The Free Zone: A Developer's Shift to F2P
MMORPG.com Columnist Richard Aihoshi discusses the transition for one developer in particular in moving from a career working on subscription based MMOs and into the F2P sector of the industry.
Column By Richard Aihoshi on November 02, 2009
"Imagine an MMOG based in a fantasy world with multiple classes to choose from. You can customize your look. The core play includes leveling up your character, defeating creatures, improving your equipment, and getting other players together to defeat some pretty tough bosses. You can trade items with one another, fight in PvP battles, send in-game mail, and form guilds. Am I talking about World of Warcraft? Warhammer Online? EverQuest II?"
While the feature set listed by Chris Lena is common enough to be in quite a number of releases, his questions point out an undeniable reality, which is that many people would initially associate it with major subscription offerings. In fact, he's referring to Dragonica Online, the free to play game launched a couple of weeks ago by publisher THQ*ICE.
In his role as its Executive Producer, Lena has come face to face with the numerous preconceived notions that exist about F2P titles. Some of these perceptions were his own, the result of having spent the previous eight years in the subscription sector, including a series of positions at SOE, then as Senior Producer on Cryptic's Champions Online. During a recent discussion, he noted that the change had been "eye-opening" for him as a developer. Although some of his industry colleagues had expressed similar sentiments to me before, he was the first one willing to do so more extensively for publication.
Lena reports he expected the change would provide a learning experience, but was still surprised. "I've always believed that if someone is telling you he's an expert on MMOs, then he's lying... or, at best, delusional. Keeping that in mind, I knew moving over from subscription to free to play would be both interesting and educational. But I didn't know what an understatement this would be."
One revelation was that "Subscriptions make you lazy." He explains that the monthly nature of this revenue model tends to promote thinking from one patch to the next, which may be a couple of weeks apart, but can be far longer. In the F2P space, this time frame is significantly compressed. "The barriers to entry and exit are much, much lower, so you have deliver to your players all the time: content, contests, automated events, GM-driven ones, special offers... and whatever else people want. It takes almost no effort for them to try another game, so you have to prove yourself constantly. Everything happens faster."
Another important difference is what Lena describes as the lack of a safety net in relation to how quickly users receive initial gratification. He recognizes sooner is better, but also notes that conflicts with long-term satisfaction can arise. With subscription games, he says people are pre-disposed to allow more time before they start feeling like they're having fun. This is because they've made some degree of mental commitment, which isn't so for F2Ps.
;)
It's an eye opening experience.
To illustrate this point, he cites an example where someone logs into one, plays for 10 minutes, then decides there's no reason ever to return. "There isn't the nagging feeling of wasting a month that's already been paid for," he declares. "Thus, we have to create a reason to come back." The fierce competitive environment further intensifies this need. With hundreds of choices already available, more arriving every month and the major western publishers starting to take a more active interest, simply being free isn't enough. "Your game has to be high quality and bring something interesting to the market, or you might just as well pack up and go home."
The final topic Lena chose to bring up was the balance between the economy and the gameplay experience. In the subscription realm, the only major question is whether the latter is worth the monthly fee amount. F2Ps require other significant considerations. He put forward two examples. One is how well they warrant the investment of time, the other the degree to which the items offered for sale enhance the purchasers' enjoyment without creating untenable imbalances.
Lena sums up his experience so far in the F2P world as "eye-opening and exhilarating", with a fast pace and varied problems that don't always have obvious answers. "I wouldn't want to be anywhere else," he says. In this respect and in his obvious eagerness to learn, I can't help but compare his attitude with that of certain self-proclaimed experts he mentioned earlier, the ones who repeatedly insist they've played every MMOG, and who talk as though anything other than unquestioning acceptance of their opinions is tantamount to heresy. Thankfully, I have far more occasion to interact with people like Chris, and to advance my own knowledge in the process.
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He is the former Editor of RPG Vault and his column, focusing on free to play MMOs, appears on MMORPG.com every Monday.
Right, your case here is abased on a anime game that mostly kids will play and you think this guy understands the market?
If he understands the genre so, why is he going for a highly competitive niche in it? There are tons of anime games out there.
The funny thing is, content is king and the subscription games have it, while none of the f2p do. Whether his game has the content to succeed most will never know because of the niche he choose to operate in. So much for his alleged in depth knowledge of the genre.
If you want to cite success in the f2p MMO's, all you have to do is look at DDO and how they have melded the subscription and f2p forms of the genre. Turbine has a far better understanding of what the players in this genre want.
You're making a bold assumption there that DDO is doing well or that it is a good example of a free to play game.
As for the article, this Chris guy clearly never played a free to play MMO before he took the job, its not rocket science and anyone who has worked with free to play games or played them for any serious length of time will know they are drastically different to subcription MMOs.
It scares me sometimes how narrow minded and blind people within the industry are.
This developer is spewing corporate propaganda to promote the new game. He went from working on a large budget, high quality, state of the art subscription based MMO to a low budget 2D sidescroller craptastic f2p.
He's not happy or excited about that. He just went from the NFL to the Euro league and now he's trying to put on a happy face because its his job and its expected of him. Hell the poor guy is probably trying to convince himself it isn't as bad as it seems.
Some interesting points here about the differences between F2P and subscription, like the need for F2P games to offer quicker initial gratification and more frequent content updates. The problem with that I think is that F2P games typically have smaller budgets, so it's a tall order for them to be more appealing out of the gate and to offer more frequent updates than the big budget subscription game competitors.
I think F2P will remain the ugly step-child in the MMO family until a major developer designs a big-budget game targeted at the core MMO audience as F2P out of the gate -- and I don't mean one of these games with subscription fee + item shop shenanigans.
What made me laugh was this paragraph:
One revelation was that "Subscriptions make you lazy." He explains that the monthly nature of this revenue model tends to promote thinking from one patch to the next, which may be a couple of weeks apart, but can be far longer. In the F2P space, this time frame is significantly compressed. "The barriers to entry and exit are much, much lower, so you have deliver to your players all the time: content, contests, automated events, GM-driven ones, special offers... and whatever else people want. It takes almost no effort for them to try another game, so you have to prove yourself constantly. Everything happens faster."
He is basically saying that to make a GM event where a GM is ingame giving away an item to the first who gets to him, or to have a contest where the first 300 people who log into mmorpg.com get a free shoelace, or to make a costume that they sell for 150000000$ on the item mall that doesn't give anything ingame other than looking different is more challenging than making a full expansion with a new continent, new classes, new races, new sets of weapons and armor, new instances, new raids, new storyline, 1000 times more content for a P2P game....
Come on, F2P games are the same as making a game with the good old RPG maker that we all used to play with to make our own adventures, nothing really complicated :) And also there isn't much programming involved, because all they do is take some other game's model and just copy it and change colors and classes.
Uhh... Item shop shenanigans ???? Wow you clearly have no idea don't you, How else is a FREE 2 PLAY mmo going to get money to develop if there is nothing to get money from..
Uhh... Item shop shenanigans ???? Wow you clearly have no idea don't you, How else is a FREE 2 PLAY mmo going to get money to develop if there is nothing to get money from..
I think he was referring to games including both Subscription and Cash shop like CO or STO.
Wow...
I must have tried all the wrong F2P MMOs, because so far - having played Perfect World, Archlord, Shaiya, Last Chaos, Runes of Magic... and at least half a dozen others - I've yet to see a F2P MMO that comes close to the P2P MMOs I've played in terms of content, quality and depth. Almost without exception, they've been shallow, simple grind-tastic affairs with lazy designs that focus on trying to get you to use the cash shop. At best they've been underwhelming and I've lost interest in playing them after a couple days.
Also, the presumption that people stick with P2P MMOs longer because there's a financial investment just rings hollow to me and seems to be nothing more than spin. People are *more* judgemental of a P2P MMO and more demanding of quality and quantity because there *is* a monetary investment... They want their money's worth. With F2P... well... you get what you pay for.
Gotta agree with what someone said earlier in the thread, it sounds like a lot of hype and propaganda for the model to me as well. Frankly, a lot of Aioshi's articles come across as to me anyway; like he's evangelizing F2P to convince people that they're something special. In my experience, they've been underwhelming at best and come nowhere close to providing the experience I've had in all but the worst P2P MMOs.
As someone who pays monthly for Aion and still makes sure I have time to play the F2P games I enjoy, I did enjoy reading this post. I disagree with the people who say F2P updates are not as good as P2P ones as my current favourite F2P game 'Runes Of Magic' has just done a few major updates recently, adding a new race, two new classes, new raids and new places to explore. The game also allows people who don't wish to spend money in the item shop to access items from there via auction houses in game.
I feel like Runes of Magic offers a very high quality product with excellent updates and offers each and every day I log in. I find myself playing it more and more often and have even ended up spending some cash in the cash shop for some rather gorgeous looking mounts.
I have played quite a few F2P MMO's, Dragonica also being a good quality game, although didn't grab my attention as much as RoM. It is nice to see different styles of game making it to the MMO stage via F2P.
RoM offers a better experience in my eyes to WoW, WAR and DDO, it has a busy yet friendly set of servers and lots to offer to anyone bored of the standard P2P offerings right now.
I feel that if the P2P big boys want to attain some of the same excitement past launch that RoM offers and its users enjoy, F2P will start to become far more prolific.
I understand I also subscribe to Aion, however as mentioned in the article, I felt I had to persevere as I had paid for it. It is an excellent game with features and qualities that make it probably the greatest P2P game on the market right now, however, it doesn't make me want to stop playing RoM.
I'd like to point out that DDO recently went F2P and their actual PAID subscriptions went up over 40%.
Paid subs mean you have an edge over the free players.
As many MMO vets know, these advantages may very well be worth a paid sub, especially in games featuring PvP.
F2P increased thier paid subscriptions by 40%... it also gave them microtransaction based income, that is also significant (no good numbers yet to give the exact ratio of Monthly Fee vs Microtransaction). It would not be unreasonable to assume that this change may have doubled thier revenue...
It is hard to believe that they would consider something like this not successful.
Indeed they do offer these things, if you pay to play the game. All I was saying is that RoM offer it all for free and I personally enjoy playing the game massively. Even more than my favourite P2P game. P2P doesn't need to pick up on this, however F2P is offering these quality updates to everyone, even those who haven't spent a penny.
Err... well okay I can see the clarification in that, but it still seems like spin to me.
RoM might be the exception to the rule, but F2P MMOs are still pretty widely regarded as being inferior to P2P MMOs... and it's not because people are "trying to justify the subscription fee" as the article seems to imply.. Time and again, players explain how the F2P MMOs feel like half-baked, shallow grind-fests and that's why they don't continue playing them.
What you *could* say and, perhaps, be more on-target is if more F2P MMOs used RoM as an example of how to develop and maintain their own MMOs (using your opinion of RoM's overall quality as reference, for example's sake) and brought the overall quality of them up, that maybe they would see the same success as the so-called "P2P big boys". Even moreso, they could use the better P2P MMOs as a measure as well.
It's a matter of the F2P developers rising to the standard people have come to expect from a well-done P2P MMO. Not the "P2P big boys" realizing the brilliance of F2P and jumping on that bandwagon.
Even then, however, they're still going up against the fact that many people do not like the idea of cash shops or RMT in any form and would be turned off by that alone. That's a stigma that isn't going away any time soon.
Well... Moving DDO to F2P was more desperation than insight... After it bombed so badly as a P2P game(forced grouping being one of the examples of how seriously it niched itself). Remember Asherons Call 2? Now there is an example of a "learning experience" for you... Between Mickysoft and Turbine they messed up AC2 so badly that they finally decided to close it down(after selling us all an expansion pack of course...). So I can't really see Turbine as having any great understanding of what the players in that genre want.
Runes of Magic is a better example of a F2P game that has more than the usual depth than one typically finds in a F2P. I'd still be playing it, if not for the cheesy boss level mobs with long aggro ranges they have roaming around in the quest areas. They can one or two shot players in that areas level range. Not sure if they are still doing this, but having to wait 30 days to receive the diamonds one has purchased in the cashshop is a VERY bad decision as well. F2P doesn't have to equal low quality grinder, but in all too many instances it does.
Err... well okay I can see the clarification in that, but it still seems like spin to me.
RoM might be the exception to the rule, but F2P MMOs are still pretty widely regarded as being inferior to P2P MMOs... and it's not because people are "trying to justify the subscription fee" as the article seems to imply.. Time and again, players explain how the F2P MMOs feel like half-baked, shallow grind-fests and that's why they don't continue playing them.
What you *could* say and, perhaps, be more on-target is if more F2P MMOs used RoM as an example of how to develop and maintain their own MMOs (using your opinion of RoM's overall quality as reference, for example's sake) and brought the overall quality of them up, that maybe they would see the same success as the so-called "P2P big boys". Even moreso, they could use the better P2P MMOs as a measure as well.
It's a matter of the F2P developers rising to the standard people have come to expect from a well-done P2P MMO. Not the "P2P big boys" realizing the brilliance of F2P and jumping on that bandwagon.
Even then, however, they're still going up against the fact that many people do not like the idea of cash shops or RMT in any form and would be turned off by that alone. That's a stigma that isn't going away any time soon.
I fully agree, I think there was much misunderstanding from my post.
I also must admit to cash-shops and RMT being a major turn off for me originally, until RoM. Even though I know I can work in game to get the same items, I did find myself using the cash shop.
I feel though that F2P quality will continue to improve, the sea of poor quality F2P MMO's will eventually die and true greatness will shine. That is when P2P MMO's will have its work cut out.
I'll continue my support of good quality MMO games, and that shines in both the F2P and P2P worlds.
Just to clarify, as I play Runes of Magic -
- The bosses are still incredibly tough without a party, however it takes more than one or two shots for them to take down a player usually.
- The aggro range is pretty long, however most enemies can be out ran, even on foot.
- Diamonds are added to your account instantly.
I've been playing for a good few months now and really enjoy it, especially since the servers have become even busier and the community is consistantly friendly.
Just to clarify, as I play Runes of Magic -
- The bosses are still incredibly tough without a party, however it takes more than one or two shots for them to take down a player usually.
- The aggro range is pretty long, however most enemies can be out ran, even on foot.
- Diamonds are added to your account instantly.
I've been playing for a good few months now and really enjoy it, especially since the servers have become even busier and the community is consistantly friendly.
The diamonds are added instantly but you are not allowed to spend them except cash shop items. You have to wait 30 days before you can trade them in the auctionhouse, so if you want that shiny sword from there you should pray that it stays for sale for a month to get it. In addition, all diamonds accumulated before the transaction have the same restrictions, so if you eg have 500 and buy another 1000, the whole 1500 are only spendable in the CS for 30 days.
Something that many people miss is that 99.99% of free to play MMOs are designed around a Korean or Chinese audience, which is much more tolerant of slow and repetative gameplay than the western audiences. Even Runes of Magic, a Taiwanese game suffers from this in some respect, but is arguably the best free to play MMO to be exported from Asia to date.
I think you will find, once western developers start releasing free to play MMOs that the standards will go up drastically. After all, it isn't the payment model that is the problem, in almost all cases it is design decisions that are the problem and none of these design decisions are tied to money, they just happen to be how they make games out there.
Look to Earth Eternal, possibly the first real free to play game from a US developer, it incorporates a lot of good design decisions and very few bad ones, if you look past the somewhat child-like art style they've chosen.
Everyone needs to stop judging games based on the payment model, Aioshi included, and start judging them on their gameplay!
A good point. I haven't checked out Earth Eternal however I may have a cheeky look later tonight at it.
Indeed, the payment model is not the most important thing, if you think something is value for your money, you'll spend it, no matter what the payment model is.
I have checked out Earth Eternal and just recently dragonica. I must say the interface and graphics are pretty high quality in both titles. While I really don't enjoy the sidescrolling it seems to be a decent game. There are lots of options but the quests once again in both are the same go get X of Y and return it to me.
Seems to be a really bad reaction to F2P titles here. I think we will see more and more and as I see it they are getting better and better. Time will tell.
F2P are comming along. Look at Gates of Andaron. There's a nice F2P wow clone.
I do fear that their business model isn't geared to make much profit. While I'm glad the item shop isn't set up for building pwnage into your low level avi, the mounts are for rent only. I wonder how much money they are making. Hopefully they aren't the next Dungeon Runners.
I've played gates. Cute game until it leads one in to contested zones. Then its a typical Asian gankfest. I managed to get my warrior up to level 32. The game is totally unbalanced in terms of PvP. Using cash shop items I was able to get my gear(weapons, armor and shield) up to around +12. Some crazies have gone as high as +18 from what I hear. I liked the idea of the solo dungeons, but they proved to be too simplistic and few and far between. Its too bad its such a gank/grindfest, as I like the graphics.
Some very good points made in your article. It is true f2p do seem to update and add things much quicker and the point made is good. There is a lot of f2p games out there and seems more arriving regularly. So yes the market is a tough one.
I have tried a few of them and I have noticed things seems to move at a much faster pace when it comes to updates and new things. They are not without problems but it sure seems they get them cleaned up a lot quicker than the subscription games do.
It is a whole lot easier to change a game when you are not spending so much in the playing and expansions.
I've noticed how much faster recent f2p mmos expand than p2p games as well. Let's look at RoM. Started out with 1 playable race and rather limited content. Now? They've included elves added many new areas and numerous instances not even mentioning expanding the level limit from 50 to 55. Considering it hadn't even released till may(if you don't count the betas). That's pretty impressive.
And of course DDO is another good example. It already had the content but it was struggling as far as players. It goes f2p and suddenly it's increased it's subs by 40% not even mentioning the micro transations adding to the revenue stream. AAA companies are realizing the possabilities of the f2p market. Look at Allods online coming out at the end of the year. Yeah I hear it has issues but few mmos don't out the gate.
I have to say until recently I agree'd with the p2p will always win over f2p games. Yet there is truth about the fact that the mmo market is increasingly cut throat as time goes on. I don't think they are anywhere near the p2p market right at the moment but they are steadily improving. Imagine a f2p game that is in most ways at least on par with the AAA p2p games vs a similar p2p game. Who wins? I think once that happens we may see a shift in the market.
This article shows again that people won't "bite the hand that feeds" them, but in between the lines you can read as in all previous articles why the f2p approach sucks so much. On the other hand, this article is informative in many ways. Perhaps even more informative than was intended. I did like reading it.
I believe that the confirmation about the target audience of f2p games is spot on.
Personally I believe that the f2p business model is a problematic one in that it is very hard (or challenging) to make a profit from it, and this article seems to confirm that too.
I expect THQ*ICE to drop their f2p project very soon, and hopfully sell it to a more capable company.
I've played their game during the entire month of october, got very involved with the forum community, and have only seen one bad decision after another take place during that short time. Which caused a lot of players to be disatisfied and angry. Some left the game entirely, most of which were the players who have been there the longest.
This company has no apparent grasp on how to opperate an mmo, they introduce items/features with no forethought on how it will affect the games mechanics/players/economy, and are constantly needing to readjust things after they are released. Even when hosting events they couldn't get it right and had to go back and change things during the event periods.
THQ*ICE is also extremly understaffed, their support for tickets consists of copy/paste replies days later with a tacked on irrelevant description of your problem. The forums contain 2 active moderators(Scapes/Fallcore) and only one of them acts human, the other is some copy/paste bot as far as he/it is concerned.
With the lack of common sense from both community and company, this game is currently destined to be a failure on the NA market. What I mentioned above are only a few of the reasons why I say this, I could litterally type for hours about the subject..
So this guy behind THQ*ICE best start putting his "vast knowledge of mmo's" to good use, and very soon. Otherwise he won't have his demoted job at all anymore.
All-Seeing-Eye says what?
This article is totally true.
if it looks like a crappy grind-tastic game, if it quacks like a content light power-for-sale game then it must be yet another shit F2P game.
To encapsulate this article a developer who was employed on subscription games is now on F2P games. He has now decied that F2P is a fresh, innovative format with a lot going for it. Lucky for him, as that is where he is now working. I wonder what his bosses would have had to say if he had described F2P as a stale, money raking, vapour ware format? I think his comments were rather constrained by his new job.
So the need to deliver new content faster makes it somehow better? I doubt it.
"There isn't the nagging feeling of wasting a month that's already been paid for" – has anyone reading this ever had this feeling when playing a subscription game, because he seems to have just conjured that from no where?
I wish the F2P lovers who publish this article would surf our forums and see the number of threads from people who have been burnt by F2P games, losing loads of money to these MMO cash cows. Check that out and then tell me how wonderful the so called free to play format is.
This comment purely tells us all that you have yet to truly explore the F2P market recently. Things are improving massively. DDO is enjoying a new lease of life by making itself F2P, WAR will too. I like P2P games when they are value for money, however F2P are FREE and some are consistantly delivering excellent content to its users. Look at Runes Of Magic and MegaTen which seem to be going from strength to strength.
LOL
Thanks again MMORPG for ....reporting......lol......................promotiong junk games.
You got that pay check for your site.
Can we please get a person on this site that is willing to write for the readers not the Devs?
Y'know... I see a lot of bashing of Free To Play games on here. Some do abuse their cash shop, and yes, some are really cruddy, but let's face it: It's a free game. While you're tossing cash at the developers every month saying "Can I please keep playing for the game I paid $50 for the CD for?", Free to Players are getting their games for free, and a lot are starting to catch up in content to the Paid guys. Some paid games, like RF Online, DDO, and Sword of the New World went Free to Play and have since become even more successful. Just because we aren't paying for our latest crack fix doesn't make our games junk.
I'm seriously sick of this. Sub-based gamers will say anything just to valiantly defend their MMOs when the rest of the world knows exactly what it is: You're begging the devs to play your game again, just like when a crack head needs his fix, otherwise you can never log in and play your game again. All your time and work and effort lost until you spend the cash. Every. Single. Effing. MMORPG. I HAVE EVER PLAYED. Has been a grindfest. World of Warcraft is adding level 85, and nixing, AGAIN, all the raid gear you fought so hard for, bringing new skills, more races, and more importantly, MORE IMBALANCES, and leaving the past content almost barren since no one's playing it anymore.
To state a P2P MMO is any less of a grind is utter nonsense. I grind less in Runes of Magic than I ever did in World of Warcraft. I'm leveling faster, enjoying more, and I don't have to pay for anything. Some of us choose to support the devs, some just play for free. The only MMO I've met yet that you pay for and have actually gotten my money worths forth Guild Wars, and it had no subscription based content. Each expansion pack, save Eye of the North, was stand-alone. They updated the game continually, with game balances and tweaks rather than lumping in new skills and new classes to further imbalance the game.
That's my experience with this industry. I refuse to play "Pay to Play" games. I paid $50 for that game CD, and now you tell me I have no right to play the game? The devs can shove it up their rear then. The sad thing is, most Free to Play games change up the formula more than subscription MMOs, they tend to add something new and unique you'll never find in a subscription MMO. Dragonica, for instance, is an arcade-style action MMO. I don't see many of those in the Pay To Play sector. Heck, I FIRMLY believe that if Tabula Rasa had gone Free to Play with a cash shop, it'd still be alive today, and that game was more fun than half of these point-and-click armchair-general games that are flooding the market nowadays.
This is the best comment I've read in these forums.
All-Seeing-Eye says what?
The All Seeing Eye of Smed? Sorry, but as much as I think SOE is the Evil Empire, I can't see Smed as being up to the role of Sauron
DDO's current activities are an example of Turbines desperation to salvage the millions and millions they have sunk into to the game. Its an interesting experiment, and while Turbine is not one of my favorite companies(after they suckered us all into buying an expansion pack for Ashrons Call 2, and then closed the game) I wish them all the best. I'd be willing to give the new version of DDO a try(I was in at the original launch and played to level cap),but I keep getting a BSOD error 166 from the current game. Its a conflict with one of Nvidia's sub driver modules(which seems to impact quite a number of people). This has been going on for months and months now, and LOTRO and DDO are the only games that cause that. Oh well, perhaps some day they will fix it.
I find your tag line seriously ironic, given your above... I've found most of the writers here to be interesting, giving different perspectives on the various aspects of MMO's. Not to mention, the readers are more than capable of speaking for themselves, as the tens of thousands of posts on the forums demonstrate.
I miss TR as well. I leveled to cap in sniper and spy. But once one is at cap, there was damn little to do. It could have been a VERY fun game, but it misssed its window, and never recovered. I doubt we will ever see it again, as NCsoft is infamous for sitting on IP's, even if they receive no benefit there from.
Richard? Hm, too much whining to be him. Well worded though, I agree.
This comment purely tells us all that you have yet to truly explore the F2P market recently. Things are improving massively. DDO is enjoying a new lease of life by making itself F2P, WAR will too. I like P2P games when they are value for money, however F2P are FREE and some are consistantly delivering excellent content to its users. Look at Runes Of Magic and MegaTen which seem to be going from strength to strength.
i dont need to explore anything, see unlike F2P players i have balls and i dont need to rely on my CC to be good at whatever game i play.
i dont need to explore anything, see unlike F2P players i have balls and i dont need to rely on my CC to be good at whatever game i play.
Ah, one of the HardCore 133t heard from...<rolls eyes> If you think that buy the win is typical of all cashshop games, then you've obviously not played many of them. Its possible in some, but far from all of them. I hope you and your "balls" are playing Darkfall... ^^
As I have heard elsewhwere the like of Perfect World was once a decent cash shop game, now it is cash cow for its owners. So enjoy your F2P game while you can, sooner or later the owners will care a little to much for the £$.
Funny... every time those who don't like cash shops explain how that will happen - albeit gradually - and that players will find themselves having to spend more and more to "keep up", they're told they don't know what they're talking about. And yet, there's a perfect example (no pun intended).
The concept of "F2P" is disingenuous marketing spin, and little more. You don't pay to buy the game and there's no set monthly fee, but the developers fully intend that their average target player is going to spend *far* more than a box purchase and sub fee in the long run. And they fully intend to make sure it happens. Remember... F2P developers are just as interested in making money as P2P developers. Their approaches are different, but their goals are the same.
I realize there are people who don't mind paying for the cash shops... and that's fine, but it's also not a strong "rebuttal". There's been people for *years* now who've spent thousands of dollars eBaying items, gold and characters in MMOs where it wasn't allowed... so it's not a surprise. The companies have simply found a way to tap into that "secondary market" and keep more for themselves... erego "F2P" MMOs with Item Malls.
Funny... every time those who don't like cash shops explain how that will happen - albeit gradually - and that players will find themselves having to spend more and more to "keep up", they're told they don't know what they're talking about. And yet, there's a perfect example (no pun intended).
The concept of "F2P" is a sham... you don't pay to buy the game and there's no set monthly fee, but the developers fully intend that their average target player is going to spend *far* more than a box purchase and sub fee in the long run. And they fully intend to make sure it happens.
I realize there are people who don't mind paying for the cash shops... and that's fine, but it's also not a strong "rebuttal". There's been people for *years* now who've spent thousands of dollars eBaying items, gold and characters in MMOs where it wasn't allowed... so it's not a surprise. The companies have simply found a way to tap into that "secondary market" and keep more for themselves... erego "F2P" MMOs with Item Malls.
I am just curious, how does this vary from P2P?
In P2P they put in artificial constructs to get more money out of the player. This is why it is P2P... They charge you up front, and then find ways to keep charging you (expansions, etc). The less they can give you, and the more that they can sell you, the more they make...
So, how are the two different (P2P is Pay up front, F2P is Pay as you go)? In both you end up paying (that was the plan).
I am just curious, how does this vary from P2P?
In P2P they put in artificial constructs to get more money out of the player. This is why it is P2P... They charge you up front, and then find ways to keep charging you (expansions, etc). The less they can give you, and the more that they can sell you, the more they make...
Well, first of all, your first sentence is spin, pure and simple. The "artificial constructs" you refer to is called *content*... things to do to keep the player interested and playing so they'll continue to subscribe. Without new content, or at least without *good* new content, the game becomes stale and the players move on to something else.
The difference is that in a P2P MMO you *know* what you're getting for that $15 a month. You *know* what you're getting for that $40 expansion, and you *know* that everything available in the game is available to you purely through playing the game, as it is equally available to everyone else in the game, for the same flat rate. You *know* that a given piece of gear is available through entirely in-game means... be it by defeating the creature that drops it, completing the quest that rewards it, or earning the money in-game to buy it from another player or NPC. You're not going to have to pull out your credit card to obtain it (RMT notwithstanding).
And really... it goes beyond even that example...
In Perfect World, you have to purchase tokens that allow you to use the global chat - that means either spending a lot of in-game money and buying it that way, or pulling out the credit card and paying to buy some from the company. Is that something players should have to pay extra for in a genre that is social by nature? I wouldn't say so.
The devs of Perfect World know MMOs are social games and thus, people are going to want to talk to each other across large areas. They're cashing in on it by making players pay for the "privilege". That is something you will *never* have to pay extra for in a P2P MMO, because it's all included as part of the base subscription, along with all the content, items, potions, trinkets, pets, mounts, etc. etc.. Those are all things available for a flat monthly sub in a P2P that are, in my experience, often only available through item malls in F2P, and for much more than $14 or $15 a month.
... and that's just one example of how so-called "F2P" MMOs differ drastically in how they make money from P2P. I could write entire paragraphs of examples.
Here's one more...
In a P2P MMO, where all the content is available to you for the box price and a $15 or so monthly sub, a player needs only their own time and effort to obtain the best gear to compete at the high end game, and then their own time and effort to remain there - in other words... they need only play the game and pay that flat monthly sub.
Conversely... It's been noted and demonstrated, time and again, in thread after thread, by even those who *like* the F2P model, that in order to do the same in a typical F2P MMO that the player will not only require the time and effort involved to get there, but will very likely end up spending *far* more than $15 a month... not only to *become* competitive... but to remain competitive. I have yet to see anyone among even the strongest proponents of F2P claim that they were able to compete at the top level of the game against others without having to use item malls to do so.
It's been argued that "not everyone wants to be that competitive, so that doesn't matter"... except that it does. The same holds true in P2P MMOs... Some people are more competitive and want to be the best. Others aren't as competitive and play casually. The difference is, the more competitive players in a P2P still pay no more a month than the less competitive ones to do so.
Again... there are myriad examples of how the F2P model differs from P2P and that, when broken down point-for-point across the board, considering all players and play styles, is not nearly as "free" as its description implies. The contrary, they can - and do - end up costing players far more than a comparable P2P MMO would... and that's exactly what the developers count on.
So, how are the two different (P2P is Pay up front, F2P is Pay as you go)? In both you end up paying (that was the plan).
Your argument has been made, and that same question has been asked and answered many times in the past, by myself and others. The differences between P2P and F2P are quite obvious to those willing to look past the "Free" part and see how the developers have actually set the games up.
The proof is on the pudding, I advice anyone to try a F2p game then play a comparable P2P game.
In my opinion, the devs take more of a long term look into making a P2P. While F2P takes a close look at short term 2-3 months.
All F2P games I have played have ok/good conent tell the first class change then goes down hill. They are intended to squezze cash out of you as fast as they can becuase the simple game play gets bring after a lil bit. When you switch to P2P they wave that prized endgame to keep you developing your charecter, the conent is in more of waves, the excitment as well. In most P2P games yo will have allot of new stuff then in will get boring until you hit the next wave and then repeats.
F2P is a model I dont see working, if anything a combo might come to the west like pay per day or something.
In the end better games are still P2p and I dont see that changing.
This article failed to impart much wisdom as to the wonderfulness of Free-to-Play gaming.
It basically confirmed my own observations that players of these games are twitchy youngsters with severe attention deficit disorders. The games are purposefully designed to keep the ADD-afflicted engaged, which means quantity over quality.
MMOs are as much about community as anything else. F2P game design naturally attracts a class of player looking for quick and instant gratification. This is also rarely conducive to a mature and/or a lasting community. The players generally tend to come and go with passing fads and fancies. As such, you really don't get much community at all. Just temporary occupants passing each other by.
Again, if the developer was trying to convince players that there is something great about F2P games that most of us just can't see, then he failed miserably.
And don't compare DDO with their F2P to P2P/Runescape-like model to F2P item malls. DDO is still designed with subscription gamers in mind, and their pricing model differs from pure item malls accordingly. DDOs success since going F2P does not validate the wider F2P model, just it's own unique model.
DDO is the only MMO using RMT's I don't lump into the F2P bag of tosh. They use a hybrid model allowing subcribers to get all content. But note, it was a subscription only game at first. I wonder if it would have been as good had it started with this hybrid model? I don't think so, RMT's breed a certain style of MMO, one with less depth and more pap. My concern is that down the line DDO will be drawn that way, but we can only hope that does not happen.
I fear for the future of mmorpgs in general and I believe f2p is to blame. Almost everyone who plays or played a f2p game brags about how he/she is getting by with getting what he/she wants without having to pay anything at all. This trend is becoming more real as players over time are expecting their games to come free of charge, the less they will begin spending in item malls. The few that actually supported through cash shop will move on to other f2p games that gives them a better reason why NOT to pay anything at all. Before long, the "consumer" will become the "pan handler". The f2p market will more desperately do anything to keep their players around but in the process of failing, it will also condition many of their supporters to give up on mmorpgs all together. The more a player demands a great product for free, the less likely he/she would want to pay anything for it or it's features.
The p2p market attracts a more mature audience of players with jobs and real life responsibilities. Many of whom understand that nothing good in life is free. The problem still remains that if the f2p market fails, it would cause a domino effect in consumer confidence and may eventually bring the mmorpg market on it's knees. Many players are already turning back to console games or PC RPGs. I can only expect that this trend will continue as many developers will begin to pull out of the mmo market and focus on single player based products (there is NO way to make a single player f2p game and gain any profit).
DDO is an example of a p2p game masked in a f2p shroud. It's intentions can over time condition the f2p market into understanding the need to pay for something they want desperate access to. This exception may work to some degree but at the end of the day, someone has to want to pay to access the bulk of the gaming experience or else it's just a temporary solution to a very serious and growing problem.
Unless the next posts will be flooded with f2p advocates claiming that they spend their mommy and daddy's entire pay check on item mall, I doubt we will hear anything encouraging to denote that f2p has a real stable financial future. You are supporting your own doom. Give a man a piece a bread today and he will be hungry tomorrow, teach that same man how to bake or sell his own bread and he will always eat. The f2p market is running out of bread...
This article should now be changed to say: Not Free Zone: A Developer's Shift to RMT + a sub fee.
Try Spellborn Mate, it is free now and easily kills a few Subscription based games.
I like that people are giving feedback here but the point in some ways is that there are only so many subscription users out there, I won't pay a sub on a game as it isn't worth my time as I am a causal player (family and job). I rid myself of WoWcrack a couple of years ago and feel better for it!
I honestly think the quality issue is a good one, I wouldn't play an anime based childs game. But how do you provide a high quality game with no or a limit budget.
But once again not Spellborn was not desighned for F2P. That has been a desperation move after they did not get the player base they want. So you have a solidly based MMO now, but what will happen in the future? Another poster in another thread described how Perfect World started out as a decent cash shop F2P MMO. But it ended up as a cash for xp nightmare, once you have made the decision to go fully F2P with no subs, what else can you do to increase revenue but go down the PW route?
Like one of the posters above I think F2P may be the death of MMO's as we know them, they will still live on but as F2P cash cows that old players and many new will not play.
Exactly right in regards to Spellborn. They made way too many mistakes in the first few months(IP lock outs, poor communication, staggered launches, no credit card option(Acclaim for months, little effective media push). That fragmented the potential player base badly. The original company is now bankrupt. Leaving the game in the tender "mercies" of Acclaim. Hell, Acclaim couldn't even do 2moons right. GameHi has taken it back and is running it now. I've played PW myself. Now there is an example of a cash shop run amuck.
i dont need to explore anything, see unlike F2P players i have balls and i dont need to rely on my CC to be good at whatever game i play.
Ah, one of the HardCore 133t heard from...<rolls eyes> If you think that buy the win is typical of all cashshop games, then you've obviously not played many of them. Its possible in some, but far from all of them. I hope you and your "balls" are playing Darkfall... ^^
hi id like to introduce you to my friend slippery slope, slipper slope meet wraithbone. hes also known in other circles as a snowball rolling down a hill.