I think it's been obvious for sometime that on average F2P games make more per player than sub game do.
What I don't understand is why we as consumers would be celebrating a trend that results in us paying significantly more for the same products sub games gave us a few years ago? I can see why the investors would be happy but not those of us who actually play the games.
I think it's been obvious for sometime that on average F2P games make more per player than sub game do.
What I don't understand is why we as consumers would be celebrating a trend that results in us paying significantly more for the same products sub games gave us a few years ago? I can see why the investors would be happy but not those of us who actually play the games.
This. And the reality is they arent delivering anywhere CLOSE to the same product as before.
What i find even more hilarious is that so many of the people on this site are so keen to be "right" and to show those old school P2P fans how dumb they are, that they're basically doing the equivalent of giving handies to IRS agents that just auditted them and took their house and car... just so they can be right.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
I've been enjoying a few different F2P games lately, they give me the option to pay the developer after I've derived a satisfactory amount of enjoyment instead of plunking down cash for a game I might play for a week or 2.
Originally posted by Arthasm Wait, with 2-3 p2p games and billions of f2p - f2p makes more money? Wow, like I need to read some data.
You do need to read some data. There are a lot more than 2-3 games which include a sub option, and all sub revenue is reported as sub revenue, even if it's from a game that includes a free option.
Originally posted by Hrimnir
This. And the reality is they arent delivering anywhere CLOSE to the same product as before.
What i find even more hilarious is that so many of the people on this site are so keen to be "right" and to show those old school P2P fans how dumb they are, that they're basically doing the equivalent of giving handies to IRS agents that just auditted them and took their house and car... just so they can be right.
That's true. The average major MMO being released in 2013/2014 is nowhere close to the average MMO being released ten years ago. It's a far, far more complete and polished product. Take the exact same games that released back then, release them in the present instead with no changes other than graphical upgrades to match today's games, and they would have be lucky to generate enough player support to justify a freemium conversion before getting shut down. (Note, I'm not saying do that in a reality where they have still existed for ten years, I'm saying where they were released now instead of then.)
Release day WoW is a joke of a game compared to most of the betas I have seen in the last several years, let alone what the games look like at release, and when it came out everything else was a joke compared to it.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
Originally posted by Arthasm Wait, with 2-3 p2p games and billions of f2p - f2p makes more money? Wow, like I need to read some data.
You do need to read some data. There are a lot more than 2-3 games which include a sub option, and all sub revenue is reported as sub revenue, even if it's from a game that includes a free option.
Originally posted by Hrimnir
This. And the reality is they arent delivering anywhere CLOSE to the same product as before.
What i find even more hilarious is that so many of the people on this site are so keen to be "right" and to show those old school P2P fans how dumb they are, that they're basically doing the equivalent of giving handies to IRS agents that just auditted them and took their house and car... just so they can be right.
That's true. The average major MMO being released in 2013/2014 is nowhere close to the average MMO being released ten years ago. It's a far, far more complete and polished product. Take the exact same games that released back then, release them in the present instead with no changes other than graphical upgrades to match today's games, and they would have be lucky to generate enough player support to justify a freemium conversion before getting shut down. (Note, I'm not saying do that in a reality where they have still existed for ten years, I'm saying where they were released now instead of then.)
Release day WoW is a joke of a game compared to most of the betas I have seen in the last several years, let alone what the games look like at release, and when it came out everything else was a joke compared to it.
I guess that's a matter of opinion. What's one mans "complete and polished product" is another's shallow excuse for a multiplayer game that is more designed around sucking as much money out of you as quickly as possible before you move on rather than providing a deep enriching world that invites you to spend thousands of hours in. My play time in EQ2 is measured in thousands of hours but I can't manage 40 on average from the newer crop of MMO's. SWTOR and TSW where the last ones that I put any significant time into and that was more for the single player story than the multiplayer elements.
There are a lot of reasons for that but one of the big ones is the dynamics that F2P has created in this market.
I think it's been obvious for sometime that on average F2P games make more per player than sub game do.
What I don't understand is why we as consumers would be celebrating a trend that results in us paying significantly more for the same products sub games gave us a few years ago? I can see why the investors would be happy but not those of us who actually play the games.
People aren't smart, they are sheep. Give them unemployment, reality TV, Mcdonalds and a F2P game you have a human ATM to cash out on.
What I really enjoy is F2P games with optional subscription bonus like increased XP gain. The game is free for everyone who isn't paying, if I decide to support the game with a monthly sub, it's only fair I get some sort of reward (that doesn't unbalance the game). I hate P2W cash shops but letting me grind a bit faster isn't really P2W.
I don't like F2P because your selling gameplay instead of playing gameplay. Each item in the cash shop only is one less thing you can do in game.
Also, I am curious to those numbers how many are actually MMORPG's to make an comparison. I think using candy crush is kind of silly because those games could never be sold as a sub anyways.
I guess that's a matter of opinion. What's one mans "complete and polished product" is another's shallow excuse for a multiplayer game that is more designed around sucking as much money out of you as quickly as possible before you move on rather than providing a deep enriching world that invites you to spend thousands of hours in. My play time in EQ2 is measured in thousands of hours but I can't manage 40 on average from the newer crop of MMO's. SWTOR and TSW where the last ones that I put any significant time into and that was more for the single player story than the multiplayer elements.
There are a lot of reasons for that but one of the big ones is the dynamics that F2P has created in this market.
Here's the thing a lot of "old school" people seem to either ignore or fail to grasp; there are two primary reasons that big companies keep releasing tightly focused, linear experiences instead of the "deep enriching world" games you pine for, and neither one of them can be blamed on the existence of F2P. The first is that even the "failures" (they actually aren't but "old school" people often say they are) amongst the "WoW clones" (again, they really aren't) tend to do much better financially than games that attempt to create deep worlds, and companies have noticed. The second is that we have yet to have a single company actually do a decent job of creating a "deep enriching world" game that actually was deep and enriching rather than simply large.
If you want the industry as a whole to move in a different direction, first you need a developer to actually show that it is a direction that there is a big enough market to justify moving in. And trying to equate the linear themepark vs. living world debate to the subscription vs. cash shop discussion is just ridiculous. They can find a way to monetize anything in a cash shop.
If somebody actually shows there is a big enough audience for the thousands of hours deep world, there will be games with F2P or hybrid models that attempt to capitalize on it. Hell, if it delivers on even half of it's promises, the first is already being made (first two depending on how you look at it) with Next and Landmark.
Originally posted by Vermillion_Raventhal
I don't like F2P because your selling gameplay instead of playing gameplay. Each item in the cash shop only is one less thing you can do in game.
That actually isn't accurate. Even in the worst cash shops, most of the content is stuff that had never been offered outside the cash shop, and which the developers wouldn't have bothered working on at all if it weren't going to be sold in the cash shop.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
Do people even realize how silly these comparisons are without taking things like "how many games are in each category?", "how much budget was spent to make those games?", "how long are the games running and thus had time to recoup their costs?", "what percentage of the revenue remains as profit?", etc., etc.
Not to mention this is not a race in the first place and different payment methods work for different games. It's a way too complex subject for simple "mine is bigger than yours" comparisons.
No method is better than the other unless you are talking about one specific game and have detailed inside information on it's budgeting, target audience, etc. in order to say which fits best in that specific case.
What do we discuss next? "The global potato market exceeds the size of the global Maserati market and thus potatoes are clearly better than Maseratis"?
Originally posted by nariusseldon reposting the link from another topic:http://www.superdataresearch.com/blog/us-digital-games-market/But the point is:In the top 10 money making games (and most listed here on MMORPG.com), all but ONE is sub-only (WOW).And wow is only #7, and making less than half compared to LoL.This pretty much shows that to make money, F2P beats P2P, and often you don't even need a virtual world.
The reality is that in order for F2P to make money, they have to entice players to spend it first. P2P has a flat rate called subs, so any sub game without a cash shop puts a self-imposed ceiling on their income. BUT that ceiling is fairly constant.
F2P games have to "average" their numbers over long period of times, because at any one point in time, they could be less than, equal to, or greater than sub based MMOs.
Your "big point" about WoW (and SW:TOR) is unfounded as, per your own cited study: from the "Notes" listed at the bottom of your wondrous graph: "Top 10 PC Titles based on world wide, free to play earnings for 2013. World of Warcraft and Star Wars: The Old Republic are PRIMARILY subscription based games, but also generate revenue through the sale of micro-transactions."
NOT included in your "definitive wonder chart" are the actual numbers gained through subscriptions.
Next attempt, please.
Why do you insist on trying to prove a business model you do not even financially support is "the best ever!" model?
- 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
Wanted to pick out some of the important points from greengreen's great post:
"If your company never replaces hardware, pays for bandwidth, or don't utilize support staff then yes, you are making more money." - It is this sort of cheapskate development that so many F2P games favour.
"Then there is the topic of content. Do you want future development to be spent on building the game around a cash shop or the integrity of the game. Instead of only employing game developers you now want psychologists, economists, and marketers in greater number with a F2P game because you have turned yourself into a retail shop..." - This really hits the nail on the head, this is what MMOs have become using a F2P revenue model.
"What made around 5 million people leave F2P games in one single month and why isn't it as big a topic to them as WOW "bleeding" subscribers as they word it while the WOW users were lost over about a year and this happened in one MONTH." - You follow the story in any form of journalism, facts are secondary. The big story for some years now has been WoW losing subs. As you point out, 5 million players "bleeding" from F2P MMOs in one month points to the issues with F2P.
"Spending also went way down for F2P games at a larger percentage than sub games. They need to get to the heart of that because if it's a downward slope that spells trouble." - As if players were not getting fed up of half baked F2P games as it is, that shows it can only get worse. No doubt though, one of our F2P lovers on here will come on to tell us how investing less in a game makes it a better game.
So OP this clearly shows that its actually best to have a sub based game plus a shop with cosmetic items.. hell if wow is no 7 just from its cosmetic shop imagine how much extra they make from subs on top of that
In the top 10 money making games (and most listed here on MMORPG.com), all but ONE is sub-only (WOW).
And wow is only #7, and making less than half compared to LoL.
This pretty much shows that to make money, F2P beats P2P, and often you don't even need a virtual world.
LOL
You didn't even read the article.
"Star Wars: The Old Republicearned $139 million in additional revenues,"
See that word additional. It means in addition to subs.
All that money WoW made in this list was from people buying mounts. I wonder what the amount would be if you added their sub revenues into the totals.
The total revenue numbers are worldwide, and WoW has the equivalent of 7 million subscribers worldwide, so $1.26B in revenue from subscriptions. Box sales would be an additional amount, but not sure how much because we can't be sure how many were sold at full price and how many were sold at a discount.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
@greenreed - I'm not going to quote all that. Other people can read it if they want to. The increase in players doesn't make a corresponding increase in costs. By that I mean if an MMORPG doubles their players, they don't double their costs. Doubling the number of players doesn't double the chance that the hardware is going to breakdown either. They can add many more players without incuring a tremendous amount of cost. Something like F2P the way it's implemented in MMORPGs would break any other business, but for MMORPGs, it makes more money.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
That data seemed not very accurate. NCSoft actually release their financial report.
There is no way lineage make that much revenue from micro transaction. They dont' even make that much in total sales including subscription. And revenue != sales.
I dont' even know how they get all those data from.
They explain why it's on the chart at all and where the money came from....read it.
I'm not sure where you want me to read. Base on the NCsoft financial report. The 257$ million consist of both subscription and microtransaction. But the list state it only consist of microtransaction revenue.
You don't think that's wrong?
That's why I question the accuracy of the chart. They didn't even quote or state where their information come from.
Just because a random internet website states some number dont' mean you actually need to believe it.
So OP this clearly shows that its actually best to have a sub based game plus a shop with cosmetic items.. hell if wow is no 7 just from its cosmetic shop imagine how much extra they make from subs on top of that
WoW also has a player base of 7 million players to milk that from. Any lesser game would probably see a harsher backlash to a subscription with a cash shop on top.
The average MMO might see backlash for mandatory subscription + backlash but I think the model of optional subscription with bonuses like increased XP gain and monthly cash shop tokens is a good one to have.
Comments
Candy Crush makes a ton of money also.... gross.
I think it's been obvious for sometime that on average F2P games make more per player than sub game do.
What I don't understand is why we as consumers would be celebrating a trend that results in us paying significantly more for the same products sub games gave us a few years ago? I can see why the investors would be happy but not those of us who actually play the games.
This. And the reality is they arent delivering anywhere CLOSE to the same product as before.
What i find even more hilarious is that so many of the people on this site are so keen to be "right" and to show those old school P2P fans how dumb they are, that they're basically doing the equivalent of giving handies to IRS agents that just auditted them and took their house and car... just so they can be right.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
And what the mules love to loathe.
Currently playing: Eldevin Online as a Deadly Assassin
That's true. The average major MMO being released in 2013/2014 is nowhere close to the average MMO being released ten years ago. It's a far, far more complete and polished product. Take the exact same games that released back then, release them in the present instead with no changes other than graphical upgrades to match today's games, and they would have be lucky to generate enough player support to justify a freemium conversion before getting shut down. (Note, I'm not saying do that in a reality where they have still existed for ten years, I'm saying where they were released now instead of then.)
Release day WoW is a joke of a game compared to most of the betas I have seen in the last several years, let alone what the games look like at release, and when it came out everything else was a joke compared to it.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
I guess that's a matter of opinion. What's one mans "complete and polished product" is another's shallow excuse for a multiplayer game that is more designed around sucking as much money out of you as quickly as possible before you move on rather than providing a deep enriching world that invites you to spend thousands of hours in. My play time in EQ2 is measured in thousands of hours but I can't manage 40 on average from the newer crop of MMO's. SWTOR and TSW where the last ones that I put any significant time into and that was more for the single player story than the multiplayer elements.
There are a lot of reasons for that but one of the big ones is the dynamics that F2P has created in this market.
People aren't smart, they are sheep. Give them unemployment, reality TV, Mcdonalds and a F2P game you have a human ATM to cash out on.
Currently playing: Eldevin Online as a Deadly Assassin
I don't like F2P because your selling gameplay instead of playing gameplay. Each item in the cash shop only is one less thing you can do in game.
Also, I am curious to those numbers how many are actually MMORPG's to make an comparison. I think using candy crush is kind of silly because those games could never be sold as a sub anyways.
Here's the thing a lot of "old school" people seem to either ignore or fail to grasp; there are two primary reasons that big companies keep releasing tightly focused, linear experiences instead of the "deep enriching world" games you pine for, and neither one of them can be blamed on the existence of F2P. The first is that even the "failures" (they actually aren't but "old school" people often say they are) amongst the "WoW clones" (again, they really aren't) tend to do much better financially than games that attempt to create deep worlds, and companies have noticed. The second is that we have yet to have a single company actually do a decent job of creating a "deep enriching world" game that actually was deep and enriching rather than simply large.
If you want the industry as a whole to move in a different direction, first you need a developer to actually show that it is a direction that there is a big enough market to justify moving in. And trying to equate the linear themepark vs. living world debate to the subscription vs. cash shop discussion is just ridiculous. They can find a way to monetize anything in a cash shop.
If somebody actually shows there is a big enough audience for the thousands of hours deep world, there will be games with F2P or hybrid models that attempt to capitalize on it. Hell, if it delivers on even half of it's promises, the first is already being made (first two depending on how you look at it) with Next and Landmark.
That actually isn't accurate. Even in the worst cash shops, most of the content is stuff that had never been offered outside the cash shop, and which the developers wouldn't have bothered working on at all if it weren't going to be sold in the cash shop.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
Do people even realize how silly these comparisons are without taking things like "how many games are in each category?", "how much budget was spent to make those games?", "how long are the games running and thus had time to recoup their costs?", "what percentage of the revenue remains as profit?", etc., etc.
Not to mention this is not a race in the first place and different payment methods work for different games. It's a way too complex subject for simple "mine is bigger than yours" comparisons.
No method is better than the other unless you are talking about one specific game and have detailed inside information on it's budgeting, target audience, etc. in order to say which fits best in that specific case.
What do we discuss next? "The global potato market exceeds the size of the global Maserati market and thus potatoes are clearly better than Maseratis"?
LOL
You didn't even read the article.
"Star Wars: The Old Republic earned $139 million in additional revenues,"
See that word additional. It means in addition to subs.
All that money WoW made in this list was from people buying mounts. I wonder what the amount would be if you added their sub revenues into the totals.
So, games that make all their money from cash shops, make more money from the cash shop, than sub games. Got it.
I also heard IHOP sells more pancakes than Burger King per location. Crazy, isn't it?!
F2P games have to "average" their numbers over long period of times, because at any one point in time, they could be less than, equal to, or greater than sub based MMOs.
Your "big point" about WoW (and SW:TOR) is unfounded as, per your own cited study:
from the "Notes" listed at the bottom of your wondrous graph:
"Top 10 PC Titles based on world wide, free to play earnings for 2013. World of Warcraft and Star Wars: The Old Republic are PRIMARILY subscription based games, but also generate revenue through the sale of micro-transactions."
NOT included in your "definitive wonder chart" are the actual numbers gained through subscriptions.
Next attempt, please.
Why do you insist on trying to prove a business model you do not even financially support is "the best ever!" model?
- 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
Wanted to pick out some of the important points from greengreen's great post:
"If your company never replaces hardware, pays for bandwidth, or don't utilize support staff then yes, you are making more money." - It is this sort of cheapskate development that so many F2P games favour.
"Then there is the topic of content. Do you want future development to be spent on building the game around a cash shop or the integrity of the game. Instead of only employing game developers you now want psychologists, economists, and marketers in greater number with a F2P game because you have turned yourself into a retail shop..." - This really hits the nail on the head, this is what MMOs have become using a F2P revenue model.
"What made around 5 million people leave F2P games in one single month and why isn't it as big a topic to them as WOW "bleeding" subscribers as they word it while the WOW users were lost over about a year and this happened in one MONTH." - You follow the story in any form of journalism, facts are secondary. The big story for some years now has been WoW losing subs. As you point out, 5 million players "bleeding" from F2P MMOs in one month points to the issues with F2P.
"Spending also went way down for F2P games at a larger percentage than sub games. They need to get to the heart of that because if it's a downward slope that spells trouble." - As if players were not getting fed up of half baked F2P games as it is, that shows it can only get worse. No doubt though, one of our F2P lovers on here will come on to tell us how investing less in a game makes it a better game.
So OP this clearly shows that its actually best to have a sub based game plus a shop with cosmetic items.. hell if wow is no 7 just from its cosmetic shop imagine how much extra they make from subs on top of that
The total revenue numbers are worldwide, and WoW has the equivalent of 7 million subscribers worldwide, so $1.26B in revenue from subscriptions. Box sales would be an additional amount, but not sure how much because we can't be sure how many were sold at full price and how many were sold at a discount.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
@greenreed - I'm not going to quote all that. Other people can read it if they want to. The increase in players doesn't make a corresponding increase in costs. By that I mean if an MMORPG doubles their players, they don't double their costs. Doubling the number of players doesn't double the chance that the hardware is going to breakdown either. They can add many more players without incuring a tremendous amount of cost. Something like F2P the way it's implemented in MMORPGs would break any other business, but for MMORPGs, it makes more money.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I'm not sure where you want me to read. Base on the NCsoft financial report. The 257$ million consist of both subscription and microtransaction. But the list state it only consist of microtransaction revenue.
You don't think that's wrong?
That's why I question the accuracy of the chart. They didn't even quote or state where their information come from.
Just because a random internet website states some number dont' mean you actually need to believe it.
WoW also has a player base of 7 million players to milk that from. Any lesser game would probably see a harsher backlash to a subscription with a cash shop on top.
Currently playing: Eldevin Online as a Deadly Assassin