The only model I can see working with Hellgate London is one where they pay YOU to play...Abedeus said:
Evolve or Die
- Thread starter Greg Tito
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That wasn't remotely close to bad as some F2P games I've seen. Played 9 Dragons for a while, there were banner ads but they'd cause the game to lag when they changed and while maps for loading they'd show laggy ads. In game ads would be nothing compared to that crap.Ickorus said:
I've felt for awhile now that subscription-based models often alienate people who are interested in trying the game but wary of paying monthly, while trapping people who are playing the game by making them feel like they need to get their money's worth, and then that they need to keep paying, lest they fall behind. I've always felt that subscription-based models should center their fees around time actively spent playing the game, so that when you log off, the timer stops, and when you're online, even if just afk, the timer ticks down. Or that the subscription should be paid on a daily basis, not monthly. Or both. A daily, time/$ system would be the way to go for subscription.
Upfront-then-completely-free business models have the stigma of paying upfront at all. How about play for free for a certain amount of days (a week? A month?) with--and this is the important part--no restrictions on content other than the arbitrary time period before you have to pay and possibly your ability to give items to others (but not necessarily to receive them) then, charge the player, and if they have decided they want to keep playing, they pay, and continue on for free? Simple, gives the game exposure and enough time for the consumer to pass judgment. See, if a game has an upfront cost and sucks early on, then the player feels they got robbed. The appeal of free-to-play games is that you get to sample the game to satisfactory length before deciding if it's worth being one of your various money sinks. Upfront models reek of wanting to be free-to-play but being afraid to let go of subscription models due to the stigma associated with F2P that this article pointed out ("If it's free, it can't be good"). They also lack the potential revenue of subscription OR free-to-play games because they half-ass their approach by abandoning both. Lower revenue = higher chance of content issues.
Free-to-play games are incredibly successful from a business standpoint, and depending on how they sustain themselves, can be successful from the playerbase's standpoint. The MOST important thing to consider is that the microtransactions remain as unintrusive to the core game as possible. Convenience in moderation and aesthetics are some of the best ways to do this. What makes free-to-play games shine where subscription can go wrong is that they take into account that not everyone has the same income. Subscription and upfront games set everyone equally, much like sales tax, where as free-to-play games allow richer players to pick up the financial slack of poorer or hesitant-to-pay players. Free-to-play also has the advantage that even someone who does not wish to invest a lot of money in a game may eventually cave in and buy something, while someone who has nothing but money to burn on such a pastime can do just that. The things available should always make the player feel like they WANT to buy them but could also live without them, not like they HAVE to. It is also important that there should always be things that people are tempted to buy, not enough that they feel manipulated by the offer, but enough that there's always the possibility of that moment where they go "Hmm, I kinda feel like spoiling myself today." If you play a F2P and eventually quit it, but feel like you did not regret spending any amount of money on that game (even if you're just lamenting on the amount you spent), then THAT is a successful F2P system. "It took my money, but I never thought it wasn't worth it."
A game like Trickster Online fails at F2P. A game like Mabinogi (in spite of all the whining) or Vindictus actually succeeds at it.
Edit: To add on, subscription and upfront models have the advantage that everyone is equal, because everyone is paying. Upfront, however, unlike subscription, sets everyone equal at the moment of payment. Subscription only sets people to equal as long as people KEEP paying. F2P has the hurdle that people should be rewarded for paying more but that the perks are arbitrary and not game-breaking.
Another thing people seem concerned about are douchebags. There seems to be some misconception that douchebags don't pay for games. This is untrue. There's an equal ratio of them in every game, regardless of business model Who's the bigger douchebag? The one who feels entitled because they have money, or the one who plays a game for free? They're still going to be douchey to you. At least with the free ones, they don't feel like they've paid for the right to be douches.
But really, I find this whole US aversion to the F2P model up until this point to be very much akin to our aversion to the metric system. And we're still avoiding THAT for some reason.
Upfront-then-completely-free business models have the stigma of paying upfront at all. How about play for free for a certain amount of days (a week? A month?) with--and this is the important part--no restrictions on content other than the arbitrary time period before you have to pay and possibly your ability to give items to others (but not necessarily to receive them) then, charge the player, and if they have decided they want to keep playing, they pay, and continue on for free? Simple, gives the game exposure and enough time for the consumer to pass judgment. See, if a game has an upfront cost and sucks early on, then the player feels they got robbed. The appeal of free-to-play games is that you get to sample the game to satisfactory length before deciding if it's worth being one of your various money sinks. Upfront models reek of wanting to be free-to-play but being afraid to let go of subscription models due to the stigma associated with F2P that this article pointed out ("If it's free, it can't be good"). They also lack the potential revenue of subscription OR free-to-play games because they half-ass their approach by abandoning both. Lower revenue = higher chance of content issues.
Free-to-play games are incredibly successful from a business standpoint, and depending on how they sustain themselves, can be successful from the playerbase's standpoint. The MOST important thing to consider is that the microtransactions remain as unintrusive to the core game as possible. Convenience in moderation and aesthetics are some of the best ways to do this. What makes free-to-play games shine where subscription can go wrong is that they take into account that not everyone has the same income. Subscription and upfront games set everyone equally, much like sales tax, where as free-to-play games allow richer players to pick up the financial slack of poorer or hesitant-to-pay players. Free-to-play also has the advantage that even someone who does not wish to invest a lot of money in a game may eventually cave in and buy something, while someone who has nothing but money to burn on such a pastime can do just that. The things available should always make the player feel like they WANT to buy them but could also live without them, not like they HAVE to. It is also important that there should always be things that people are tempted to buy, not enough that they feel manipulated by the offer, but enough that there's always the possibility of that moment where they go "Hmm, I kinda feel like spoiling myself today." If you play a F2P and eventually quit it, but feel like you did not regret spending any amount of money on that game (even if you're just lamenting on the amount you spent), then THAT is a successful F2P system. "It took my money, but I never thought it wasn't worth it."
A game like Trickster Online fails at F2P. A game like Mabinogi (in spite of all the whining) or Vindictus actually succeeds at it.
Edit: To add on, subscription and upfront models have the advantage that everyone is equal, because everyone is paying. Upfront, however, unlike subscription, sets everyone equal at the moment of payment. Subscription only sets people to equal as long as people KEEP paying. F2P has the hurdle that people should be rewarded for paying more but that the perks are arbitrary and not game-breaking.
Another thing people seem concerned about are douchebags. There seems to be some misconception that douchebags don't pay for games. This is untrue. There's an equal ratio of them in every game, regardless of business model Who's the bigger douchebag? The one who feels entitled because they have money, or the one who plays a game for free? They're still going to be douchey to you. At least with the free ones, they don't feel like they've paid for the right to be douches.
But really, I find this whole US aversion to the F2P model up until this point to be very much akin to our aversion to the metric system. And we're still avoiding THAT for some reason.
LotRO originally indeed operated on a $/time system, where one bought a set amount of play time. Apparently the whole microtransaction thing worked out better for them anyway.fieryshadowcard said:
"trying the game for free for a set amount of time" is pretty much what is done by demo's nowaday. How exactly would your idea be different from them? (serious question, no sarcasm)
With escapism being such a large reason for the enjoyment of video games I think you're pretty much spot-on with the thing about avoiding that people feel they "need" something. They "need" to buy stuff all day already, and it's going to take the fun out of their spare time when they've got to worry about money then too. Worrying as opposed to spoiling themselves, as you so aptly worded it.
When playing WoW I always felt that subscription was ignored as an equalizing factor, as the game demanded an arguably even more valuable commodity in such copious amounts: time.
In order to remain at a competitive level you have to continuously put in large amounts of your time. Pecking order isn't established by how much you've paid for it, but how much time you've spent on it. This is pretty much the same across most MMO's out there.
Those douchebags you talk about are indeed feeling entitled because they've paid more, but their valuta is time.
As developer you don't want to eliminate those douche bags, you want to have people pay you for the right to be a douche. And that's where those conveniences mentioned in the original article come in: they're essentially a discount on the right to be and feel superior.
And as soon as F2P as a genre can get the point across that being successful at their game really is an achievement to be proud of then they'll be rid of that stigma.
For upfront/one-time-payment games, what I meant by playing the game first and paying later is that, rather than a demo or a trial period, you are actually allowed to push as far as you can in the allotted time frame before your one-time payment is due. No restrictions on the content you can access, except that for trades, you can receive items but not give them (to prevent creating tons of alts to trade your main money or items). NO makeshift level ceilings--your only real limitation before the payment is time itself. So... a week or two of unhindered playing. Long enough to get pretty far if you're really invested in the game, but short enough that the question of whether or not you will pay for their product is greeted with a proper yes or no. When the payment comes up, you cannot access your in-game characters until you pay. It's basically the upfront payment, but after the player knows exactly what they're buying and if the game is for them, rather than before.Kargathia said:
I didn't know that LotRO started out to something similar to what I suggested for subscription games evolving their model. But if microtransactions worked out better for them, that only refortifies my belief that decent F2P microtransactions are the best business model of the three types of games. Especially if the fans loved their take on the microtransactions, which posts in this thread suggest.
My point about the douchebags wasn't so much that they should be alienated. I believe I was pointing out that just like the article says about American companies thinking "if the game has to be free it must not be good," a lot of MMO players seem to think "games you pay for weed out the worst douches," and how untrue that is. It was more so that a douche is a douche is a douche, full wallet or no.
All MMO games are time sinks that reward time with results. What I was saying about P2P subscription and upfront games is that time is ideally their only determinant of success (some subscription games have also opened cash shops but retained their subscriptions, which is usually a bad idea), that it's trickier for F2P games to come up with profitable items that do not shift success to being dependent on money. Even aesthetic items in cash shops can have an impact on the game (in that particular case, the in-game economy), not just items for convenience or in the worst case scenario, for power.
Though obvious, this man speaks so much smart it makes my brain all tingly. There's a reason I quit LotRO - a F2P game, and thank god there's a developer out there that knows why.
It was only after WOW hit the market that companies really started to wake up and realize that they could start charging monthly fees for their titles. The realization probably sounded something like this:
"Hey! WOW is getting all this cash every month from every player! That means WE can start screwing over our fanbase as well - if they're forking out monthly cash for games that they Already Own, then they'll be stupid enough to keep doing it for everyone if we can just make it the norm....."
Thus began the policy of charging monthly fees for virtually nothing. Attempts to justify this by saying it costs money to run & maintain the servers almost beggar belief - you can do it on a shoestring these days. And paying for programmers to update to the game on the fly? Didn't you already pay for a finished product at the store?
Now, with the success of free-to-play games & titles like Guild Wars 2 looming over the horizon, gamers are starting to wake up & smell the rip-off. All that remains is to see how long the big game companies try to drag out the rental fees to maximize their profits. It's probably pointless to hope for any kind of backlash from gamers - we can just watch as market forces grind the old-world rental whores into nothingness.
"Hey! WOW is getting all this cash every month from every player! That means WE can start screwing over our fanbase as well - if they're forking out monthly cash for games that they Already Own, then they'll be stupid enough to keep doing it for everyone if we can just make it the norm....."
Thus began the policy of charging monthly fees for virtually nothing. Attempts to justify this by saying it costs money to run & maintain the servers almost beggar belief - you can do it on a shoestring these days. And paying for programmers to update to the game on the fly? Didn't you already pay for a finished product at the store?
Now, with the success of free-to-play games & titles like Guild Wars 2 looming over the horizon, gamers are starting to wake up & smell the rip-off. All that remains is to see how long the big game companies try to drag out the rental fees to maximize their profits. It's probably pointless to hope for any kind of backlash from gamers - we can just watch as market forces grind the old-world rental whores into nothingness.
Your "demo" idea sounds like it indeed could work for players, but there's a problem with it: goldfarmers. Of course there'd have to be a market for the accounts, but as soon as there is you'll see them starting one of these accounts, power leveling it as far as they can before the payment wall kicks in, and selling it on.fieryshadowcard said:For upfront/one-time-payment games, what I meant by playing the game first and paying later is that, rather than a demo or a trial period, you are actually allowed to push as far as you can in the allotted time frame before your one-time payment is due. No restrictions on the content you can access, except that for trades, you can receive items but not give them (to prevent creating tons of alts to trade your main money or items). NO makeshift level ceilings--your only real limitation before the payment is time itself. So... a week or two of unhindered playing. Long enough to get pretty far if you're really invested in the game, but short enough that the question of whether or not you will pay for their product is greeted with a proper yes or no. When the payment comes up, you cannot access your in-game characters until you pay. It's basically the upfront payment, but after the player knows exactly what they're buying and if the game is for them, rather than before.Kargathia said:
I didn't know that LotRO started out to something similar to what I suggested for subscription games evolving their model. But if microtransactions worked out better for them, that only refortifies my belief that decent F2P microtransactions are the best business model of the three types of games. Especially if the fans loved their take on the microtransactions, which posts in this thread suggest.
My point about the douchebags wasn't so much that they should be alienated. I believe I was pointing out that just like the article says about American companies thinking "if the game has to be free it must not be good," a lot of MMO players seem to think "games you pay for weed out the worst douches," and how untrue that is. It was more so that a douche is a douche is a douche, full wallet or no.
All MMO games are time sinks that reward time with results. What I was saying about P2P subscription and upfront games is that time is ideally their only determinant of success (some subscription games have also opened cash shops but retained their subscriptions, which is usually a bad idea), that it's trickier for F2P games to come up with profitable items that do not shift success to being dependent on money. Even aesthetic items in cash shops can have an impact on the game (in that particular case, the in-game economy), not just items for convenience or in the worst case scenario, for power.
The difference in efficiency between a new player, and a professional farmer or a bot tends to be huge.
Ironically it's just another microtransaction, but this time the developer isn't catching any of the cash, and actually spending it trying to keep the bots of the server.
A douche certainly is a douche, is a douche, but it's also your target audience. So you'll want to be catering to the douches who are most willing to cough up money, but simultaneously you'll want to avoid the "cheap" stigma that surrounds F2P.
Once again I think it might be worth taking a look at how Blizzard is running shop. When they started to introduce raiding you could say they were asking quite a bit from people. Other games probably asked more, but there's a difference: perception.
Because raids were hard, they also were a mark of skill. Something to be respected. That whole stigma isn't about how many idiots are at the lower levels, it's the perception as to how impressive the high end is.
Essentially what they did is that they gave the douchebags a challenge, and made them feel proud about their achievements. That pride wears off on the newer players, who look up to the old ones. And that wears off on the game itself.
It's a bit like the reputation the US had throughout the 19th century: you can get rich. You'll probably die trying, but who cares about those losers? After all: there are people going from nothing to millionaire, and so can you!
As soon as you can bring that sense of achievement and awe for the achievers into your F2P game you're golden.
After that it just becomes a point of having your bought items subtly nudging people to stardom, without tarnishing the stardom.
A bit like selling silicone implants to wannabe hollywood starlets.
FTP should work on 2 levels 1 where you grind longer making the lower levels a unlimited demo of sorts and buying stuff to customize your character with, it would help if they didn't have stuff over 5$ as well...I look at 10-20$ clothing for my virtual character and I get sick.....
To optimize your character it should cost not more than 60$ or 30 hours of crafting per character.
To optimize your character it should cost not more than 60$ or 30 hours of crafting per character.
evolve? rather learn from the past. the oldest 3d mmoprog ever made - Tibia is was and is runing a free-to-play model. well, 2,5d, still a mmo. paying gives advantages, but its possible to play for free for years (though lately content been updated mostly for paid version of the game so the gig is sort of faded away, but lets not go there).
And yes, it is older than ultima online, infact, 2 months older. it worked. and yes, the game is still running though the amount of players are decreasing due to lack of interest from developers into basically any part of the game.
And yes, it is older than ultima online, infact, 2 months older. it worked. and yes, the game is still running though the amount of players are decreasing due to lack of interest from developers into basically any part of the game.
your exampel isnt bad, ive seen worse. however people tend to fight any advertisement. we have way too many advertisement in our world as it is. its only that we already lost the radio adn tv battles and the video game one is the last frontier for big companies to take over our entertainment and turn it into something like we have on tv. a 2 hour movie consists of: 50 minutes of movie, 70 minutes of advertisement. what did not fit in 50 minutes of movie, got cut.
Apparently, even City of Heroes is going this route in the future, calling it City of Heroes: Freedom. Isn't that catchy? I was concerned they'd never buckle, but I guess that since WoW has an unlimited demo, that they should follow suit.
Wow, no Korean MMO's were ever, ever mentioned in the article. Not a single mention of games like S4League, GunZ: The Duel, or even BandMaster. While I'm not Korean, I still think that it's a shame that the author sees the entirety of the MMO-playing community as only the American players. Also, the quality of Korean MMO's just seems to get better and better with each coming year. They're also more diverse, as seen in the form of PangYa (a golf MMO), FreeStyle Online (basketball), Audition Online (rhythm/music), and KOS (FPS). Some of these titles have been around for almost 10 years, and are still doing very well in the Asian market, particularly in Southeast Asia. The lack of budget-sponsored flair on these titles is made up for three times over by the sheer originality of their concepts, something that Western devs have only recently caught on to with knockoff titles like Jam Legend.
You don't like playing games that cost ten to a hundred times more to experience at the same level each month?Zeetchmen said:
Guild Wars 2 is great, probably the best F2P model ever devised.
But otherwise its "Free 2 Try", acting like the games are "Free" in most cases is silly since they cost far more than 15 dollars a month just to do most of what you could be doing in wow for 15 dollars a month.
You should never read comments on the internet. The comments section of the internet is designed to make you feel like the world is doomed.Ickorus said:
Forums are the way to go, they still suck (I mean look, I'm here) but they are a thousand times better than the scum that trolls around simple comment tools.
Honestly ever since I turned off visible comments on youtube I've been a much happier person. Goes back to that article about trolls ruining everything.