Is free to play model ruining many games?

[Deleted]

Before I start I would like to say this doesnt apply to all f2p games. For example I think League of legends handles f2p very well, you are never at a disadvantage (perhaps a little versatility right at the start but that is all) yet spending money is tempting enough to support the game. Some fremium games are fine in my eyes, and I dont mind dropping some money for convenience.

However... for the vast majority, freemium games are truly awful in their practices. Honestly I am amazed people actually pay at all. A couple of examples would be a game I recently installed: world of battles, and another I read about: Blacklight Retribution. Now blacklight does a good job of hiding the cash shop on its website so I cant verify, but what I heard was that unlocking the upgrades on just one gun costs 30-40$. The price of a new game pretty much!

In world of battles they want the same subscription price as AAA mmos like WoW, £9 a month. And its pay to win quite clearly.

Now I dont mind paying for games. I have payed sub fees for a few MMOs and over a few years, I paid £700+ to play wow for example, but I never felt ripped off for that because of the development costs of big MMOs, constant updates, time spent playing per month etc. But to pay that for an RTS seems pretty insane, especially when you look at the prices of buy to play competitors. On amazon most games similar to this are £5-10 all in, and at most £30. Starcraft 2 for an example is £24.74. Cheaper than a 3 month sub to world of battles. Shogun 2 (a direct competitor and similar game) is £10.

Of course some people will pay. If they play for 20+ hours a month then £9 isnt very much really, but I would think for every 1 subscriber, 100 people would look at the prices and say: 'that is overpriced and I'm not paying it'.

There are many examples of different cash shop and freemium systems, and some get it right and some get it wrong, but ultimately for most of the time it breaks the game, sometimes in a small way sometimes in a big way. Tribes ascend sells power, but in such a small way that most people dont mind, and time spent playing will unlock a balanced character pretty fast. However to unlock a second gun for example would take about 300 DM games, its a pretty big time investment. For me this is about the limit of how far I would go in a freemium game. I have already paid about $35 to unlock some guns and perks and I feel that is reasonable for a fun game that tribes is. I would probably pay as much as a full priced game, as I believe the quality is there, but I wouldnt even be close to unlocking the full game, and what is left is exceptionally grindy. I would rather just buy a box and have a game balanced around fun and not making money.

What do you think about freemium models in games and do you feel they break the game's enjoyment and essentially waste a fun game experience? How much are you willing to throw at a game just to play it normally or for it to be balanced?

I really hope planetside 2 has a decent system, will be pretty upset if it costs the earth to feel competitive, or they sell power etc.

[Fencers]

Of the F2P games I have played [not an FPS player, so I skip those] I have found it to be the exception a CS breaks the game. In most cases I prefer to pay & play for games ala carte. Provided the game is enjoyable, I don't care too much about the final/total cost spent.

My experience has been mostly positive with F2P/CS based games.

[Powerogue]

there shouldn't be any freemium style payments in ANY multiplayer game. It massively devalues the game when some people can pay more for an advantage. Nothing is more frustrating in a game than logging in, thinking the game is free, and being slapped in the face with "now pay up, dang it!"

Demos for a normally paid game are fine, but if paying more gives a person an advantage, especially if this is accumulative for even more money for even more power, I wouldn't play it.

[Milkshake86]

Before I start I would like to say this doesnt apply to all f2p games. For example I think League of legends handles f2p very well, you are never at a disadvantage (perhaps a little versatility right at the start but that is all) yet spending money is tempting enough to support the game. Some fremium games are fine in my eyes, and I dont mind dropping some money for convenience.

However... for the vast majority, freemium games are truly awful in their practices. Honestly I am amazed people actually pay at all. A couple of examples would be a game I recently installed: world of battles, and another I read about: Blacklight Retribution. Now blacklight does a good job of hiding the cash shop on its website so I cant verify, but what I heard was that unlocking the upgrades on just one gun costs 30-40$.

Blacklight has no single guns to "unlock" you build every gun so getting every option might run you $30-$40, how ever none of the items are purchase only except the Armor skins/Heroes or complete premade weapons which are maybe $1 or so and you could just use the in game currency to make it IF your of level.

[Fencers]

there shouldn't be any freemium style payments in ANY multiplayer game. It massively devalues the game when some people can pay more for an advantage. Nothing is more frustrating in a game than logging in, thinking the game is free, and being slapped in the face with "now pay up, dang it!"

Demos for a normally paid game are fine, but if paying more gives a person an advantage, especially if this is accumulative for even more money for even more power, I wouldn't play it.

I think this only applies if the game is competitive inherently. Such as a PVP based game. Otherwise, it basically amounts to nothing more than jealousy/envy.

[Deleted]

I am not against the system in theory, but my point is more that by designing around freemium can stifle the fun, often by saying: 'you can buy this, probably for more than you think it is worth, or you can grind like crazy for it' which sucks all the fun of the game.

Pay to win will pretty much put my back up straight away, unless the cost is very fair. For example play free is one tier, then you buy the game for a one off price, and everything is unlocked and balanced. The essentially means that the f2p is a glorified demo. I am fine with that.

The problem is that often in f2p games, the cost of unlocks becomes quite insane. If you decide that the cost is too high then the game is essentially incomplete and therefore ruined.

take for example the wardrobe unlocks in fallen earth: nm... damn they really do a good job of hiding the real prices in some of these games, another pet peave. sigh.

[Lagwin]

Being unemployed atm free to play games have been a good source of entertainment but the p2w ones suck balls i'll list the ones that i would consider totaly free(no advantage given to paying customers)

ATM Path of Exile
Runes of Magic ,they do sell a load of items and crafting stuff on their item shop but they can be sold on the ah for gold, also they did have an exchange vendor to exchange gold for the bought currency.
Allods, is pretty much free to play just a lot harder to get anywhere with gold as it takes a fair amount of time to farm
Tribes Ascend, new out and so far f2p.
Drakensang, browser mmo...the paid currency drops from monsters occasionally giving you the chance to farm it.

One that has been irritating me is World of Tanks...the game is good, very good but they ruined it with the pay only special tanks and ammo and they really need to sort out the matches, when you go into a game and are pitted against others in tanks up to 5 tiers or more higher than you there's little to no progress

[Deleted]

Blacklight has no single guns to "unlock" you build every gun so getting every option might run you $30-$40, how ever none of the items are purchase only except the Armor skins/Heroes or complete premade weapons which are maybe $1 or so and you could just use the in game currency to make it IF your of level.

Well I will give it a try, I do feel a little bad bashing it without trying, if nothing else its probably fun for a couple of weeks. Surely if building a gun costs more than most complete games, grinding it out must take hell of a long time?

[Deleted]

i don't really think many games are ruined by being 'pay2win'. most of the games that are pay2win severely lack content, have lazy developers and would most likely be a bad game anyway. i really can't think of any off the top of my head. the thing that gets me the most are all these games that claim to be free yet offer very little content to these free members and instead offer subscription packages. don't call a game free if you don't offer the majority of content/features to these accounts.

[Fencers]

I am not against the system in theory, but my point is more that by designing around freemium can stifle the fun, often by saying: 'you can buy this, probably for more than you think it is worth, or you can grind like crazy for it' which sucks all the fun of the game.

Pay to win will pretty much put my back up straight away, unless the cost is very fair. For example play free is one tier, then you buy the game for a one off price, and everything is unlocked and balanced. The essentially means that the f2p is a glorified demo. I am fine with that.

The problem is that often in f2p games, the cost of unlocks becomes quite insane. If you decide that the cost is too high then the game is essentially incomplete and therefore ruined.

take for example the wardrobe unlocks in fallen earth: nm... damn they really do a good job of hiding the real prices in some of these games, another pet peave. sigh.

The problem with this argument is that in Pay2Play games you pay and grind.

For example, in a sub MMO I am required to grind out rep, gear, dailies, professions while paying my $15-9/mo. There is no way for me to skip the grind or lessen it, in fact the grind exist because I am paying monthly.

Given the option I'd much prefer saying, "Oh, I am not really interested in grinding Icewatch rep for 2 months. Here's a measly $20 for that mount that I will enjoy."

Many games are a matter of time investment. Without IP/Xp boosters League of Legends is a hellish grind to level 30, full rune pages and the minimum of 16 bought champions to play ranked games. Honestly, try it and see how well it goes playing League till that minimum position of L30/16 champs/3 full rune pages.

It's a matter of what your time is worth to you. For me, that $20 is nothing vs. the drudgery of grinding levels, rep or whatever virtual merits needed to play the game in actual.

I feel this anti-F2P stuff is stronger felt by those who'd like to play a given game but can't afford a few hundred dollars per game.

[Deatheryn]

I don't play many F2P games as they are poorly designed and usually try to nickle and dime you to death, which is their business model! I personally don't have a problem w/ cash shop in them if it is for advanced content or cosmetic upgrades but when you can Pay-to-Win, that's when the game is broken. I'd much rather pay a sub or buy the game outright and have all in-game content available to me and not depend on how many dollars I am willing to pay for pixels. I understand that either way I am in reality paying for pixels, but buying a game outright, I feel like there are no hidden costs. You get the game and everything it entails!

[Deleted]

I always end up spending way more money on f2p games than p2p.
Also in f2p games the content updates/fixes are usually implemented way slower than p2p games.
The communities in f2p games is often really bad!

P2P is still the king in my book.

[Edge-]

I always end up spending way more money on f2p games than p2p.
Also in f2p games the content updates/fixes are usually implemented way slower than p2p games.
The communities in f2p games is often really bad!

P2P is still the king in my book.

Actually, you don't end up spending more in a F2P game than P2P. You CAN in some games, but I have yet to spend more than 10 dollars in the cash shop of any F2P game I've played over the past year. Granted I haven't played any of them seriously (i.e. multiple hours per day, every day), but even if I had they wouldn't have had anything in the cash shop that I felt was necessary.

There is merit to your statement that content comes out slow if you compare F2P games to say Rift or SWTOR right now, but if you compare it to a game like WoW the content is actually pretty similar. There are plenty of F2P games that release content every 6 or so months, roughly on average with WoW.

Finally, I can easily say the same thing about P2P games (partially because I've been part of that "bad" community from time to time). The worst community I've ever seen has still been in a P2P game (WoW), and I haven't noticed any real difference in community once you get out of the starter zones where all the trolls hang out.

You're welcome to your opinion on which you like better, but saying that F2P forces you to spend more money or that it always releases content slower is untrue. The community part is pretty subjective though.

[Fencers]

There is merit to your statement that content comes out slow if you compare F2P games to say Rift or SWTOR right now, but if you compare it to a game like WoW the content is actually pretty similar. There are plenty of F2P games that release content every 6 or so months, roughly on average with WoW.

I would agree with this from my experience as well. The F2P MMOs I was really into after leaving WOW [circa Lich King release] had major content roughly equal to the time frame of Blizzard and many smaller updates/features in the time between.

I can think of only 1 subscription MMO on the market right now that releases major content & features alongside minor additions & updates on a 30-60 day schedule; Trion's Rift.

Again, I personally don't play many FPS/shooter games. So I am not sure what the situation is like in other genres.

[Deleted]

Well its hard for me to judge with MMOs. I never actually found a f2p MMO I liked until DDO, and that is a pretty incomplete game without paying. The difference is in DDO it doesnt matter, theres no endgame to rush to, no grinding at all really, which is why I feel its cash shop works, even though the game is very incomplete. If I look back, I havent really been happy with any of them, and I have played a lot. And its hard to judge grind vs reward, as MMOs were mostly very grindy in the past. Looking back now only one really had responsive controls and the right 'feel' and that was WoW, and only games I really felt had a great and friendly community (outside guilds) were ragnarok online, FFXI, and DDO. Judging a grind in MMO is all relative, especially after playing ragnarok online, which was brutal as hell at high levels.

[Fencers]

Still is applicable to games like LOL or Tribes though. Without putting down cash, you are spending a huge amount of time grinding for some thing or other.

The nature of F2P is to entice players to spend $$ based on convenience and vanity. There is no way around that fact- yup. However, I don't see a F2P model as unfair vs. paying and grinding. As is the case in the majority of Pay to Play games.

It's quite simple: We have time and money. We can chose to spend whichever one, or both. Up to you.

[Green13]

Still is applicable to games like LOL or Tribes though. Without putting down cash, you are spending a huge amount of time grinding for some thing or other.

The nature of F2P is to entice players to spend $$ based on convenience and vanity. There is no way around that fact- yup. However, I don't see a F2P model as unfair vs. paying and grinding. As is the case in the majority of Pay to Play games.

It's quite simple: We have time and money. We can chose to spend whichever one, or both. Up to you.

Generally I agree with you,but you miss one point regarding paying to save time : on many MMOs,time is a matter of win or lose.Especially on MMOs,time spent defines what you're gonna do in that game.You can be the best player in the world,you'll never earn a world's 1st in WoW's PvE if you play 1 hour per day.I admit,few years ago,time was way more important than it is now,but it is still a basic requirement.

Now,if a game offers that time to be bought,in a competitive enviroment like MMOs are,i find it really unfair.
Think,we start a game the very same day,and we spend the same time,having similar skills.Just a hypothesis.
Automatically,the one of us that has 50 more $$ to spend,becomes "better" in that game's world.I'd quit immedietly (like i did with Runes of Magic when i found out how it works)a game that defines "good" and "bad" players on their pocket.

I'd accept and even applaude if needed,a F2P game that is based on selling vanity or items of minor importance.Life i did with LoL.
Yea,i leveled without a boost,i have my 3 pages full and even a few runes to swap,many many heroes bought,without spending a thing.I never felt dis-advantaged to skinned characters (usually it was the opposite :P).I did all this with a group of mates,none of us ever felt we lost a game cause of not enough runes.
1 year later,i found myself,WANTING to give money to those dudes that made that game.And if my life gets fixed financially,i'll give them even more.

My point?Time on online games matter too much to make it buy-able.F2P that have "donation" system should be really careful if they wanna keep me,and not make the rich guy better player by default.

[Shadow Master]

League of Legends has a really solid F2P model.

Team Fortress 2, on the other hand, had the devs claim there would NEVER be store exclusive items in the store... then they turned right around and the very day the F2P model hit live servers, there were people running around with store exclusive items.

If you're going to implement F2P, do it right, and don't lie to your player base about how it's going to work. Then all is fine.

[Rukh]

Generally it ruins things just by human nature. People crave things but real enjoyment comes from achieving it. If you just slap down the card because you really want something, you'll find you don't value it at all. You don't get the enjoyable experience. And, if you then are more powerful than people who actually are trying to work for things, then you're messing up balance for other people too and cheapening their achievements to meaningless. Bad on all sides.

[Deleted]

It depends on the person. Me for example, I'm happy to pay the subscription for WoW, because I have to. However, in cash shop games, I really try not to spend a thing at all.

And with the pay to win thing, I agree with you, it's stupid and ruins the game for anyone who might just want to play for a couple of hours every few days.