Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by Goatgod76

1. Which was already brought up...people don't think the quality of games justify a monthly fee.

2. Companies realize they have the potential to make much more money off F2P with cash shops because a lot of players rather have vanity items and advantages (In some MMO's) they can pay for rather than work for, and get them fast. Sadly.

Yet, increasingly we're seeing people unhappy with F2P models. I won't name any names, but we've seen some recent threads about "offended by these packages"...clearly a lot of people who believed they were "getting a better deal" from F2P are waking up to how readily and efficiently monetized the model is. The real problem didn't turn out to be P2W, as initially feared, but rather PaP (Pay and Pay...and Pay...and Pay...) .

Anticipating some sort of lashback effect from gamers. But hell, this herd can be stampeded in nearly any direction Marketing wants it to go. Just part of the disillusionment with the industry.

 

You can say that again. And I am sure some are waking up to it...but there is still a large number that itch to buy that next "Hey! Look at me!" item too.

Vanguard:SoH is a good example of this. It's unreal the number of keys bought apparently for the sheer numbers of people riding around on special flying mounts..which are RARE drops from chests. And that's not even all there is that people seem to gobble up like crazy.

It's a F2P model with the option to sub. It has a lot of subs too. But I will bet my left bean bag it pales in comparison to their cash shop revenue.

Runes of Magic and Allods Online are both very much pay to win.

How is 18$ for a christmas mount a "microtransaction" ? :D

Some F2P models are simply a ripoff, trying to lure you into the cash shop AND have a subscription. See SWTOR for reference.

Or games with treasure chests dropping ingame and  having keys on the cash shop.

You know what´s a microtransaction? Everything between $ 0.01 and $ 0.10

Originally posted by FromHell

How is 18$ for a christmas mount a "microtransaction" ? :D

 

Some F2P models are simply a ripoff, trying to lure you into the cash shop AND have a subscription. See SWTOR for reference.

Or games with treasure chests dropping ingame and  having keys on the cash shop.

You know what´s a microtransaction? Everything between $ 0.01 and $ 0.10

probably because they will always charge what they think they can get away with, plus there is the whole bling thing going on, by putting a high value on something, it implies its worth more and so the person buying it becomes by definition, that bit more special

or as the saying goes, 'there's nought so daft as folk'

The price of "micro"transactions will keep going up and will encompass more and more of the MMO and its gameplay. After a while the real cost of so called F2P games will sink in. It may well be that players will start clammering for a sub and an end to microtransactions.

But lets call it what is is, macrotransactions is far more apt.

Originally posted by greenreen

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar

Originally posted by greenreen

Originally posted by VengeSunsoar

Well I guess there are two way you can look at this:

1.  As f2p are increasing and p2p are decreasing it is fair to say that there is less demand for subscription based games.  In that vein any subscription plan than is meeting demand.

or

2.  People are leaving p2p games because they do not feel they are quality enough to bother paying for, so the quality of the game is not meeting demand.

 

Your poll has nothing to do with the question you asked.

Incorrect, the players don't choose the payment models, the game creators do. History has revealed to us that they even change them without any qualms.

...snip

My my hit a nerve did I.

I never stated nor implied anything about who chose a payment model.

You asked if there was sufficient demand.  I simply stated that the market ALWAYS responds to demand.  If more players demanded sub based models those would increase, that they are not you have to admit the possibility that more players are not demanding that model.

Or possibly that they feel the quality isn't there in those games.

Yes there are a few that will do things for other reasons both for  the consumers and the devs however the market itself is driven by the consumers choice.

No, you tried to say that because there aren't as many sub games that meant that they weren't wanted. I showed you a genuine time when the players DID want it and contributed above and beyond enough money to make it last. So, are you claiming that my money is worthless or that my words are lies when I state that I want a sub game. Either way, it needed to be cleared up for you.

Again, the market is going where they think the money is - from LOTRO reports. After all, that is the only game that has ever gloated like they do with no numbers behind it. It's marketing selling the model, not happiness or contentment because one micro-transaction game isn't enough - we need 500+.

Um yes that is what I stated, as a possiblity, I stated you have to admit the possibilty that the market has responded to what players wanted, players have overwhelmning chosen f2p over p2p.  One possibility is because thats what they want. 

Yes your money is worthless.  The market has decided to embrace lotro with the f2p model, what you choose to do is irrelavant when the market itself has embraced it. 

The devs are going where the money is.  The consumer is choosing which games they play and which model they prefer. 

Originally posted by Icewhite

Originally posted by Goatgod76

1. Which was already brought up...people don't think the quality of games justify a monthly fee.

2. Companies realize they have the potential to make much more money off F2P with cash shops because a lot of players rather have vanity items and advantages (In some MMO's) they can pay for rather than work for, and get them fast. Sadly.

Yet, increasingly we're seeing people unhappy with F2P models. I won't name any names, but we've seen some recent threads about "offended by these packages"...clearly a lot of people who believed they were "getting a better deal" from F2P are waking up to how readily and efficiently monetized the model is. The real problem didn't turn out to be P2W, as initially feared, but rather PaP (Pay and Pay...and Pay...and Pay...) .

My guess is because these companies are still trying to figure out in what way they can monetize their F2P title and are still experimenting pricing and content. To be honest, seeing people complaining about either the cost or content of packages is a good sign. With enough outcry it tends to send a signal to companies that 'This is too much'. We've seen it with Allods Online where the cash shop was heavily overpriced and apparently things have changed a lot since. We've also seen it with VInidictus where players used to have a weekly limit to the number of times they could run a dungeon for free, which was eventually entirely removed from the game.

So long as players continue to say when enough is enough, then I think the F2P market will continue to serve just well. Provided of course that you don't have too many tools buying a $200 package for a game that shouldn't cost over $60...

Either way, F2P Cash Shop isn't something that's easy to figure out. If they could all sell just hats, I'm sure they would because it would make things so much simpler. Sadly hats are just not enough for most games I suppose.

Originally posted by azzamasin

Theres a reason why most sub based games collapse, and its not because they are bad, its because the subscription is a barrier to growing a playerbase.  Those are facts that history has shown.

Rubbish, that is not a fact that 'has been shown' at all. Player shrinkage and lack of growth is obviously the result of a number of factors, which may or may not include the sub cost. I personally have never heard *anyone* say in real life 'I didn't play that game I would love and would have tons of fun in because othe £2.50/wk charge is too expensive'.

I have heard them say other reasons though, mainly to do with core design issues, community, and boredom with the overall package being offered.

If you are gonna claim this, that history has shown us and all, then maybe show us some stats to support it? Otherwise I will just take it that you are using that statement in place of 'my personal opinion based on nothing but what I want to believe has shown'.

Originally posted by tatertoad
I'd pay $30+/mo in order to play a good game that has no cash shop, provides a platform for meaningful player interaction and the dwarf women have beards.

Same here, if an mmo is good, I'll gladly pay for it, it's cheap entertainment. I don't think subscription based mmos is dead. I think companies just need to make a quality product worthy of a subscription. Just look at how many people bought Warhammer, SWOTR etc. over 1 Million people bought them but decided they were not worth a subscription, so they went Buy to Play. Can't tell me subscriptions are dead, when people buy a game fully knowing it's a sub game. They drop the game because it doesn't warrant a subscription, simple as that.

For sure, no way are subscription MMO’s dead. Every “F2P” MMO that has come out in the last year bangs on about how it is now free, you don’t need to pay anything! But did you know we have a sub? It’s a fantastic offer, gives you loads of more content, stuff or whatever. So the subscription is still there, but the game is dressed up as F2P for marketing purposes.

I believe mmo subs are dead. Simply put, in my opinion there is too much competition to be saddled with a crap mmo for a monthly fee.  Too be honest, every mmo, no matter how good I thought it was, it wasn't worth a sub, and it wasn't worth my time past six months.

(in fact, I'm starting to think it's us older gamers thinking a game will be great like "insert random game from a decade or so ago here" to come around, but in all reality, even those great games we loved years ago would be considered crap now.)

The sub model will be dead in a couple years time, unless there is some unforseen game shift, like a game that's so amazingly advanced and beyond the other core games(since most pc users also own a console or two) offer, that everyone will have to play it, allowing the developer to charge a sub(like older games did, when there were only a handful online games). Till then, F2P will drive the market for awhile.

Originally posted by Vesavius

Originally posted by azzamasin

Theres a reason why most sub based games collapse, and its not because they are bad, its because the subscription is a barrier to growing a playerbase.  Those are facts that history has shown.

 

 

Rubbish, that is not a fact that 'has been shown' at all. Player shrinkage and lack of growth is obviously the result of a number of factors, which may or may not include the sub cost. I personally have never heard *anyone* say in real life 'I didn't play that game I would love and would have tons of fun in because othe £2.50/wk charge is too expensive'.

I have heard them say other reasons though, mainly to do with core design issues, community, and boredom with the overall package being offered.

If you are gonna claim this, that history has shown us and all, then maybe show us some stats to support it? Otherwise I will just take it that you are using that statement in place of 'my personal opinion based on nothing but what I want to believe has shown'.

Agreed, there hasnt been a game yet that failed because it required a subscription, what there has been are a lot of games that didnt offer enough in terms of gameplay to hold players long term. The issue regardling game longevity, is really down to the quality of the game itself, and not because you might have to pay for it, and this also really applies to F2P games, which arent free at all but require a continuing number of micro (or not so micro) transactions in order to gain access to content, equipment, etc..  if paying for a subscription to a game was such a big issue, then game with cash shops would also suffer.

The way I see it:

If I don't enjoy a game enough to pay $15 a month for playing, I should probably be doing something else.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again:

F2P does not equal a crap quality game.

Sure, that used to be the case, and there are certainly games out there which still fall under this stereotype, but if the current trend in the market continues, you will be seeing a lot of new releases launching straight into a F2P model, and to a lesser extent returning to the B2P model, with P2P going the way of the dinosaur.

F2P just makes sense these days, because it generates traffic to the game, which in-turn generates more revenue from any RMT or DLC those games may have.

It also lets us, the Player, vote with our money. It used to be that once developers got the box price from consumers, they didnt care much about continueing support for the game, because that would cost money and they usually filled their 'quota' within the first few weeks of their release date. Now-a-days, if a F2P doesnt offer something which will keep players around for longer to increase the chances of getting them to spend money in their Cash Shops then people will try it and drop it like a $2 hoo-, well you get where im going...

It's up to you as the Consumer to decide whether a game is worth investing money into, and until the average intelligence of the gamer rises above the market for Pay 2 Win schemes; we will still see the odd F2P game which abuses our thirst for 'becoming the best', regardless of whether we got there by skill or by coin.

Having said that, I still believe there is a place for P2P model, but perhaps not in its current (and somewhat archaic) format...

Originally posted by Nikopol

The way I see it:

If I don't enjoy a game enough to pay $15 a month for playing, I should probably be doing something else.

Exactly.

If it isn't good enough to make me want to pay money why on Earth would it be good enough for me to invest my (more) precious leisure time into it?

These guys that tell me that this or that game isn't 'worth' a sub make me boggle... they blatantly don't even enjoy or even like what they are doing and are just looking for a free knitting simulator to kill time in until the next one comes along. Too many people that don't even like MMORPGs are steering the direction of the industry IMO.

Im suprised by the results, i thought most wanted F2P theses days.

If a MMO is good enough to play, i gladly pay the sub to keep it alive and support its devs for more content.

Originally posted by IG-88

Im suprised by the results, i thought most wanted F2P theses days.

 

If a MMO is good enough to play, i gladly pay the sub to keep it alive and support its devs for more content.

 

And you consider that the results of roughly 80 people at present, on this forum, represents what is happening in the industry?

Sorry  but the rest of those people are out playing their favorite F2P game and not worrying about what the whiners on this site have to say. 

I have never met a more hypocritical group than the P2P crowd.

Originally posted by Kreedz

F2P does not equal a crap quality game.

You are right, a good game will be a good game whatever the model it uses.

BUT

Cash shop funded gaming brings a wagon load of negative factors to the game in terms of core design, community building, and player manipulation (some of which I listed before in this thread) that a game that uses it has to be looked at far more carefully before investing time into it.

With a  sub game I am like 'right, lets play', with a cash shop game I am like, 'right, let's see what tricks this is trying to pull on me in order to rinse me'.

It also lets us, the Player, vote with our money. It used to be that once developers got the box price from consumers, they didnt care much about continueing support for the game, because that would cost money and they usually filled their 'quota' within the first few weeks of their release date. Now-a-days, if a F2P doesnt offer something which will keep players around for longer to increase the chances of getting them to spend money in their Cash Shops then people will try it and drop it like a $2 hoo-, well you get where im going...

Hogwash.

A good dev will support their game whatever the revenue model. Both cash shops and subs 100% rely on people being in game equally. I have seen a ton of F2P titles say screw it to things like customer service and concentrate 100% on the shop, because that's where the money is made.

Subs are also 'voting with our money'. I resent the trick you are trying to pull here, making out that cash shops are a tool that are great for consumer rights or something. It's nonsense. Cash shops offer a horrible deal for the consumer. They are extremely expensive for those that are manipulated to spend in them and have their true costs hidden behind fake currencies and gambling scams.

Your entire post is so full of trendy recieved wisdom thinking that it's scary.

Originally posted by Boneserino

Originally posted by IG-88

Im suprised by the results, i thought most wanted F2P theses days.

 

If a MMO is good enough to play, i gladly pay the sub to keep it alive and support its devs for more content.

 

And you consider that the results of roughly 80 people at present, on this forum, represents what is happening in the industry?

Sorry  but the rest of those people are out playing their favorite F2P game and not worrying about what the whiners on this site have to say. 

I have never met a more hypocritical group than the P2P crowd.

and yet people say that gaming apps like xfire and raptor etc represent 'trends' even though only a fraction of the gaming community uses them

Originally posted by Phry

and yet people say that gaming apps (etc.)

It's important to note which people and consider the source. "People" leads to a blanket statement which is every bit as false.