Aha sorry then
IMO there are three valid models:
1) Subscription: No box fees, just a monthly fee that covers everything. No box, no expansions, just a monthly fee.
2) Buy to play: Buy a box, and expansion boxes every 1-2 years. No monthly fees.
3) Pay to win: No fees at all. Ability to buy power from the developer that enables you to do better in the game.
Non valid models are things like WoW's buy a box + buy expansions + buy necessary "services" (like moving characters away from a dead realm for $100+) + buy vanity items cooler than anything obtainable in the game.
at work so i cant watch the video, how exactly do they fund F2P games? i know box sales and cash shop, but thats all they need? (as alot dont use cash shops). i fully understand that it -does- work, and that F2P != no content updates and such, but never seen exactly how it all breaks down.
Beat me to it but let us extend on that notion:
P2P, Pay to Play: Buy the game and spend money (usually monthly) to keep your account active. Ex: Aion, WoW, Rift, SWToR
- Usually has a online shop to buy things online for extra money, usually cosmetic, but provide things like server change.
- Don't usually charge for extra content (not counting expansions)
F2P, Free to Play: Download game and log in to play with a free account. Ex: Runescape, League of Legends, Vindictus
- Usually has a 'members' account type system to unlock many extra features in game
B2P, Buy to Play: Buy the game and from then on the game is free. Ex: Guild Wars (not sure who else has this)
- Usually has a online shop for cosmetic items, or extra things in game (extra character slots, extra hair styles or other character customization)
- Comes out with expansions regularly
Hope this helps people realize why saying it's F2P is wrong, or saying that it is P2P because you buy the game~
I'd say just wait till you get home to watch the video, it would be easier then having some try and explain it :x
OT: Subscription based games are a outdated (to me) money model, cash shops all the way, I'd gladly support a good game by buying in game items.
Last edited by Lilyania; 2012-02-25 at 08:47 PM.
You don’t have any ideas on how it is going to work out. Don’t come and say this crap if you have no experience about it whatsoever.
Correct, box sales (if they have them) and cash shop fund F2P games. Cash shops are wildly successful, which is why they have been implemented into just about every other MMO out there, even subscription based ones. Cash shop based revenue is almost identical to subscription based numbers as of the last report (done be a securities/analyst firm if I remember correctly), with cash shop revenue increasing over the years.
There is no need button every character has their own seperate loot table, loot that drops from a mob/player that you and your buddy killed may not drop loot for your buddy. Now as for botting in WvWvW. Good luck with that as all they will be doing is getting themselves killed by other players and they wont get to loot anything defeating the purpose of botting for loot.
Oh and if you do get beat single handedly by a bot you should never play GW2 ever again.
'Valid models' does not mean 'models I like.' Valid models are capable of sustaining themselves. That said, WoW is now a very old game and its current model may have been the only valid one when the game came out, but the times are of course changing. WoW is well established enough to possibly continue with its old model, but newer games that seek to pull in customers do not have that luxury.
No reason whatsoever. Anet would need to change almost every supporting system to fit the needs P2P has to be marketable & profitable. This is contra to why the company was even founded. Pointless, utterly.
Also, P2P is really going out of fashion. The market is trending away from this model. Many predict TOR to be the last successful P2P game in the MMO market. Whether that is a reality, time will tell. However, we have greater diffusion and fragmentation in the market than at any point since 2002.
Last edited by Fencers; 2012-02-25 at 08:51 PM.
Whether, not rather. In fact, it may even be "whether or not" :P
But more to the point: I don't plan on NOT paying for WoW any time soon, but I would be absolutely joyous if it suddenly switched to a B2P model, using the cash shop to unlock various things in the game. I wouldn't want it to be like CoH, though, where certain content and even classes requires you to pay extra cash to unlock...
I hope you haven't forgotten my role in this little story. I'm the leading man. You know what they say about the leading man? He never dies.
If you give in to your impulses in this world, the price is that it changes your personality in the real world. The player and character are one and the same.
Every bit of your post is false, so what? I payed 15 a month for years to wow and I saw no evidence they cared more about their patches than they did their Xpacs. a whole year of patches, valued at 180 dollars provided less content than a 60 dollar expansion.... ya that extra money brings so much careing. Sub fees do not provide better content or better CS. All they do is incentivise finding creative ways to string players along by makeing the least amount of content be stretched over as many billing periods as possible. Its also not like the dev's recieve 15 bucks a month per subscription to make the game better, a sizable chunk of that goes to the investors.
Who is John Galt?
On the whole bot thing, I think it may be difficult to run them in GW2 with the dynamic event cycles. The zones are constantly changing. There are different mobs in different areas all the time- loot is based on contribution- not killing (and killing real players with a bot should not be possible).
Ima be honest, didn't know it was gonna be F2P. Chances are I will now buy it.
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
—Aristotle
This video says it all. I got my wife to watch it, and she yelled at me for ruining WoW for her, after she had paid for the annual pass in January.
Personally, I like the free to play idea. I agree with this video completely. In a year or whenever, when I start to get bored, they will release an expansion pack, and I will choose whether or not to buy it. Also, I will not feel obligated to play the game because I'm constantly shelling out cash for it.
The WoW pay to play model has helped Blizzard generate tons of money. It has also helped them to keep up the old battle.net servers used for WC3 and D2. It has helped them grow into a very large company, a computer gaming powerhouse.
But, I read mmo-champ daily. And I watch as with every content patch Blizzard releases, within a month people are crying about how they are done with the content, bored with it, or using some other catch phrase the community has developed over the years to describe their dissatisfaction with the update. Personally, I would rather get an expansion pack, and play it for a year while they spent their time and money actually developing and testing another expansion pack, not finding little ways to inject new ideas into the current game. People get this whole, "we need new content" crap in their heads, as if the designers were actually able to put out new content each and every month. Then, when Blizzard does work to get the content out, they complain how it's "rushed", or some other nonsense. The people don't stop to understand that Blizzard is trying to balance this "gimme gimme" attitude with what they are actually able to accomplish in reality, and still release a decent product.
:c making mistakes lefty and righty today. Apologies for being a goddamn idiot.
I love F2P games. It's kinda frustrating that I have an interest in a lot of games but need to resub for months when just in the mood to play a little Warcraft or Aion. I'd happily buy cash shop items many times over the sub cost as I am a whale. But fffffuuuu, man. I can't just jump into Tera on occasion and have fun without subbing over & over?But more to the point: I don't plan on NOT paying for WoW any time soon, but I would be absolutely joyous if it suddenly switched to a B2P model, using the cash shop to unlock various things in the game. I wouldn't want it to be like CoH, though, where certain content and even classes requires you to pay extra cash to unlock...
Honestly, fuck the subscription model.