The rash of "free"-to-play games that have been published lately doesn't seem to be halting any time soon; in fact, even some games previously required a cost or subscription are going "free"-to-play. If any of you out there have tried one of these FTP games, you probably know why I insist on putting the "free" part in quotes. While there are many annoying aspects of such a system, companies seem to be favoring it more and more both as a way to appeal to the average gamer as well as to experiment with a new manner of affording games.
There are a few fishy things about most "free"-to-play games out there, not the least of which that the idea of anying being "free" in this day and age is usually some sort of scam or hustle. I have to admit that when I first heard of a "free"-to-play game, I thought it was a joke. I'm a good little consumer, and for my entire gaming life up to this point, I was used to either paying a one-time cost to buy a game, or subscribing to an MMO or what we now call DLC. I think the first major game I heard of going "free"-to-play was Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. I also remember hearing something about Star Trek Online adopting the practice, but I never played that so I didn't pay much attention. Since then a number of games have adopted the style, such as Dungeons and Dragons Online, All Points Bulletin, numerous other MMOs (including The Old Republic going FTP next month) and a few single-player games and arcade games. Even World of WarCraft is advertising itself as "free"-to-play... with some important restrictions that we'll discuss in a bit.
I read an article not too long ago that expressed the same feelings I had when I first heard about games I liked "giving up the ghost", as it were, and going FTP: "Well, if they're not asking money for it, it's probably not that great a game". Coupled with this is the age-old adage that "You get what you pay for", and the thought that if you're paying zero dollars for something, it follows that you're getting zero content or zero satisfaction from that something. Simple, yes?
Well, not quite, as I'm sure you must've suspected. For games that were previously paid for but have since gone FTP, you typically get the game: you can download and log on to Dungeons and Dragons Online and Warhammer Online: AoR and play them... at least up to a certain point. This is the first majorly annoying thing about "free"-to-play games: While you're getting more than zero content for your zero dollars, you're not getting the full game, either. In fact, some FTP games out there are little more than extended demos, the point of which is to entice the player to purchase the rest of the game. This leads us to the second majorly annoying thing about a FTP system: it's only as free as the developers want it to be free. For Dungeons and Dragons Online, you only get to play about a third of the available game for free; the rest you have to become a subscriber for. For World of WarCraft, you're free up until you hit level 20, which gives you a pretty good taste of the basic game, but doesn't really get you into anything good. (Especially since they keep raising the level cap. You get a few dungeons, yes; raids, no. Skirmish PvP, instanced PvP not so much.) For smaller, non-MMO games, you usually get to play the standard single-player campaign, or perhaps only multiplayer with some limited options. This isn't even counting the third annoying thing about the standard FTP system: when you actually want to buy something, you can't straight-up buy it. Instead, you typically have to buy a number of points specific to one company or one account that is only good for things in the game. (Points-based systems being a whole OTHER blog.) The catch is, of course, that the number of points you can purchase at one time never balances out equally with the cost in points of things to buy. So, for example, if you can buy 50 Game Points at a time, all the items in the game store would cost 30, 40, or 60 points each. In any case, the gamer is forced to over-buy points instead of spending exactly how much they want on the things they want.
At this point, I am forced to side with the developers a little: in the balance of things, the gamer is getting an infinite return on their investment of zero dollars for just about any content the developers want to throw out there. Technically it's a good deal - you get to play a game, or at least most of a game, for free. Unfortunately, if people do play the game for free, then things start going downhill. Server maintenance, moderator oversight, technical fixes, patches, and of course the various managers and shareholders all need money to function properly. So in spite of the advertisement as "free"-to-play, we're right back where we started: playing a limited game with limited resources when all the real action is going to those who are willing to shell out for the whole game. In one game I played recently, they even went so far as to put the FTP players on a different server list than the paying players, meaning that paying players got priority when logging on and taking up server space. If you were too far down the FTP list, you might not be able to log on for ten, fifteen minutes.
As a whole, then, I can't be in support of any game or system that wants to go "free"-to-play - not if they're going to be handling it the same way it's currently being handled in a majority of games. While the parts of the game you do get to play are quality as such, that quality usually in no way compares to the quality of the game the paying players are getting. Frequently, "free"-to-play systems instead turn into the dreaded "pay-to-win" scenario, where the discrepancy in capability between the free players who just want to have fun and the paying players who are in it to win it (no matter the cost) is grotesquely wide. Speaking as a man of not-unlimited means and a firm believer in getting what I pay for, I have to say that most "free"-to-play games are the result of underhanded advertising at best, and a complete rip-off at worst.
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0 Merits
Xaglacion
201 days ago
I don't understand, why hasn't anyone tried to make a subscription based system that makes you pay for the number of hours you play? Like pay $15 and you get 50 hours of game time. Wouldn't that be good for people who don't often play the game?
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0 Merits
192 days ago
That would be a good system, I think. The player would never pay more than they can afford, and they'd always be getting their money's worth - the more they play, the more they pay, and conversely the less they play, the less they have to pay. I think it's a very good idea to wonder why no gaming company has made a system like that.
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0 Merits
Paradoxxs
201 days ago
There already is a system like that in many game and most of them are on facebook where you can only reach for far daily without paying. The problem here is that WoD will be a mmo and mmo´s doesn´t have a consistent level of entertainment large part of a mmo is grinding this get a certain item or doing thing that is not necessary fun just to get a reward, and that because they are build around the skinner box, where a person getting rewared from doing the same action over and over again, the problem comes when the dev of the game have set a certain value of how much a hour is worth, and when players start feeling like they haven´t gotten rewared or had a equal amount of fun as they have just paid for, they will suddenly realise that the amount you pay is not equal the the amount of fun you get out of the game will they most likely just leave the game and never come back because the cost of the game isn't worth the entertainment you get out of it.
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HfxTenor
203 days ago
I think another issue is the fact that the F2P model was really designed to cater to the highest common denominator - teens and college students who could barely afford to buy the game, let alone cover a monthly subscription cost. That is no longer the highest common denominator - those teens and students have since graduated and (hopefully) become productive members of society earning a salary of some sort. The F2P model needs to be reinvented as a result, in my opinion
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0 Merits
203 days ago
"Reinvented" seems like a good word to apply to the situation. Any system has the POTENTIAL to work, but the way most systems are done aren't done to my satisfaction. In my experiences with FTP, it always tips too far one way or the other - where you're either paying too much for useless/cosmetic items, or the only way to succeed is to buy gear that has a heavy impact on play.
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2 Merits
Paradoxxs
204 days ago
We already know that WoD will only have one server, much in style with Eve, We also know WoD won´t have "millions" of player, if we look at MMO released in 2011 - 2012 none of them have millions of subs / aktive users. Swtor sold around 2m unites at launch, yet it tanked horrible shortly after and going F2P this november and as the numbers of mmo going F2P increases it get harder to make people pay for a experince that can be found so many other places for free. So the game will most likely either go Free to play with microtransaction and maybe subcriptions too or play up front and microtransaction (similar to GW2), Personly I think CCP are going the same road as SOE were the only way to make money from mmo´s is the f2p route. ( David raid(chief marketing for ccpgames) also said at fanfest 2012 that subscription was a thing from the past.)
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0 Merits
203 days ago
EVE Online still uses a subcription system, though, doesn't it? Unless you're one of those top-performing players who can pay their way with in-game money. ---- Do we know what the pay scheme for DUST 514 is?
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0 Merits
Paradoxxs
203 days ago
Dust514 is Free to play
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1 Merits
4chieve
205 days ago
I usually see people get stressed and frustrated when they have a monthly fee. Some don't have much time to play, and when they don't see this little time not being spent to it's "fullest", like waiting to people to coordinate to and instance, it leads to deep frustration. The best approach i have seen so far it's from Guild Wars (GW2 in my case). You pay the game and have no subscription, and although you going to pay another full game price on an expansion in a near future (6 months?), you don't feel the constant pressure to make the time you playing worth the money you spending every month.
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0 Merits
203 days ago
I sometimes felt the same way with a subscription - I wasn't getting my money's worth because of real-life time constraints. I think a subscription model would be the most workable for the WODMMO - but perhaps reduce the price by 33%, so you're only paying $10 or less a month for access to the whole game. ---- Subscriptions have the benefit of being an equalizing force, though HxfTenor's point above about some people not being able to afford as much is well-noted. (Hence the price reduction.) I'll gladly still pay a subscription for the WODMMO if it means we can balance the needs of the game (like maintenance and server upgrades) with player satisfaction and cost-effectiveness.
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1 Merits
SparkPower
205 days ago
WoD must be 2fp it is going to be a success!Look for example DcU when it was p2p it had to players now it has 40m players!
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3 Merits
AiryKai
205 days ago
If the World of Darkness will be f2p - it will be a failure.
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