Scrolls May Go Free-to-Play

Andy Chalk

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Nov 12, 2002
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Scrolls May Go Free-to-Play


Mojang co-founder Jakob Porser says Scrolls could become a free-to-play game if the number of players doesn't start to pick up.

A couple of years ago, Minecraft creator and Mojang co-founder Markus "Notch" Persson made it clear that he is not a fan of free-to-play games. "The reason anyone switches to 'free to play' is to make more money. You get your players hooked on your game, and then you try to monetize them," he wrote on his blog [http://notch.tumblr.com/post/11856491580/i-hate-free-to-play]. "The idea is to find a model where there basically is no cap on how much the player can spend, then try to encourage players to spend more and more money. Various psyhological traps like abusing the sense of sunk costs get exploited, and eventually you end up with a game that's designed more like a slot machine than half-life 2."

Nonetheless, Mojang co-founder and Scrolls lead designer Jakob Porser said that game, which is currently available as a "paid beta," may take the free-to-play route if player numbers don't start to grow. Scrolls has put out roughly 110,000 copies at €15 ($20) each, but 100,000 of those sold within the first month of its early June release. That stalled user base has Porser considering a change in approach.

"We never want to make a game that sells lot of expensive things just because there are people who are willing to buy them," he told Swedish site IT24. "However, we do not close [the door] for making Scrolls a free game in the future if needed to attract more players."

Porser said that between three and four thousand people play Scrolls every day, which isn't quite enough to ensure that players will consistently be able to find opponents of appropriate skill. "We have absolutely no plans to become free2play in the near future, but we notice that it eventually becomes difficult to attract enough players so it can definitely happen," he said. "That is how most other collectible card game works today, it may have already become a standard that many expect that this is how it should be."

Porser added that Mojang is continuing to work on Scrolls' single-player mode but said that no target for completion has been set because, with all the Minecraft money coming in, the studio doesn't have to worry about deadlines.

Source: IT24 (Google translated) [http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=sv&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fit24.idg.se%2F2.2275%2F1.528808%2Fmojangs-nasta-miljonsucc%C3%A9]


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Sofus

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Free to play is a parasite, and it must be exterminated at any and all cost!

You may think that "free to play is good for both the consumer and the publisher" but you couldn't be more wrong. Games cost money to make, they cost money to distribute and unless they want to go out of business then they need to make some profit. Yeah go ahead and give me an example about the developer/publisher that only sells cosmetic stuff, I gurantee you that something in that shop has stuff that alters the gameplay in some way.
 

Abomination

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It's kind'a bad that I have no idea what Scrolls is actually about but I recently purchased another copy of Minecraft yesterday so my girlfriend and I can play together.

Just looked it up... another card game with multiplayer-only elements. Minecraft was a game that was true innovation. This is like... 5 degrees of non-innovation. The reason people don't buy scrolls is because there's Magic: The Gathering. It's the same reason why Minecraft clones don't get off the ground.
 

gibboss28

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Sofus said:
Free to play is a parasite, and it must be exterminated at any and all cost!

You may think that "free to play is good for both the consumer and the publisher" but you couldn't be more wrong. Games cost money to make, they cost money to distribute and unless they want to go out of business then they need to make some profit. Yeah go ahead and give me an example about the developer/publisher that only sells cosmetic stuff, I gurantee you that something in that shop has stuff that alters the gameplay in some way.
Sure I'll bite: Path of Exile

Anywho, yeah going f2p will probably do it some good. Card games are pretty suited for F2P.
 

Sofus

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gibboss28 said:
Sofus said:
Free to play is a parasite, and it must be exterminated at any and all cost!

You may think that "free to play is good for both the consumer and the publisher" but you couldn't be more wrong. Games cost money to make, they cost money to distribute and unless they want to go out of business then they need to make some profit. Yeah go ahead and give me an example about the developer/publisher that only sells cosmetic stuff, I gurantee you that something in that shop has stuff that alters the gameplay in some way.
Sure I'll bite: Path of Exile

Anywho, yeah going f2p will probably do it some good. Card games are pretty suited for F2P.
Paying for private, invite-only leagues?
 

CriticalMiss

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Porser added that Mojang is continuing to work on Scrolls' single-player mode but said that no target for completion has been set because, with all the Minecraft money coming in, the studio doesn't have to worry about deadlines.
Well, until there is a single player game completed I have no incentive to buy the game. And whilst it is nice to hear that they aren't going to rush it out, I'd still like to hear them at least putting something out there and maybe updating it episodic-style rather than in one big chunk. It's also unfortunate that they might put it out as a F2P game.
 

Abomination

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CriticalMiss said:
Porser added that Mojang is continuing to work on Scrolls' single-player mode but said that no target for completion has been set because, with all the Minecraft money coming in, the studio doesn't have to worry about deadlines.
Well, until there is a single player game completed I have no incentive to buy the game. And whilst it is nice to hear that they aren't going to rush it out, I'd still like to hear them at least putting something out there and maybe updating it episodic-style rather than in one big chunk. It's also unfortunate that they might put it out as a F2P game.
Actually, doesn't that contradict what they were saying? They don't need to hurry because Minecraft is still generating so much revenue... but they might need to change to F2P to increase the revenue of Scrolls preorders?
 

Zetsubou-Sama

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Bad deck building UI, bad balance at the start, and not so fun gameplay, this game needs a bit of tweaking (at least from what I remember)
 

snekadid

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What the game needs is a discount. 20 bucks so we can test another of mojangs 2 year betas? No thanks.

Either lower the price so people aren't paying out the ass to deal with your buggy poorly optimized cluster fuck or take it F2P and enjoy the class of people that brings and prove yourself a hypocrite.

I watched the lets plays of it, it looks ok....ish? It looks less interesting than Hearthstone(and I'm saying that while disliking blizzard and everything they've done since diablo 2) and I certainly don't think it looks like it's worth 20 bucks when there's bigger games that do similar things and will actually go on sale unlike Mojangs products.

captcha: for keeps
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gibboss28

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Sofus said:
gibboss28 said:
Sofus said:
Free to play is a parasite, and it must be exterminated at any and all cost!

You may think that "free to play is good for both the consumer and the publisher" but you couldn't be more wrong. Games cost money to make, they cost money to distribute and unless they want to go out of business then they need to make some profit. Yeah go ahead and give me an example about the developer/publisher that only sells cosmetic stuff, I gurantee you that something in that shop has stuff that alters the gameplay in some way.
Sure I'll bite: Path of Exile

Anywho, yeah going f2p will probably do it some good. Card games are pretty suited for F2P.
Paying for private, invite-only leagues?
Eh...

The games going to be the same, just the general public can't join that server, and you can't use that character in that league on the main server.

Even if there were game modifiers like extra loot drops (not sure if thats what they intend to do though because as far as I know, the private leagues and such aren't out yet? dunno been a while since i've played it), thats not really going to have an actual effect on the gameplay because the people you're playing with will have the exact same advantage so on that private server its still a level playing field.

So yeah, it will alter the gameplay I'll give you that, but it won't be in anyway that gives people a clear advantage over other people.
 

Kuala BangoDango

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Abomination said:
CriticalMiss said:
Porser added that Mojang is continuing to work on Scrolls' single-player mode but said that no target for completion has been set because, with all the Minecraft money coming in, the studio doesn't have to worry about deadlines.
Well, until there is a single player game completed I have no incentive to buy the game. And whilst it is nice to hear that they aren't going to rush it out, I'd still like to hear them at least putting something out there and maybe updating it episodic-style rather than in one big chunk. It's also unfortunate that they might put it out as a F2P game.
Actually, doesn't that contradict what they were saying? They don't need to hurry because Minecraft is still generating so much revenue... but they might need to change to F2P to increase the revenue of Scrolls preorders?
Actually they said nothing about increasing revenues from pre-orders. Their concern is increasing the number of players so that the current players can find quick matches. If there are not enough people playing then ALL players suffer. If having extra players also results in increased revenue then that's just a big bonus.

In other words, considering they've already made ~1/2 Billion $ on Minecraft they could not make a dime off Scrolls and not worry in the least. I really do think they're more worried about the reputation hit a failed game would be rather than any financial hit. They really do need to show the world that they're not a one-hit-wonder.
 

ron1n

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Hearthstone has has pretty much wielded the scythe on this one.

People were already dropping off before Hearthstone though. The game itself is quite fun and complex, but due to its significantly slower pacing, games can drag on forever. I'd actually love to keep playing, but it is probably one of the biggest time vampires I've ever seen.

You could finish 3 Hearthstone games in the time in takes to finish one scrolls game (assuming opponents of roughly equal skill)
 

Abomination

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Kuala BangoDango said:
They really do need to show the world that they're not a one-hit-wonder.
I just can't see how a card game is the way to do that.

Next we'll find out they're releasing a tower defense MOBA.
 

CriticalMiss

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Abomination said:
Kuala BangoDango said:
They really do need to show the world that they're not a one-hit-wonder.
I just can't see how a card game is the way to do that.

Next we'll find out they're releasing a tower defense MOBA.
But it's not a card game, it's a scroll game!


Abomination said:
Actually, doesn't that contradict what they were saying? They don't need to hurry because Minecraft is still generating so much revenue... but they might need to change to F2P to increase the revenue of Scrolls preorders?
And as Kuala BangoDango said, I think they are more concerned with getting more players in to the game so that there are more people to do PvP with so matchmaking/whatever is more fun for players. I'm not sure why they don't just make the game really cheap for a while and hope that gets some more people interested or have some kind of million dollar tournament esports type thing. And I have to agree that Mojang are probably worried about having their second game be seen as a failure after the first was so monstrously successful. It's weird that they cancelled that space thing that was so different and instead focused on this.
 

Neta

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Andy Chalk said:
game, which is currently available as a "paid beta,"
Maybe that's the problem right there. Asking someone to pay you to beta test for you?

Maybe you'll get people interested when you finish making the game.
 

Abomination

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CriticalMiss said:
Abomination said:
Kuala BangoDango said:
They really do need to show the world that they're not a one-hit-wonder.
I just can't see how a card game is the way to do that.

Next we'll find out they're releasing a tower defense MOBA.
But it's not a card game, it's a scroll game!
My mistake.

But are they... ELDER Scrolls?

Yeah, I know, they had that big kerfuffle with Bethesda over daring to call their game "Scrolls". Similar to how you can't put the word "Dragon" in a game without approval from EA.
 

rembrandtqeinstein

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Sadly the game just isn't that good. Tactical mechanics can work but at least when I played there wasn't enough ways to take advantage of the positioning, also the long cooldowns make the the game BORING. Let me cast and attack the same turn then have 3 turns until the next attack that works fine, but cast then 3 turns until the first attack is just lame.

For a much tighter "tactical" cardgame model see Duel of Champions.
 

Lunar Templar

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Sofus said:
Free to play is a parasite, and it must be exterminated at any and all cost!

You may think that "free to play is good for both the consumer and the publisher" but you couldn't be more wrong. Games cost money to make, they cost money to distribute and unless they want to go out of business then they need to make some profit. Yeah go ahead and give me an example about the developer/publisher that only sells cosmetic stuff, I gurantee you that something in that shop has stuff that alters the gameplay in some way.
curious as to how many F2P games you've played to make that comment.

catchpa; snow shovel

yeah, -.- got the feeling i'm a need one...