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

[Elexia]

Not only that, but LoL is the definition of why F2P/B2W will cost you more than just slapping down $15 a month. I can make $15 just helping someone with a basic task.

More people are seeing "problems" with paying for MMOs and games because they're growing up and they no longer have their mom's credit card to leech off of.

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.

You have weird logic. Also, XI has little content additions...because of ARR, just like WoTG took 3 years to complete..because of XIV 1.0.

If XI went F2P the subscriptions would increase, but if XIV, a newer game, goes F2P it will mark the death of it very soon because there's better NEW F2P games out there to play. A F2P well established FF MMO would do very well, but XIV already died once and already has a negative public image, after trying to market it as a P2P game but ends up as F2P, for a second time, what do you think will happen? People will forget that it failed once before?

Nope~ No press is bad press, but that's where the line is drawn...

"FFXIV is F2P even after it's remake? Just pack it up SE."

[Grimwald]

Not only that, but LoL is the definition of why F2P/B2W will cost you more than just slapping down $15 a month. I can make $15 just helping someone with a basic task.

More people are seeing "problems" with paying for MMOs and games because they're growing up and they no longer have their mom's credit card to leech off of.

Not to mention that if you think about it, 15 dollars for as much time as you can put into the game a month, versus buying a new game for a console system, or your pc can run you 50-80 bucks. It's actually quite economically solid to buy an MMO sub if you want to play something and get the most hours played out of it.

[Elexia]

Not to mention that if you think about it, 15 dollars for as much time as you can put into the game a month, versus buying a new game for a console system, or your pc can run you 50-80 bucks. It's actually quite economically solid to buy an MMO sub if you want to play something and get the most hours played out of it.

Yeah, nowadays you can drop $70 or so on a game and get 5 hrs of gameplay, where you used to drop $50-$60 in PSX/PS2 era and get up to 120 hrs with RPGs and at least 20 hrs with all other genres, which is better, but you still would get more out of an MMO overall.

[Grimwald]

I think this is one issue SE will not budge on. It would literally make all the money they're pouring into ARR right now a waste or potential loss if they even considered F2P. It's not logical, they need to make the money back within 1 year or it'll be considered a fairly big failure and could potentially put the company under considering their current luck and "damage to the brand".

[Zumi]

Not only that, but LoL is the definition of why F2P/B2W will cost you more than just slapping down $15 a month. I can make $15 just helping someone with a basic task.

More people are seeing "problems" with paying for MMOs and games because they're growing up and they no longer have their mom's credit card to leech off of.



You have weird logic. Also, XI has little content additions...because of ARR, just like WoTG took 3 years to complete..because of XIV 1.0.

If XI went F2P the subscriptions would increase, but if XIV, a newer game, goes F2P it will mark the death of it very soon because there's better NEW F2P games out there to play. A F2P well established FF MMO would do very well, but XIV already died once and already has a negative public image, after trying to market it as a P2P game but ends up as F2P, for a second time, what do you think will happen? People will forget that it failed once before?

Nope~ No press is bad press, but that's where the line is drawn...

"FFXIV is F2P even after it's remake? Just pack it up SE."

Typically really old games don't start increasing their profits or gain a massive amount of new players when they go from P2P to F2P. For example Ragnarok Online went F2P recently but you didn't hear much buzz about it going F2P or see a huge rise in the RO population.

[Elexia]

Typically really old games don't start increasing their profits or gain a massive amount of new players when they go from P2P to F2P. For example Ragnarok Online went F2P recently but you didn't hear much buzz about it going F2P or see a huge rise in the RO population.

Generally with games like that it's because of the private server scene. You don't hear too much buzz because they're busy trying to get RO2 going as it's successor, but the private server scene is just as popular as it's always been, with really any Korean game. Officially, there's plenty of MMOs to choose from which is why you wouldn't play RO unless you have before or really like that style of game, it's all in the type of game it is.

XI is old, but it still had solid gameplay and a lot of content for you to do, even more so now that you can basically lowman/solo the majority of the older content easily.

[Zumi]

I think this is one issue SE will not budge on. It would literally make all the money they're pouring into ARR right now a waste or potential loss if they even considered F2P. It's not logical, they need to make the money back within 1 year or it'll be considered a fairly big failure and could potentially put the company under considering their current luck and "damage to the brand".

They aren't going to make their money back in 1 year. They started development on Rapture in 2005, this game as now been in development for 7 years. But SE is pretty adamant about not going F2P so I doubt it would ever happen.

[Galliano]

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.

[Riv]

Trollololol

[Preypacer]

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

Oh look, it's Miss "Others should pay lots of money in a Cash Shop so I can be a free-loader on other people's dime", come to spread more of their self-serving "logic" with us. Yay.

I'm well aware of how cash shop MMOs work and how they make their money. A relative "minority" pay most or all of the money to keep the game going. You, of course, rely on that setup which is why you are so in favor of it.

Regardless, you have - not surprisingly - completely missed the point. Certain folks are claiming a sub-based MMO needs to have more than 300-500k players to be successful and that a cash shop is "the only way FFXIV will succeed".

My point is: No it doesn't, and no it isn't.

FFXI succeeded beyond SE's requirements, earning them over twice what their minimum "break even" point was years ago. They continue to exceed that amount even to this day - 10 years or so into the game's service. And - now here's the important part, so pay attention - they've done so with subscriptions and no cash shop.

You're right, SE is not like most other companies. They aren't shameless greed-mongers looking to milk every last dime they can from their players. Changing XIV to a cash-shop driven MMO would drastically change the pacing of the content, the kind of content that's available "by default" and the ways in which the content can be experienced.. because SE would be required to sell things in the cash shop that people feel are necessary (even if they're technically optional). The game would be designed around trying to drive people to spend more money, rather than trying to keep people engaged and entertained.

Of course, as you've already explained, you wouldn't mind this - as long as there was nothing you would ever have to spend your money on (due to your own "no cash shop purchases ever" policy). Because, in your ideal, perfect world, others should be paying for your entertainment so you can play for free.