Originally posted by Sevenstar61
I see it only as optional for any new game coming from now on. WoW will stay P2P until it will stop to be profitable and I doubt it will happen anytime soon. They do not have to worry about it for a long time, so why would they change, but any new game does not have a chance. F2P is here to stay and will be the option introduced along with P2P.

I don't know why WoW doesn't go F2P. I may be totally wrong, but I think it would devistate a lot of the F2P games that are currently out. People are already spending a ton of money on their mounts/pets, so I know people would do the same with fluff items.I may be getting cheap in my old age, but I won't pay a monthly fee anymore since there are some good F2P titles now. But, if WoW went F2P, I would go back to it in a heartbeat since it is the most polished game on the market, with best support and in my opinion, the best lore and content.

Originally posted by jtcgs

Originally posted by Isturi

There is a old saying that applies here "If you cant hang with the BIG dogs then get off the porch."

That is imformative to say the least. I still dont know what being imformed has anything to do with it?? Its mmo gaming not rocket since after all the BIG dogs are Blizz and Trion and if all those other MMO companies cant hang with Blizz and Trion then they need to and they got off the porch because they could not hang.

 The big dogs are Blizzard and Trion?!?

Nexon makes a larger profit than both of those companies COMBINED from ALL SOURCES OF REVENUE.

You can total up all of Trions MMORPGs and they dont total GW2s playerbase...and GW1 had twice that...Trion is small and NCSoft made a larger profit last year than Trion made total before Profits.

As I said, your opinion and the word informed do not go hand in hand...like you keep repeating, you dont know what being informed has to do with your own opinion.

Well since you seem to be so well informed do you have links to these claims? Im not sure why you have to defend infomation on each post? I find mmo news to share with this comunity. Like it or leave it. Dont make a diffrence to me. Information is my speciality.

Originally posted by bigsmiff

Originally posted by Sevenstar61
I see it only as optional for any new game coming from now on. WoW will stay P2P until it will stop to be profitable and I doubt it will happen anytime soon. They do not have to worry about it for a long time, so why would they change, but any new game does not have a chance. F2P is here to stay and will be the option introduced along with P2P.

I don't know why WoW doesn't go F2P. I may be totally wrong, but I think it would devistate a lot of the F2P games that are currently out. People are already spending a ton of money on their mounts/pets, so I know people would do the same with fluff items.I may be getting cheap in my old age, but I won't pay a monthly fee anymore since there are some good F2P titles now. But, if WoW went F2P, I would go back to it in a heartbeat since it is the most polished game on the market, with best support and in my opinion, the best lore and content.

They're already "robbing people blind" of their cash as it is using P2P, why would they take such a risky maneuver that could devastate those profits? Granted, that's not to say it'll NEVER happen; WoW will eventually lose steam, but right now they aren't in any hurry to do so mesatinks.

B2P seems to be the way to go I think. I find myself having trouble commiting to a sub these days. For one, I just don't have the time like I had when I was younger to play 24/7. Also there are just too many good games to play, I feel too commited to a sub game.

Right now I enjoy playing TSW, GW2, PoE(though its not an MMO), and Tera a bit (not F2P yet but soon).

And to anyone who keeps saying Smedly should be fired. If he was really costing the company money, i'm sure he would have been let go a long time ago.

Originally posted by WhiteLantern

Originally posted by Isturi

Truth be told they will never keep up with the indrustry leader's that still use P2P format.

To whom are you reffering?

Blizzard? No one has, or ever will, come close to that "leader".

CCP? PS2 has nearly twice as many people logging in every week as Eve has subs.

Trion? See above.

Who else should we be looking to?

I am not surprised. Eve is quite a niche game. One look at xfire numbers and it is very clear.

Aside from WOW, i doubt anyone will find big sucess in p2p.

---

Originally posted by repster
LoL... EA is a small fish. Nexon put out an offer to buy EA Games a little while back.

---

A good year for Nexon is making over 1 billion in revenue a year, a bad year for EA is making under 4 billion in revenue a year.

PopCap Games(which EA owns) makes as much revenue a year as Nexon.

Do you live in a black hole? It was on Forbes...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericsavitz/2012/04/26/ea-spikes-on-report-japans-nexon-makes-takeover-bid/

Just google it.

https://www.google.com/search?q=nexon+bid+to+buy+ea

EA is probably going bankrupt within a few years. Revenue doesn't matter if the company is doing terrible. Look at Zynga, even when they were bringing in over a billion in revenue per year off their social games they still lost money!

No...

Nexon's bid was a joke.

Nexon has made 1.2 billion in profits each of the last two years. EA has been averaging around 1.4 billion a year.

EA is still the largest in the world, Nexon is #2 in the world. They made a bid to get people to actually LOOK at Nexon, and how they got where they did to shake up the MMO world, they are the reason why so many companies in the genre took a serious look at the F2P market, and saw that the real money is not in the subscription field unless you have a massive product like WoW.

If you dont have millions of subscribers, you will make far more with a good F2P offer.

Anyway, before Nexons bid, few took F2P seriously as a money maker...becaue most companies are short-sighted and locked on old thinking and never REALLY LOOKED at what Asian and some European companies were making...I mean come on Runes of Magic was making more money that FUNCOM was making total for 3 YEARS STRAIGHT! One F2P game, making more than every game Funcom had going.

Originally posted by Goatgod76
Take a look at the thread Anybody-for-an-MMO-Questionnaire and it will tell you by looking at the question on how much people have spent in the last 6 months in MMO's why most companies think F2P is the way to go. It is for them by a large margin apparently...as they make MUCH more per month off suckers.

 Its true, people who not only paid for the box, but monthly subscriptions for SWTOR, TSW, AoC, UO and so many others that did poorly, were NOT suckers.

Nope, it was money well spent.

Best part about it, subscriptions were created on a lie...to pay for bandwidth costs that didnt exist...lol

step 1: make f2p mmo.

step 2: others make other f2p mmo's.

step 3: wondr why you have no player retention when you are not asking for any commitment from the player.

step 4: cash in on remaining players to cover expenses.

step 5: ???

step 6: no profit.

Originally posted by jtcgs

Originally posted by Goatgod76
Take a look at the thread Anybody-for-an-MMO-Questionnaire and it will tell you by looking at the question on how much people have spent in the last 6 months in MMO's why most companies think F2P is the way to go. It is for them by a large margin apparently...as they make MUCH more per month off suckers.

 Its true, people who not only paid for the box, but monthly subscriptions for SWTOR, TSW, AoC, UO and so many others that did poorly, were NOT suckers.

Nope, it was money well spent.

Best part about it, subscriptions were created on a lie...to pay for bandwidth costs that didnt exist...lol

UO and EQ had player retention...and still do some 13+ years later. Not to mention have tons of content. So yeah, it was money well spent with them.

Where as ones like SWTOR and TSW...or pretty much any other post 2004 MMO...go F2P to make quick money and gobs of it quickly as possible before player numbers fall off enough to close down servers since they know they don't have the mechanics nor content to retain players for the long run.

People who fall for those types of games are suckers. Especially because they could of saved themselves the trouble, wasted time, and money waiting to see reviews and research them themsleves before diving in based on hype and wanting to dip into the newest shiney on the shelf.

My entire 5 years spent in EQ at $14.99 a month (Plus box fees from EQ Original to Gates of Discord *7 expansions* - say box price of $50 each) comes up to $1249.45 and some change. Some players can and do spend much more than that in half the time if not less on F2P types (again, look at that thread at the amounts spent in 6 months for most and add that over 5 years). Which is a better value.

Originally posted by jtcgs

Originally posted by Robokapp
[mod edit]

[mod edit]

i'm not sure how attacking P2Ps helps F2Ps but thanks for the fix.

 as the 2007+ era thought us, if step 1 includes "crap", then steps 5 and 6 are the same regardless of payment model.

it's not too expensive no matter what model it is. MMOs are the cheap alternative to real entertainment.

If it's too bad to be worth the money and / or time, most often too bad to be worth the TIME, really, it will fail under any model.

There's browser games out there that are 100% free. They're meaningless little distractions that don't have a billion players because the financial model is so great. Next step is them paying us to play...

Originally posted by Robokapp

Originally posted by jtcgs

Originally posted by Robokapp
[mod edit]

[mod edit]

i'm not sure how attacking P2Ps helps F2Ps but thanks for the fix.

 as the 2007+ era thought us, if step 1 includes "crap", then steps 5 and 6 are the same regardless of payment model.

 

it's not too expensive no matter what model it is. MMOs are the cheap alternative to real entertainment.

 

If it's too bad to be worth the money and / or time, most often too bad to be worth the TIME, really, it will fail under any model.

 

There's browser games out there that are 100% free. They're meaningless little distractions that don't have a billion players because the financial model is so great. Next step is them paying us to play...

Agree 100% tyvm

Originally posted by SoMuchMass
Only the cream of the crop can charge subs for MMOs.  Average to below average games cannot in this competitive market.  We will always see subscription MMOs but they will be the best there is.  Others who don't offer as much will have to be F2P.  Players on average can pay one subscription but aren't willing to pay for more than one.

I don't think it's even the cream of the crop anymore, but how much people feel locked into their older games.  If you own all the WoW expansions, have capped and geared characters, plus a lot of in game acquaintances/friends, then that is a lot to give up to start all over in a new world.  It only costs $15 per month plus $50 every two years for the game.  Even though they could play as cheap or cheaper in newer games it will take a lot of time investment to become established again.  Re-creating a community from scratch is an enourmous undertaking.

There's a lot to risk moving from an established game.  That sort of momentum I think has contributed significantly to older sub games like WoW and EVE remaining viable in their payment model.  Those things contribute to an inertia that new games just can't generate or sustain.

Once those games lose that, then I think we'll see that model crumble.  It's already no longer purely a subscription model anyway.  They all supplement the model with box fees, expansion fees, some micro-transactions, and rmt gold sales.  The last game I remember being purely subscription was (is) Lineage.

I can't see any game on the horizon that will be more successful locked behind a subscription, than I think they would be under a sub-free model.

Originally posted by jtcgs

If you dont have millions of subscribers, you will make far more with a good F2P offer.

Anyway, before Nexons bid, few took F2P seriously as a money maker...becaue most companies are short-sighted and locked on old thinking and never REALLY LOOKED at what Asian and some European companies were making...I mean come on Runes of Magic was making more money that FUNCOM was making total for 3 YEARS STRAIGHT! One F2P game, making more than every game Funcom had going.

This is complete bs.   Nexon (NA) had 17 milliion in revenue 2011.   That is less than a 100k subscribers between all their games they offer.

Originally posted by thinktank001

Originally posted by jtcgs

If you dont have millions of subscribers, you will make far more with a good F2P offer.

Anyway, before Nexons bid, few took F2P seriously as a money maker...becaue most companies are short-sighted and locked on old thinking and never REALLY LOOKED at what Asian and some European companies were making...I mean come on Runes of Magic was making more money that FUNCOM was making total for 3 YEARS STRAIGHT! One F2P game, making more than every game Funcom had going.

This is complete bs.   Nexon (NA) had 17 milliion in revenue 2011.   That is less than a 100k subscribers between all their games they offer.

 This is complete BS. Nexon made a bid on EA...holy crap where did you get 17 million from?!?

Nexon went public on the Tokyo stock exchange in 2011...and had the SECOND LARGEST OPENING for a tech company in HISTORY...only outdone by Facebook. AND they BOUGHT NDOORS for 153.9 MILLION...

2011  = 1.12 BILLION US dollars.