Originally posted by CasualMaker

Originally posted by Kuppa 

I love the model, its what we've been doing SINCE THE BEGGINNING OF GAMING! Just pay a base price and play the game, all this sub bs is what I can't stand.

That's fine when the game just runs on your harddrive and gets nothing afterward from the makers but the odd bug-fix patch. When you add servers with persistent worlds to the mix, there are ongoing expenses that need to be supported by ongoing revenue. The complaints about "pricy" subscriptions are seriously overblown. A subscription buys you a month-long buffet of all-you-care-to-eat entertainment. Go to a movie and buy something, ANYTHING, from the snack bar and you've already paid more than a subscriptions-worth for one evening of entertainment.

FTP games and their cash shops are fine too. But any game I'm likely to stay with for over a month, I'll subscribe to. It's cheap for what it offers and I don't have to worry about pulling out my credit card over and over to grease my progression past one "stop-pay-toll" obstacle after another.

There are plenty of games that give a plethora of content with just a base price or no price(f2p). MMO's "excuse" is really not valid anymore. I have already expressed my sentiments over the idea of comparing a video game business model with other forms of entertainment. I compare a video game business model with other video game models, if I compared it to all entertaiment mediums there would be no logic to spending on a ton of forms of entertainment cause they are "too expensive" compared to my free Android apps for example....

Originally posted by gwei1984

Try to read that Mr. fallenlords. Quite sums up your approaching to every single bit of this game.

http://pthppt.com/index.php/rants/10-gotcha

Your point being?  

Originally posted by fallenlords

Originally posted by gwei1984

Try to read that Mr. fallenlords. Quite sums up your approaching to every single bit of this game.

http://pthppt.com/index.php/rants/10-gotcha

Your point being?  

 

The majority of stuff that is happening at Funcom they have no control over.  Their CEO stepping down to sell his shares, was caught by another shareholder who reported him when he tried to sell.    The shareholders of the company 'forced' Funcom to release their sales figures for TSW.   Normally not something they do given a choice.   Their share price has dropped dramatically and is not recovering.   They can't hide that fact to their investors.   It's not a case of Funcom being open and honest about things, it's Funcom being put into positions they can't hide from any more.  

 

People are focusing on the negative because unless you are a Funcom supporter, there really isn't much positive to say.     This is a company in disaster recovery mode with no firm plans for the future.   They don't know what they are doing at the moment.   In one breath free to play in the next no free to play 'anytime soon'.  Left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.  But they are just firefighting at the moment.  50% off is not an incentive to people to buy the game, it's a way in their view to hopefully make some fast cash.    They were in a negative cash flow situation prior to TSW release, while TSW itself as a game may hold it's own - their user bases in other games are dwindling significantly.  If they are treading water with TSW, then they are probably still in a negative cash flow situation once the dust settles.  But of course there is a hell of a lot of dust to settle,  including criminal investigations and halfling the workforce. 

 

They have also indicated they are pulling out of the MMO industry, something which appears to be overlooked.  Going for games with a quicker development cycle.    I agree there are ways to look at things and you can be overly negative, but in this instance the writing has been on the wall since the CEO tried to dump his stock.    They are being deliberately vague with the language they are using, that is how Funcom operate (and others).   Non-committal.   They aren't saying TSW isn't going free to play for at least a year.  They are saying not going to free to play 'anytime soon'.  Yet we have already been told the game is tooled up ready to go.  It was a contingency they already had in place. 

 

Overall my point is this, don't ever trust a company that is in trouble.  Learn from past mistakes, people have had less than positive dealings with Funcom in the past.  Don't be blinded by the love of a game that you don't see what is happening around you.  The problem with Funcom has never been the games, it's always been the management.

You Sir understand and also impress me !

              " Charlie Mike "

Originally posted by Kuppa

There goes my hope at playing TSW....

 

On the topic I found this interesting:

"MMOs are hugely expensive, and of course Guild Wars 2 has sold a lot, and of course it's a big success. That game cost a lot of money and they're going to have to sell a lot of copies, especially without a subscription model. It is a dangerous path," Tornquist said. "It might be the right path for MMOs; as a consumer, as a player, I appreciate it. As a developer I'm with Joel in thinking that it is unfortunate for a lot of smaller companies or medium-sized companies."

First, they make it sound like TSW didn't cost much so they don't have to sell that much. Then its interesting that they acknowledge the threat that is GW2 the MMO and GW2 the business model.

 

Holy shit, you COMPLETELY misread and/or misunderstood that.

They're saying an expensive-to-develop MMO either needs a subscription model to guarantee an ROI, or needs to sell a lot of copies. Hoping for the latter is risky. That's all they're saying. If anything, it sounds like they disagree with how viable B2P is for a high-cost.

C'mon folks.  Are you actually going to believe what Funcom, or any game company says about it's plans?  Not only do companies not reveal plans before they want to, they will actively lie to the public.  How many times have we read press releases or interviews saying emphatically "this game is NOT being delayed/going F2P/being cancelled", only to have exactly that happen, within a time frame that clearly showed the decision HAD been made before the accouncement.

I'm not saying they're evil, simply that they are like any other business, particularly those publicly traded.  Public perception can effect stock prices and they also want to not give information away to competitors.

Damn. I'm actually intrigued by TSW and would love to play it. Unfortunately I don't have an option of going the subscription route. I would still try and possibly be a longtime TSW player (assuming I enjoyed it) if Funcom offered pre-paid game cards like I can find for other MMOs at Best Buy or even (surprisingly!) my local grocery store. Even my grocery store offers the Karma Koin cards for my main MMO - Atlantica Online. If Funcom at least offered a similar option for TSW I'd still consider trying the game out.

In any case...

If game publishers, hardware vendors and especially the big telcos have their dreams fullfilled ALL games may soon be online-only whether Gamers like it or not. The big hope now in all of those industries is to see all forms of video gaming done on the cloud. You'll just "rent" X-number of weeks with the next Call of Duty. They might even implement a cash shop someday (if it doesn't make it P2W for example) but they'll just call it a DLC instead.  So publishers will scalp their take, the "platform provider" (aka Sony, MS, Nintendo, EA, Valve, etc) will scalp their take and finally...last in line will be the developers who made the game.

Oh...and if Net Neutrality is made illegal (as Mitt Romney keeps promising he'll do once he's President ) Gamers may well see their ISP Telco bills spike in addition to the above as well.

The lines between MMOs and single-player co-op games, etc are getting increasingly blurred.

Anyway...that's a separate subject. I'm rather bummed TSW isn't going F2P. I actually think Funcom will try their damnest to make sure this MMO doesn't go the way of AoC did. A skeleton team to keep adding small content updates may be enough to make the game profitable even if it never grows to become a cult-hit the way EVE did.