As long as quality games which can justify the subscription are released, the model is not going anywhere.

Instead of releasing 50 low quality F2P (or B2P as some people refer to F2P with box price) games, give me one amazing game which will require 50 usd / month. I will not hesitate for a second which one of them to choose.

For me, it is still P2P > F2P

If a game comes along that needs a sub, and is a good game, then people will pay it.

If games keep coming out offering basically the shame shrill... Then who'd pay for it? I think LotRO is a great game, I didn't want to pay a sub for it. I've put about 60 bucks in to the game over time and feel like I've gotten my dollar's worth from it. 

The Secret World was one of the more fun games to beta for me lately. (FFXIV, TERA, SWTOR, and other clone junk are my comparisons.) I didn't think it was worth a sub mostly because the content was light, and the action was slow. I'd play it, but I didn't want to sub because I didn't think they'd throw enough content at me monthly to deserve it.

For a subscrption fee now I want daily events, a unique world, monthly content updates, no cash shop, and a feeling that the game has a long term plan.

NOTHING IS OFFERING GAMERS THIS.

So nothing deserves a sub.

I think all these companies need to take a page from Arenanet & Guild Wars 2 and just sell the game with no monthly fee and let the offer of a game with all its content and just buying the game self itself of course this doesn't always keep things going however i think it appeals to more people not to pay a monthly sub and just buy the damn game lol. 

I tried SWTOR f2p version and by god they butchered the games features you can't have more then one crew skill in f2p for example and you can't do much with that alone. however i guess thats the point to force you into paying for each thing seperately or pay a sub which to me is shifty business but i'm more into the idea of MMO's nowadays with the buy to play idea like Guild Wars games. 

With the rate of one time payment games and free to play games are comeing out the days of the old sub game are dieing ill agree.   But then again the money you pay with sub games is going into developing the game more and more.  Like warcraft for example.

The only problem I can see is that once you buy into a gmae and have to sub play it you still gotta pay for expansions to the game.  Unless your playing eve online in which the expansions are free.  the reason I mention this is that if you are playing the likes of a free to play game again here lies the same problem.

A possible soloution to this I can see is this.  If an expansion does come out you can let the features of this expansion still be used in the free to play games.  you still need to pay though to get into the areas with the higher quests and new rare items.  Wow recently did something similar once mists was reliesed with the ability to play every race in wow now as well as there starting zones regaurdless of what expansion they got. 

that and they gave there new customers more for there money.  With two expansion packs as well as wow in there battle pack as well as one.  the market is there for free to play gmaes and sub games to go side by side but there are a lot more free to play games out there than sub and this im sorry to say is gonna be the way of it.  sub will die out and free to play will remain

Originally posted by Vidir
I guess the subscription model is about to die since most players dislike it. And other reason is that the games are not as long live models as it was 10 years ago. Nowdays games are beatet in few days and when you finished that part of the game only thing left is anoying raids or even more anoying pvp.

I'm going to agree with people who said subs will work if the game is worthy of it.  I think there's a good portion of the MMO community that has no problems paying a sub.  The problem is, there hasn't been a MMO in recent years that warrant a sub.  If the service is good, people will pay.

Originally posted by madazz
I honestly think MMOs will turn into F2P with a sub option for most. Its the cash shop that I am not happy about. That is the only part I question. Will they always be around, and if so, will they offer P2W options like the majority, or will it be just fluff?

Personally I think MMO's will go the other way round. they will turn F2P with in-game shops. There's so many games leading that way, rather than going for membership.

Originally posted by Sovrath

Originally posted by Renton81

 

 

I personally think MMO's should work the way Guild Wars 2 did. One time payment and that gives you access to the game.

you forgot to add "with cash shop"

he did for get. However, a decent cash shop its welcome if the game has no sub. GW2 cash shop is decent. If you as a company respect me as your playerbase, I will support you by spending some cash in the CS. On the other hand, if you as a company dont respect me as your playerbase and start seeling power and content unlocks that are game breaking and you want to force me to pay you to be good in your game, then i will not respect you and you will see no support from my pocket.

That is how i see the whole Dev/Pub - game/model - playerbase issue. But not everyone sees that, and developers lately dont care for us anymore, they care for the money only.

Originally posted by Renton81

Just in the last few years, there have been several MMO's that have released as subscription based games (i.e SWTOR, LOTRO and various others). Most have reverted to the Free to Play model within a matter of months of releasing. Now this isn't to judge how good these games are and whether they are worth subscription or not. What I wanted to ask is, how long do you think current subscription games will last using this monthly fee model? There's the most obvious game (WoW) that still runs off subs. Maybe the reduced number of players is a sign that they will (not saying soon) at some point in the future go completely free to play?

 

I personally think MMO's should work the way Guild Wars 2 did. One time payment and that gives you access to the game.

A subscription model is actually the only one I trust.

Why ?

Because you get delivered a certain standard of quality and sometimes community.

You get the full game and not only parts of it which you need to buy. If it is a weapon or certain color for nail polish.

It is the most common subscription model we have in most areas in our life and it works.

The game content development and patches is concentrated on the game actually and not on an ingame distribution system. 

There are no tricks or marketing hype ala "free" to play to get you ingame, its about the game itself. 

At the end, a game is rated on the content and gameplay and not solely on how it is distributed or what type of marketing is used. But.....expriences and the reasons mentioned above, tell me that I rather avoid games with new distribution/marketing techniques implemented with games and prefer the conventional sub model.

Some part of the game industry will of course tell that a sub model has no future, of course since they found a new idea how to gain more profit and will play the PR trumpet about it. The next young generation wont feel the quality loss, they grow up with it. In the future they probably wont even know what it means to actually possess a game with the advance of virtual distributions, only paying a fee to actually use it without downlaoding it.

Originally posted by defector1968

Originally posted by VassagoMael
Forever.

and ever

Yup^^

Originally posted by Jonoku

Originally posted by defector1968

Originally posted by VassagoMael
Forever.

and ever

Yup^^

i prefer B2P but as long as the game is really worth the sub, then the sub will always exist. However, devs are getting lazier (or brainwashed by greedy publishers) and publishers getting greedier by the minute. IF they dont change their ways for good, subs will be in a much worse state than they are now (with or without WoW in the business).

Originally posted by Scot
Most western releases that use a F2P system are going hybrid and include a sub. Maybe the sub only model will return as players get fed up of Play to Win. P2W is not where we are at now, it is creeping in, just like F2P started creeping in a few years ago.

It's actually the opposite. The P2W is getting pushed out in favor of more customer friendly cash shops. When F2P was first introduced to the States, all the games were P2W. Now will each new generation of F2P games, the P2W aspect has gotten less and less until we reached this point where games by in large are not P2W.

Originally posted by niceguy3978
As far as I know only SWTOR, TOR and DCUO abandoned their sub model "within months."  This is a bit of hyperbole.

Because those games were fail and needed the money.Correct me if I'm wrong but the #1 Themepark and #1 sandbox are both sub models. I still feel the majority or MMO players perfer a non pay-to-win model and that's why WOW continues to thrive. If these other companies would stop developing garbage they wouldn't need to switch to a f2p model to keep their heads above  water. I can't believe people addicted to these crap games continue to fork out the money they do.

If SWTOR was as successful as WOW they would never have switched to F2P.

Originally posted by SlyGamer79

I think all these companies need to take a page from Arenanet & Guild Wars 2 and just sell the game with no monthly fee and let the offer of a game with all its content and just buying the game self itself of course this doesn't always keep things going however i think it appeals to more people not to pay a monthly sub and just buy the damn game lol. 

I tried SWTOR f2p version and by god they butchered the games features you can't have more then one crew skill in f2p for example and you can't do much with that alone. however i guess thats the point to force you into paying for each thing seperately or pay a sub which to me is shifty business but i'm more into the idea of MMO's nowadays with the buy to play idea like Guild Wars games. 

      My concern with b2p games is where do you draw the line at downloadable content??....I mean what should be part of that b2p and what should the customers expect to pay for after that?..WIll companies withhold content/features and charge players for it later?....To me the b2p method is the most slippery slope....P2P can be bad also as games like EQ, Rift and WoW charge a monthly and also have expansions that they charge for.....

Originally posted by Theocritus

Originally posted by SlyGamer79

I think all these companies need to take a page from Arenanet & Guild Wars 2 and just sell the game with no monthly fee and let the offer of a game with all its content and just buying the game self itself of course this doesn't always keep things going however i think it appeals to more people not to pay a monthly sub and just buy the damn game lol. 

I tried SWTOR f2p version and by god they butchered the games features you can't have more then one crew skill in f2p for example and you can't do much with that alone. however i guess thats the point to force you into paying for each thing seperately or pay a sub which to me is shifty business but i'm more into the idea of MMO's nowadays with the buy to play idea like Guild Wars games. 

      My concern with b2p games is where do you draw the line at downloadable content??....I mean what should be part of that b2p and what should the customers expect to pay for after that?..WIll companies withhold content/features and charge players for it later?....To me the b2p method is the most slippery slope....P2P can be bad also as games like EQ, Rift and WoW charge a monthly and also have expansions that they charge for.....

Not just that but beware of the "cosmetic only" shop. Wow did that come out wrong in GW2. You could buy character slots, bag slots, experience and crafting boosts - none of those were cosmetic. The cosmetic things were actually the ones most dictated by random chance. Spending real money on low chance drop rate items, go figure. Gambling is what it was. Even their last event they still did it. https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/wintersday/50-in-gems-later

That person spent 50 bucks to play their free game lol They could have had a sub game for months with that cash. It just keeps sending the message home that the smart shopping is in a flat fee instead of a nickel and dime. It also, I think, lets the devs realistically deliver a timeline. When I know that I have x dollars a month, I can allocate that accordingly on manpower as a dev. When the money is determined by short-lived content and the laws of scarcity weighed in, guess what, someone stops spending when they get what they want or when they are fed up. Scarce or not, you can't forecast that people will play the PT Barnum sucker each day, well, not those with an ounce of self-respect. If the way to get them to buy things is to inhibit their drop rate to nill and make things random... then you get what you have here. Self inflicted complaints https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/game/gw2/Share-your-data-about-perceived-strange-drop-behavior-here

There may be a lot of stupid people on the planet that you can sucker often. There are also plenty of people that aren't stupid and they will  inform the stupid of things that are discovered so it can't last forever.

There was a movie where they had a joke this all reminds me of. Two bulls standing on a hill. Little bull says to big bull, hey dad, let's run down there and pork one of those cows? Father bull says, no son, let's walk down there and pork 'em all.

I can't stand cash shops because nothing ruins immersion more than being told in game that I can buy something.  If the game is good, I'll pay a sub.  if devs want to stop chasing their tails around with this, then they need to start doing a better job with designing their games.

Either that, or just approach it as a normal game, funded by the purchase price and future expansions.  Unfortunately, they still insist on adding cash shops to the mix anyway.

I think online games should have an initial fee (50ish dollars top), then you can enjoy it for a year free.

Afterwards, you could get the usual subscription based offers. This way you get a nice start.

Keeping it free forever (ala GW1) is kinda hard on the game studio side, especially if there are loaded servers because of this.

It would be better also for the game studios in planning cash resoures ahead, they wouldnt spend the initial income right away in hope subs stay :)

Originally posted by Tjed

Originally posted by Quirhid
As long as the suckers are willing to pay...

If I got to the point that $15 a month is no longer disposable income, I must have really been a sucker in the business aspect of my life. 

I'll be a $15 a month sucker for a quality product any day.  That's less than 2 beers at the pub with tip.

What kind of bar charges $15 for 2 beer? Do you get diamonds with that or an erotic massage?