F2P and subscription not opposing models
Dengeki:
With regard to F2P and subscription models in MMORPGs, which one do you think is better?
Yoshida:
I don't think F2P is necessarily bad. I think it's simply a matter of choice. If we look back at the history of MMORPGs, when the great MMO rush started around 2005, almost all major MMORPGs started off with a subscription model. And the reason for this is because developers preferred to have a stable development team supported by a stable player base, rather than instant but unstable profits.
With a F2P model, you'd always be thinking "we sold this many this month, but we don't know how many we'll sell next month" and therefore your employment situation is never certain. And as a result, the developers get nervous too, and it becomes difficult to create a road map. At the end of the day, it's important to be able to provide contents reliably in order to keep people playing, and to do this you'll need a proper development team. And to support a proper development team you'll need stable income.
I believe all MMO developers are good people who prefer stable income over more instantaneous sales, so they choose to keep developing their games. Because in the end, the only way to keep people playing is to provide more contents through updates that people will enjoy. In F2P games, however, you don't make money from the contents so you'll need to earn your income from selling items. So even though you really want to create a lot more game contents, you end up having to create more items instead. But this doesn't necessarily make the game more fun, obviously.
In an update, even though you really want to put 100% of your effort into making new contents, you find yourself needing to split maybe 30% of your energy into creating new items in order to make money. And you can easily end up feeling conflicted about who you're making this game for.
But another challenge is the fact that developing an MMORPG costs an unbelievable amount of money. The reality is that you will need to get many different investors to support you in order to put together the money that you need. But if you start off with a subscription model and don't get the subscription numbers you're hoping for, then all your investors will feel alarmed and will want to recover their investment. And if that becomes the case then you won't be able to sustain a subscription model and will be forced into F2P. The money you make from that will then be used to repay your investors. That's the current situation in this industry.
Many users today dislike being tied to a game for a long time. I feel the same way myself too. It's nice to be able to casually pick up a game, get to the climax quickly and then just stop playing. Even though you may ultimately end up spending a lot of time with the game, each game session is only for a short while. This is probably the ideal model. Games that specializes in this, such as World of Tanks and League of Legends, though they are not MMORPGs, are very suited for the F2P model for this reason.
In particular, in games where you become stronger from customizing yourself, you're really paying for that instant gratification rather than the play time, and therefore those games are probably more suited for the F2P model. Therefore, I believe it's simply a matter of choosing the model that fits the game. It's a business model decision that is dependent the kind of experience you want to deliver, and the kind of operation you want to run. It's not about which one is better than the other.
I don't feel F2P is superior to the subscription model. If the users' demands (expectations) change, then you just need to change with them. I feel it would be much better to change your methods proactively to increase users and demand rather changing them because you can't make enough money, which is reactive.
If there is an impression that I am somehow attached to the subscription model, then I'd like to use this chance to say that is not true.
Dengeki:
Then, let's say if an American user tells you "I want to buy this item", what would you say in response?
Yoshida:
If it is something that can fulfill their needs without affecting the game balance, then I think it's fine to sell it.
Dengeki:
There appears to have been quite a demand for the "Fantasia" potion to be sold. What about this?
Yoshida:
With regards to the Fantasia potion, it is already on the list of questions that we will be answering during our Producer Letter LIVE on the 21st. In addition, we are also planning to introduce the option of hiring additional retainers for a fee. As we are going to be expanding the retainer system with the upcoming patch, you can also look at this as the cost of taking advantage of the system, considering retainers will now bring you far more convenience than they ever have before.
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The long-awaited patch 2.2 information. What this the "Zodiac Weapon"?
Dengeki:
Many new features have already been revealed for patch 2.2 so far. Which ones are getting positive feedbacks from the users?
Yoshida:
The "Mirage Prism" (Glamours) system that allows you to change into your favorite gears is a popular one, of course. For a while, there were some rumors going around that blue equipments could not be used, and so we showed how it could be done in our producer letter the other day. You can see how blue gears like Allagan equipments can be used using the Mirage Prism. Also, the "Zodiac Weapon" we brought up briefly during the letter is a popular topic too.
Dengeki:
So what exactly is this "Zodiac Weapon"?
Yoshida:
Well, to put it simply, it's a reforged relic weapon. However, it will be a fairly time-consuming process.
Dengeki:
Time-consuming, but something you are guaranteed to obtain if you put the time into it?
Yoshida:
Yeah, there are no restrictions whatsoever so probably... Having said that, it is designed to be something that you strengthen in steps, and not something that will end with patch 2.2. It will continue past 2.2, onto 2.25 and 2.3. We have planned 2.25 to be the next step after 2.2, and our expectation is that most people will still have not finished with the 2.2 part by the time 2.25 is out. We also plan to introduce parameter customization elements to the final form of the equipment as well.
Right now, we only have the highest level weapons available from clearing the hardest content, the Binding Coil of Bahamut, and the other one being obtainable from saving up your tokens. So we're hoping to introduce a third path where you can continue to strengthen your own weapon over time.
Dengeki:
With the item level being raised after the patch, there's the feeling that lower level allagan tomestones such as philosophy will become obsolete. Any comments?
Yoshida:
You will no longer be able to obtain Philosophy tomes after the patch. Instead, you'll be exchanging them for Mythology tomes. When a new currency is introduced, the lowest level one becomes obsolete, so we will be introducing an NPC that will allow you to exhange your tomes at a predetermined rate.
Dengeki:
If that's the case, then what will happen to the Darklight equipments that are exchanged with Philosophy tomes?
Yoshida:
They will be changed to regular dungeon drops from dungeons that would be added to the high level roulette. The idea is to have ilvl 70 gear obtainable from instanced dungeons be Darklight, ilvl 80 from Crystal Tower, ilvl 90 from either Mythology tome or Coil, and the new tomestone (Senki) above all that.
We believe an increase in item level to be a growth of the job. And a physical level cap increase would come along with an expansion of the world and many new dungeons in an expansion pack, where the character's own growth can then truly be felt.
As far as methods for increasing the item level, the current planning direction is for more variety, such as the additional path I mentioned earier. We hope to continue to respond to users' demands in the future as well.
Dengeki:
How far ahead have you planned in terms of contents at this point?
Yoshida:
We have about 2 years worth of contents planned right now. At this point, we're just about done with the design of 3.0. We've already decided the number and names of the new dungeons, as well as the name and theme of the new high-end dungeon that will succeed the Binding Coil of Bahamut. We've also finished the mock-up of the new town that will be in 3.0, and are just starting the process of building it. The number of new fields and their themes have also been determined.
However, with content development being on such a solid schedule, we also feel there's somewhat less room for spontaneous decisions. An example of something like this would be where the development team would not just assume certain contents are earmarked for 2.3, but be able to come to me and tell me if they could release the contents earlier because they want to.
Dengeki:
So basicially at this point you're already putting in a lot of work on contents that are still a few years off.
Yoshida:
That's right. We'll keep doing it at least until we're told to cut back on our development spendings.
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Aim to become the last current-generation MMORPG played by Japanese
Dengeki:
Finally, let us talk about the contents. In FFXIV:ARR, contents basically make up the entirety of the game. On the other hand, the president of Sony Online Entertainment said in February that contents-driven MMORPGs are unsustainable. What do think about this opinion?
Yoshida:
I think it's a pretty extreme opinion. Just because an MMORPG is contents-driven, doesn't mean everything about it is contents-driven. There can be a mixture of both.
And while the comment mentioned it being unsustainable, WoW has in fact managed to succeed as a contents-driven MMORPG. I believe the success of WoW was the result of Blizzard putting the future of their own company on the line and never giving up. WoW is entering it's 9th year now, and the amount of contents in it has reached monstrous proportions, to the point where it is now packed with stuff that you are never expected to clear. The game has now reached a scale where people can actually choose their own goals and play however they want.
But that's not how things were when they first started. The level cap was just 30 at the beginning, and even when you reached the level cap, you'll realize the balance was a mess once you tried out PvP. I was like "What was Blizzard thinking?" at first too. But they never gave up.
I was very shocked when I saw Blizzard - the self-proclaimed best gamers in the world - began to listen to their users. And then they started airing TV ads, and distributed the game through the top 4 game magazines in the UK.... UK is a relatively conservative country, so there isn't a real culture of playing MMORPGs there. Many people picked up WoW only because they came with these reputable magazines, and they got hooked that way.... (WoW) really was a title that only became what it is today because of a lot of hard work.
It is true that FFXIV:ARR is often compared with WoW. But WoW was also often compared with EverQuest when it first came out too. People kept saying how it had "poor balance" and "lack of contents". But they (Blizzard) kept adding new contents. I think their method is, at the end of the day, the biggest and the only point here.
I believe the old FFXIV was a failure. But even while we were making ARR we never stopped creating contents for the old FFXIV. In truth, since subscription started for the old FFXIV, our user base actually tripled in number. So I think the old FFXIV is an actual example of the fact that users are willing to pay as long as you continue to add new contents that they find interesting. Of course, some of that may also have been from their expectation for ARR as well.
I feel that as long as we have a proven case of success through contents updates, such as WoW, then I believe it is something we can do too as long as we put our mind to it. It may have been hard if there were no previous cases of success, but knowing WoW is there, I personally like the feeling of aiming for something and working to get there.
Dengeki:
So for Yoshida-san, the role model for FFXIV:ARR is WoW then.
Yoshida:
That's right. Personally, I have no plan to create a next-generation MMORPG with FFXIV:ARR. I'd rather for this to be the last of the current-generation MMORPG. The fact is that ARR had the difficult task of fixing the old FFXIV to start with, there was no way for us to make something completely new and unheard of in that situation.
Therefore, what I decided on was to make something that "Japanese people can play without worry" and is "the last of the current-generation MMORPG". There are still many people who have not played WoW, including many users in Japan, so I want to aim for those people and continue to strive to reach out to more.
The next generation will come after that. Now, it's possible that as we continue to develop FFXIV, one day we may suddenly realize it has become a next-generation game. Of course, we have new challengs in the plan that were never done in WoW too. Naturally, as we also strive for that FF-ness, you may also see ARR become something different from WoW as well.
Dengeki:
Will we get to see some of that at 3.0?
Yoshida:
Yeah, you may start to see some elements of that by then. We also plan to introduce some new concepts towards the end of the 2.x series of patches too.
Originally Posted by panzertroll
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