I say this because the majority of people complain about the pay to win marketing strategy.  So why not get rid of the cash shop and just sell the MMO for a retail price of $40-$60 giving full access to the games content and no restrictions and having no sub fee.  There are countless F2P MMOs out there that are just as good or even better than popular subscription based MMOs. 

Guild Wars 2 is going to be B2P and will probably be a marketing success with all the hype. With B2P you can at least not feel obligated to play every waking moment of your life to not waste a couple cents. 

Theres nothing wrong with a cash shop as long as it doesnt give an advantage over other players.  Im pretty sure people would be okay with paying money once on something and finding out it sucked (talking to people who bought SWTOR , COD:MW3). Here come the fanboys raining on me.  

I think Global Agenda is an excellent example of what Im trying to say. You can play the game for free but have limited access but if you pay a one time box sale you get everything. 

Originally posted by Theonenoni

I say this because the majority of people complain about the pay to win marketing strategy.  So why not get rid of the cash shop and just sell the MMO for a retail price of $40-$60 giving full access to the games content and no restrictions and having no sub fee.  There are countless F2P MMOs out there that are just as good or even better than popular subscription based MMOs. 

Guild Wars 2 is going to be B2P and will probably be a marketing success with all the hype. With B2P you can at least not feel obligated to play every waking moment of your life to not waste a couple cents. 

Theres nothing wrong with a cash shop as long as it doesnt give an advantage over other players.  Im pretty sure people would be okay with paying money once on something and finding out it sucked (talking to people who bought SWTOR , COD:MW3). Here come the fanboys raining on me.  

I think Global Agenda is an excellent example of what Im trying to say. You can play the game for free but have limited access but if you pay a one time box sale you get everything. 

You need the free part to lure people in. With so much free entertainment (and particulary in MMOs), you can't get a sizable audience if you don't start with free.

Even WOW has a free part now.

all mmo should be monthly only

I think if GW2 succeeds then we'll see more games go the B2P route. 

The GW2 devs have said the idea you need a monthly fee to sustain an MMO is false, and the proof will be in their pudding.

They plan to release regular content updates, as well as expansions.  They will have a cash shop, but it will only contain cosmetic items and things like extra character slots, that don't give the player any direct advantage over someone who did not buy the cash shop item.

Alot of people dont' even want to pay the box fee of 40-60 at all. 

And many f2p rely on the few minority that pays for everyone.  My guildmates forexample spend 1000$ a month on a f2p game. 

Whatever works I suppose.  I dont' think we need to tell company how to milk money from us.  I'm sure they know how to best make money of us.  If there isn't much b2p games on the market, probably because f2p makes more money for them. 

There are some F2P games, such as Eden Eternal, that you can play without spending money. Not all F2P are Pay2Win or Freemium.

Originally posted by nariusseldon

You need the free part to lure people in. With so much free entertainment (and particulary in MMOs), you can't get a sizable audience if you don't start with free.

Even WOW has a free part now.

Guildwars have sold plenty.. So did Wow before they added the free stuff.

You do need a free trial though, but that is easy enough to add. I can´t think of a single game that gained a lot of players after adding a free zone. A good game will sell, even without any trial whatsoever.

So a few examples proving your point would be nice, Wow did add it´s free zone just after it started to loose players.

I do agree with OP, any MMO with PvP in it suffers badly when you sell items, they should be B2P instead of F2P. For a PvE game like LOTRO the itemshop is a lot less impacting (yeah, I know they just started selling good stuff there).

Done quite a few by far PWE approach to Star Trek Online is very fair i don't feel pressured or restricted to in any way,unlike AOC which forced me to go premium as it was so restrictive.

Of course the C-store pops up everywhere but i have yet to pay a penny but if i go gold or just pop in the odd tenner,i feel i would get my moneys worth as the game is open apart from the generic stuff in any F2P game.

Originally posted by laokoko

Alot of people dont' even want to pay the box fee of 40-60 at all. 

And many f2p rely on the few minority that pays for everyone.  My guildmates forexample spend 1000$ a month on a f2p game. 

Whatever works I suppose.  I dont' think we need to tell company how to milk money from us.  I'm sure they know how to best make money of us.  If there isn't much b2p games on the market, probably because f2p makes more money for them. 

Uhm, there are plenty of B2P games on themarket. In fact all FPS games are B2P and they have servers up just like MMOs.

The reason that MMOs were only P2P so long and now F2P is taking over is because MMO devs are rather traditional. They follow what others have done before them and so far is GW the example. Once GW2 and Class 4 is out there will likely be others following.

Originally posted by Theonenoni

I say this because the majority of people complain about the pay to win marketing strategy.  So why not get rid of the cash shop and just sell the MMO for a retail price of $40-$60 giving full access to the games content and no restrictions and having no sub fee.  There are countless F2P MMOs out there that are just as good or even better than popular subscription based MMOs. 

Guild Wars 2 is going to be B2P and will probably be a marketing success with all the hype. With B2P you can at least not feel obligated to play every waking moment of your life to not waste a couple cents. 

Theres nothing wrong with a cash shop as long as it doesnt give an advantage over other players.  Im pretty sure people would be okay with paying money once on something and finding out it sucked (talking to people who bought SWTOR , COD:MW3). Here come the fanboys raining on me.  

I think Global Agenda is an excellent example of what Im trying to say. You can play the game for free but have limited access but if you pay a one time box sale you get everything. 

Global agenda has all but died at this point and is one of the worries of buy to play which is they stop releasing updates, banning aimbotters, etc.  Once the updates stop the community grows stagnant and dies.

Originally posted by laokoko

Alot of people dont' even want to pay the box fee of 40-60 at all. 

And many f2p rely on the few minority that pays for everyone.  My guildmates forexample spend 1000$ a month on a f2p game. 

Whatever works I suppose.  I dont' think we need to tell company how to milk money from us.  I'm sure they know how to best make money of us.  If there isn't much b2p games on the market, probably because f2p makes more money for them. 

You are right on.

It is well known that MOST f2p players do NOT pay and a small % of the players carry everyone.

I love that model cause i am part of the free-riding majority.

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by laokoko

Alot of people dont' even want to pay the box fee of 40-60 at all. 

And many f2p rely on the few minority that pays for everyone.  My guildmates forexample spend 1000$ a month on a f2p game. 

Whatever works I suppose.  I dont' think we need to tell company how to milk money from us.  I'm sure they know how to best make money of us.  If there isn't much b2p games on the market, probably because f2p makes more money for them. 

Uhm, there are plenty of B2P games on themarket. In fact all FPS games are B2P and they have servers up just like MMOs.

The reason that MMOs were only P2P so long and now F2P is taking over is because MMO devs are rather traditional. They follow what others have done before them and so far is GW the example. Once GW2 and Class 4 is out there will likely be others following.

Yes there are many online games that are b2p.  FPS, RTS, diablo etc etc.

But I dont' know many that are MMORPG.  Actually I only know 1 which is GW.

I just think company tries to make as much money as possible.  If they can get away with making more money from subscription or F2P games they will. 

If they think they can make more money through B2P they will too.  As evident through GW.  It's just cost and demand to me. B2P is the cheapest model, and if it's cheap it sells alot of copy.  Nothing wrong with it.  I'm sure many will follow if what you say is true. It's just not happening so far. 

Btw, what's class 4?

I think GW2 will have a great formula for success.  Buy to play, with an asthetic item shop. 

This reads a little like "F2P companies should intentionally choose a worse payment model which encourages them to overhype their game to sell a lot of boxes like GW2 rather than responsibly create an awesome well-balanced F2P game like TF2 or LoL, and reap the benefits."

Criticism of P2win games is deserved, but MMORPGs can make a ton of money in F2P without compromising gameplay.

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by laokoko

Alot of people dont' even want to pay the box fee of 40-60 at all. 

And many f2p rely on the few minority that pays for everyone.  My guildmates forexample spend 1000$ a month on a f2p game. 

Whatever works I suppose.  I dont' think we need to tell company how to milk money from us.  I'm sure they know how to best make money of us.  If there isn't much b2p games on the market, probably because f2p makes more money for them. 

Uhm, there are plenty of B2P games on themarket. In fact all FPS games are B2P and they have servers up just like MMOs.

The reason that MMOs were only P2P so long and now F2P is taking over is because MMO devs are rather traditional. They follow what others have done before them and so far is GW the example. Once GW2 and Class 4 is out there will likely be others following.

GW has been "there" for a long time. It sells millions of boxes, which is not exactly unsuccessful. Where are its followers?

Originally posted by nariusseldon

Originally posted by Loke666

Originally posted by laokoko

Alot of people dont' even want to pay the box fee of 40-60 at all. 

And many f2p rely on the few minority that pays for everyone.  My guildmates forexample spend 1000$ a month on a f2p game. 

Whatever works I suppose.  I dont' think we need to tell company how to milk money from us.  I'm sure they know how to best make money of us.  If there isn't much b2p games on the market, probably because f2p makes more money for them. 

Uhm, there are plenty of B2P games on themarket. In fact all FPS games are B2P and they have servers up just like MMOs.

The reason that MMOs were only P2P so long and now F2P is taking over is because MMO devs are rather traditional. They follow what others have done before them and so far is GW the example. Once GW2 and Class 4 is out there will likely be others following.

GW has been "there" for a long time. It sells millions of boxes, which is not exactly unsuccessful. Where are its followers?

I'm sure this isn't going to go over well but isn't Guild Wars model closer to games like LOTR's and DDO than it is to MW3?  I would say that most of the western F2P MMO's followed GW model minus the buy up front part but leave the purchase content as you like part.  Afterall you can't buy a single box or digital download that has all of Guild Wars content unlocked can you?  It's hard for me to see a significant difference between Guild Wars and western F2P games except that GW's makes you buy at least the basic edition of the game upfront.