First thing that came to mind for me was the economy. People are spending less on things like MMO subscriptions and such.Adam Jensen said:
Report: MMO Subscription Revenues In Decline
- Thread starter Earnest Cavalli
- Start date
The strange thing about this prevailing 'go F2P' attitude from consumers is that companies aren't creating 'free-to-play' models to save money or give the consumer a better deal. They're doing it because it makes them more money... because so many people can't add up those little transactions over time and figure out they've spent a fortune. Chat with some people in World of Tanks about how much gold they've bought, for example.
So the idea that somehow you are playing a game for free is nonsense in most cases. The MMO developers *will* find a way to make their customers on average want to spend money or someone else to spend money on the game. They have to. Someone has to keep the lights on. It's either you footing the bill, or the game developer selling your data to an advertiser. It's either you paying, or you not benefiting in some way (the old pay-to-win argument). They will ramp up that lack of benefit until enough people start paying to meet their profit margins.
The oddest thing about almost all the F2P MMOs I've played (that started F2P) is that none of them are actually that good. People can talk about niches all they want - but you can only dress the same grind up so many ways before the paper thin 'cheap' attempts are painfully obvious. The only exception seems to be the GuildWars games, and whoever is running that financially knows exactly how many boxes of GW they needed to sell to keep the lights on (plus NCSoft have other games running that can prop that up in harder times).
Oh well, singleplayer it is... oh wait, damn you DLC...
So the idea that somehow you are playing a game for free is nonsense in most cases. The MMO developers *will* find a way to make their customers on average want to spend money or someone else to spend money on the game. They have to. Someone has to keep the lights on. It's either you footing the bill, or the game developer selling your data to an advertiser. It's either you paying, or you not benefiting in some way (the old pay-to-win argument). They will ramp up that lack of benefit until enough people start paying to meet their profit margins.
The oddest thing about almost all the F2P MMOs I've played (that started F2P) is that none of them are actually that good. People can talk about niches all they want - but you can only dress the same grind up so many ways before the paper thin 'cheap' attempts are painfully obvious. The only exception seems to be the GuildWars games, and whoever is running that financially knows exactly how many boxes of GW they needed to sell to keep the lights on (plus NCSoft have other games running that can prop that up in harder times).
Oh well, singleplayer it is... oh wait, damn you DLC...
Few things i don't like about report:
Sources of data:
They are not clearly explained and none of the (cheap) internet media bothered to pay for the full report. So we can only assume they use publicly available earnings figures. Because most of gaming companies are not public though, this means they had to do guesstimates.
Of the mayor MMO subscription based developers, only Activision Blizzard are publicly traded, that's why you never get actual sub numbers for any other MMO.
Trends:
Report covers a time frame that marked a number of poorly performing or overpriced sub MMOs change business plans. Games like that actually caused a drop in sub revenue compared to micro-transactions, sure. But that does not imply a general trend. It only implies you have to produce QUALITY in order to charge a subscription.
Definition of MMO:
Report clearly includes browser based games as well, which are absolutely below standard compared to high budget MMOs. They have proliferated in the last year. So report suggest a lot that browser based cheap to develop F2P showed up on the market. Again, this does not actually spell absolute decline of sub based games, only relative decline as the whole market enlarged.
So maybe the article author could shine some light on those issues?
Well no, they cannot, no one bought the report, but everyone reported about it's highlights (which are free) and made a news story out of that.
We need more quality in web based news reporting as well, especially if it's subscription based.
Sources of data:
They are not clearly explained and none of the (cheap) internet media bothered to pay for the full report. So we can only assume they use publicly available earnings figures. Because most of gaming companies are not public though, this means they had to do guesstimates.
Of the mayor MMO subscription based developers, only Activision Blizzard are publicly traded, that's why you never get actual sub numbers for any other MMO.
Trends:
Report covers a time frame that marked a number of poorly performing or overpriced sub MMOs change business plans. Games like that actually caused a drop in sub revenue compared to micro-transactions, sure. But that does not imply a general trend. It only implies you have to produce QUALITY in order to charge a subscription.
Definition of MMO:
Report clearly includes browser based games as well, which are absolutely below standard compared to high budget MMOs. They have proliferated in the last year. So report suggest a lot that browser based cheap to develop F2P showed up on the market. Again, this does not actually spell absolute decline of sub based games, only relative decline as the whole market enlarged.
So maybe the article author could shine some light on those issues?
Well no, they cannot, no one bought the report, but everyone reported about it's highlights (which are free) and made a news story out of that.
We need more quality in web based news reporting as well, especially if it's subscription based.
It'll diminish to 1.33 billion? I hope they can still make ends meet! /worldsmallestviolin
I personally doubt free to play is the main cause, but simply the natural loss of interest in the current MMO games.
I personally doubt free to play is the main cause, but simply the natural loss of interest in the current MMO games.
