The future of F2P

[Tricksy]

The people who defend P2W by saying it opens up the playerbase and brings SE more money are the worst kinds of whiteknights and fanboys. They would rather see SE's profits show an increase than enjoy any of SE's games. They have taken extreme fandom to the point where they honestly believe if their favorite game developers are raking in the money, that this will equate to better games and more fun for them, while ignoring the fact that it has been proven by SE themselves recently that this is not the case. They can gouge us for millions upon millions of dollars but as long as their franchise fanbase is gobbling up their games they will rely on hype and IP branding to continue to sell those games not quality.

[Antipika]

There is only 1 thing that FFXIV 2.0 can do wrong to lose my sub. And that is going F2P.

Losing your "sub" while the game is going "Free to Play" is a bit ironic

(Note: If someone can not afford 10$/month, then they have far more important things to worry about then what to play. And that someone would not be a lucrative source of income for SE would it go F2P anyways).

Not this again... The price have nothing to do with this. I can afford $100 a month if I wanted to, am I going to subscribe to 7~8 games out there simply because I can afford it? No.

Everyone with a PC powerful enough to run XIV properly can afford $10. The real issue with P2P is that you have to pay something, it's not the price in itself. $8, $10, $12 or $15 wouldn't change anything. As long as you have to pay and commit paying constantly in order to keep playing, it can be a problem for certain customers.

40% of SWTOR subscribers said they weren't willing to continue paying for a sub. (when the game was announced F2P)

I'm not in favour of F2P, but still I understand why it is appealing to customers/companies.

[Mishakai]

Personally I can't stand F2P games. SW:TOR announcing F2P was the final straw for me with that game. Even with the hybrid model they plan on adopting, not for me. I was already on the brink of cacelling that game, and my clicking on the cancel sub came within hours of the F2P announcement, it would be no different with XIV.

Granted, comparing XIV to TOR is kinda pointless. XIV is in a whole different league of game than TOR will ever be. The simple fact that XIV isn't adhering to a copy WoW paradigm makes it's potential far greater than any game following the "When in doubt copy WoW" model, they will always be limited by what WoW has already accomplished.

Keeping with the comparison though, TOR just screamed F2P within a couple months of release, the entire design of the world, dungeons, legacy system, really does lend itself well to a "pay to unlock" model without a lot of code to change how dungeons and zones are entered, since practically everything in that game involves some kind of loading screen, and all dungeons are accessible from a single point in the game.

That said, I don't mind cash shops with vanity items in my P2P games. Pets, clothing, titles, frivolous items (fireworks, etc) those don't bother me. It's when you have to pay to unlock dungeons, character advancement options etc that I draw the line. Even in games w/ a hybrid model where you can choose to pay a sub to avoid a majority of the F2P unlocks.

[Evangelus]

hope N.yoshida will take a look a this : http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/1...d_Republic.php

[Antipika]

hope N.yoshida will take a look a this : http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/1...d_Republic.php

Such decision (turning XIV F2P) is way beyond his power. He is a producer. Not in charge of the group strategy. If XIV fails (again) to meet expectation and if higher-ups decide that the game should be F2P, it's not like he can do much as a producer. You may want to appeal to Wada-san for that :d

[Andrien]

Most console users don't like P2P games, in fact when DCUO went free to play the majority of players turn out to be console users.

[Norack]

Losing your "sub" while the game is going "Free to Play" is a bit ironic

How is it ironic? You still need a sub. to play F2P games, and if they went F2P i would cancel my sub.

[Evanth]

Honestly, I think that if FFXIV did go F2P they would implement it where you can choose P2P or F2P/Shop/ect options. The reason I say this is because for all the hardcore people they will pay more in the end if its F2P, so you give them the option to have EVERYTHING but pay by the month. For the casual gamers that might only play a week out of the month F2P/shops might be the best option for them, that way they don't waste 3 weeks on a monthly subscription and can still keep up (sorta) with the hardcore gamers. IMO, I think that the people who dedicate their time to the game SHOULD get better items/weapons/armor ALWAYS! But I feel like the F2P people should have something comparable but not quite as good.

[neorei]

here is something that came up recently..........it's kokatu but something to take notice

http://kotaku.com/5937575/the-subscription-mmo-is-dead

and here is what yoshi p said recently

RPG Site: The MMO world was hit with the news that Star Wars: The Old Republic going partially free-to-play - given this news, how do you feel about other models than subscription?

Yoshdia: We're not in the position to say that a free to play model is better or a subscription model is better - really, it kind of depends. It depends on the type of game. Each model has its benefits - each model has its good points and its bad points.

What we want to do is that - we originally promised fans that we were going to release this type of game - it was going to be a subscription model. You'd pay a certain amount of money and you'd get a certain amount of time to be on the servers for 24 hours. This is what we promised. The first and foremost thing is to follow up on this promise and release it.

That doesn't mean to say we're not watching and considering other types of business models - like a hybrid model or free to play models - for the future, but that's something we'll think of after we've fulfilled that first promise.

[Lux_Rayna]

Best system IMO is a currency system. IIRC Guild Wars 2 has a system like this, but I first saw it in an F2P game called Perfect World...anyway onwards.


Basically there are two currencies: game currency and cash shop currency. Game currency is basically what is obtained in the game. Cash Shop currency is bought from the company using cold, hard cash. Tracking so far? Good. Now the benefit of cash shop currency is that it can be used to purchase anything ingame via AH. Basically, its like gold you buy with money. Additionally there are generally cash shop currency-only items that are purely cosmetic in a B2P, but obviously overpowered in an F2P. Trade is regulated through an AH, or trading outpost as its called in GW2. Next to every item, you'll see a gold price and a "diamond" price (example name of cash shop currency). Now you may be wondering how the diamond prices are configured, and that is an excellent question. It works a little bit like a real-world economy. Basically players have the option to sell cash shop currency for ingame currency. In other words, this is basically legal gold selling. Thus the economy runs off of the price relationship between gold and diamonds. The amount any ingame item costs in terms of diamonds is always governed by the current exchange rate. This will naturally fluctuate up and down, but you get the point. Its an F2P system morphed into a fair B2P model. Now the casual player with less time and inclination can use his other resources (money from a job or whatever) to buy items he otherwise could not afford with ingame gold. Conversely, the devoted player can save his money (spend it on RL stuff) and use his amassed gold to purchase what he needs.

But it gets even better. Remember the cash-shop only items? Well now the casual player can sell his diamonds to the devoted players for gold. The casual player gets gold he needs for ingame stuff he otherwise could not afford, and the devoted player can throw away some gold to get those cash-shop items without spending an RL dime. And to top it all off, a LOT of dollars are being thrown at the game in the process. Company makes money, everyone can get what they want, and the game remains balanced. I'm pretty sure this is the system GW2 uses, or at the very least its really close to it. But this is the system as I envision it that will be the industry standard.

EDIT: Aha so in GW2 cash shop currency isnt traded for items directly, but traded for gold only. Close enough lol