Originally posted by nariusseldon

LOL .. you and your friends. You have NO IDEA what statistiscs means. Aion has an impact is NOT an opinion. It is numbers.

Here it is:

http://www.examiner.com/x-20129-Denver-Games--Gear-Examiner~y2009m9d14-Aion-catching-up-to-WoW-35-million-subscribers-in-Asia-countries-so-far

It has 3.5M subscribers in Asia. That is 10x Eve numbers. And we haven't even count the US YET.

 

First of all the 3.5M is unconfirmed.

Second of all even if Aion have 3.5M subscriber 5 month ago with it's first release in China, you don't know how many they have now. 

This is a bit offtopic though.

Originally posted by elderotter

Originally posted by KarmaCry7

P2P vs F2P. Who will win?

The main difference between a F2P business model and a P2P game business model is the ethics, not the price. Casual gamers do not mind paying to advance in a game while more dedicated gamers tend to feel as if paying to advance in a game is a form of cheating and robs the entire game and community of fair play.

We all should know by now that there is no true free to play mmo. Every company has to have a way to make money from their games, we all know this by now. How a company chooses to get paid is a growing debate among gamers. Every player wouldn't mind paying to play a game provided it gives them what they want regardless if they have to pay up front or by micro transactions. The main difference between a F2P and a P2P mmo is how you pay, not if you pay.

Free to play gaming was designed to encourage you to spend to advance your progress while Pay to Play games are designed for you to spend to extend your game time. Most P2P games are subscription based. If the content, quality of design and fun factor isn't fully there, players leave the game and the company loses money. For this reason alone, P2P companies spend more money and time relentlessly trying to keep you interested in their product. F2P games aren't bent on your loyalty. These companies understand that the game is free, there are other free game options out there for you to jump from game to game from. F2P games usually limits your ability to enjoy the entire experience at one point so when you can not level the same as platinum members, you realize that you can either leave the game or buy some helpful items. If you decide to stay, they make a crazy amount of money off of the players that must have to buy the best gear to advance. If you leave after spending $200 with them, it's cool, they have your money already.

A F2P game wants your money now, a P2P game needs your money later. For this reason, companies that make P2P games will always fight to keep their customers happy this is why you see better quality P2P mmos. They have a lot more to lose and because they believe in making a great mmo, they will always continue to make sacrifices even when things aren't going well for them just to make a better experience for the players. There is a LOT of honor in this but unfortunately it doesn't always pay off for the company.

Some players do not care about paying to advance in a game but do not understand that they are also feeding the greed and not the innovation of F2P companies. Some gamers hate the idea of paying to advance in a game and wouldn't touch a F2P game even if it were of the highest quality. To them, the community wouldn't seem authentic as paying to advance is considered a form of "cheating."

Over the years, we've seen some real strides to improve F2P games but the same system will never change the opinions of dedicated gamers who believe that paying to advance is a rip off to the entire gaming industry. Because no game is ever really F2P, companies will always struggle with trying to find new ways to entice players to play their game while getting you to spend money with their company. When you see a PLAY FOR FREE advertisement, replace it with, Item Mall, Cash Shop or Micro Transactions instead as that's exactly what it really means. Players should get used to the idea that nothing good in entertainment is free and NEVER will be. You have to give something back to the developers that worked so hard to produce the games you love or you will not be able to play these games as they cost lots of money to produce and even more to maintain. How you give back will continue to shape and mold the gaming industry and the quality of games you want to see.

At the end of the day, what kind of gamer are you really? This will determine the future of mmos as every company is at the mercy of the majority. State your opinions and input.

 

well, for me, eventually the winner will be:  The single player game companies.  Unless a mmo game comes out that will hit me so much that I never want to play another.  I have hopes for TSW and The white wolf game that CCP is supposedly working on, but I am getting older and it is a countdown now to see if those games come out while I still want to play. 
 

I have no problem playing single player games, and since most stratgy games, which I love, are single player or limited multi-player, I will always have games to play while waiting for the "Perfect" MMO.  The closest to a "Perfect" game so far, in my opinion, is EVE.  My problem with EVE is that it makes me so competitive that my friends want to kick my posterior.  So I don't play it(friends are more important than games,lol).

I almost missed this one. I also believe that there is a growing demand for single player RPGs but I don't believe it will hinder mmos f2p or p2p. Regardless of my own opinions, I haven't heard anything to lead me to believe f2p will win over p2p.
 

P2P is more favorable for developers, a steady income where you can calculate your revenue, is much more interesting for investors and stockholders (if it's a big developer/publisher who is registered on the stock market).

F2P is much more of a grey zone, sure you could calculate, that from all the players maybe 10% will invest more then XX amount of money but it's only a estimation.

Both have their place on the market, we may see more of a fusion but that really depends on the success on pioneer games that already use this kind of model. Right now, i don't want too say they do a pretty good job.

There is a market for both f2p and p2p mmorpg.  Both is big enough you can't really say who wins.

I don't think any of them will win.

The game that will win in the long run is Guildwars 2. 1 payment and you can play the game as long as you want, that is the future of gaming. More money is something youll get from expansions, that worked fine in the original Guildwars.

Bandwidth is getting cheaper all the time and you don't pat monthly fees to plat a FPS or a RTS on the net either.

It was very close that Wow would have used this system too, it lead in the end to that the leading team quit Blizzard.

The fee for a MMO might be twice the amount of another game but I think this will win in the end anyways. I don't see how the rest can get away with monthly fees when someone actually releases a high quality MMO (GW was more of a hybrid game than true MMO and made with a low budget, this is a full blown game in a permanent world).

Of course I could be wrong and SOEs idea with both monthly fees and cash-shops could be the future instead...

I think that at this time it is clear that going forward, any game that limits itself to either F2P or P2P will be the loser. The games that will do best will be the games that offer multiple options for revenue....

---

Originally posted by Loke666
I don't think any of them will win.
The game that will win in the long run is Guildwars 2. 1 payment and you can play the game as long as you want, that is the future of gaming. More money is something youll get from expansions, that worked fine in the original Guildwars.
Bandwidth is getting cheaper all the time and you don't pat monthly fees to plat a FPS or a RTS on the net either.
It was very close that Wow would have used this system too, it lead in the end to that the leading team quit Blizzard.
The fee for a MMO might be twice the amount of another game but I think this will win in the end anyways. I don't see how the rest can get away with monthly fees when someone actually releases a high quality MMO (GW was more of a hybrid game than true MMO and made with a low budget, this is a full blown game in a permanent world).
Of course I could be wrong and SOEs idea with both monthly fees and cash-shops could be the future instead...

---

I am pretty sure they didn't release anything about the actual payment method of GW2. If they did, could you provide a link to the news? Anything else is pure speculation, i don't like the GW business model.

Originally posted by Loke666

I don't think any of them will win.

The game that will win in the long run is Guildwars 2. 1 payment and you can play the game as long as you want, that is the future of gaming. More money is something youll get from expansions, that worked fine in the original Guildwars.

Bandwidth is getting cheaper all the time and you don't pat monthly fees to plat a FPS or a RTS on the net either.

It was very close that Wow would have used this system too, it lead in the end to that the leading team quit Blizzard.

The fee for a MMO might be twice the amount of another game but I think this will win in the end anyways. I don't see how the rest can get away with monthly fees when someone actually releases a high quality MMO (GW was more of a hybrid game than true MMO and made with a low budget, this is a full blown game in a permanent world).

Of course I could be wrong and SOEs idea with both monthly fees and cash-shops could be the future instead...

Good point! I have notice in some games there testing the water sort of speak..F2p with item mall and P2P all in the same game..It is a choice a player can have..And your right it could be both fees...

I disagree with hybrid models. A susbscription becomes easy mode if someone playing for free can access all content. RMT turns games into wallet races, which hurts both subscribers and people who dont pay. People playing for free, as well as subscribers who dont engage in RMT, are subjected to social stigma.

F2p is theoretically a sound idea (like comunism) but near imposible to execute. Sales and events allow developers to radically alter balance and will, in the end, almost always benefit big spenders. Periodically changing the games rules effectively destroys the concept of an even playing field and shatters any prospect of a long standing comynity.

Everyone with long term experience playing an f2p knows people quitting en masse every two or three months is a common experience. The day an example is brought to me of an f2p game whose management showed restraint and treated ALL of its customers fairly for a sustained period of time, i may revisit my opinion. The concept of p2p with RMT esentially turns subscribers into the equivalent of "free"players... which is the reason ill never touch EVE despite its virtues. DDOs model makes progression meaningless as it turns any benchmarks that could be used to gauge it useless.

These models however are very sound from a bussiness perspective, as is the case with bottled water...

Originally posted by -aLpHa-

 

---

Originally posted by Loke666
I don't think any of them will win.
The game that will win in the long run is Guildwars 2. 1 payment and you can play the game as long as you want, that is the future of gaming. More money is something youll get from expansions, that worked fine in the original Guildwars.
Bandwidth is getting cheaper all the time and you don't pat monthly fees to plat a FPS or a RTS on the net either.
It was very close that Wow would have used this system too, it lead in the end to that the leading team quit Blizzard.
The fee for a MMO might be twice the amount of another game but I think this will win in the end anyways. I don't see how the rest can get away with monthly fees when someone actually releases a high quality MMO (GW was more of a hybrid game than true MMO and made with a low budget, this is a full blown game in a permanent world).
Of course I could be wrong and SOEs idea with both monthly fees and cash-shops could be the future instead...

---

 

I am pretty sure they didn't release anything about the actual payment method of GW2. If they did, could you provide a link to the news? Anything else is pure speculation, i don't like the GW business model.

I'm too lazy to find the link, but the Guild Wars 2 website clearly states in their FAQ that they are keeping the same payment model as the current Guild Wars.

I don't like that model either. If close to 20 million people are playing various MMOs with a suscription model, why on earth would you not get on that gravy train?

I briefly tried the GW trial, but in the back of my head I couldn't shake the impression of "no subscription means no future enchancements".

Even if they did $7 month, they're going to make more money than charging $20-40 one time and getting a few million players. What's more, lots of people would see themselves as getting a bona fide bargain in the process.

It reminds me of Runescape pridefully self-imposing their "must deliver in a web browser" schtick. There's no conceivable benefit to it, and there are clearly better ways to go about it.

Originally posted by -aLpHa-

 

---

Originally posted by Loke666
I don't think any of them will win.
The game that will win in the long run is Guildwars 2. 1 payment and you can play the game as long as you want, that is the future of gaming. More money is something youll get from expansions, that worked fine in the original Guildwars.
Bandwidth is getting cheaper all the time and you don't pat monthly fees to plat a FPS or a RTS on the net either.
It was very close that Wow would have used this system too, it lead in the end to that the leading team quit Blizzard.
The fee for a MMO might be twice the amount of another game but I think this will win in the end anyways. I don't see how the rest can get away with monthly fees when someone actually releases a high quality MMO (GW was more of a hybrid game than true MMO and made with a low budget, this is a full blown game in a permanent world).
Of course I could be wrong and SOEs idea with both monthly fees and cash-shops could be the future instead...

---

 

I am pretty sure they didn't release anything about the actual payment method of GW2. If they did, could you provide a link to the news? Anything else is pure speculation, i don't like the GW business model.

Try reading the official FAQ for GW2? http://www.guildwars2.com/en/faq/#five

@ Topic

No matter what, at its core the "elite" of the P2P are those with too much free time while the elite of the F2P will be those with too much spare money, and you will have a constant struggle of each to bring the other aspect more in their games, P2P with RMT (be it supported by developers like the EVE PLEXes or not, aka currency and power leveling illegal services) and F2P with the "anything purchased with money can be also be acquired with in-game efforts" card.

In the end, remember companies are in for the money and that's why you see their effort to meet the demand, even twisting their gameplay to a certain (small or great) extent.

I place my money in GW2, if their expansions/campaigns/whatever have anywhere close the amount of content and polish delivered on each one comparable to GW1 (and providing the same support), they will have my $50 even every 2 months if they wish, I'd love the utopic (because I know it's not feasible) idea of having quality content being pumped in a pace faster than I can play so there will be always something I haven't yet played.

The "free to play" word has been so exhausted that I simply disgust any game putting banners focusing in these words... usually "free to play" is the only word you'll see in the advertisement along with some sexy female character (and that does not even mean female characters are graphically like that in-game, haha).

P2P vs F2P. Who will win?

Hopefully both so that gamers who like P2P will have that option aswell as those who prefure F2P to have that option.

Realistic speaking F2P will gain more and more popularity as seen the last few years and I don't think we seen the end of it yet.

But personaly I don't want either of them to be a winner, but both just to be options for all those millions of gamers around the globe.

The problem with the OP and some other posters is that you think that there are only 2 buisness models (called P2P and F2P) and that a MMO most have 1 of them. This is far from the truth. There is alot of differnt buisness models and a MMO can use multiple payment options. And this is what we"F2P lovers" (yea I made that term up :P) want, differnt options in how we whant to pay for our game.

Yes I believe that MMOs which only offers a flat monthly subscription and make you pay $50 for the client will soon be dead. (within the next 5 years)

But there will still be alot of MMOs who still offer the traditional $15 a month just like DDO has and show to be succesfull.

There is also the option of litetime sub like LotrO and Champions have.

Personally, I don't see both models 'winning' over each other in future, because there is a market for both types of games. Granted, some of us prefer free to play games while others prefer pay to play games, but we cannot deny the fact that in both areas, there are success stories. Hence, as long as there is demand for free to play and pay to play, these types of games would continue to be developed. And I'm very happy with that, because this would certainly provide more of a choice.

At the same time, there are other business models as well, such as the buy-to-play model (my personal favourite, actually) that Guild Wars series follows, and Guild Wars still is extremely successful as well. It would be wonderful if more companies chose to follow this model as well.
 

The other model is to buy the content in small chunks.

you pay for a small part of the game, and then you buy another part and so on.

It would be like playing Aion, but not being able to leave the level 10 areas until you bought an expansion, then not being able to leave the level 15 areas till you bought another expansion and so on.

you would charge for an area what the average player could accomplish in say a month. Some people would buy expansion packs very quickly, some very slowly compared to the average.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

The other model is to buy the content in small chunks.

you pay for a small part of the game, and then you buy another part and so on.

It would be like playing Aion, but not being able to leave the level 10 areas until you bought an expansion, then not being able to leave the level 15 areas till you bought another expansion and so on.

you would charge for an area what the average player could accomplish in say a month. Some people would buy expansion packs very quickly, some very slowly compared to the average.

This doesn't sound like a bad idea at all. It leans in favor of the Guild Wars business model like stated previously but would work best if done 30 levels apart. 1st expansion level1-30 areas $19.95, 2nd expansion level 31-60 areas $29.95 etc.

Single pay to play games are on their last legs.

Only Blizzard can afford - for now - such an investement of infrastructure, programming team and content delivered.

Imagine only for the west: 596 servers and in that number not even a Chinese PC in sight.

So the future is very much FTP and COMBINED efforts.

You'll play for the service and the service  will include a global package of games to play.

For those still silly enough to think there will be one game following up WOW: you are nuts.

Just look at the fails to deliver the now fmous 500K based on western subs.

Aion is in its free to play period still and it lost already 20% activity on oversampled Xfire plays.. And don't bother to read anything about its 4th position on Xfire, because it has 4 times more Xfire players than 300K subs based EVE, which just shows the Aion samples have a 100%-150% error rate. Just have a guess where those "extra" samples come from.

---- Show me the number of realm servers a game has and I'll show you its max capacity ----

And the next 10 years will see a global package offer to play games or complete free to play things (sponsored) with optional packages to pay for.

Why do you think Blizzard is delaying SC2 until their service system is ready. They will bundle their games into global packages - partly free - partly to pay for.

But single focused P2P games have very much failed in the last 4 years.

Failed as in fail to realise the 7, 8 even 10 year old subs of past times.

F2P is winning a lot of players and (with the exception of Blizzard), it seems like P2P is done for now. Especially in such harsh economic times.

The lines will continue to blur until almost every game offers some form of RMT, some more benevolant than others.

This is my first response to the thread. I am replying to the OP and will read the thread after for further comments.

To begin, I debunk the OP's entire premise by pointing a finger at Guild Wars. There's a game that started out entirely free. All you needed to do was buy the box and have an internet connection. The game was a high quality and innovative product. Later, they introduced micro-transactions to make catching up easier for the newcomers, but they didn't introduce anything that you couldn't get ingame with some effort.

Even if this didn't debunk his entire premise, consider that F2P MMO's bring more innovative ways to customize your character (progression) than P2P MMO's. Take a look at 9 Dragons for example. You can also take a look at totally innovative MMO's, such as Shot Online, and CueOnline.

In my experience F2P MMO's don't offer you anything in the Item Shops that you can't earn for free with more time invested. So basically the complaint is that the person with money gets things faster, not that they get things unavailable to you. Then there's the F2P games that have free portions and members only portions of the game.

I think micro-transactions is the business model of the future, because casual gamers dominate the community.

Originally posted by Abrahmm

I can tell you straight up that F2P will never, EVER "win" me. If this genre is moving towards pay to win free to play, it will be a genre I am not a part of.

Then again, I haven't seen a pay to play game that was actually worth paying for come out in quite a few years, so I suppose that unless the quality of MMOs being released goes up, it won't effect me either way.

I find this point-of -view arrogant and narrow minded. Consider this: One person has a non-time consuming job, and little social life in his real life. So he is able to dedicate a lot of time in-game. He accomplishes what there is to accomplish in-game in about a month. The other person has a serious career that takes up a lot of his real life time, volunteers in his community, has a family, and other social obligations, but he has a lot of money. He cannot put forth the time ingame that the first player can, but if he pays more money than the first player, it will make up the difference. At the end of the month, he's at the same point in the game as the first player. The end result is that both players are happy, the community has more people playing, meaning more people to play with, and the company receives more revenue to further develop the game into something both gamers will want to play more of.

I see nothing wrong with RMT or micro-transactions. It all boils down to people with unhealthy gaming habits wanting an advantage over those with successful real lifes. They don't have an edge in real life, like the successful person, so they want that edge in game. It's sort of an escape from real life, a way to be successful. The problem is that games don't last forever, so any illusion of success is short lived, and that person has wasted probably 10 years of his life playing a game where he could have better spent that time improving his real life situation.

In the end, it's only a game, not a professional sport. It's nothing like a NFL football player taking steroids to get ahead, because a gamer with more time can still obtain the same things those with less time pays for.

 One year ago I installed the trial for dungeons and dragons online.  Stormreach had maybe 4 people in it and general chat was very quiet.  I did a few instances then uninstalled the game it seemed empty.

Today, the game is now F2P to a certain extent.  The game is now packed with people.  They have a marketplace where you can purchase items, armor, potions, races and game content.  There is no shortage of people compared to a year ago.

Not only that but if you use the DDO store you actually end up paying more then a subscription.  If you were to get everything you needed as a F2P player it would cost you around 40 bucks.  Also buying potions and armor you'd end up spending alot more then 15 bucks a month.

In my opinion DDO's model is the more successful at making money.  Except if you're Blizzard and  you have 11 million subscribers paying 15 bucks a month.

Originally posted by Ihmotepp

F2P means you can substitute money for time in the game. Some people think this is fair. Others think this is not fair.

P2P means there is no substitute for time in the game. ALL players must do quests and grind mobs in order to make character progress, and this cannot be avoided with money. Some players think this is fair. Others think this is not fair.

There will always be both types of players, and therefore developers will cater to both so they can get their money.

I don't play F2P games. A developer will not get any of my money in an item shop. However, I will pay 14.95 a month to play a good game. Some developers will want my 14.95 a month, that they could not get in an item shop.

Some players will not pay 14.95 a month. But they will buy items in an item shop. Some developers will want the item shop money they could not get with a monthly sub.

What's the difference between paying $15/mo as a sub and $15/mo in item shops?

You can add me to the list of won't play F2P games but will play P2P. Item malls disgust me and I don't happen to be a cheap person. So I have no problem paying a sub each month for better quality and for a game where people can't shortcut their way to the top with a little bit of money.

The same goes for all games though, I have no problem going out and buying an FPS game. But I won't waste even a minute of my time on the F2P crap FPS games that exist on the net.

It's just another aspect that cheap America (yes I'm american) is ruining. Just like wanting everything cheap so people shop at Walmart and drive all the manufaturing jobs out of America and then sit there wondering why the economy collapsed. In another decade people will sit there wondering what happened to the MMO market without realizing it had everything to do with people being cheap.

Originally posted by nate1980

This is my first response to the thread. I am replying to the OP and will read the thread after for further comments.

To begin, I debunk the OP's entire premise by pointing a finger at Guild Wars. There's a game that started out entirely free. All you needed to do was buy the box and have an internet connection. The game was a high quality and innovative product. Later, they introduced micro-transactions to make catching up easier for the newcomers, but they didn't introduce anything that you couldn't get ingame with some effort.

Even if this didn't debunk his entire premise, consider that F2P MMO's bring more innovative ways to customize your character (progression) than P2P MMO's. Take a look at 9 Dragons for example. You can also take a look at totally innovative MMO's, such as Shot Online, and CueOnline.

In my experience F2P MMO's don't offer you anything in the Item Shops that you can't earn for free with more time invested. So basically the complaint is that the person with money gets things faster, not that they get things unavailable to you. Then there's the F2P games that have free portions and members only portions of the game.

I think micro-transactions is the business model of the future, because casual gamers dominate the community.

I have no idea why you would put Guild Wars in the f2p category. You pay to play Guild Wars, even if it is a one time fee, you still pay and thus Guild Wars is considered p2p. I bought all the expansions one by one. F2P means that you pay NOTHING at all to play the game. I also have no idea what you are getting at. I'm the OP and I encourage Guild War's business model. Did you read my posts?