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  1. #21
    Over 9000! zealo's Avatar
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    The decline of WoW is mirroring the Subscription based MMO market, not the whole industry. The F2P version on the other hand is thriving, so is B2P games, digital providing is growing while classic retailers is having a rough time, at least in the PC section.
    Last edited by zealo; 2013-06-25 at 07:37 PM.

  2. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by Naeny View Post
    The decline of WoW is mirroring the Subscription based MMO market, not the whole industry. The F2P version on the other hand is thriving, so is B2P games, digital providing is growing while classic retailers is having a rough time.
    It can also be interpreted as, games who tried to go the route of subscription-based payment plans failed and were forced to go F2P to stay relevant (aka - a handful of popular F2P games in the market right now).

    I won't argue that F2P appears to be the next major trend in video games, but I can't imagine WoW goes F2P anytime soon.

  3. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by Naeny View Post
    The decline of WoW is mirroring the Subscription based MMO market, not the whole industry. The F2P version on the other hand is thriving, so is B2P games, digital providing is growing while classic retailers is having a rough time, at least in the PC section.

    F2P Thriving ??? LOL
    ¨
    Not in revenue...

    Watch Zynga stock going down from 14.2 dollars Feb 2012 ... to 2.7 dollars June 25th 2013 ...

    Why ? 82% of the 75 million players of Farmville never spend a dime in game. Only 3% of all free to play gamers in Farmville spend 20 dollars...

    Quote:

    "Despite the game's popularity, 82 percent of FarmVille players do not spend any money in the free-to-play game. Around 5 percent spend $1-5 in the game, and about the same amount spend $6-10. 3 percent of FarmVille users, though, spend more than $20 a month. Those figures aren't surprising considering that 57 percent of players also said they don't like spending a lot of money on gaming (46 percent of "average console gamers" said the same).


    Source: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/2...y_It_Daily.php

    Yeah these games are "thriving" alright.

    With WOW raking in 275 million dollars in GAAP revenu (that's the ONLY official way that counts for official bookkeeping btw) in the first quarter of 2013 ... the rest gets the peanuts.

    With the above average figures, WOW needs to go to 150 million to 200 million players in a free to play status to arrive at 275 million GAAP revenue.

    And in an MMORPG development cycle .... going F2P from scratch is pure suicidal.

    OLD subscription based MMORPG's turn F2P in order to get SOME funds back, but that doesn't mean they are "thriving" in revenue (read $$$ sugns).

    ----

    F2P is good enough for CHEAP games with short development cycles and limited costs (example: Hearthstone, dota games) ... but MMORPG's are much too costly to produce as F2P or you have to resort to pure JUNK (cost effective games). Even GW2 had to resort to loading screens to replace fast travel mounts, open ended background loading worlds etc.

    Did you know that a full 3D world you can fly over (with no borders or loading screens between zones) ... cost 3 times more than a game with seperate zoned loading screens. 3 times more, no wonder GW2 has only loading screens to jump from one instance to another...
    Last edited by BenBos; 2013-06-25 at 08:27 PM.

  4. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by BenBos View Post
    F2P Thriving ??? LOL
    ¨
    Not in revenue...

    Watch Zynga stock going down from 14.2 dollars Feb 2012 ... to 2.7 dollars June 25th 2013 ...

    Why ? 82% of the 75 million players of Farmville never spend a dime in game. Only 3% of all free to play gamers in Farmville spend 20 dollars...

    Quote:

    "Despite the game's popularity, 82 percent of FarmVille players do not spend any money in the free-to-play game. Around 5 percent spend $1-5 in the game, and about the same amount spend $6-10. 3 percent of FarmVille users, though, spend more than $20 a month. Those figures aren't surprising considering that 57 percent of players also said they don't like spending a lot of money on gaming (46 percent of "average console gamers" said the same).


    Source: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/2...y_It_Daily.php

    Yeah these games are "thriving" alright.

    With WOW raking in 275 million dollars in GAAP revenu (that's the ONLY official way that counts for official bookkeeping btw) in the first quarter of 2013 ... the rest gets the peanuts.

    With the above average figures, WOW needs to go to 150 million to 200 million players in a free to play status to arrive at 275 million GAAP revenue.

    And in an MMORPG development cycle .... going F2P from scratch is pure suicidal.

    OLD subscription based MMORPG's turn F2P in order to get SOME funds back, but that doesn't mean they are "thriving" in revenue (read $$$ sugns).

    ----

    F2P is good enough for CHEAP games with short development cycles and limited costs (example: Hearthstone, dota games) ... but MMORPG's are much too costly to produce as F2P or you have to resort to pure JUNK (cost effective games). Even GW2 had to resort to loading screens to replace fast travel mounts, open ended background loading worlds etc.

    Did you know that a full 3D world you can fly over (with no borders or loading screens between zones) ... cost 3 times more than a game with seperate zoned loading screens. 3 times more, no wonder GW2 has only loading screens to jump from one instance to another...
    You seem very fond of comparing WOW to Farmville, apart from being completely different games aimed at different parts of the market, Farmville does not need players to spend the same amount of money as WOW to be successful or profitable as its development costs would be orders of magnitude less than WOW's.

  5. #25
    So long as Purina and Quaker Oats don't release any new games we should be good. Last time they did, they heralded the endtimes of gaming and only good RPG's saved us.

  6. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by BenBos View Post
    F2P is good enough for CHEAP games with short development cycles and limited costs (example: Hearthstone, dota games) ... but MMORPG's are much too costly to produce as F2P or you have to resort to pure JUNK (cost effective games). Even GW2 had to resort to loading screens to replace fast travel mounts, open ended background loading worlds etc.

    Did you know that a full 3D world you can fly over (with no borders or loading screens between zones) ... cost 3 times more than a game with seperate zoned loading screens. 3 times more, no wonder GW2 has only loading screens to jump from one instance to another...
    And F2P is a noticeable lack of quality in terms of gameplay and systems. Look at GW2. Beautiful game, but game art is cheap, IMO. Everyone and their mother though complains about the gameplay. PvP is broken (tho that's a given in almost any MMO) and PvE is boring because boss mechanics are not engaging.

    Never mind their watered down updates because they need to squeeze their bag of grapes (playerbase) on an almost bi-weekly basis to make money, as opposed to something enriching. Compare MOP's patch notes to GW2's. Or even Vanilla's release timeline against GW2's. There is a marked difference in quality and quantity.

    No one is going to copy WoW's success so long as WoW is around, and Blizzard would be stupid to let a built-in customer base that WoW provides vanish.

    I hope F2P fails hard, because I look at it like an amusement park. I prefer good day admission parks like Busch Gardens and Kings Dominion. Most crappy ticket-to-ride parks are just that. Crappy. Poor quality. Run down. Poor customer service. With the exception of Angry Birds, I've never run into a F2P game that hasn't rubbed me the wrong way in its attempt to open my wallet.

  7. #27
    Over 9000! zealo's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by BenBos View Post
    F2P Thriving ??? LOL
    ¨
    Not in revenue...

    Watch Zynga stock going down from 14.2 dollars Feb 2012 ... to 2.7 dollars June 25th 2013 ...

    Why ? 82% of the 75 million players of Farmville never spend a dime in game. Only 3% of all free to play gamers in Farmville spend 20 dollars...

    Quote:

    "Despite the game's popularity, 82 percent of FarmVille players do not spend any money in the free-to-play game. Around 5 percent spend $1-5 in the game, and about the same amount spend $6-10. 3 percent of FarmVille users, though, spend more than $20 a month. Those figures aren't surprising considering that 57 percent of players also said they don't like spending a lot of money on gaming (46 percent of "average console gamers" said the same).


    Source: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/2...y_It_Daily.php

    Yeah these games are "thriving" alright.

    With WOW raking in 275 million dollars in GAAP revenu (that's the ONLY official way that counts for official bookkeeping btw) in the first quarter of 2013 ... the rest gets the peanuts.

    With the above average figures, WOW needs to go to 150 million to 200 million players in a free to play status to arrive at 275 million GAAP revenue.

    And in an MMORPG development cycle .... going F2P from scratch is pure suicidal.

    OLD subscription based MMORPG's turn F2P in order to get SOME funds back, but that doesn't mean they are "thriving" in revenue (read $$$ sugns).

    ----

    F2P is good enough for CHEAP games with short development cycles and limited costs (example: Hearthstone, dota games) ... but MMORPG's are much too costly to produce as F2P or you have to resort to pure JUNK (cost effective games). Even GW2 had to resort to loading screens to replace fast travel mounts, open ended background loading worlds etc.

    Did you know that a full 3D world you can fly over (with no borders or loading screens between zones) ... cost 3 times more than a game with seperate zoned loading screens. 3 times more, no wonder GW2 has only loading screens to jump from one instance to another...
    If you are gonna compare a MMO to a facebook game you are just an idiot.

    You also seem to be confused on the difference between game design and whether a game's bussiness model is successful or not while maintaining a playerbase, worth noting is that these games that turn F2P gains more players than they ever had while being subscribtion based actually increasing their revenue compared to when they where subscription based, its more then getting "some" funds back. How they made their game can be discussed elsewhere and just boils down to personal opinions, if its maintaining a profitable playerbase is what defines if its a success or not.
    Last edited by zealo; 2013-06-26 at 12:41 PM.

  8. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by Abysal View Post
    So I saw an article with this chart in it. It shows that since 2010 when WoW was at it's peak, amount of money people spend on games and PC games has declined each subsequent year. To me this clearly shows that WoW's decline isn't some crazy "Blizzard is awful, Ghostcrawler is an idiot" but is largely a reflection on the changing preferences of consumers.

    I don't know how, in a market like that, anyone would expect WoWs subs to not decline noticeably.
    I wouldn't call that 'conclusion' accurate. People don't just drop doing what they love unless they're tired of it or no longer love it.

    Also, the video game industry is declining as a whole because 99% of overhyped game titles are garbage. We occasionally get those super rare gems that don't involve FPSs and are good. Back during the 16-bit and 32/64-bit era (SNES/N64&PS1, etc.), this wasn't a problem because game companies went with innovation and gameplay. Now, everyone tries to copy CoD and adds their "little touches" on it in hope it will work. 99 times out of 100, it doesn't work. (In the same way that MMOs try to copy WoW).

    As proof, notice the left side. Notice how the green bar has actually been INCREASING. The PC/Video Game bars are going down because of what I just said above. 2010-2012 have been quite possibly the worst years in the video game industry due to lack of innovation/just making rehashed garbage. We only got so few gems that were good.


    Edit: Forgot to mention Blizzard is doing the same thing with WoW. They're sticking with their boring "winning formula" that worked in the past but no longer does so. Their newest innovation (to them) is dailies and scenarios.
    Last edited by Polarthief; 2013-06-26 at 01:02 PM.
    Still wondering why I play this game.
    I'm a Rogue and I also made a spreadsheet for the Order Hall that is updated for BfA.

  9. #29
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Eviscero View Post
    I don't want to be mean so I will try to politely point out that you are completely misinterpreting the diagram. The point of the charts (clearly indicated by the title) is to show the decline in traditional game purchases (physical retail purchases). These have been replaced by digital downloads (and other delivery formats). There appears to be a minor (9%) drop in overall video games sales, but a massive (35%) drop in sale by traditional means. The point is not that the video game market is drying up (9% is normal fluctuations I'd say) but that people are not buying CDs/DVD copies of games.
    Thats what i thought too.. thanks for pointing it out! lol

    Basically those graphs r not what the OP says they are :P

  10. #30
    Titan Arbs's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Quilzar View Post
    OK! This was the first post that made me laugh today!

    Good job!
    OMG I know what was Blizzard thinking, hehe
    I don't always hunt things, But when I do, It's because they're things & I'm a Bear.


  11. #31
    Quote Originally Posted by Anarchor View Post
    Today I learned that LFR is causing the gaming industry to crash.
    Well played, sir. It has become a plague on our fragile environment and we must end it!

  12. #32
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    Quote Originally Posted by Afrospinach View Post
    Well played, sir. It has become a plague on our fragile environment and we must end it!
    Now only if the casual whiners didn't complain about not being able to raiders or have any epics than we prbly wouldn't be in such a predicament

    Dam you Wrath dam you !!
    I don't always hunt things, But when I do, It's because they're things & I'm a Bear.


  13. #33
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    Quote Originally Posted by BenBos View Post
    Video game sales went down with 25% on a YEARLY basis over the last 2 years...
    Where did u get this figure from?

    Especially when someone above u posted a graph showing that PC game sales have gone up in that period lol



    Quote Originally Posted by BenBos View Post
    But ALL mmorpg's except WoW and EvE turned to FREE to play or buy to play over the past 2 years too (in an attempt to survive).
    U failed to mention that pretty much every new MMO in the past year launched with a F2P or B2P model... they didnt switch to free after they failed as u claim. GW2 launched B2P and its been growing every month.

    Im pretty sure that EoS, Destiny and Wildstar will also launch as B2P.

    and fyi Eve is the ONLY paying MMO subs based game which is increasing in subs, it has been for 5 years slowly but steadily. This is the opposite of whats happening in Wow.
    Last edited by mmoc978ad45763; 2013-06-26 at 03:19 PM.

  14. #34
    Quote Originally Posted by AD Arbsbear View Post
    Now only if the casual whiners didn't complain about not being able to raiders or have any epics than we prbly wouldn't be in such a predicament

    Dam you Wrath dam you !!
    Flex raiding. Now we can remove LFR.
    Still wondering why I play this game.
    I'm a Rogue and I also made a spreadsheet for the Order Hall that is updated for BfA.

  15. #35
    Herald of the Titans Detheavn's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Trassk View Post
    Less people play games because there is less money is the world.

    We're in the middle of an economic crisis, and things like being able to afford the simple joys like new games or movies is becoming less in this day and age.
    It's not about the amount of money in the world, it's about where that money is. If one single man can own more money than the rest of a continent ... yeah, then we have an economic imbalance which makes Blizzard's PvP balancing look absolutely smooth.

    The rest I'm all with you

  16. #36
    Quote Originally Posted by Kharli View Post
    Please start to remember there are other countries than U.S when you pull numbers..
    Yeah you tell that nationalist son of a bitch whats what! I mean he didn't make the graph, or gather the data, and he said that in literally the first sentence. But when we put all that aside and really get down to it this thread is clearly nothing but a veiled attempt to insult your nation specifically and I for one think it is damn impressive you are taking a stand!
    Last edited by Applenazi; 2013-06-26 at 01:22 PM.

  17. #37
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    Quote Originally Posted by Endemonadia View Post
    Where did u get this figure from?

    Especially when someone above u posted a graph showing that PC game sales have gone up in that period lol





    U failed to mention that pretty much very new MMO in the past year launched with a F2P or B2P model... they didnt switch to free after they failed as u claim. GW2 launched B2P and its been growing every month.

    Im pretty sure that EoS, Destiny and Wildstar will also launch as B2P.

    and fyi Eve is the ONLY paying MMO subs based game which is increasing in subs, it has been for 5 years slowly but steadily. This is the opposite of whats happening in Wow.
    Rift went F2P. Swtor went F2P. Every new MMO is either reconsidering their subscription model or has already done so. The previous years EQ2, Lotro, Tera, etc. They can't turn a profit using the sub model so they switch to F2P. I would imagine that Titan's model will be going F2P as well.

    You can tell the difference between the quality and content of F2P games compared to subs though. WoW set the bar higher for game development in it's early years and embarrassed many publishers by exposing the shit they were releasing.

  18. #38
    Quote Originally Posted by Tharkkun View Post
    Rift went F2P. Swtor went F2P. Every new MMO is either reconsidering their subscription model or has already done so. The previous years EQ2, Lotro, Tera, etc. They can't turn a profit using the sub model so they switch to F2P. I would imagine that Titan's model will be going F2P as well.

    You can tell the difference between the quality and content of F2P games compared to subs though. WoW set the bar higher for game development in it's early years and embarrassed many publishers by exposing the shit they were releasing.
    Exactly this.

    You know FORMER subscription based AAA titles that turn F2P are not a good example for the MMORPG world...


    These games were meant to be played with a fixed subscription fee and ... FAILED, so they needed to go to free to play in a last attempt to squeeze money from the players that FLOCK to the "free to p(l)ay" mechanics.


    BUT, the initial development of these things was HUGE (because they thought they could earn subscription money back for the next 5 years or so).

    For the most part a game like SW TOR did not even have a return on investment (costs around 150-200 million dollars) while the boxes alone in retail were somewhere along 2 million X 25 dollars = 50 million dollars (RETAIL and DISTRIBUTION profits are NOT going to the game makers (Bioware), I hope you all understand the basic mechanics of retail sales and revenue ...)...


    So people who scream "F2P is the next big thing".

    Nope it is NOT because MMORPG's are simply too costly to make.

    Do you wanna see "real F2P" MMO's made with a lot less money? Go to all these cheap F2P Asian type of games, and you'll realise the MMORPG scene put itself in a corner where only death awaits... in the long run.

    --
    Some said I should not use the stats above of the TYPICAL free to play game on the internet like ... Farmville. On the contrary: this game without a world behind it was VERY easy to make, compared to an open world MMORPG like WOW and ... so it is TYPICAL for that kind of F2P market.


    The MMORPG industry went into a crisis when the first AAA sub based games failed and went F2P as a last resort.

    Now slowly but surely the money is draining out of this "open world" and "endless play".

    The only thing that awaits are "loading screens", "instances" and fast play on line games like World of Tanks.


    Nothing goes up for free. And Wow has to compete in this world of free to play TURDS.


    In the short turn WoW will loose subs, in the long run, the QUALITY difference will be so huge, players will notice the difference as the money source will be drying up completely on these freebee MMO's.
    Last edited by BenBos; 2013-06-26 at 03:14 PM.

  19. #39
    Deleted
    Gaming in decline? Lol, I beg to differ.

    PS4 and XBox One have already set up a new amazon preorder record.

  20. #40
    Quote Originally Posted by jabulaniman View Post
    Gaming in decline? Lol, I beg to differ.

    PS4 and XBox One have already set up a new amazon preorder record.
    http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/9753...line-Yet-Again

    Mar 2013...

    http://www.zacks.com/stock/news/8820...line-Yet-Again

    Dec 2012

    How many of these thread do you want.
    Just to quote from the last link:

    "Video game retail sales declined for the twelfth consecutive month in November 2012. According to market research firm NPD, U.S video game store sales slumped 11.0% year over year to $2.25 billion in the month of November."

    And the year before that you had the same rate...

    As of the start of 2013 it has been worse even.


    ---
    But within this video game business ... ALL those latest sub based MMORPG that needed to go free to play to survive is freightening even....

    Latest update:

    http://www.businessweek.com/news/201...il-npd-reports

    "U.S. retail sales of video-game hardware, software and accessories fell 25 percent to $495.2 million last month, ..."
    Last edited by BenBos; 2013-06-26 at 03:27 PM.

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