There was an article on the Escapist talking about the future of Subscription fees for MMOs:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/113189-The-Old-Republic-Will-Be-the-Last-Subscription-MMO
John Smedley makes the argument that most customers don't wan't to pay a monthly fee, and uses the recent amount of games coming from Korea and other parts of Asia as F2P to back up his claims.
Let me break down what I see as the pros and cons of Free2Play MMOs vs. Subscription MMOs:
Pros-F2P
-Well...Free to play is one.
-Spend only as much as you want.
-More western companies taking cues from our Asian counterparts and releasing F2P games
-Lots of F2P games to choose from.
Cons-F2P
-Microtransactions usually unbalance the game. Whoever spends the most money is the best.
-A lot more of the F2P MMOs coming from Asia are copies of each other and just are not in the same realm of quality as the Subscription games.
-A lot of F2P Western games are just MMOs that failed to get enough subscriptions to warrant charging monthly fees.
-Due to no monthly fees, F2P games usually aren't as well looked after as Subscription games (i.e. glitches, constant maintenance shut downs, server issues more likely)
-Not many F2P games are worth a recommendation.
Pros-Subscription
-Get a complete game on release.
-Patches usually fix big issues quickly.
-You pay monthly for great customer service usually (friend of mine got his WoW account hack and all his stuff sold, Blizzard had it all back in a few hours).
-Scheduled maintenance that does not take away from your paid game time.
Cons-Subscription
-Having to pay a no so small fee every month.
-Paying for one game makes yo feel the need to spend most of your time playing that game, to get your monies worth.
-Don't have the luxury of playing multiple subscription MMOs unless you want to pay multiple fees per month.
-Currently there's only one Subscription MMO worth playing as every other one has failed to take a chunk of it's empire. WoW.
-Got to buy expansions on top of paying monthly.
What do you think? Tell me if I missed any pros or cons for either.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/113189-The-Old-Republic-Will-Be-the-Last-Subscription-MMO
John Smedley makes the argument that most customers don't wan't to pay a monthly fee, and uses the recent amount of games coming from Korea and other parts of Asia as F2P to back up his claims.
Let me break down what I see as the pros and cons of Free2Play MMOs vs. Subscription MMOs:
Pros-F2P
-Well...Free to play is one.
-Spend only as much as you want.
-More western companies taking cues from our Asian counterparts and releasing F2P games
-Lots of F2P games to choose from.
Cons-F2P
-Microtransactions usually unbalance the game. Whoever spends the most money is the best.
-A lot more of the F2P MMOs coming from Asia are copies of each other and just are not in the same realm of quality as the Subscription games.
-A lot of F2P Western games are just MMOs that failed to get enough subscriptions to warrant charging monthly fees.
-Due to no monthly fees, F2P games usually aren't as well looked after as Subscription games (i.e. glitches, constant maintenance shut downs, server issues more likely)
-Not many F2P games are worth a recommendation.
Pros-Subscription
-Get a complete game on release.
-Patches usually fix big issues quickly.
-You pay monthly for great customer service usually (friend of mine got his WoW account hack and all his stuff sold, Blizzard had it all back in a few hours).
-Scheduled maintenance that does not take away from your paid game time.
Cons-Subscription
-Having to pay a no so small fee every month.
-Paying for one game makes yo feel the need to spend most of your time playing that game, to get your monies worth.
-Don't have the luxury of playing multiple subscription MMOs unless you want to pay multiple fees per month.
-Currently there's only one Subscription MMO worth playing as every other one has failed to take a chunk of it's empire. WoW.
-Got to buy expansions on top of paying monthly.
What do you think? Tell me if I missed any pros or cons for either.
I feel like F2P tends to split the community and it seems like the people who pay tend to feel superior then the people who didn't.