SE consider a free to play option

[Preypacer]

I'd like to praise you on your wonderful post. ^^
It was nice to read, informative and your opinion doesn't sound like it's been thrown in there without experience.

+1

Thanks! lol

Thing is, nothing I've pointed out (I added more info/details in after you responded, for the sake of example, etc) is really that "out there". I don't consider myself any smarter than anyone else on these forums. I actually think there are a number of people on here who are far smarter than I am lol.

I think I'm just cynical enough that when I see some company saying "oh, you can play our game 100% for free!" and I know they're a business who needs to make money to keep running... there's something going on there.

So, I kinda put on my figurative detective hat and start doing some research. I did so on several F2P MMOs and found that what I've described is more or less the case in every one of them. It all comes down to specific implementations and how far they take it. But it's always the same basic idea.

There's far more to it than even what I went into. Social Pressures, the need to "fit in" and the predictability and malleability of human nature also comes into it. It's amazing the amount of time and research (and expense) that must go into figuring out how to make a cash shop work. But work they do. Just look how many people spend far more than they would on a monthly sub, are not playing or getting any more content than they would in a P2P MMO, but still come out feeling they're getting the better deal over us "foolish subscription payers".

But again, as was stated earlier in the thread, I would much rather know my money is going toward content that will make me want to continue playing the game for the long term, not into "researching new ways to monetize me".

[Gao]

Phantasy Star 2 I don't know much about, so I can't really comment.

I'll help you on this
Not only that it's F2P for PSO2 it's not really an MMO IMO since there's no open world exploration to it just point and click on what dungeon(kind of like Vindictus) you want to go through and mostly grind in that one dungeon for hrs on end on quests to be able to access to higher dungeons, plus you'll have to be a certain level to enter the newly unlocked dungeons. The game cash shop items are extremely expensive. Some of the items I wanted to buy from the shop ranged from $20 - $30 like costumes : Wedding Dresses, Tuxedos, etc etc. To get a housing in the game it's like $7 - $10 a month for you to pay for a 3 bed room apartment. Not only that, to get the good furniture for decorations it costs roughly about $2 - $10 to get nice looking couches. Not only that some people abuse the function of the action house on where they jacked up the prices to get people to buy those said cashed shop items, which in foremost, you're most likely getting ripped off from them. Since people tend to get lazy I remember wanting to buy a wedding dress for my character for xx amount of mesata(PSO2 Ingame money) while some of them you can buy rl cash cards so you can buy the wedding dress a lot less. Some of the stat attribute menus iirc require you to have a premium account to access them(Can't be sure about this now because I haven't played for quite some time) So depending on which type of player you are, you'll spend around $30 a month at most if you're really picky about what you want to buy. If not most likely you'll pay $10 a month if you don't buy that often. I became the latter and was a $0 a month player for the game, but I was extremely limited on the enjoyment factor I could get from not buying any of the cash shopped items.

[SkyeWindbinder]

If your money is so tight that you can't afford a $9.99 a month subscription or even a $14.99 a month subscription to a video game, then chances are you really have bigger problems than not being able to afford to play FFXIV. I'm usually dirt-broke myself, and yet I still was able to get the cash together to play SWTOR every month. Really, it is a very cheap sub model. And the game is awesome sauce. There is absolutely no need whatsoever for the game to go FTP.

On another note, this thread is kind of pointless. Not trying to be mean, but there's like two other threads like this already.

[Razen]

No thanks.

[Xatsh]

If people cannot afford to pay the low sub fee for this game, then honestly they need to stop playing games and get a 2nd job or probably in more cases a first job. MMOs are the cheapest form of entertainment you can possibly buy, F2P makes a mmo much much more expensive almost 3-5fold in most games, unless you want to be crazy casual and do not mind falling behind (Pay to Win).

If people want F2P play SWToR or Aion, if you want to play a B2P game play GW2. XIV should remain P2P until it dies. I personally do not want to have to pick up the slack of dead beats by buying crap just to progress. Companys have to make money if a group of the population does not buy crap the part of the population that is trying to do well in the game have to make up the slack... and to that I say hell no.

[Abriael]

No.

The freemium model (it's not free 2 play, as free 2 play doesn't involve an optional subscription) considerably cheapens the experience for subscribers, as sizable development resources need to be spent on optional content in order to squeeze a reasonable amount of money out of the non-subscribers.

A PLEX/Chronoscroll option is a much more balanced way to expand the accessibility of the game, without having to deal with developing and mantaining a cash shop.

[Zezlar]

No thanks.

[dbrewer225]

lol this thread needs to die. we already have 3 threads on this already and majority of the community do no twant F2P. simple fact is that P2P models gets better content along the way. If you cant afford 15 or 9 dollars a month to play an MMORPG then the game is not for you. A 30 day free trial is more than enough to consider your decision in continuing. For me if a subscription based MMORPG is worthy in your eyes , then you are gonna pay that money. So you can make a million threads on this, but the fact is that Square Enix is too smart to go down that route and it will cut alot of the base players away from this game. SO SUPPORT SE AND PAY YO SUBSCIPTION FEE. lol see i made a rhym.

[Enma]

I am asking you SE to consider a free to play option in addition to subscription model. In today's PC market the majority of MMOs and other action RPG type games are free to play. Take a look at Guild Wars 2, Star Wars the Old Republic, Aion, Everquest 2, Lotro, Diablo 3, League Of Legends, Phantasy Star Online 2, DC Univerise online, the list goes on.

Using your example Star Wars the Old Republic had no choice, and Guild Wars 2 will have big problems in its near future... If the only reason people play your game is because it's free, well... It says a lot about the success of it...

The market today really won't support a paid only MMO. With so many free to play MMOs out there some where devs spent millions on like Star Wars. Why would someone pick up FFXIV when they have to buy it and pay a sub fee?

I'm quite sure that Square-Enix's research on the Market are a little bit more accurate than ours, and there is a good reason if they decided it.

With free to play + micro transaction model some people will be inclined to buy funny hats, unique looking armor, weapons, mounts, exp boosts they will actually end up spending more money then like 10 subscribers.

Well, this would be the ruin of the game. People who wants to spend their money can get:
1) Useless items, such as "Funny hats" that probably just few people would buy ( = No money for Square-Enix)
or
2) The more you spend the more you get. (It's really similar to how OUR world works... And it doesn't work so well)

A much larger playerbase will be attracted due to not having such a high barrier to entry which would be the monthly fee which in today's economy many people would not even consider paying.

At the beginning it could be as you say. Many people would try it just because it's free and many will be attracted. But at the same time, if you want to keep those people you should offer a very good service (Remember the other MMOs... And the competition on the market) and Free-to-Play doesn't grant any sure profit for Square-Enix. This means that you cannot plan big and expensive projects for the future, and are forced to create cheap (and probably low-quality) contents eroding game's quality.

I never minded about paying a fee to play Final Fantsy XIV, and the model "if you pay you get what you want" it's the worst thing that could happen to a game.

[Huginn]

If you are not willing or wanting to pay a measly 10-12 dollars a month to play a game, especially one so fabulous as FFXIV, perhaps you do not really want to play the game at all. The investment is so minimal compared to what you get out of it. You could either: 1. Go bowling once every 2 months and not have any snacks or drinks while there. 2. Go to a bar and have three beers or less a month. 3. Play FFXIV whenever and wherever you felt like it.

The answer to your question is very plain to see. If one is not willing to spend less than 2 hours in real life to earn the money necessary to play the game, one is probably not wanting to play the game at all.