FF14: ARR! World class MMOs? Must be Free to play, League of Legends! enough said .

[CSLionheart]

How could you cite a game like League of Legends and compare it to FFXIV? That's like comparing CoD to StarCraft or something. Just because a game is online doesn't mean it's an MMO. FFXIV is an RPG, LoL is not. Not to mention the fact that the development cost of a game like Final Fantasy XIV is astronomically higher than League of Legends. I'm not saying lower budget means lower quality, but if you want top notch visuals and sound, fluid/realistic animations, detailed character models and lush 3D environments, you have to be willing to shell out a little cash every month. Why do I get the feeling that all the people who make these threads are little kids who can't convince their moms to pay a subscription fee?

[Preypacer]

You are massively overestimating how many subs a subscription fee based MMO needs to have. If you've got a few hundred thousand, it's more than enough--even more would be better, but it's enough.

Indeed they are.

Check out this blurb...

In December 2003, Square Enix president Yoichi Wada announced that there were over 200,000 subscribers to Final Fantasy XI, allowing the company to break even and start making a profit.

- Original Source

FFXI broke even a little over 1.5 years after its launch. It will take XIV longer than that, obviously, as it's essentially been developed twice now and has a higher "break even" point. But if the game is solid and fun and keeps people playing, they can definitely break even and become profitable with XIV as well, without having to go the F2P route.

And let's look at the numbers stated... 1.5 years at only 200,000 players for XI to break even. It went on to maintain over 500,000 for several years, over twice their target figures. In other words, FFXI has been a major cash-cow for SE for almost a decade. Even now, all these years later, they're still hovering at around 300,000 players, so they're still beyond what their initial "break-even" point was.

So, does anyone really think that hitting even 300-500k consistent paying players would be bad? I mean, beside the people who would ignore that data and want to make it sound like F2P is "the only way FFXIV could succeed"....

[Zezlar]

Amazes me that people complain so much about a $13 subscription fee, but they're so quick to drop $10 on candy/soda, or that UNNECESSARY cellphone bill. It's $13 people, come on. 9 times out of 10 if you're saying you don't want to pay it's because you're too damn cheap and you have hardly any interest in the game anyways.

[Elexia]

So, does anyone really think that hitting even 300-500k consistent paying players would be bad? I mean, beside the people who would ignore that data and want to make it sound like F2P is "the only way FFXIV could succeed"....

Only this generation of gamers. "WoW has 15 million subs, MMOs need to hit this mark or better to succeed."

Amazes me that people complain so much about a $13 subscription fee, but they're so quick to drop $10 on candy/soda, or that UNNECESSARY cellphone bill. It's $13 people, come on. 9 times out of 10 if you're saying you don't want to pay it's because you're too damn cheap and you have hardly any interest in the game anyways.

Or will buy DLC to pay for content on a disk you already bought.

Opps.

[Grimwald]

League of Legends has one of the most aggressive marketing strategy and basically you get 10% of what the game is if you play F2P. You don't get a good hero selection, you have to pay something like 70+ dollars to unlock the majority of the heroes and the company is discouraging pro players from playing other MOBA style games by threatening them.

Currently, sub based MMOs make more money than micro transactions, and smart MMO companies do a sub fee and provide a micro-trans market for people who love to drown themselves in aesthetic items. Companies with sub fees are able to continually and reliably push out content without worrying about declining sales on the market (knowing how many active subs you have = being able to predict your monthly income much easier then wondering how well your items are going to be received on the micro trans market). They also have to spend a lot more money on a department which is responsible for cranking out useless items that don't really have any value in the games' economy despite giving you a small boost of experience, or being really pretty while those extra people could be helping the main devs crank out more endgame or content in general.

The majority of the most successful MMOs are sub based. Don't compare poorly released / designed games like SWTOR, and TERA who flopped and had/or are trying to pursue a free to play model. People scream that subs are coming to an end and all games are becoming free to play. Perhaps that might be true in 5 or so years, but unless you want an ad-infested, "gold account" (which is essentially P2P anyways), slow content development then keep advocating for F2P.

Think carefully.

[Preypacer]

Only this generation of gamers. "WoW has 15 million subs, MMOs need to hit this mark or better to succeed."

True. WoW has really skewed people's idea of what a MMO requires to be "successful" or sustainable.

[GinTama]

can we delete this useless topic already?

[Joji]

I never liked games with microtransactions, and the reason why is it creates a divide in the community. Those who can afford it, and those who can't. If you want to brag/show a type of gear for an example. It should be earned through an achievement, not by money. It defeats it's purpose to play a game, and i don't want to see it.

Now iv'e seen alot of these free to play threads lately, and if another one shows up, I advise to ignore it totally.

[Nox]

WoW is the only MMO that can live healthy on sub base that can hold 5mils subs for years never drop that mark. and it'll stay that way.


Im sure ARR will pass ff11 on subs numbers, but need like 100-200%+ (1mil-2mil) stayble within a year if not ARR will be force to Free to play.

A nice mmo like ARR that have 1mil-2mil stayble subs can go long way, if that ever happen 1mil-2mils can grow 2-3 times in subs in 2-3 years. but for that to happen looking at % is only at 35% that will happen.



as for WoW have what % subs in the MMO market , they should be in the 50%+ to the whole mmo market sub base, if only can steal 25% out of them.

your logic that ffxiv must be free to play because League of Legends is free to play is extremely flawed.
League of Legends and it's business model work because of the type of game it is, It can make it's money simply by releasing skins for the avatars. Notice how most of the things in LoL you can buy with real cash can be earned through simply playing the game, with the exception of the skins, which are not game breaking.

It's not as easy to balance that out in an MMO.

Also, League of Legends isn't an MMO, it's a MOBA game. Big difference between the two.

[Zumi]

Indeed they are.

Check out this blurb...

- Original Source

FFXI broke even a little over 1.5 years after its launch. It will take XIV longer than that, obviously, as it's essentially been developed twice now and has a higher "break even" point. But if the game is solid and fun and keeps people playing, they can definitely break even and become profitable with XIV as well, without having to go the F2P route.

And let's look at the numbers stated... 1.5 years at only 200,000 players for XI to break even. It went on to maintain over 500,000 for several years. In other words, FFXI has been a major cash-cow for SE for almost a decade. Even now, all these years later, they're still hovering at around 300,000 players, so they're still beyond what their initial "break-even" point was.

So, does anyone really think that hitting even 300-500k consistent paying players would be bad? I hardly think so.

You see most companies want to maximize their profits. EA was not happy with SWTOR numbers being at 1m subscribers was not good enough for them, and they went F2P. They wanted WoW like numbers constant 10m+ subs and they were not going to get that. Most analysts agree that something like WoW will never happen again, pretty much impossible to achieve that kind of success they did it was a one time fluke.

SE on the other hand is different they are content with having like around 200k subscribers which is about what FFXI currently has, they already did server mergers 2 times now, add very little content to the game but keep the game going with subs because it still makes them about 2.5m a month with very little spent on development and updates. Now it would not make sense for them to go F2P on this game it is very old game it wouldn't attract the new people who would want to play a F2P game so they would be throwing away that 2.5m a month they make now if they ever went F2P so it doesn't really make sense. However on a new game like FF14 a F2P model can work very well.

There are some people out there given the opportunity will drop a couple thousand dollers a month on cash shop items. That one guy is actually equal to like 200 subscribers. There is a reason that F2P mmo model has become so popular and it isn't because companies out of the goodness in their heart want to give players a game to play for free