Quitting because of blatant cash grab and p2w features. What now though?

Pratt2112 · November 2014

Originally posted by DMKano

The days of players sticking with a single MMO for a long time are gone.

How would you run a profitable MMO where on average player stays for no more than 6 weeks?

Subscription won't work - do you have a better solution? I'd love to hear it.

Err, I think you're kinda out in the weeds here, DM.

First, people absolutely do stick with MMOs for the long run. There are people still playing many MMOs they started years ago - despite the flood of new titles available. Any time I return to MMOs I've started in the last 5-6 years or so, I see people, familiar names, known and unknown, in-game and on forums, who started at launch, or before, and are still playing.

People who tend to hop from one MMO to another - when you follow the discussions - are often/typically folks who are looking for a place to call "home", but haven't found it yet. They go to a new, promising looking title - what they hope will be "the one" - only to find it's not what they'd thought/hoped. They move on to the next title that shows some promise. Many times I see people lamenting the fact that there's no titles coming out that draw them in and keep them hooked. They want that... they just can't seem to find it, because so many new releases keep drawing on the same over-used and dragged out designs.

Also, there's the people who rush through all the content in a given MMO, get bored, and move on to the next. The so-called 'content locusts'. No MMO, present or past, would hold them purely because of their playstyle. They don't play for the long-term.

As for subscriptions no longer being enough, which you touched on in a previous post... Again, you make a claim that plainly is not borne out by the evidence.

WoW, FFXI, FFXIV, DAoC, Eve and ESO (and I'm sure some I'm forgetting) are all sub-based games. Wildstar is a sub-based MMO, though it may end up going F2P, if reports of how poorly it's doing are accurate. They have vanity cash shop items, but the games are not, in any way, driven by them. Subs are the bread and butter. Those games aren't getting by on one-time mount purchases, etc.

People will pay a sub if they find the game provides enough entertainment to warrant it. This has been proven time and again. John Smedley stated, back before SWTOR's launch, that it would be the last AAA MMO to launch with a subscription. That F2P was the future. He was wrong. Lo and behold, SOE has since reintegrated a sort of "Station Pass"-like subscription system into their games now.

There absolutely is a place for subscriptions. Those MMOs that provide an experience worthy of it to enough people will continue to be sub-based. Those that can't, will either go offline, or will switch to F2P/Cash Shop. The revenue isn't the problem in those cases. The games are. A MMO that's dying as a sub-based MMO doesn't suddenly become a better game when it goes F2P. People are just more willing to overlook all of its flaws when it doesn't cost them anything to play it.

A perfect, and very recent example... FFXIV 1.0 failed as a sub-based MMO because it just wasn't good enough to enough people to warrant or maintain a subscription. However, Realm Reborn is doing awesome as a sub-based MMO because it is good enough to enough people to pay the monthly fee.

The dearth of sub-based MMOs owes more to a lack of games worthy of one, than it does to any kind of "obsolescence" of the revenue model. Subs work just fine, if the game is worth it.

RemyVorender · November 2014

Originally posted by DMKano

Never let a monetization model ruin the game for you.

Too late.

GeezerGamer · November 2014

DMKano is Trion? Really?

Come on guys. DMKano may be a fanboy, but I don't believe he's Trion, or he'd have been pushing Rift and Defiance as hard as he's pushing AA.

I can't believe this topic seeped into this thread.

Just take his posts for what he's actually stated, but please don't Ad-Hom him for stuff he hasn't. That doesn't accomplish anything.

Gwahlur · November 2014

I believe I started this trend when I called him out on crossposting a post, here and on a new account on the official AA forums. I didn't really mean or want for it to become a big thing, I was just really unsure what his motivations for that was as it seemed very dishonest and fishy to me.

Edit: And that lead me down a pretty intriguing train of thought, here (replace Kano with "random guy working for a company getting hired to hype or bash mmos etc")... I found it funny at least:

Originally posted by Gwahlur
Originally posted by Iselin
Originally posted by Gwahlur
Originally posted by grimal
Originally posted by Gwahlur
Originally posted by DMKano

I hope he realizes that all game companies have direct contacts at FBI due to recent DDOS attacks - so good luck hiding behind proxies lol.

You're so extremely fishy Kano... Why'd you have to make a new account on the AA forums to post this same thing? http://forums.archeagegame.com/showthread.php?114483-I-caused-the-Kyrios-Naima-crash-sorry-please-read-Trion&p=1096821&viewfull=1#post1096821

Makes me wonder: Are you working freelance or are there actually companies out there taking jobs praising or bashing mmo's? You've certainly done your fair share of bashing other games in the past, and your praise for AA reaches unreal levels

What you've described is social marketing. And yes it happens on this site too.

So that's a business in itself these days?

What do you mean "these days?" http://www.marketing-schools.org/types-of-marketing/stealth-marketing.html

I wonder how the part of the internet that discusses Kano's business looks... Does the competition hire other people again to bash or hype themselves up, or do they do it themselves? :P

Do you hire other Kano's to advertise for yourself Kano, or how does it work?

donjuanagain · November 2014

I will always remain baffled as to why people come on these forums and announce they are quitting a game. No one cares you arent playing anymore or why.

JDis25 · November 2014

In AA's case, they made TS trees and Archaeum have crappy drops and then put them in the cash shop, the end result being a ton of people saying "YAY! We get cheap TS trees and Archaeum now! The old rarity of them sucked!" without realizing that Trion engineered the old rarity of them in the first place.

For any MMO where the only P2W is illegal (like, for example, WoW where you can buy characters from others against the games' ToS), the company is NOT encouraged to purposefully make parts of their game unfun for the sake of profit. End result is the grind isn't nearly as horrendous for many things, as opposed to Archeage where there's a decent chance Trion purposefully made many parts of the economy so hellacious to the point where many beat-down player base screamed "HOORAY!" when those items were then added to the cash shop to bypass it. It's analogous to someone whipping someone else over and over, then saying "Pay me or get this other guy to pay me (since cash shop items are tradeable) $20 bucks and I'll stop whipping you" and the whippee saying "THANK YOU!!!!"

Again, a game where the monetization does not involve legalized P2W does not encourage the company to do that, whereas a game that does have monetization involved... well, does.

Trion engineered the original rarity of TS trees.. you don't say?

Anyway. I see where you are coming from, but you can't say all F2P Cash shops are bad, nor can you say all sub games are "fair". Rift and Aion have very fair and generous cash shop, free to play models. ESO has poorly designed Veteran Ranks to have you waste time to pay a subscription. World of Warcraft charges full price for Expansions on top of paying a subscription...Every game is Pay to Win. Pay to Play therefore Pay to Win. I like being able to open a game up and not have to pay the $15 sub fee just to log in... I like asking my friends to try a game, it's free so it's easy to recommend.

[Deleted User] · November 2014

The user and all related content has been deleted.

boxsnd · November 2014

Now you realize that we are just not the target audience any more.

Zalmon · November 2014

Originally posted by DMKano

Because looking at games only from players point of view misses most of the picture. To understand games and all that goes into making them to hosting them to making money from them - you have to talk to the folks working in the industry to get the full picture.

Because that view is missing in almost all discussions - the idea that game devs are "greedy bastards" or that dev studios are driven by "cash grab schemes" is something that is reflected in many posts on game forums - it sadly has very little to do with reality when it comes to people who work for game companies.

Again nothing I say can change these stereotypes - I am simply going to share what I know is true from my conversations with various folks in the gaming industry.

So you are saying that it is 'fact' that gaming devs / companies are not greedy because you happened to talk to some people in gaming industry? that is a very weak argument. The monetization happens at very high level not by a game developer. So unless you have talked to the 'big guy' (and not just one but several of them in all major gaming companies) who makes all the decisions your opinion is as worthless as anyone's else opinion.

Simply saying 'i talked to someone in gaming company' doesn't stand for anything neither does it give any kind of credibility to your opinion since you are clearly trying to one up everyone else with your use of 'i know game devs' line.

Distopia · November 2014

Originally posted by DMKano

What's dishonest would be ignoring the fact that this happens in all games.

How is this relevant to this discussion outside of devs make money off it themselves now? As the principles of the matter are what's in question here, not how much money is being generated. They put that stuff into the game, so rather than it being a badge of dishonor as it was in the past...it's a regular aspect of game-play. The argument you're presenting misses the forest for the trees. Seemingly purposefully by design. It's a side step away from the issue in question, the fact that it's dev sanctioned just makes it that much worse, far worse than it ever was before.

[Deleted User] · November 2014

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Thestrain · November 2014

Originally posted by DMKano

Opinions - you have yours.

I have mine.

Let the mods sort out the rest

Yes when you can not win an argument report the post and involve moderators. Works every time.

AmbrosiaAmor · November 2014

Originally posted by greenreen
Originally posted by DMKano
Originally posted by grimal
Originally posted by DMKano

The days of players sticking with a single MMO for a long time are gone.

How would you run a profitable MMO where on average player stays for no more than 6 weeks?

Subscription won't work - do you have a better solution? I'd love to hear it.

You seem to always be coming from a developer/publisher standpoint and I think this is where a lot of the disconnect happens in your conversations with others.

Because looking at games only from players point of view misses most of the picture. To understand games and all that goes into making them to hosting them to making money from them - you have to talk to the folks working in the industry to get the full picture.

Can you not switch hats and see if from a consumer point of view or is the publisher/developer mindset so ingrained that you can't see this?

I always look at things from both perspective - but again the forums are almost always just paining a picture from gamers perspective, which misses a lot of key areas. It's also terribly biased against game developers who are often portrayed as ignorant greedy bastards incapable of making any good decisions.

After all, the site is mostly made up of players and consumers of the game. As a developer or producer, you can argue that cash shop is the most brilliant money-making scheme in the world and try to convince others that what you or the game is selling is not P2W, but the general consensus is not much of us are buying it. Why such the hard sell? Are you trying to convince yourself or others here?

Convincing anyone on these forums is impossible - I have zero desire to convince anyone of anything. People will believe what they want regardless of what facts or evidence shown. A lot of this has to do with biases and stereotypes overriding logic and common sense.

You've made it clear you have many friends in the MMORPG industry. You've made it clear you have been playing this game for years with a solid group of friends (I'm assuming from your workplace?...is this an MMO company?) so I understand you are heavily invested in the game. But what you haven't made clear is why you keep coming back to us with a developer/publisher view on things.

Because that view is missing in almost all discussions - the idea that game devs are "greedy bastards" or that dev studios are driven by "cash grab schemes" is something that is reflected in many posts on game forums - it sadly has very little to do with reality when it comes to people who work for game companies.

Again nothing I say can change these stereotypes - I am simply going to share what I know is true from my conversations with various folks in the gaming industry.

Hey so now we are dropping names and saying who knows more?

I've had plenty of conversations with Indie developers. Hell even a triple A game dev took me aside in a forum and started private convos and asked me my ideas on how the class I was playing could be better. I never told them anything about any interest in game development, instead it was because I wrote good class guides and became a voice for "the people". Not every developer out there sees gamers and game providers as "us vs them" like you are implying.

You aren't the only person to have talked to people in an industry but you are the one showing an intense bias sometimes. All people are asking is that you act in Rome as a Roman or offer full disclosure on topics near to you that you have a foot in the race.

Some developers are greedy and they will continue to be - to say things like that aren't true is what's wrong with your retorts. You can't discount truths and expect to not seem shady.

Gamasutra also has devs on their boards and they are never apologetic for making money but many of them admit they don't like monetization games and where it's all gone. Your opinion that free to play is the best thing since sliced bread isn't the only one in the industry.

So here on MMORPG.com you think that you should school us all on what it's like to be a developer and downgrade people's realistic, logical, thoughts about what they expect from a game and what they expect it to cost - in time, energy, patience, and funds. It's unreasonable to think that your opinion (no matter who you know) is any more valuable than anyone else posting in this forum. You may have friends here who will speak up for you and protect you and who like you but we are all supposed to be subject to the same rules.

While not an MMO, do we need to be reminded that the Kardashian game makes over 1/2 million dollars a DAY. Not a week, not a month, a DAY.

Just put it in your signature that you work for a development company and get it over with if you are owning it. They like you here - ask them for a custom title - they give them to other people they like.

You post too often to make it believable that you are just trying to communicate. The intensity of the battles you have make it seem extremely personal to you to win them and that does mean that ... you are trying to change minds. I think people are just telling you, we don't need you to tell us what opinion to have. You may as well be calling us all slack-jawed yokels.

No one could possibly understand the people who they have been around and cheered up during server down-times late at night waiting for the game to come back online. No one could possibly understand what it's like to program or deal with customers when every 3rd person I meet in an MMO works in IT. No one could possibly understand the unique lives these gods among men are making video games because it's a "higher" form of IT work - somehow nothing like any other. We just couldn't fathom their undying commitment to their art because we have only stuck by them for x years supporting them.

They are humans like all of us and some are bad, some good, some giving and some out for themselves.

And if some of us choose to see the scum as scummy and tell other gamers, you shouldn't worry about wiping up their scum unless you are scummy too. I don't aplologize for bad Web Developers around the world, I say they exist ! I've said it on this very site.

I can't name a time I saw an Archeage thread without you in it defending it. I don't remember you that voracious around the ESO beta time but I recall your nickname around there.

Excellent post.

Thestrain · November 2014

Originally posted by AmbrosiaAmor
Originally posted by greenreen
Originally posted by DMKano
Originally posted by grimal
Originally posted by DMKano

The days of players sticking with a single MMO for a long time are gone.

How would you run a profitable MMO where on average player stays for no more than 6 weeks?

Subscription won't work - do you have a better solution? I'd love to hear it.

You seem to always be coming from a developer/publisher standpoint and I think this is where a lot of the disconnect happens in your conversations with others.

Because looking at games only from players point of view misses most of the picture. To understand games and all that goes into making them to hosting them to making money from them - you have to talk to the folks working in the industry to get the full picture.

Can you not switch hats and see if from a consumer point of view or is the publisher/developer mindset so ingrained that you can't see this?

I always look at things from both perspective - but again the forums are almost always just paining a picture from gamers perspective, which misses a lot of key areas. It's also terribly biased against game developers who are often portrayed as ignorant greedy bastards incapable of making any good decisions.

After all, the site is mostly made up of players and consumers of the game. As a developer or producer, you can argue that cash shop is the most brilliant money-making scheme in the world and try to convince others that what you or the game is selling is not P2W, but the general consensus is not much of us are buying it. Why such the hard sell? Are you trying to convince yourself or others here?

Convincing anyone on these forums is impossible - I have zero desire to convince anyone of anything. People will believe what they want regardless of what facts or evidence shown. A lot of this has to do with biases and stereotypes overriding logic and common sense.

You've made it clear you have many friends in the MMORPG industry. You've made it clear you have been playing this game for years with a solid group of friends (I'm assuming from your workplace?...is this an MMO company?) so I understand you are heavily invested in the game. But what you haven't made clear is why you keep coming back to us with a developer/publisher view on things.

Because that view is missing in almost all discussions - the idea that game devs are "greedy bastards" or that dev studios are driven by "cash grab schemes" is something that is reflected in many posts on game forums - it sadly has very little to do with reality when it comes to people who work for game companies.

Again nothing I say can change these stereotypes - I am simply going to share what I know is true from my conversations with various folks in the gaming industry.

Hey so now we are dropping names and saying who knows more?

I've had plenty of conversations with Indie developers. Hell even a triple A game dev took me aside in a forum and started private convos and asked me my ideas on how the class I was playing could be better. I never told them anything about any interest in game development, instead it was because I wrote good class guides and became a voice for "the people". Not every developer out there sees gamers and game providers as "us vs them" like you are implying.

You aren't the only person to have talked to people in an industry but you are the one showing an intense bias sometimes. All people are asking is that you act in Rome as a Roman or offer full disclosure on topics near to you that you have a foot in the race.

Some developers are greedy and they will continue to be - to say things like that aren't true is what's wrong with your retorts. You can't discount truths and expect to not seem shady.

Gamasutra also has devs on their boards and they are never apologetic for making money but many of them admit they don't like monetization games and where it's all gone. Your opinion that free to play is the best thing since sliced bread isn't the only one in the industry.

So here on MMORPG.com you think that you should school us all on what it's like to be a developer and downgrade people's realistic, logical, thoughts about what they expect from a game and what they expect it to cost - in time, energy, patience, and funds. It's unreasonable to think that your opinion (no matter who you know) is any more valuable than anyone else posting in this forum. You may have friends here who will speak up for you and protect you and who like you but we are all supposed to be subject to the same rules.

While not an MMO, do we need to be reminded that the Kardashian game makes over 1/2 million dollars a DAY. Not a week, not a month, a DAY.

Just put it in your signature that you work for a development company and get it over with if you are owning it. They like you here - ask them for a custom title - they give them to other people they like.

You post too often to make it believable that you are just trying to communicate. The intensity of the battles you have make it seem extremely personal to you to win them and that does mean that ... you are trying to change minds. I think people are just telling you, we don't need you to tell us what opinion to have. You may as well be calling us all slack-jawed yokels.

No one could possibly understand the people who they have been around and cheered up during server down-times late at night waiting for the game to come back online. No one could possibly understand what it's like to program or deal with customers when every 3rd person I meet in an MMO works in IT. No one could possibly understand the unique lives these gods among men are making video games because it's a "higher" form of IT work - somehow nothing like any other. We just couldn't fathom their undying commitment to their art because we have only stuck by them for x years supporting them.

They are humans like all of us and some are bad, some good, some giving and some out for themselves.

And if some of us choose to see the scum as scummy and tell other gamers, you shouldn't worry about wiping up their scum unless you are scummy too. I don't aplologize for bad Web Developers around the world, I say they exist ! I've said it on this very site.

I can't name a time I saw an Archeage thread without you in it defending it. I don't remember you that voracious around the ESO beta time but I recall your nickname around there.

Excellent post.

Indeed..one of the best responses.

Iselin · November 2014

Originally posted by Gwahlur
I believe I started this trend when I called him out on crossposting a post, here and on a new account on the official AA forums. I didn't really mean or want for it to become a big thing, I was just really unsure what his motivations for that was as it seemed very dishonest and fishy to me.

Edit: And that lead me down a pretty intriguing train of thought, here (replace Kano with "random guy working for a company getting hired to hype or bash mmos etc")... I found it funny at least:

Originally posted by Gwahlur
Originally posted by Iselin
Originally posted by Gwahlur
Originally posted by grimal
Originally posted by Gwahlur
Originally posted by DMKano

I hope he realizes that all game companies have direct contacts at FBI due to recent DDOS attacks - so good luck hiding behind proxies lol.

You're so extremely fishy Kano... Why'd you have to make a new account on the AA forums to post this same thing? http://forums.archeagegame.com/showthread.php?114483-I-caused-the-Kyrios-Naima-crash-sorry-please-read-Trion&p=1096821&viewfull=1#post1096821

Makes me wonder: Are you working freelance or are there actually companies out there taking jobs praising or bashing mmo's? You've certainly done your fair share of bashing other games in the past, and your praise for AA reaches unreal levels

What you've described is social marketing. And yes it happens on this site too.

So that's a business in itself these days?

What do you mean "these days?" http://www.marketing-schools.org/types-of-marketing/stealth-marketing.html

I wonder how the part of the internet that discusses Kano's business looks... Does the competition hire other people again to bash or hype themselves up, or do they do it themselves? :P

Do you hire other Kano's to advertise for yourself Kano, or how does it work?

An equally or perhaps much more likely explanation for the similarity is that someone saw his post here, thought it was a good point and parroted it there.

I've seen things I posted here in the ESO forum posted at the Tamriel Foundry by someone else as their original thought several times.

PS. And no, you didn't start it. Many others have been throwing the Trion Shill thing at him in this forum for quite a while... just like they do in all other forums here at anyone who always puts a positive spin on what a game or developer does.

Howdy, Stranger!

Quitting because of blatant cash grab and p2w features. What now though?

Comments

Howdy, Stranger!

Quick Links

Quitting because of blatant cash grab and p2w features. What now though?

Comments