at best isn't this just the same as the current demo-full game setup?
at worst: "Hello fabled warrior! Insert coin to continue!"
at worst: "Hello fabled warrior! Insert coin to continue!"
Mobile Dev Foresees Free Skyrim Analogue Making Millions
- Thread starter Marshall Honorof
- Start date
No, this is, "Let's make a game and chop it up into three parts, then sell each part for $20, so people don't notice or mind paying $60 in one go for a game they get bored of before they finish. But if they like it, we can add more $20 parts to string them along as long as they enjoy the game."MorganL4 said:
The problem with this this supposed "free-to-play single-player gaming with microtransactions" thing is that I'm not comfortable trusting publishers to be fair and benevolent with their pricing.
Developers and publishers are running a business. I'm sure a lot of them are passionate about what they do, but at the end of the day, most developers are motivated by sales. Publishers are even more interested in the money aspect. So I don't doubt that if there's some way for them to get customers to willingly part with more money, they'd be all for it. On paper, it's ideal to say "pay $60 in smaller chunks for the full game so that you can pick and choose what you want," but it would be all too easy to price it so that unlocking the "full game" actually costs more than $60.
Suppose I start playing one of these F2P games. The more time I spend with it, the more invested I become in finishing the experience. I like what I'm playing and I want to experience more of it, so I invest $20 in the next "content pack" and do this until I've spent $60 on the game. And then I run into a critical cliff-hanger near the end of the game that asks me to pay $10 to play the last 90 minutes. I might be totally pissed-off and indignant over the issue, but odds are I'll think to myself "Well, I'm already heavily invested in this game, what's an extra $10 to get proper closure and finality to the "full experience," instead of just ending the experience abruptly and unpleasantly?"
Besides just the financial side of things, I have to wonder how microtransactions would affect the pacing of game content. As it stands now, I find a lot of the $10 "DLC campaigns" for games like Borderlands and the recent Fallouts extraneous and uninteresting, because they're not integrated with the full game experience. They're deliberately designed to be optional and inconsequential side-attractions, that wind up feeling rather disjointed without much thrust behind them. So I worry that the "F2P microtransaction" model might carry over these same side-effects where a majority of the game content comes off feeling extraneous with non-integral pacing.
Developers and publishers are running a business. I'm sure a lot of them are passionate about what they do, but at the end of the day, most developers are motivated by sales. Publishers are even more interested in the money aspect. So I don't doubt that if there's some way for them to get customers to willingly part with more money, they'd be all for it. On paper, it's ideal to say "pay $60 in smaller chunks for the full game so that you can pick and choose what you want," but it would be all too easy to price it so that unlocking the "full game" actually costs more than $60.
Suppose I start playing one of these F2P games. The more time I spend with it, the more invested I become in finishing the experience. I like what I'm playing and I want to experience more of it, so I invest $20 in the next "content pack" and do this until I've spent $60 on the game. And then I run into a critical cliff-hanger near the end of the game that asks me to pay $10 to play the last 90 minutes. I might be totally pissed-off and indignant over the issue, but odds are I'll think to myself "Well, I'm already heavily invested in this game, what's an extra $10 to get proper closure and finality to the "full experience," instead of just ending the experience abruptly and unpleasantly?"
Besides just the financial side of things, I have to wonder how microtransactions would affect the pacing of game content. As it stands now, I find a lot of the $10 "DLC campaigns" for games like Borderlands and the recent Fallouts extraneous and uninteresting, because they're not integrated with the full game experience. They're deliberately designed to be optional and inconsequential side-attractions, that wind up feeling rather disjointed without much thrust behind them. So I worry that the "F2P microtransaction" model might carry over these same side-effects where a majority of the game content comes off feeling extraneous with non-integral pacing.
Yes, that's a great monetization formula; sell CORE GAME CONTENT extra. I paid Day 1 price for Skyrim, but I would never have paid for it if it had only let me play the story up to the Western Watchtower and then had to pay for the rest of Act 1, then Act 2, then Act 3, then adding on the guilds. Not a chance.
And I say that as a proponent of DLC!
And I say that as a proponent of DLC!
The weight of anything you have to say immediately drops 10 out of 10 points when you take games that you pay full retail price for and call them 'free to play.' Or, Skyrim would already be 'Free to play.' As would Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty all of them, Sly Cooper, Infamous, Mario Bros, Super Mario Bros, every Metroid game ever made, and, in fact, every single game out there that doesn't actually follow the free to play model.Icehearted said:
Calling Guild Wars free to play is a slap in the face of the intellegence of anyone who reads it and doesn't realize it's no more free to play than any other multiplayer game you buy at retail.
No. I want to buy a complete experience. That's what I'm paying for when I pay for a game. Anything else is cheating on the part of the developer.
While I think the ideas here are terrible, you missed the point. These would be games like Dust 514, where you can download them and play them (or in this case, some parts of them) absolutely free. As for DLC in most games, it depends if it was just butchered from the game or actually added. IE, The House of Valour in KoA is clearly butchered from the game meaning that the game is incomplete without it, whereas Knights of the Nine and Shivering Isles were not part of Oblivion and were additions that made the game better.Rensenhito said:
If you can't see why one of those is a great thing for gamers, and why one of them is fairly deplorable, then discernment is not your strong suit.
I know everyone is raging, but I think this would work. I see all these companies trying to sell me a bunch of DLC, and I keep thinking the DLC would look more worth it if it was longer, even if it was more expensive, and also if I hadn't just paid full price for a game.
But you have to do it well.
Don't call it a free game. It's an episodic game that has the first episode free.
The free part needs to be self-contained and complete, and narratively important. The DLC are episodes.
So, imagine this is like a superhero story. The free episode entails your character's origins. It has a definitive end, but also works as a jumping point. This isn't your lame 'or is it?' ending for games that want to have DLC, the DLC is woven into the narrative.
Each piece of DLC is an episode of the story. Each of them is self-contained and usually they can be played in any other. The game is structured so that you don't need to buy them. If you created your character to be super gritty you don't want to buy the Alien Crystal Dragon episode and that's OK.
But if you do buy all the DLC you do get benefits. You'll be able to get a season pass, of course, but also free content. For instance, maybe there'll be a big DLC in which your character gets to fight a big mob boss. Its story relates directly to three other mobster-based episodes. You can buy it, but if you've bought the three other episodes you get it for free.
The trick is to make it in such a way that the player doesn't think 'ugh, I have to pay a lot to get all the content' but rather 'hey, I can save money by skipping content I don't like'. If it's well done it'll be the kind of thing I can see myself spending a bunch of money and time on.
And if it's not... well I'll keep this business plan to myself.
But you have to do it well.
Don't call it a free game. It's an episodic game that has the first episode free.
The free part needs to be self-contained and complete, and narratively important. The DLC are episodes.
So, imagine this is like a superhero story. The free episode entails your character's origins. It has a definitive end, but also works as a jumping point. This isn't your lame 'or is it?' ending for games that want to have DLC, the DLC is woven into the narrative.
Each piece of DLC is an episode of the story. Each of them is self-contained and usually they can be played in any other. The game is structured so that you don't need to buy them. If you created your character to be super gritty you don't want to buy the Alien Crystal Dragon episode and that's OK.
But if you do buy all the DLC you do get benefits. You'll be able to get a season pass, of course, but also free content. For instance, maybe there'll be a big DLC in which your character gets to fight a big mob boss. Its story relates directly to three other mobster-based episodes. You can buy it, but if you've bought the three other episodes you get it for free.
The trick is to make it in such a way that the player doesn't think 'ugh, I have to pay a lot to get all the content' but rather 'hey, I can save money by skipping content I don't like'. If it's well done it'll be the kind of thing I can see myself spending a bunch of money and time on.
And if it's not... well I'll keep this business plan to myself.
The problem, I feel, is that many people play free to play games because of friends. One of the real appeals of the F2P model is that you and your friends can try it for free or you might have friend(s) already playing and they want you to join, you think "Hmm, this looks interesting and its free so what the hell", hours pass and you are having fun so you see a weapon that looks really awesome for $2 so you buy it because, hey its $2. More hours pass and you see a skin that makes you look bad-ass for $6, again you think "what the hell, $6 isnt much"...a month later you have sunk $100's, You probably have friends that you gained in-game and you dont want to leave it and you progress.
I fear with the single player game, people will not feel that they need to keep on going, there wont be much of a draw to keep going with the lack of people playing.
Also, this would cause piracy to jump far worse then DRM, you think people find it easy to rationalize stealing a $110 game? try the rational for a $2 purchase.
I fear with the single player game, people will not feel that they need to keep on going, there wont be much of a draw to keep going with the lack of people playing.
Also, this would cause piracy to jump far worse then DRM, you think people find it easy to rationalize stealing a $110 game? try the rational for a $2 purchase.
*cringe*
Stupid buzzwords. Don't like them one bit. "Here's a game, let's see how far we can milk