One man's scourge...or Satan...is another man's savior. 

Originally posted by MadnessRealm

The reason DDO does so well isn't only because it's the first to be converted, otherwise DDO would have failed regardless of wether it changed to the F2P model or not. The game was good, but lackluster in some areas.

As for the "Leechers", if you think that it's an issue, you clearly do not understand the F2P model. About 70-75% of any F2P's playerbase will never pay a dime, and all F2P publishers are completly aware of this, and fine with it. It's actually not an issue at all, in fact, having all those players has more positive repercussions on the game. There are a lot more players, you can find them at all levels, areas, etc because the barrier of entry is non-existant even 2-3 years later. P2P games tend to lose a lot of new players as years goes by, leaving low level areas severely underpopulated which negatively impact the experience of other newer players wishing to enjoy the content with other players (such as low level raids or quests that requires a party for exemple).

The F2P on the other hand, will take several more years to begins suffering from those population issues (Heck, MapleStory who's been around since 2003-04 is still going strong). There are always players, these players will also bring their friends, and potential buyers will be able to enjoy the game for longer period of time as they do not have issues going through the content as players are readily available to complete whatever content or quest is needed. There is always someone to interact with, which makes it much more enjoyable. And having all these players running around for Free are what's keeping these games alive. If only the players who bought Cash Shop played, the majority of those games wouldn't survive. You also do not lose anything by playing a F2P game, if you do not enjoy the game, you can leave at any time, you haven't spent a single buck on it. On the other hand, if you do enjoy the game, you can either continue playing for free or buy items to enhance your experience, and not all F2P titles offers a "pay to win" model.

Let me explain that a little more. Since DDO was the first to convert it got a lot of publicity and many people tried it out. I never said DDO was a bad game and the reasonthat it went so bad was another game, Guildwars. GW and DDO are similar in many ways, GW have more content but the reason it nearly killed DDO was because it was B2P. 

But I am still pretty certain that if DDO would have converted today it would not get nearly as many new players as they did.

As for leechers, they do fill a function particularly at lower levels but it also means that you will either need 4 times as many players as a P2P game or that your paying customers will have to pay average 60 bucks a month.

There is not an unlimited playerbase so converting a crappy game to F2P wont save it. All gaming companies fight over the same people and the good game will survive, not the bad games no matter how you pay it.

The payment method matters little, the good games will get in the money, and even if more people will try out the bad ones it wont save those games.

I say it again: Good games will always earn money (well, until they are ancient) and bad games wont. 

Believing that changing the method people will pay will "save" the genre is just fooling yourself. Better games is the only savior that is realistic.

And I am not really bashing the F2P payment method (even though games with P2win suck), I don't care how I pay my games. But it isn't a savior.

Originally posted by Yamota

(mod edit)

Not all of the people writing here is as positive, Drew is and he do have right to his opinion (even if I don't agree with it).

Calling it a scourge on the other hand is a bit severe.

I agree, a bad game is a bad game, regardless of model. However a poorly hyped game can possibly get some benefit because it will get people, who would not have bothered otherwise, to try the game for free. Which is probably what happened to DDO.

But if there are too many "good" games for the amount of sub cash to go around and support then they fail...if they adopt a model of you only pay when you want to play that sub cash can instead be spread amoung many "good" games and while their profits are lower than if they hold all the subs they are still making cash.

Originally posted by Yamota

(mod edit)

 And people actually seem to like their athletes to dope so not a good example.   People are whining about home runs being down in baseball...and no one ever calls for football lineman to be check for roids.

Originally posted by Loke666

Let me explain that a little more. Since DDO was the first to convert it got a lot of publicity and many people tried it out.

Actually, just remembered this but, Anarchy Online was the first to convert I believe. Had a lot of controversy around it too, much like DDO had when it was first announced that it would convert.

Originally posted by MadnessRealm

Originally posted by Loke666

Let me explain that a little more. Since DDO was the first to convert it got a lot of publicity and many people tried it out.

Actually, just remembered this but, Anarchy Online was the first to convert I believe. Had a lot of controversy around it too, much like DDO had when it was first announced that it would convert.

Weeeell, they made the game without expansions free but everything else still demands monthly fees so this is closr to AoCs unlimited Tortage trial they have been running for years...

There is also free DaoC servers than run the original game just, they have also been around a long time.

Neither of them did the same as DDO and the games that have converted after it. But I guess we can say that AO was first.

Originally posted by jacklo

I disagree with the comments about F2P games being of lower quality.

Some I would say are better than many subscription based games.

Look at Xyson and Mortal Online to name just 2 games that I can't believe have a subscription due to the poor quality.

I think one of the only problems for most F2P games is the lack a a big IP behind them.

You can't deny the quality of games like Perfect World / Forsaken World.

Really!?? You're going to pull Indie Games into this now? 

Yes I can Deny the quality of games like Perfect World / Forsaken World.

Using the same engine and reskinning it with different rates makes it lower quality. Want to list F2P games of low quality since you went there with listing Indie games in your argument ok...

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what to do when the basic game aint that fun.....tease with afew freebies early on

Originally posted by EverSkelly

(mod edit)

Well said Drew!

I've been saying the same thing, for about six plus years now. (hmmm GW's is around that age)

Seems funny how right from the beginning of the article,  you've been placed in a propigated Devils Advocate catagory.

I think it's just to make sure that full credit isn't given to this topic, leaving the big Milking crews (P2P) time to catch up.

What B2P (F2P, Freemium, w/e you want to call GW lol) has done to the MMO market is make it more transparent.

Players now are more informed about different pay schemes and options, they are more informed about what they are willing to pay for, and also are more informed about what they don't want to pay for.

A player that is well informed and is given options is something the big milking crews don't want.

As the idustry sits now, I still have second thoughts about FREE ANYTHING, but if it's free, why not check it out.

The games that just use the word free to get your money are easy to spot and i crumple them up and throw them in the recycle bin without a second thought.  If the game has nothing to offer other than a grindfest with a items shop growth on it then don't waste any more money or time on it no matter what.

If anything the F2P model has improved the quality of games. With all the wannabee milkers trying to suck in players and get rich quick of an item shop; what they have inadvertantly done is given the players the ability to spot them quicker.

A perfect example of this and i can say this cause i'm nobody important, and my opinion is just that; MINE, Devils Advocate, right? back to the perfect example;

I LOVE StarTrek , anything about StarTrek catches my eye.  So naturaly i purchased STO and paid for 3month without even thinking of it.  I hate P2P option but it didn't matter because it's startrek.  after a month of low quality and lack of passion from the Cryptic team i easily and happily decided to leave.  Biggest mistake they made was throwing everything on the wall to see what would stick instead of accualy going and watching a SINGLE EPISODE.

If you don't give me something WORTH buying i'm not gonna [even if it's Trek] and that's what F2P has done for the MMO market.

I'm so happy we are living in this time of CHANGE!

Originally posted by Uzleb

Well said Drew!

I've been saying the same thing, for about six plus years now. (hmmm GW's is around that age)

Seems funny how right from the beginning of the article,  you've been placed in a propigated Devils Advocate catagory.

I think it's just to make sure that full credit isn't given to this topic, leaving the big Milking crews (P2P) time to catch up.

What B2P (F2P, Freemium, w/e you want to call GW lol) has done to the MMO market is make it more transparent.

Players now are more informed about different pay schemes and options, they are more informed about what they are willing to pay for, and also are more informed about what they don't want to pay for.

A player that is well informed and is given options is something the big milking crews don't want.

As the idustry sits now, I still have second thoughts about FREE ANYTHING, but if it's free, why not check it out.

The games that just use the word free to get your money are easy to spot and i crumple them up and throw them in the recycle bin without a second thought.  If the game has nothing to offer other than a grindfest with a items shop growth on it then don't waste any more money or time on it no matter what.

If anything the F2P model has improved the quality of games. With all the wannabee milkers trying to suck in players and get rich quick of an item shop; what they have inadvertantly done is given the players the ability to spot them quicker.

A perfect example of this and i can say this cause i'm nobody important, and my opinion is just that; MINE, Devils Advocate, right? back to the perfect example;

I LOVE StarTrek , anything about StarTrek catches my eye.  So naturaly i purchased STO and paid for 3month without even thinking of it.  I hate P2P option but it didn't matter because it's startrek.  after a month of low quality and lack of passion from the Cryptic team i easily and happily decided to leave.  Biggest mistake they made was throwing everything on the wall to see what would stick instead of accualy going and watching a SINGLE EPISODE.

If you don't give me something WORTH buying i'm not gonna [even if it's Trek] and that's what P2P has done for the MMO market.

I'm so happy we are living in this time of CHANGE!

B2P is very far from F2P.

Most FPS games (particualrly on consoles) have had official servers and used B2P a long time. It works great as long as bandwidth is relatively cheap.

B2P games main income is box sales. Guildwars pulled in loads of money on that. Since it doesn't live on selling items they don't have to sell stuff with stats which makes the game far from a P2win game.

F2P on the other hand live completely on selling items to players. Forsaken world and Runes of magic are good examples of F2P.

Freemium sells items, quests and other benefits and have a subscription version as well. LOTRO and EQ2X are good examples.

These 3 models differs a lot from eachother, a 4th version is living on adds even if so far only browser games have been doing that. Don't mix them together or confuse them.

Guildwars is my best used gaming money ever (Biowares NWN is second place).

But what Drew said was that F2P is the savior of the genre. Guildwars were and still is so popular because it is a great game, not because it is B2P. The payment method will not save the genre no matter what, only good games can do that.

If all future games are crap nothing can save the genre, F2P is just a different way to pay for playing, it is not really better or worse than the game we are paying for.

Originally posted by BoA*

Really!?? You're going to pull Indie Games into this now? 

Yes I can Deny the quality of games like Perfect World / Forsaken World.

Using the same engine and reskinning it with different rates makes it lower quality. Want to list F2P games of low quality since you went there with listing Indie games in your argument ok...

FW isn't that bad, you can easily compare it to any Cryptic game (it is even slightly better than those).

But comparing cheap indie games with the best budgeted F2P games isn't fair, not by far. Perfect world should be compared with Wow, not Mortal online. Both have loads of players and good budget.

Saying that all F2P games sucks isn't really fair. I will however say that I think the average P2P game have higher quality than the average F2P, there are just so many Asian crap games out there.

But you guys are kinda missing the point here. Bad games will always fail or live on the brink of death. PW might not fit our Western playstyle but it most be doing something right considering how many players it have (I think exactly the same of Wow BTW). It doesn't really matter how you pay for your game, crap is crap anyways.

Do you really think that Mortal online would be earning more money if it went F2P? I somehow doubt it.

So, "free to play" isn't really free? So why do companies use the term? Why is the term "f2p" parrotted by so many seemingly intelligent people here?

Two terms come to mind here. One, "you get what you pay for". Two, "if you want quality you have to pay for it".

Originally posted by Gruug

So, "free to play" isn't really free? So why do companies use the term? Why is the term "f2p" parrotted by so many seemingly intelligent people here?

Two terms come to mind here. One, "you get what you pay for". Two, "if you want quality you have to pay for it".

 

The term, near as I can tell, was just adopted by Marketing departments because it sounds good in advertisements.  Especially with the MMOs that have converted to "free-to-play" much time is spent in the forums correcting the misconceptions those advertisements promoted.

I really wish someone would come up with a more accurate term, but unless it fits the ads just as well and Marketing is happy, we will be stuck with "free-to-play".

With the amount of people complaining about games like Aion, Rift, WoW, SWTOR  and so on (just take a look at the "4.2 is Wow Déjà vu" thread), you can hardly argue subscription means superior quality. Especially with the bad launches many games had. You're saying subscription means they make money faster? Why can't they spent a bit more before the launch then, if they get it back within half a year, compared to a F2P game who gets money over the long term (and irregulary)?

And with the shops P2P games employ, or ingame rewards for buying related products, one can hardly argue you get everything for $15 (a month. Once you stop paying, even if it's after ten years, you got nothing. F2P: You buy it, you keep it. Obviously not true for consumeable items, but if you buy a dungeon or a weapon, you keep it).

With initial box price, the cost for expansions and the subscription fee, P2P do cost more than most F2P games, no matter how much it is P2Win. Add P2Win stuff to P2P games..

So, many P2P games can have buggy launches, customersoften have trouble with the support, you still might need to buy additonal content, and they may cost more as they add box + expansion + subscription on top of the cash shop (or other way round)

The only reasons P2P games are seen as good is because people are used to it.

If games would have been F2P all along, or B2P, people would argue the other way round. "They get a lot of income through the cash shop each day, they can exactly tell you how many people are buying what, and react to it. People can get exactly what they want, and do not need to pay for stuff they don't like.

And now we are supposed to pay a monthly subscription? And they won't even close the cash shop and/or give it out for free! And how is this supposed to work, i need to buy the expansion to get into area x at all, but i still need to buy the dungeons and quest packs if i want to do anything there?"

F2P has the huge advantage that you do not need to pay a single dime if you do not want to. You might have to grind for months before you get that weapon you want, whereas other people buy it in the shop, or even a better one, but you don't have to spent money. You can play for years, and not buy a single thing. Or you buy everything because you want it now, and you don't want to grind, but it's your decision.

Many P2P games did not even offer trials, so you had to buy the box and a subscription (though a month or so is often included with the game itself, at least) before ever being able to try it our yourself. And after 2 hours you might say "no, this just doesn't work. I'm never playing this again". The money is still gone.

Everything else, like quality, content, cash shop etc is not really divided between P2P and F2P, but among the developers/publishers. Some are know for good games, some are not.

Honestly, some of the best stuff in gaming is fan made. Be it free shards for known MMOs, mods for games like HL2, texture packs for Crysis - they do not even have a cash shop, it's completely free, the ones who did the hard work do not even recieve the fame often enough.

I don't like cash shops, especially P2Win ones, too, but that does not have much in common with F2P anymore.

The problem with the F2P model is that it significantly changes the design goals behind a game (or other service). With a subscription based model the design goal is simply to make the game entertaining so that the player will have the motivation to maintain thier subscription to the game service. Outside of that, you really have no particular motivation to control what the player does within the game...other then to insure that whatever they do is enjoyable.

With the F2P play model, you have an added level of complexity involved. It's not simply enough to make coming to the came enjoyable.... you've also got to insure that a high enough percentage of players engage in spending behavior within the game. In other words, if EVERYONE is enjoying playing your game for free so much that they feel no compulsion to make any purchases in your cash shop... you're going to go broke. That means you've got to design so that players are pushed into spending behaviors (the more the better).....and upto the very brink of tolerance where if they were forced to spend anymore, they would stop enjoying the game and walk away. That's a very tricky line to walk and a much more complex design to try to impliment. Especialy with the suits breathing down your neck, as is inevitable, with a constant drone to push the envelope further so that they can "maximize proffits" (what every business naturaly wants to do) .... and usualy with very little understanding on thier part of just how delicate that balance is.

You even see this in many of the better "Fremium" games. LOTRO for example has been constantly increasing the push for spending behavior within the game, even with VIP's. It's gotten to the point where it has become distatsefull for more then a few veteran players. They have also gone past the limits that they assured players that they would never cross when F2P was first implimented. It is most definately NOT just "vanity" items on sale at this point.

Note, that this does not mean that it's impossible to design a quality F2P game or to strike a good balance between pushing spending and providing entertainment to players....just that it IS a much more difficult design & management proposition then the subscription model...and because of that, alot of implimentations are going to flub it...some quite badly.

This does not even address the fact that needing to make purchases with real cash runs contrary to the sense of escapism that many players go to these games for in the first place.

Alot of players don't want to have to worry about thier real world budget issues...or whether they can afford to do/purchase X when playing an MMO. They often go to MMO's for the very purposes of not having to think about those issues. In the same vein that fixed price all inclusive vacations are popular...subscription (or B2P) games are popular in that you don't need to worry about how much fun you can afford to have while there...As long as you can afford the fixed entry price, you can have as much (or as little) fun as you want...without worrying about reaching into your wallet.

 It's all about greed, and how they can continue to make money while making shitty games by marketing to the lowest common denominator.

I would add more but I think that sums up my thought.

If only every F2P had a system like in League of Legends of Riot.... Cant buy power with cash.