Originally posted by rumpleman

Ugg... why does everything have to be so absolute?

 

"Free to play is killing gaming", "this game is dead", or "that game failed".

When in all actuality, lots of people are gaming. Some would argue that there are more gamers than ever before. And those games that people often quote as "dead" or have "failed" are still making money or they wouldn't be online.

 

Just because "you" don't like a particular game or aspect of a game, does not mean the sky is falling. If you want things to change, make a stand and stop spending money on the games you dislike.

 

/endrant

edited typo's

Admitedly, there is a bit of hyperbole to the authors statement. However, I think it depends upon exactly what is meant by "killing gaming".  On could easly argue, and many have,  that the amount of money involved today in collegiate sports (especialy football) has "killed" them, this despite the fact that more people then ever watch them. "Killed" does not have to mean "nobody watches or participates anymore" .. it can also be taken to mean "has warped the very nature of the thing so it no longer resembles itself and embraces things diametricaly opposed to the founding principles of the thing".  In the latter sense, I think a fair arguement could be made that F2P is "killing gaming", despite the fact that there are larger audiences and more money involved then ever before. The very same dynamic could be said to be applied to the money involved today in college football and what it's effect has been upon what was supposed to have been an "amatuer sport".

This entire article seems to be more about how "DLC is killing gaming", barely anything in there at all that actually applies to free to play games whatsoever. Its all about paid games with DLC.

As far as the DLC part goes, I agree. Too many companies have shifte dtheir focus from "how can we deliver a good game loaded with stuff that lots of people will want to buy" to "How can we deliver this game with barely enough to get them to buy it after we hype the crap out of it, and then sell them bits and pieces of the game that we purposely left out for when they start getting bored".

The entire system relies on suckering people into paying for what they expect to be a complete game, then selling them the rest of the game seperately. Its like advertising a burger loaded with all kinds of toppings, then serving up a bun and a piece of meat and saying "Oh you wanted lettuce, tomato, etc? Well you have to pay extra for individual toppings."

F2P on the other hand offers you a game that you can play completely risk free. You dont have to spend a cent to get in and check it out. Dont like the game? Then quit, and you havent lost any money. Enjoy the game, then keep playing for free. Want to buy some extra stuff? Go ahead.

Originally posted by eddieg50
Free 2 Play is great for casual players or players that play more than one mmo

Cutting out commercials is great for people who want to watch a lot of TV shows too.

But the funny thing is it is bad for the person who wants to watch lots of TV shows. Because people are skipping the commercials, they get far less money from ad revenue. They get less money from ad revenue they can't fund as big and interesting shows as they did before. So in the end what you found convenient ends up hurting what you liked.

Does help to show when HBO and Showtime tend to do amazingly well at the emmys and they are a subscription service. You get what you pay for.

Originally posted by evolver1972

Originally posted by Yakamomoto

"F2P" is mostly a scam. (same goes for "B2P" with cash shop)

If you read "FREE" on the internet, something smells fishy.

I prefer the good old honest subscription model.

 

Honest subscription model.  That's funny.  Considering the costs of running a game are basically miniscule your honest sub model goes to one of two things:  Marketing and Profit.

 

And with the right CS, B2P is not a scam.  To me, that is the most honest and fair way to run a game.  You buy the game (just like every other game), and you don't have to spend another dime to play if you don't want to.  How is that a scam?

 

I also think that F2P, if done correctly, can also not be a scam, although I do admit that model leaves much more opportunity for scamming.

 

I personally think LotRO's F2P version was just fine.  I didn't feel cheated, or pressured to spend any money at all.

I'm not sure where you got the impression that costs for running an online service (which is what MMO's basicaly are) are "miniscule" but I can assure you they are not. I just got done putting together the yearly budget for Operations of my companies online services (and no we are not an MMO, we're in business services) which doesn't even include customer service/tech support and I can assure you it counts for a rather significant chunk of our gross revenue....much larger then either marketing budget or proffits. MMO's can get by with a bit cheaper as they don't have to provide quite as high a level of service....but by no means is their operating costs miniscule..... unless you think it's acceptable to run your game out of someones garage.

Subscriptions ARE "honest" (or at least WERE before cash shops)  in the sense that you know up front exactly what it will cost you to play the FULL game up front each month. I wouldn't neccesarly describe F2P as "dishonest", but a little bit more like "hidden fee's" based services. It's not until you actualy start playing until you learn how much it will actualy cost you to play the game at a level you are comfortable with...and this can change drasticaly as you progress...or even day to day as the Dev's tinker with items and prices in the cash shop.

Originally posted by GrumpyMel2

Originally posted by evolver1972

Originally posted by Yakamomoto

"F2P" is mostly a scam. (same goes for "B2P" with cash shop)

If you read "FREE" on the internet, something smells fishy.

I prefer the good old honest subscription model.

 

Honest subscription model.  That's funny.  Considering the costs of running a game are basically miniscule your honest sub model goes to one of two things:  Marketing and Profit.

 

And with the right CS, B2P is not a scam.  To me, that is the most honest and fair way to run a game.  You buy the game (just like every other game), and you don't have to spend another dime to play if you don't want to.  How is that a scam?

 

I also think that F2P, if done correctly, can also not be a scam, although I do admit that model leaves much more opportunity for scamming.

 

I personally think LotRO's F2P version was just fine.  I didn't feel cheated, or pressured to spend any money at all.

I'm not sure where you got the impression that costs for running an online service (which is what MMO's basicaly are) are "miniscule" but I can assure you they are not. I just got done putting together the yearly budget for Operations of my companies online services (and no we are not an MMO, we're in business services) which doesn't even include customer service/tech support and I can assure you it counts for a rather significant chunk of our gross revenue....much larger then either marketing budget or proffits. MMO's can get by with a bit cheaper as they don't have to provide quite as high a level of service....but by no means is their operating costs miniscule..... unless you think it's acceptable to run your game out of someones garage.

Subscriptions ARE "honest" (or at least WERE before cash shops)  in the sense that you know up front exactly what it will cost you to play the FULL game up front each month. I wouldn't neccesarly describe F2P as "dishonest", but a little bit more like "hidden fee's" based services. It's not until you actualy start playing until you learn how much it will actualy cost you to play the game at a level you are comfortable with...and this can change drasticaly as you progress...or even day to day as the Dev's tinker with items and prices in the cash shop.

Yeah, for some reason the "fact" that running an MMO is "cheap" has spread through the MMORPG forums pretty significantly.

Bandwidth at that level, for that many people, with backups, all housed in a major center, and the servers, and the IT, and the CS, adds up to a significant amount of money.

The abundance of games, all being F2P is a huge factor in why games have trouble taking off. At the same time, F2P can be a huge detracting point from a game to be replaced so quickly as well. Cash shop advantages tend to be huge in the games, and often times the experience can be greatly cheapened with it. Look at allods online which is actually a good F2P game but went overboard with Cash shop dependency. Other games like Vanguard basically make you "P2P or suffer from terrible gameplay" model that just isn't worth playing F2P unless your a masochist. 

I don't think there is a problem with F2P much like the article states, but HOW its handled thats the problem. Greed kills the environment as developers want to push items people will buy and rake in massive profits, the easiest being advantage giving items.

Sorry OP, your article really comes across as a personal rant against F2P in two games rather than an intelligent commentary on the industry.

As mentioned in the article, cash shops expanded developer/publisher ways to make money that they probably never imagined at launch. But it should be no surprise that industry finds a way to provide supply when there is enough demand. F2P hasn't killed gaming at all; as a matter of fact, it expanded the industry enough to make big-boy industries sit up and take notice. But F2P has certainly changed the gaming landscape, and I'm guessing it will be awhile before it all settles down into something we probably haven't truly seen yet.

**** [4 stars]

Good piece. Pretty much sums up the lot of it...so just....erm...showing my support.

There were pirate boards available soon after the Apple II games started becoming popular.  

F2P is definitely a detriment to gaming.  Especially the all the pay-to-win games.  If a game is pay-to-win, I will not play it, no matter how good it is.  Some companies have managed to bridge the gap, like Turbine.  

I prefer good oldf fashioned subs. I don't mind cash shops for mounts and pets etc but I still don't like that. But there is a line that shouldn't be crossed and EQ2 crossed that line when they started introducing mounts that gave buffs etc. I mean... I paid my sub and some content is unavailable to me unless I clicked the oversized gold cash shop icon and shelled out yet more cash on top of what I paid for expansions and subs.

I haven't played too many F2P games, to me it simply goes against the ideal of what a game should be. Which is simply that the same rules apply to all and everyone is treated equally regardless of anything outside the game, The only thing that should seperate the players is skill, courage and endeavor etc. To allow people to take short cuts while limiting anothers participation in a game goes against that spirit. Call me old fashioned, but I like playing games where all the rules are applied to all... so long as I win.

By  the way, the world isn't without irony. There is a world of tanks ad on display at the top of this thread screaming "this is free".

Confused...

I read the article expecting to see something about how F2P is killing gaming... you know... evidence that gaming is actually dying... and F2P is somehow the culprit.

Instead - I read about how the author didn't like Sims expansion packs.

Originally posted by Arakazi

I prefer good oldf fashioned subs. I don't mind cash shops for mounts and pets etc but I still don't like that. But there is a line that shouldn't be crossed and EQ2 crossed that line when they started introducing mounts that gave buffs etc. I mean... I paid my sub and some content is unavailable to me unless I clicked the oversized gold cash shop icon and shelled out yet more cash on top of what I paid for expansions and subs.

I haven't played too many F2P games, to me it simply goes against the ideal of what a game should be. Which is simply that the same rules apply to all and everyone is treated equally regardless of anything outside the game, The only thing that should seperate the players is skill, courage and endeavor etc. To allow people to take short cuts while limiting anothers participation in a game goes against that spirit. Call me old fashioned, but I like playing games where all the rules are applied to all... so long as I win.

By  the way, the world isn't without irony. There is a world of tanks ad on display at the top of this thread screaming "this is free".

 

this... this feeling was wonderful in World of Warcraft vanilla. But after the cashshop and epic instances disappearing ( anyone remember first time Molten Core ? it was awsome ) through the expansions ( easier and faster new gear made MC and other instances useless ) + making the game in general so easy that a 2 year old can play it now compared when it just started out... killed the game. ( sry for my wow rant :p )

Originally posted by fadis

Confused...

 

I read the article expecting to see something about how F2P is killing gaming... you know... evidence that gaming is actually dying... and F2P is somehow the culprit.

 

Instead - I read about how the author didn't like Sims expansion packs.

Did you really read it?

It is a multiple part article and this first one was focused on the author's opinion of what led to the F2P movement and highlighted how those beginning attempts at companies making more money were already bad for the consumer.

The article will expand into more things in the next part I am sure.

Good article, not sure about the lengthly SIMs comparison, but most of the people who will read it are both too inexperienced and too unintelligent to realize it is correct.

Most of these noobs didn't even put many hours into the Good-old-games like D2, AC, Ultima, they're part of the new generation.

Besides F2P the main thing killing the MMO business is the consumers.  Big game companies don't want to put out games that might offend their playerbase so they are all easy and skilless now.  The majority of players have always been carebears.  They don't want death penalties, they don't want other people looting their stuff, they don't want open world pvp because they say ganking is unfair and lame.  Those are the 3 of the main components to a good online PvP game.  The other is fast potential PvP death.

Counterstrike is one of the most successful competitive games.  It is considered far more skill based than CoD (not necessarily more fun, everyone likes different things).  One reason is because you can die so fast - almost instantly.

Asheron's Call, still the best PvP MMO of all time, was/is the same way.  If you don't dodge an enemies attacks, you can die in a matter of seconds -  someotimes 1 shot; when the game was the best, 2, but now I think it is up to around 3 or 4 hits to kill, as they buffed everyones characters and protection spells - something that made the game MUCH worse.  The thing is - even back when 1 hit was all it took to kill someone - fights between good players could last up to 30, 40, 50 minutes!  Adrenaline POUNDING the entire time.  The loser would get a death penalty and the victor would loot their items - I can remember every time I looted someones armor piece(s) or weapons because they had an unlucky drop roll or were out of DIs.  That makes an Amazing game.

The new generation cannot handle the penalties or the skill required for pvp.  They get ganked when they are starting and either cry about the social problems their attackers must be venting on them and leave the game, full of tears, rather than sacking up and hacking it out to get their revenge and show their attackers who is the best.  The problem is - they usually are far from the best.  90% of the population is.  The average IQ is only 100.  50% of people have an IQ between 90 and 110.

So Modern games, starting with WoW, give players the illusion that hey, they might not be that bad.  Even when a garbage player enters PvP they can do OK.  The playing field is fairly even because it doesn't take much skill - people talk about tag targeting and circle strafing while pressing their auto-hit attack buttons like it is skill.  If any of those players stepped into a high-level CS or AC fight they would get demolished.  Everyone is hyping up GW2 and saying it is great but no real PvPer will touch that game.  It takes forever to kill someone, it is pathetic.  Didn't try and don't plan on it - sure the leveling up looks fun and all, I'm sure it would be a good time, but it is the baddie-PVP model.

Whether F2P or Sub, most  (and all large) game companies are catering to their customers rather than trying to make GOOD games.