Quote Originally Posted by AmandaHuggenkiss View Post
In my eyes, going f2p is a sign of failure.
The entire F2P thing is really messy. Unfortunately, in the western market, we have all decided F2P is a sign of failure. Currently I am playing TSW (The Secret World), and there had been a lot of discussion about TSW and the possibility of it going F2P. The sales just weren't great, and in the end the game has had some SERIOUS issues with population. It is my opinion the biggest issue with TSW was the fact is released so close to GW2, and there was so much buzz over GW2 no one even noticed TSW. (my husband and I had been big fans of AO, and really had a lot of hope for TSW, so we went all in, we even started a website for it -- our first attempt at a website). When it was clear there was a \really big problem\ with the population in TSW, Ryahl started doing a lot of writing on the topic on our fansite. The end result was a series of editorials that made there way up the ladder into both the Funcom investor relations private communities as well as the development team of TSW. When the game did finally go "Buy 2 Play" (B2P) they ended up using a model that so closely resembled our Box+ model that it couldn't be a coincidence (it was later confirmed by their lead developer that Ryahl's article was critical in the creation of the entire model).

Long story short, there is a way to get a "F2P" (or better B2P) model for the game and it be a success. The problem is, it really needs to be done from the GET GO, not a "well we failed, I guess we'll go F2P now /shrug". The entire player base views that at a failure. And, that isn't good.

I remember the morning that TSW went B2P, I told Ryahl about it during breakfast, and he said.. "oh well, I guess TSW finally officially failed". And, this is from someone that WANTED to see the game go "B2P" and felt like it was necessary in the end. The entire problem is one were the player base has a perception of failure that is created due to the change from subscription to B2P.

Link to the Box+ Model Editorial