometimes they add that MUST have piece of gear that is only good if you plus it to 10(Lineage 2). Does buying make someone Over-powered? It depends. People with high plussed gear in Lineage 2 die just as easily as someone without it. I think you tend to forget that most kids think it's totally cool to have that super red dagger and "think" they have an advantage on anyone. It's all about glamour and hoping to be the best (which noone ever is).
If you think you're special because you spend money in a game, think again. It's great you want to spend money for things and to feel you are helping the company, It hardly makes you better than anyone else. Calling people leeches, etc, because they play without paying a thing is absurb. Your post deserves a thumbs down in all fairness. Have fun with those guns, nonetheless
My point is this: No MMO that was BORN with such cash-shop elements has done well. The ones that did do ok with it already were very well-established. Can you name any sub + cash shop MMO that did great and was born with a cash shop and a sub? sure Rift is ... okay in this sense, but any stories of success and explosive growh ?
the model is real - but its not profitable.
No, you helped to emphasize my point though - which is that there are no more purely subscription games. They've pretty much all converted over in one way or another.
But to answer your question: League of Legends pretty well started with a cash shop and no sub, iirc, and I don't think it's doing poorly. You may even go so far as to say it's growth has been as explosive as any game has been. You could say technically LoL isn't an MMO, but I think if you just look at MMOs you have a very narrow view of the field, and have to open it up to a larger perspective when your looking at payment models. The number of games that have started with Subscriptions in the past 5 years has been very low, so you have a pretty small sample to pull from there...
It isn't so much the payment model that determines (or restricts) a game from being popular - the payment model should be more or less transparent when playing the game - and the game makes it or doesn't on it's own merits. When the payment model intrudes on the gameplay is when problems start to arise, and people really start to notice it. Everyone loves to applaud subscription games as being so much better, when in reality it wasn't the subscription that was so great, it was the fact that the payment model was transparent and independent of the gameplay. No one complained (loudly) about B2P games either - the model was straight forward and had no bearing on the gameplay. People only complain when the revenue model impedes on gameplay, because that's the only time they are really going to notice it (aside from when they first open their wallet up).
OP's post sort of confused me, but I find myself agreeing.
In reality I think most people understand what the free to play model is / does. It is free to access. It does pay to invest what you think the game is worth.
I enjoy LotRO f2p model rather well. I've put about 40 bucks into the game in what.. 3 years now? Or 2? It's been awhile. I've played at a slow pace. Enjoyed the content. Bought what I thought was worth having, avoided anything I felt wasn't. Really the game has sort of spoiled me.
Now DCUO.. I've not spent a dime on. But I've played it with friends and have been surprised at the amount of content I've accessed for zilch. It's not a game that I'm terribly a fan of, so that's how much I think it's worth. To my buddies who love it, who pvp, who invest they gain access to my company and gamemanship. Really it's a win for them, and they don't seem to mind my freeloader status.
For all the cons that get thrown around about f2p, the plus' are winning. That's why your favorite game is now f2p or b2p; either eventually or at launch now.
You find me a F2P game with even a third of what Eve has and I will try it out and maybe even consider paying for something in the cash shop. Good freaking luck though, you're gonna need it.
And i found Eve horribly easy....
Seeing as though it is such a dramatically easy game, please do elaborate on your successes in EVE. What did you accomplish during your time there? I'm genuinely curious as this rare gem of an MMO (which has defied the odds and proven itself for almost a decade and is still goin' strong) is so far from your "comfort zone".
I played EVE for over 6 years. Easy is not the first word that comes to mind when I remember my time there.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
I'm not aware of any pay to win games out there. Nothing mainstream anyways. I dont cough up any cash for free to play games I dont enjoy. Cough *league of legends*, however if its a decent game I end up do spending money on it. And I dont believe 10% of players are the only ones playing. People who create an account find out they dont like it and leave, do not count. Thats part of the beauty of free to play, it attracts more players. Even those that dont like the game
I think you are painting people with a wide stroke brush.
I've played in freemiums like LotRO and those people are greatful to be playing for free. They can't afford to pay for it. I can and I do. They don't hold that against me.
I know many people who Plex in EVE. They wouldn't be there if they couldn't. Same deal, when they can, they pay a monthly. When they can't they plex.
Free to play is a subsidy system in many games. Free players give games vibrancy. Most are welcome by the game companies and by me, a paying customer. EVE Plexers, LotRO free players? Keep having fun, you aren't beneath me, I'm not above you. We are just in different places right now. I don't think there are enough true moochers to even bother mentioning.
Dont care if they pay or not realy, i just want a real mmorpg with all the features and systems so i can have some fun and not be limited so bad i quit out of boredom in a week.
But i do have an issue with F2P players trying to get every game dumbed down and free. If you dont want to contribute, fine, but shut up about how you want the game to be like. If everyone goes F2P and doesnt pay anything, you realy think there will be any games made? No profit = dead game.
Dont care if they pay or not realy, i just want a real mmorpg with all the features and systems so i can have some fun and not be limited so bad i quit out of boredom in a week.
But i do have an issue with F2P players trying to get every game dumbed down and free. If you dont want to contribute, fine, but shut up about how you want the game to be like. If everyone goes F2P and doesnt pay anything, you realy think there will be any games made? No profit = dead game.
Why should anyone shut up? Expression is also free. Devs will decide to listen or not .. based on their perception of the importance of the advice. And on inconsequential forums like this, why wouldn't i air what i think?
"If everyone goes F2P and doesnt pay anything, you realy think there will be any games made?" .. so? There are always whales. And so what if some games are dead, it is not like there aren't others.
For all the cons that get thrown around about f2p, the plus' are winning. That's why your favorite game is now f2p or b2p; either eventually or at launch now.
Very much so. That is why i cancel my wow sub, and don't think i ever need to sub again.
People can rant about whatever they don't like. I kind of wonder if they actually know which direction the world is going.
most people posting here seem to have the shortest memory in the history of gaming. Most free to play games start out as pay monthly and constantly lose subs because their content is mediocer at best so they change their models to free to play and charge stupid amounts of money for half the things people used to get for free. The other half of the market is the stupid asian garbage being pushed in our face weekly here that shouldnt even be listed on this site because they do nothing but degrade the genre even more.
If people didnt sub to the game before majority of the people playing them are not going to begin subbing now or put up with being nickle and dimed to death either. There is a void in content or its just a boring clone of another game we've seen a hundred times before. If companies actually gave two shits about the games they produce they would be spending more time fixing their games and making systems more enjoyable than spending most of their times on market items like all of them seem to do now especially the former pay to play titles.
Also to the posters comparing this to occupy wallstreet....seriously get a clue and at least use google before you post nonsense. Occupy Wallstreet is a movement not asking for anything for free . Its making people aware of the degrading job market in this country and how the wages continue to decline and anyone who doesnt live in a bubble sees that.
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It's also closer to a 46/54 split between those that pay and those that don't. Probably what you really have with 10k users is 5k users spending nothing, 4k users spending a little, 900 users spending more and 100 "whales".
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Umm OP.....
There has always been a pay to win scenario from buying aimbots to RMT so you can pay top dollar for the best items in game without earning them.
I might also add that even if many players are stupid enough to over pay via cash shop and i am one of them that have done that,it still does not make it right or mean it is a good system.
Cash shops are 100% a terrible system,it does nothing to make a game better as in the end you get what you pay for.Most of the time ,especially of late f2p is an after thought because nobody wants to pay to play your game.That means less profit than forecasted ,that means content updates will be cheap content that takes a small staff to pull off.
Nothing like seeing an xpack pop up for sale when the game is missing tons of obvious content that SHOULD have been there from release.You can't simply add it in later as an xpack,that is like selling the players the otehr half the game but now they paid twice to get the whole game.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I will do just that...once there exists a F2P game that is worth spending money on. The problem is, right now NO F2P game is worth it in my opinion. I've played a huge amount of games in my life, including quite a fair number of MMOs both free and subbed (the quantity of those alone is well into the double digits, I couldn't list them all if I tried), and have developed a minimum quality requirement for an MMO to warrant paying for it. Out of all the MMOs I have played, and the countless others I have investigated before considering trying them, only one has ever been good enough to earn my money. Only one has had the variety of content and adrenaline-rush gameplay that I would pay for, and am still paying for today:
Eve Online.
You find me a F2P game with even a third of what Eve has and I will try it out and maybe even consider paying for something in the cash shop. Good freaking luck though, you're gonna need it.
Where's the any key?
You also don't have a choice in that either. It is pretty clear that F2P is gaining ground. So i am paying PS2 last night, and probably tonight. So how are you going to "close it down"?
And i found Eve horribly easy, and boring in the PvE, and many F2P games have better combat (like STO, DCUO, PS2).
Your point? Everyone has different preferences. And the F2P is becoming more popular in the industry.
As a potential customer, companies have to convince me to buy their products. If they fail to do that, I won't buy anything and that is their problem.
The odd thing with some MMO players is that they want to pay money upfront with the hope that it will improve the final product. Which is plain naieve imo. It doesn't work like that in commercial business.
Then you must not have made it much past the trial period. I don't play Eve for the PvE, that's only 10% of what it has to offer. I'm talking about all that OTHER meaty juicy stuff in it.
Where's the any key?
Nope .. too boring even for 21 days. And if the game cannot convince me that combat is fun, i move on. It is their job to convince me a game is fun, i have no obligation to dig around until some interesting things come up.
PS2 is a good example. Also pvp focus like Eve .. none of this boring shit in the beginning. I jump in and start head shooting players day 1 (admitting there are of course other play styles).
if corporation advertise their games as free-to-play why shouldnt customers play them for free?
this bend over backwards attitude towards corporations is the reason why video games suck.
Yeh .. i was laughing with all the talk about "contributing", "good for the game" .. and so on.
It is quite simple. Devs try to lure players by F2P ..either want them to add fun to paying customers, or to convert them into paying customers.
I am under zero obligation to do anything except having fun in a game.
Going over the MMOs I`ve played over the past half decade or so, I can`t think of many that obligated me to have fun let alone provided an environment for me to actually find any fun.
As a gamer, I do not want to feel as though I am being ``lured`` like some species of fish. The game should speak for itself.
It`s a sign of the times when the community openly uses words like that to describe their relationship with the studios who should be bringing so much more in damn near 2013. It`s a shame.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
Sorry not going to happen. If I like a game good enough I will pay the sub. The free to play fremium stuff just milking customers. If the game was good they would have made money with a sub. I am not going to use the store, a sub yes the store no. I find most stores have way to much programming put in them, and not enough programming put into the game to make it better.
The OP would be right, except, even Sub games today have F2P elements. Not everyone who pays a sub gets everything anymore, and hasn't for several years. Let's see all the mounts and pets in WoW that are on a cash shop. Sony has blitzed their games with all sorts of F2P options, including XP pots and such, even for those who pay a subscription for the game. Look what happened with Eve when they tried to add a cash shop (I'm not sure if that even stayed live, I haven't played Eve in a long time).
You can start to argue that sub games with a cash shop has stuff that doesn't matter - but that's a matter of opinion - it doesn't change the fact that it still discredits the premise that subscription games offer everything to everyone, whereas cash shops discriminate toward only those that pay. Even if it doesn't matter, it's only offered to those that chose to pay extra.
You could even go so far as to argue that paid expansions are F2P elements - as even people who have a subscription don't get access to the new content unless they pony up more money on top of that.
There is no such thing as a pure subscription model anymore, and hasn't been for a really long time now. It's either Subscription with cash shop, or just cash shop - damned if you do and damned if you don't.
Another way to see it is that people who play F2P mmos want everyone to churn cream to get their butter. With cosmetic shops to buy from that maybe get you a cute apron or put a pretty shade of pink on your churning barrel. Where a m---af----a like me will go straight for the budda babee! Ain't nobody got time for dat! I got hungry kids to feed. And I can do a whole lot more cooking if I didn't have to churn the damn butter first. Well at least when it comes to PS2. In mmorpgs I enjoy churning for butter!
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
You found Eve easy? I take it you never ventured to 0.0 space? Sitting in dock all day MAKES the game boring, we can only wonder if that is what you did. (I will not assume since it is against forum rules)
Eve online is a pay to play game. It should not even be brought up in this topic, same as Borecraft. Try to stay on topic, carrot following dwellers.
To the OP, I have no idea why you care so much about your own topic. The Free to Play model allows everyone to play the game freely with no commitment to ever having to buy a thing. Of course some games limit what you can do, however, there are some that have everything unlocked and are actual "Free to Play" games. Lineage 2 and Aion are a few to name. Some items help with leveling, and of course sometimes they add that MUST have piece of gear that is only good if you plus it to 10(Lineage 2). Does buying make someone Over-powered? It depends. People with high plussed gear in Lineage 2 die just as easily as someone without it. I think you tend to forget that most kids think it's totally cool to have that super red dagger and "think" they have an advantage on anyone. It's all about glamour and hoping to be the best (which noone ever is).
If you think you're special because you spend money in a game, think again. It's great you want to spend money for things and to feel you are helping the company, It hardly makes you better than anyone else. Calling people leeches, etc, because they play without paying a thing is absurb. Your post deserves a thumbs down in all fairness. Have fun with those guns, nonetheless
No, you helped to emphasize my point though - which is that there are no more purely subscription games. They've pretty much all converted over in one way or another.
But to answer your question: League of Legends pretty well started with a cash shop and no sub, iirc, and I don't think it's doing poorly. You may even go so far as to say it's growth has been as explosive as any game has been. You could say technically LoL isn't an MMO, but I think if you just look at MMOs you have a very narrow view of the field, and have to open it up to a larger perspective when your looking at payment models. The number of games that have started with Subscriptions in the past 5 years has been very low, so you have a pretty small sample to pull from there...
It isn't so much the payment model that determines (or restricts) a game from being popular - the payment model should be more or less transparent when playing the game - and the game makes it or doesn't on it's own merits. When the payment model intrudes on the gameplay is when problems start to arise, and people really start to notice it. Everyone loves to applaud subscription games as being so much better, when in reality it wasn't the subscription that was so great, it was the fact that the payment model was transparent and independent of the gameplay. No one complained (loudly) about B2P games either - the model was straight forward and had no bearing on the gameplay. People only complain when the revenue model impedes on gameplay, because that's the only time they are really going to notice it (aside from when they first open their wallet up).
OP's post sort of confused me, but I find myself agreeing.
In reality I think most people understand what the free to play model is / does. It is free to access. It does pay to invest what you think the game is worth.
I enjoy LotRO f2p model rather well. I've put about 40 bucks into the game in what.. 3 years now? Or 2? It's been awhile. I've played at a slow pace. Enjoyed the content. Bought what I thought was worth having, avoided anything I felt wasn't. Really the game has sort of spoiled me.
Now DCUO.. I've not spent a dime on. But I've played it with friends and have been surprised at the amount of content I've accessed for zilch. It's not a game that I'm terribly a fan of, so that's how much I think it's worth. To my buddies who love it, who pvp, who invest they gain access to my company and gamemanship. Really it's a win for them, and they don't seem to mind my freeloader status.
For all the cons that get thrown around about f2p, the plus' are winning. That's why your favorite game is now f2p or b2p; either eventually or at launch now.
a yo ho ho
Seeing as though it is such a dramatically easy game, please do elaborate on your successes in EVE. What did you accomplish during your time there? I'm genuinely curious as this rare gem of an MMO (which has defied the odds and proven itself for almost a decade and is still goin' strong) is so far from your "comfort zone".
I played EVE for over 6 years. Easy is not the first word that comes to mind when I remember my time there.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
I think you are painting people with a wide stroke brush.
I've played in freemiums like LotRO and those people are greatful to be playing for free. They can't afford to pay for it. I can and I do. They don't hold that against me.
I know many people who Plex in EVE. They wouldn't be there if they couldn't. Same deal, when they can, they pay a monthly. When they can't they plex.
Free to play is a subsidy system in many games. Free players give games vibrancy. Most are welcome by the game companies and by me, a paying customer. EVE Plexers, LotRO free players? Keep having fun, you aren't beneath me, I'm not above you. We are just in different places right now. I don't think there are enough true moochers to even bother mentioning.
Dont care if they pay or not realy, i just want a real mmorpg with all the features and systems so i can have some fun and not be limited so bad i quit out of boredom in a week.
But i do have an issue with F2P players trying to get every game dumbed down and free. If you dont want to contribute, fine, but shut up about how you want the game to be like. If everyone goes F2P and doesnt pay anything, you realy think there will be any games made? No profit = dead game.
Why should anyone shut up? Expression is also free. Devs will decide to listen or not .. based on their perception of the importance of the advice. And on inconsequential forums like this, why wouldn't i air what i think?
"If everyone goes F2P and doesnt pay anything, you realy think there will be any games made?" .. so? There are always whales. And so what if some games are dead, it is not like there aren't others.
Very much so. That is why i cancel my wow sub, and don't think i ever need to sub again.
People can rant about whatever they don't like. I kind of wonder if they actually know which direction the world is going.
most people posting here seem to have the shortest memory in the history of gaming. Most free to play games start out as pay monthly and constantly lose subs because their content is mediocer at best so they change their models to free to play and charge stupid amounts of money for half the things people used to get for free. The other half of the market is the stupid asian garbage being pushed in our face weekly here that shouldnt even be listed on this site because they do nothing but degrade the genre even more.
If people didnt sub to the game before majority of the people playing them are not going to begin subbing now or put up with being nickle and dimed to death either. There is a void in content or its just a boring clone of another game we've seen a hundred times before. If companies actually gave two shits about the games they produce they would be spending more time fixing their games and making systems more enjoyable than spending most of their times on market items like all of them seem to do now especially the former pay to play titles.
Also to the posters comparing this to occupy wallstreet....seriously get a clue and at least use google before you post nonsense. Occupy Wallstreet is a movement not asking for anything for free . Its making people aware of the degrading job market in this country and how the wages continue to decline and anyone who doesnt live in a bubble sees that.