http://www.theverge.com/gaming/2012/8/1/3188505/guild-wars-2-and-the-death-rattle-of-the-subscription-gaming

seems like Anet has thought about there business model and what it means to them. Good read.

wow very good read. thank you.

The second part about community is very interesting. It's nice to see that ANet are at least aware of a potential problem.

That's my own big negative point about GW2 - considering it's subscription model, and also the PvP element, the community will most likely be catastrophic. I'm afraid the GW2 community will make WoW's barrens chat look like a discussion between highly qualified rocket scientists.

Originally posted by The_Korrigan

The second part about community is very interesting. It's nice to see that ANet are at least aware of a potential problem.

That's my own big negative point about GW2 - considering it's subscription model, and also the PvP element, the community will most likely be catastrophic. I'm afraid the GW2 community will make WoW's barrens chat look like a discussion between highly qualified rocket scientists.

If Beta is any indication, hopefully not. Map chat was usually pretty helpful, with a few morons here and there.

Mind you I kept it off anyway a lot of the time, because there was a LOT of chatter, helpful or not. 

Beta communities tend to be better than post-release ones. Getting into a beta requires some effort and, in case of GW2, a monetary investment, so people who are playing GW2 right now are the ones who were really excited about it and (probably) have 60$ to spare.

That being said, if GW2 is as difficult as it was during BWE2, I think many childish and/or impatient individuals will leave the game soon enough and go back to MMOs in which a blindfolded monkey could reach max lvl easily.

Great read and I agree 100%.  A year ago I was apprehensive about no-subscription games but now I've come around 180 degrees.  Sad thing is alot of guys here are against anything but sub based games which is just silly, becasue eventually subscriptions will go the way of the dodo.

Originally posted by dekou

Beta communities tend to be better than post-release ones. Getting into a beta requires some effort and, in case of GW2, a monetary investment, so people who are playing GW2 right now are the ones who were really excited about it and (probably) have 60$ to spare.

That being said, if GW2 is as difficult as it was during BWE2, I think many childish and/or impatient individuals will leave the game soon enough and go back to MMOs in which a blindfolded monkey could reach max lvl easily.

.... but the rull release you got to have $60 to spare also

I actually thought it was inappropriate to talk about the community the way he did. It sort of sets the CMs up in an adversarial relationship with the community and implies that the CMs don't want the game to be "too successful". (This also has to make the CMs cringe, because even if some of them have expressed anxiety about managing the live community, you would never want to say so where the community could hear those concerns. It implies that some CMs think they will be in over their heads and may not actually be competent enough to actually do their jobs. It also implies that he has doubts about the ability of the current CMs to handle the community. Not a good morale booster ahead of launch)!

The community, thus far, has been superb and even with a lack of sub fee, the $60 box price will gate out a lot of the disruptive people we see in some F2P games. Speaking of which, there has been fear with every P2P game that has transitioned to F2P that F2P would destroy the in game community. From what I have experienced, this is not the case.

I have faith in the community and I have faith that the Arenanet CM staff will do a great job and that Arenanet will increase the CM, GM and CSR staff sizes, as needed, to keep pace with the growth of the community.

Wow, i was joking when i said they were approaching Bioware levels of Hubris on the last article i read from them about telling us whats fun, like we're idiots and we don't know what we enjoy or not...

Now, i really do mean it when i say they are approaching Bioware levels of Hubris.

The "Death Rattle" of the subscription model.

I swear they have become ultra narcisists. "Our ideas are SO awesome and fabulous that means that every OTHER idea and anything thats been done before is CLEARLY wrong, because WE didnt come up with it..."

Amazing

Honestly i was seriously considering picking up this game after release if it didnt turn out to be a total shit box, but now i won't buy it simply on principal.

Originally posted by fiontar

I actually thought it was inappropriate to talk about the community the way he did. It sort of sets the CMs up in an adverserial relationship with the community and implies that the CMs don't want the game to be "too successful". (This also has to make the CMs cringe, because even if some of them have expressed anxiety about managing the live community, you would never want to say so where the community could hear those concerns. It implies that some CMs think they will be in over their heads and may not actually be competent enough to actually do their jobs. It also implies that he has doubts about the ability of the current CMs to handle the community. Not a good morale booster ahead of launch)!

The community, thus far, has been superb and even with a lack of sub fee, the $60 box price will gate out a lot of the disruptive people we see in some F2P games. Speaking of which, there has been fear with every P2P game that has transitioned to F2P that F2P would destroy the in game community. From what I have experienced, this is not the case.

I have faith in the community and I have faith that the Arenanet CM staff will do a great job and that Arenanet will increase the CM, GM and CSR staff sizes, as needed, to keep pace with the growth of the community.

 

I agree that what he says sort of puts more pressure on the CMs but by the track record of popular f2p games its the reality. With the crowds you get the good and the bad, for me he is just acknowledging it.

Originally posted by Hrimnir

Wow, i was joking when i said they were approaching Bioware levels of Hubris on the last article i read from them about telling us whats fun, like we're idiots and we don't know what we enjoy or not...

Now, i really do mean it when i say they are approaching Bioware levels of Hubris.

The "Death Rattle" of the subscription model.

I swear they have become ultra narcisists. "Our ideas are SO awesome and fabulous that means that every OTHER idea and anything thats been done before is CLEARLY wrong, because WE didnt come up with it..."

Amazing

Honestly i was seriously considering picking up this game after release if it didnt turn out to be a total shit box, but now i won't buy it simply on principal.

He never says what he speaks is the truth or final, its what he thinks might happen. Actually, hes extremely cautious about his opinions on the matter and doesn't state them as fact.

Originally posted by Zylaxx

Great read and I agree 100%.  A year ago I was apprehensive about no-subscription games but now I've come around 180 degrees.  Sad thing is alot of guys here are against anything but sub based games which is just silly, becasue eventually subscriptions will go the way of the dodo.

I agree partially.

There will be fewer games using subscription based model since the companies now learned that under current market conditions, a game as a product has to justify subscription with sufficient amount of quality. In the past, the subscription was somehow taken as granted.

Look at all those WoW clones released in last 5 years. They all thought they will use this business model and their customers will just blindly pay fixed amount of money each month. However, they were confronted with the fact that their product is not good enough in order to influence the customers to follow their business model, so they were forced to change it in many cases. Furthermore, there are still games currently using subs business model which are not worth it. We will witness more currently P2P games going F2P by the end of this year or maybe by end of Q2 2013 at best.

On the other hand, if some company delivered an outstanding product considering current market situation, there would still be plenty of room for subscriptions. I am convinced that given current market situation, only the top products will now be able to get away with subscription based business model. If there was a game that was significantly better than any other in the market, I would be willing to pay 50 USD per month for it. Such game may still be able to retain playerbase in tens of millions even with subscription model. Such game would be using subscription since it is much more profitable than B2P or F2P when you have playerbase of sufficient proportions and a product with potential to hold it for a long time.

EDIT:  ...,in my opinion.

FOR ALL WE KNOW THERE IS A TYPE OF GAME OUT THERE THAT WILL CONTINUE TO BENEFIT FROM A SUBSCRIPTION MODEL, I'VE JUST NOT HEARD OF IT YET.'

Guild Wars 2' and the death rattle of the subscription game

Titles and comments like this from a development team are a real turn off to some.

Originally posted by Zylaxx

Great read and I agree 100%.  A year ago I was apprehensive about no-subscription games but now I've come around 180 degrees.  Sad thing is alot of guys here are against anything but sub based games which is just silly, becasue eventually subscriptions will go the way of the dodo.

Only really good games will have subs.

I personally will not play a f2p game. I don't want to have to pony up cash to be able to sell an item or to get xp boost so I don't have to grind.

Originally posted by terrant

Originally posted by The_Korrigan

The second part about community is very interesting. It's nice to see that ANet are at least aware of a potential problem.

That's my own big negative point about GW2 - considering it's subscription model, and also the PvP element, the community will most likely be catastrophic. I'm afraid the GW2 community will make WoW's barrens chat look like a discussion between highly qualified rocket scientists.

If Beta is any indication, hopefully not. Map chat was usually pretty helpful, with a few morons here and there.

Mind you I kept it off anyway a lot of the time, because there was a LOT of chatter, helpful or not. 

People already love to troll this game. While it's true, the community in beta has been like 99% awesome, I do think it's a legitimate concern. I do think we can expect to see the game get a lot larger in population. There's still a shockingly large number of people who either don't know about GW2, are still skeptical about it, or think it's a scam.

That said, GW has a really great community following. More than any other MMO I can think of, it has a really dedicated fan following that is actively working to better the game & community on a very consistant basis. I wouldn't be surprised if we see the community policing itself to a certain degree.

Originally posted by bcbully

Originally posted by Zylaxx

Great read and I agree 100%.  A year ago I was apprehensive about no-subscription games but now I've come around 180 degrees.  Sad thing is alot of guys here are against anything but sub based games which is just silly, becasue eventually subscriptions will go the way of the dodo.

Only really good games will have subs.

 

I personally will not play a f2p game. I don't want to have to pony up cash to be able to sell an item or to get xp boost so I don't have to grind.

Uh Warhammer?

Originally posted by Xerith

Originally posted by bcbully

Originally posted by Zylaxx

Great read and I agree 100%.  A year ago I was apprehensive about no-subscription games but now I've come around 180 degrees.  Sad thing is alot of guys here are against anything but sub based games which is just silly, becasue eventually subscriptions will go the way of the dodo.

Only really good games will have subs.

 

I personally will not play a f2p game. I don't want to have to pony up cash to be able to sell an item or to get xp boost so I don't have to grind.

Uh Warhammer?

Quality is not the only reason why a game might stay sub based. Its a mix of thing including financials. If they game holds 100k people paying a sub and is profitable enough that doesn't mean its a really good game.

All of the recent game though require way more than that to stay afloat so we will see them all go f2p sooner rather than later.

Originally posted by Kuppa

Originally posted by Xerith

Originally posted by bcbully

Originally posted by Zylaxx

Great read and I agree 100%.  A year ago I was apprehensive about no-subscription games but now I've come around 180 degrees.  Sad thing is alot of guys here are against anything but sub based games which is just silly, becasue eventually subscriptions will go the way of the dodo.

Only really good games will have subs.

 

I personally will not play a f2p game. I don't want to have to pony up cash to be able to sell an item or to get xp boost so I don't have to grind.

Uh Warhammer?

Quality is not the only reason why a game might stay sub based. Its a mix of thing including financials. If they game holds 100k people paying a sub and is profitable enough that doesn't mean its a really good game.

All of the recent game though require way more than that to stay afloat so we will see them all go f2p sooner rather than later.

Not all the recent ones. I also think a couple of the ones to come next year will do well too.

Originally posted by dekou

Beta communities tend to be better than post-release ones. Getting into a beta requires some effort and, in case of GW2, a monetary investment, so people who are playing GW2 right now are the ones who were really excited about it and (probably) have 60$ to spare.

That being said, if GW2 is as difficult as it was during BWE2, I think many childish and/or impatient individuals will leave the game soon enough and go back to MMOs in which a blindfolded monkey could reach max lvl easily.

I so hope you're right!

Originally posted by Kuppa

Originally posted by Hrimnir

Wow, i was joking when i said they were approaching Bioware levels of Hubris on the last article i read from them about telling us whats fun, like we're idiots and we don't know what we enjoy or not...

Now, i really do mean it when i say they are approaching Bioware levels of Hubris.

The "Death Rattle" of the subscription model.

I swear they have become ultra narcisists. "Our ideas are SO awesome and fabulous that means that every OTHER idea and anything thats been done before is CLEARLY wrong, because WE didnt come up with it..."

Amazing

Honestly i was seriously considering picking up this game after release if it didnt turn out to be a total shit box, but now i won't buy it simply on principal.

He never says what he speaks is the truth or final, its what he thinks might happen. Actually, hes extremely cautious about his opinions on the matter and doesn't state them as fact.

You have to be joking, or you read that with some serious rose colored glasses on.

Did you miss the HUGE orange bolded, quoted text saying:

"For all we know there is a type of game out there that will continue to benefit from a subscription model, I've just not heard of it yet"

Lets not forget the article is titled "gw2 and the death rattle of the subscription model"

Lets peruse another of those "extremely cautious" opinions he has:

" in today's climate subscriptions will do more harm than good for the success of a new massively multiplayer game, Lye tells Polygon."

Then, he tries to wrap it up with his "openly cautious" statement, which is hilarious given the entirety of the previous article:

"It's definitely something we pay attention to. But without having the experience of having our live community under our belt I'm hesitant to make any broad statements about that because I want to see how it goes."

I also love this, "....Star Wars: The Old Republic just this week made the shift from paid to free."

They're trying to use that bit of news as *support* for their argument about B2P/F2P? Amazing...