MMOs: Is it time for the subscription-based model to go away?

[Hyve]

Nope - The subscription model can do wonders for the developers, it's a nearly guaranteed source of income, that helps them determine their capability to produce content over the coming months.

I think a subscription game, that also supports a cheap in-game store is a good idea. I don't think Blizzard are at that point though. The Helmets were a good idea, but the price was insane. I hate comparing to other games, but £15 for a helmet, when £6 gets you a whole set of epic looking armour in Guild Wars 2.

I think they need to adjust their prices, work on the basis of more sales is better, but that can only happen once the immature and arrogant quit their whining about the in-game store. All items (that we know of so far) are not a Pay-to-Win service, and even when the +300% experience goes live, that itself isn't Pay-to-Win either.

[papajohn4]

Nope - The subscription model can do wonders for the developers, it's a nearly guaranteed source of income, that helps them determine their capability to produce content over the coming months.

I think a subscription game, that also supports a cheap in-game store is a good idea. I don't think Blizzard are at that point though. The Helmets were a good idea, but the price was insane. I hate comparing to other games, but £15 for a helmet, when £6 gets you a whole set of epic looking armour in Guild Wars 2.

I think they need to adjust their prices, work on the basis of more sales is better, but that can only happen once the immature and arrogant quit their whining about the in-game store. All items (that we know of so far) are not a Pay-to-Win service, and even when the +300% experience goes live, that itself isn't Pay-to-Win either.

I don't think people complain because they think that mounts and helmets are pay-to-win. They think that Blizzard should use the time and resources to create things for the in-game. Helmets and mounts could be a reward for a difficult achievement in-game instead of the shop...From the other hand, money from these items may be spent into more GMs for support, more content...who knows how blizzard use their money and if these money from the shop are going to benefit the game or is just an extra profit for the already big profit of million subs...

I did not whine about it, so far I am indifferent, but I can see a reason on people who whine, and no one said something about pay-to-win.

[Shadowspire]

My quick 2cents in here, didn't want to read the whole 12 pages of stuff.
Guild wars two is a good game this is true but it's f2p model is as bad and broken as any other f2p mmo. More so when you can literally outright buy gold , which In any mmo is a big deal.
Outside of guild wars I've yet to find a real f2p mmo that won't mickle and dime you for the basics of basics.
Char slots
Bag slots
Grouping
Talking
Mounts
FUCKING PATCHES AS IF THEY WERE EXPANSIONS(this one is only to dcuo as far as I know).
It just doesn't work.

Compared to subscription based game or when you opt in to pay subs, it's honestly just better and so much simpler. I'll be honest tho 15$ a month isn't anything, that's literally just saving 50Cents a day, you can literally just not eat out maybe for two days out a month and save that amount.
And I mean what are the arguments for it out of that? You don't have the same time to play it as someone else? Well that's kind of life and it isn't meant to be like that nor should it be.

If it were to charge you for how much time you spend it would be cheap on some but then ridiculous for others who have free time like that. 15$ is a straight out "you give them money, you can have everything the game is designed with.".

Now I won't lie 25 bucks and stuff a char move is a bit annoying, more so when new mmos make that crap free.

But outside of that nothing else should even be debated about.
You want to argue blizzards ingame store, well fine but it's cosmetic shit and so far has not broken a required thing.
Pets for pet battles?- not once has it been mandatory in the game to win a pet battle, it's optional and fun but that's it, and right now everything is like 5$ anyway.

Mounts are cosmetic and so are the helms.
The only other ingame store I tried and literally it made spend way to much money(mainly because I didn't think the transactions overtime was as bad as I thought ) was guild wars 2,followed by swtor and rift. Outside of wow it's a mmos life blood so I see why they force it on you. But so far blizzard has just out cosmetic stuff in theirs that either
A) doesn't fit with the current themes and they just want it in there
Or
B) it was strictly designed for the fucking store to help add a few extra bucks to the company and maybe mateinence.

[Edge-]

Can you name me 1 F2P game that turned into sub because it failed as F2P? You know what I mean...

It hasn't "failed" as a F2P game but...

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/10...y-servers-tod/

Allods Online created a subscription only server after being F2P for quite some time. The F2P servers still exist, but they added a P2P server into the game as well.

Also, many of the games that transitioned from P2P to F2P didn't "fail". They were profitable games, but they saw more potential revenue as a F2P game, so they made the transition in the interest of revenue.

[Heaterz 88]

No. I want a sub based mmo

[Deleted]

I like mmos with subscription, at least it's a barrer for most 10 y olds with too much free time.

[Yunru]

Ah, the glorious illusion that a subscription somehow makes a game only for "exclusive" members who are of "higher" quality. It's like a wonderful digital country club : D

True that. The Ceo of a free to play game laughs at players who think like that.
Because it makes more money. And if there are more people who want to be *exclusive* they will add more stuff to buy.
Just so this players fell more *exclusive*.
Get it?

Here is one of those jokes:


(the guy who laughs at players who spend money on gold tanks)

[Shadowspire]

It hasn't "failed" as a F2P game but...

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/10...y-servers-tod/

Allods Online created a subscription only server after being F2P for quite some time. The F2P servers still exist, but they added a P2P server into the game as well.

Also, many of the games that transitioned from P2P to F2P didn't "fail". They were profitable games, but they saw more potential revenue as a F2P game, so they made the transition in the interest of revenue.

Oh bullshit they failed. They lost their quick spike of first month/quarters and basically went free to play and cut some of the stuff they had and began to mickle and dime their remaining players to keep going.
And yes while they probably are making a but more as f2p it doesn't mean it was out of their will. Swtor and rift and maybe dcuo did not go f2p by choice.

[Blade and Soul]

The subscription based model works for "large" MMOs much better than smaller ones, in terms of population.

Even though WoW has dropped in its subscription numbers, I don't see any reason they need to go F2P in the near or distant future. What I would suggest they do is allow trial accounts to access all level 1-60 content (except Outlands) and retain the current restrictions they have in place now (and exclude Death Knights from being used). It would allow people to get a taste of the game (more so than the limited 1-20 content) and may garner more players.

Also, I know there is the $5 sale going on right now for all new accounts up until MoP, but after that sale it will be $20. Once the next expansion hits, they need to immediately include MoP into the $20 box set and upgrade those accounts that bought the previous box set to be able to play MoP. The cost of actually getting into WoW is one of the biggest hurdles it faces right now.

And one last thing, Blizzard can keep the subscription model unless they (hopefully won't) start selling game breaking items on their store. Such as purchasing more free level 90 characters, or purchasing full transmog sets of armor that are superior in looks that the in-game equipment isn't up to par. If they start doing that, then they need to either lower the subscription cost, or give players a set amount of tokens per month to spend on the store.

[PizzaSHARK]

My quick 2cents in here, didn't want to read the whole 12 pages of stuff.
Guild wars two is a good game this is true but it's f2p model is as bad and broken as any other f2p mmo. More so when you can literally outright buy gold , which In any mmo is a big deal.

How is it a big deal? How is being able to trade gems for gold, or gold for gems, something that negatively impacts the game?

I dislike subscriptions because I'm not getting to decide how much or when I spend money on the game. I regularly spend well over $15 a month on gems when I'm actively playing GW2; it's not about the money, it's about the feeling that I'm spending the money when I choose to, and on what I want to spend it on.

I'd have no problem if the subscription fee went towards content that I'm actually interested in, but PvP takes a definite back seat to other content types - I don't care about your new raid and the associated things with it, I just want improved PvP and a new PvP season. Why am I effectively being charged for content I will not participate in, or even care about?

[l33t]

It hasn't "failed" as a F2P game but...
http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/10...y-servers-tod/
Allods Online created a subscription only server after being F2P for quite some time. The F2P servers still exist, but they added a P2P server into the game as well.
Also, many of the games that transitioned from P2P to F2P didn't "fail". They were profitable games, but they saw more potential revenue as a F2P game, so they made the transition in the interest of revenue.

I'm sorry, but Allods are the most awful example when we talk about f2p games. Allods online are completely unplayable without donating tons and tons and tons of money to buy buffs in shop; therefore their "p2p" server very quickly became just the same p2w shit as other servers were.

Back to topic. I like sub-based model MMOs more. It seems that sub-based MMOs have better communities, because little to no 10 y.o. children play them. So, communications are way more healthy, and people you group with are way more adequate and mature.

[PizzaSHARK]

Back to topic. I like sub-based model MMOs more. It seems that sub-based MMOs have better communities, because little to no 10 y.o. children play them. So, communications are way more healthy, and people you group with are way more adequate and mature.

This just comes across as confirmation bias to me. I've encountered just as many immature pricks playing sub-based games like WoW and FF14 as I have any F2P games or B2P games like GW2.

[papajohn4]

It hasn't "failed" as a F2P game but...

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/10...y-servers-tod/

Allods Online created a subscription only server after being F2P for quite some time. The F2P servers still exist, but they added a P2P server into the game as well.

Also, many of the games that transitioned from P2P to F2P didn't "fail". They were profitable games, but they saw more potential revenue as a F2P game, so they made the transition in the interest of revenue.

thats the exact opposite though...it turned sub because it had success...sub games don't go F2P because they have success.

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Back to topic. I like sub-based model MMOs more. It seems that sub-based MMOs have better communities, because little to no 10 y.o. children play them. So, communications are way more healthy, and people you group with are way more adequate and mature.

While I support sub games and "hate" f2p, I don't think this is the reason at all. Lotro community is by far the best community I played with, while wow is one of the worst. I don't even mention EVE...

[Deleted]

WoW's success is not solely based on right place at the right time. It was a great game that was released at the right place at the right time. If the game was bad, the "right place at the right time" wouldn't have mattered.

Well say it's skilled developers and business model as well. Not to mention this was also the standard mmo business model at the time.
We all know titan, if it launches at all and if as a mmo... won't be as successful as wow. Do blizzard have less skilled developers today? Do blizzard cherish wow business model? Well, last thing I've heard is titan being f2p.
So why wont a company like Blizzard be able to do it again? Why will they abandon subfee model to upcoming games?
Tbh, I think the strongest reason is market is different these days, competition is higher... because otherwise doing a wow2 in terms of success wouldnt be any problem just using skilled developers and subfee model?

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The most successful games are subscription games. Wow and EVE(eve have a steady population of 400k+ subs for almost a decade and is older than wow..). When MMOs fail they turn into F2P. Can you name me 1 F2P game that turned into sub because it failed as F2P? You know what I mean...

Eve is steady, but pretty low. However wow has been losing subs pretty much every quarter since cata launch. We dont even know real subfee numbers of EU and NA, the interesting numbers. I bet they are lower than people understand. I see people writing about wow on this site, understandable. But in sweden, noone talks about wow, dreamhack lost wow playing families at their lans, when talking about that nerd skipping school for computer games noone longer mention wow as the game people cut school for, now it's LoL that's the game you relate to.
I dont blame people for playing the game still, I used to love the game. But according to me cata was a big failure in terms of updates and content, many f2p-games can deliver more than blizzard did that expansion, and it's the obvious example that subfee do not guarantee either content or quality.

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WoW has its elements of P2W, but there are different tiers to it. I consider Rift to be one of the worst offenders when it comes to this. Tera one of the best. SWTOR is not bad either. PoE is in a class of its own, just a beautiful system.

I never talked about experience boosts, I can give that a pass even though it is an advantage. I was specifically talking about 160% prestige and glory boosts. Not to mention the fact you can actually straight out buy the best PvP weapon in the game with money.

So you would be ok if WoW sold Garrosh Heroic raiding gear correct?

You cannot buy either best pve gear or pvp gear in rift, unless something drastically changed. You can only buy the skins so it looks like you got the gear but it's not the actual piece with stats.
Then ofc, in pve gear makes sense because of raids, in rift pvp the gear does nothing more than improve ganking skills, no competitive element, which is a failure in itself but a reason why it can't be p2win because there is nothing to win in pvp except for annoying new players trying to do those crappy daily quests out in the world. And then one might wonder why such a grind for nothing? Well, noone really knows.. probably because 10 vets spending too much time in game gained too much power of the devs.

[Mormolyce]

I think sub-based will be around for a good long while yet. Not to say F2P isn't great as well.

Or why not do something akin to the old Guild Wars model, where there's no subscription fee, and you instead release small expansions pretty regularly, at reasonable prices? Imagine if WoW had no subscription fee, but instead you had to pay a one-time $20 fee if you wanted to access that new patch's raid content, the new PvP season, new quests and zones, and things like that?

Mmm, I dunno if I'd like to play a game where the devs have to keep making expansions just to pay the bills. Expansions should be a big deal and have a lot of thought put into them IMO.

[Deleted]

I'll happily pay to not play with peasants that think paying a small fee for a game they like is an impossible burden. If I like a game, I'll pay for it. If the game starts to suck, I'll unsub until they fix it or I play something else. That means the company has a reason to keep their game good. If the game is simply the only decent one out and all the competition sucks, then be mad at every other developer making shit games rather than Blizzard for being the only successful one.

And people do the same in f2p-games, they buy things they like, they dont pay for things they dont like, they take breaks when content is dull, they come back for patches they are interested in.

[PizzaSHARK]

Eve is steady, but pretty low. However wow has been losing subs pretty much every quarter since cata launch. We dont even know real subfee numbers of EU and NA, the interesting numbers. I bet they are lower than people understand. I see people writing about wow on this site, understandable. But in sweden, noone talks about wow, dreamhack lost wow playing families at their lans, when talking about that nerd skipping school for computer games noone longer mention wow as the game people cut school for, now it's LoL that's the game you relate to.
I dont blame people for playing the game still, I used to love the game. But according to me cata was a big failure in terms of updates and content, many f2p-games can deliver more than blizzard did that expansion, and it's the obvious example that subfee do not guarantee either content or quality.

GW2 is probably the MMO that first comes to mind in terms of constant influx of content and activities. I do feel the game is hurting a little bit from a lack of a raiding-like "endgame" (this probably wouldn't be a big deal if the PvP wasn't fucking terrible, too), but I'm definitely a fan of their adding in small chunks of content every 2-4 weeks instead of the 3-4 month turnaround time popularized by WoW and FF14.

I disagree that the sub model results in more content, or even better content - I just feel it's a model that's used because it generates far more revenue for the developer than other alternatives.

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Mmm, I dunno if I'd like to play a game where the devs have to keep making expansions just to pay the bills. Expansions should be a big deal and have a lot of thought put into them IMO.

I'm saying the "expansions" in this case would be analogous to WoW's content patches - a new raiding tier, new PvP season, new daily quest hub, etc. Think of it like how most single-player games have DLC expansions.

[Deleted]

Ah, the glorious illusion that a subscription somehow makes a game only for "exclusive" members who are of "higher" quality. It's like a wonderful digital country club : D

It must be an illusion all those posts about "LFG, LFR destroyed wow community, the trolls, the ninjas.."
The game has subfee, how can people complain about the community? Strange, strange... :P

[papajohn4]

Eve is steady, but pretty low. However wow has been losing subs pretty much every quarter since cata launch. We dont even know real subfee numbers of EU and NA, the interesting numbers. I bet they are lower than people understand. I see people writing about wow on this site, understandable. But in sweden, noone talks about wow, dreamhack lost wow playing families at their lans, when talking about that nerd skipping school for computer games noone longer mention wow as the game people cut school for, now it's LoL that's the game you relate to.
I dont blame people for playing the game still, I used to love the game. But according to me cata was a big failure in terms of updates and content, many f2p-games can deliver more than blizzard did that expansion, and it's the obvious example that subfee do not guarantee either content or quality.

I wouldn't consider 400k+ steady subs for 10 years low How many MMOs could achieve that? I agree that wow after cata took the downhill, but still other MMOs are just clones that miss x thing and added y thing. And f2p business is a bomb waiting for explosion...there are so many things a Whale can buy before understand it is a whale and get bored of shops..Subfee does quarantee quality and content. And in quality I also include the support of the game. I am sure people will give as example the gw2 "content" updates, because I ve seen this a lot...but their "content" updates are just the holiday events of wow...

[PizzaSHARK]

I wouldn't consider 400k+ steady subs for 10 years low How many MMOs could achieve that? I agree that wow after cata took the downhill, but still other MMOs are just clones that miss x thing and added y thing. And f2p business is a bomb waiting for explosion...there are so many things a Whale can buy before understand it is a whale and get bored of shops..Subfee does quarantee quality and content. And in quality I also include the support of the game. I am sure people will give as example the gw2 "content" updates, because I ve seen this a lot...but their "content" updates are just the holiday events of wow...

Well, no. Those content updates arrive constantly. The reason you might think they're just holiday updates is because the last three months of the year are crammed with major holidays (Halloween, then Thanksgiving, then Christmas... one month after another.)

They're still releasing content updates every month, and often more than once a month. True, these aren't huge, massive content updates, but they tend to fulfill the job of keeping the pot simmering; I'm sure ArenaNet is making a comfortable profit from GW2, even if it doesn't have the massive, colossal numbers of WoW or EVE.