F2P is just a fad that will pass.

[TixyLixx]

I'm not saying the model of Minecraft or Planetside 2 is going to go away because that would be stupid, however the whole industry is now jumping on the band wagon claiming it is the only way. Now every developer has a F2P game in development and what they don't seem to realize is the market will become over saturated with them and it'll hit a cliff to where loads of companies wont make any profit and will shut down, they'll actually be worse because they've made no money.

The real currency is peoples time, they'll buy a game, play it and juggle that time with whatever else they have going on in their life. If I torrented every game, I'd play the exact same amount of games as I do if I paid for them, I only play the games I'm interested in. Just because a game is free doesn't mean I'll play it, the game has to be good! If the game is good then I'd pay for it and even subscribe or whatever. WoW has proved that people aren't scared of paying for a boxed copy, then paying for a subscription and even expansions and shows no signs of dying even after 8 years!

I really think F2P is just an excuse developers are making because their other games that people had to pay for didn't sell because they were bad. The whole F2P thing existed as a type of marketing, like a doorway into their game because the game was developed with hardly any budget by some small indie developer. Now it is just become a way to make profit off of bad games and it'll backfire just like Kick Starter will do....

Develop good games and people will pay for it! We're already seeing the population of Planetside 2 drop dramatically so soon after launch, why is this? Oh yeah because SOE rushed another buggy unoptimized mess out the door. If the game is good, people will play it... simple.

[Malawi Frontier Guard]

Making good games sounds like a great new idea. I'll have to look into that.

[DWZippy]

Apparently, free to play is making people a metric ton of money in microtransactions. If Free to Play is making people tons of money, I can only see it getting more and more prominent. There's likely to be a fall in people playing Planetside 2 because many people tried it for free and didn't like it, but I would imagine that the guys & girls still playing are more likely to drop some cash on it.

Also, your post mentions Minecrafts F2P model which.. doesn't exist. There's a free creative mode but that's more akin to a demo then the more standardised F2P supported by in game purchases. [which are the devil. Don't get me wrong.]

[Bankrotas]

Yes, I know that I'm feeding a troll. He's so terrible at it, it makes me throw him a Skagg.

If the game is bad, why would people play it? Because it's free? Is LoL a bad game? How about MoH: Warfighter is it a good game? Is Bad rat's a good game? Heck I don't like Far Cry 3, because I don't like FPS with rpg mechanics and open world and sneaking in first person bores me, is it a bad game? Same goes for WoW, I dislike it's combat mechanics and reliance on others, it's payment method, but is it a bad game to others?
Free to play is a way to offer players to try out game in full version unlike demo's and trials and give the company as much money, as you think it deserves.
And if you're thinking of stating shit you're stating all the time, try to open your eyes a bit more to the world. This payment model opens up more possibilities to play games for people from poorer countries. I've spent more over the time on Tribes:Ascend than on Guild Wars 2 and it impacted my financial state less than paying 55 euros at once. If I can't pay for games from the get go, I can't play them at all? If you think so, you're shithead, who should get some perspective in life.
These kind of stupid arrogant statements anger me too much to be nice and discuss it in civil manner.

[acroman56]

Ummmm, Minecraft isn't F2P.....and why does F2P bother you anyway? If you like the game you get to play for free and if you don't like it you didn't pay to find out. The only downside I can see to the current F2P gaming trend is that some developers don't quite get it and let you buy things with real currency that can give you a huge advantage over non paying players although this is very rare so not a real concern to be honest.

Re-reading your post again doesn't help either, you don't seem to really have a complaint and you are just stating that if games are good you will play them, where does F2P come into this? Surely if they are good then the cost doesn't matter, is a good F2P game worse than a good paid game? I am so confused by what, if any, point you are trying make here.

[TixyLixx]

Yeah saying Minecraft was a mistake, that was just on my mind because I was thinking of it's pay to play alpha/beta model.

My point is these big publishers and AAA developers seem to come out and say how F2P is the future and they're all jumping on it now. My problem with it is that it isn't the answer, making good games is.

[deano2099]

The OP has a point. The business model of F2P is based on extracting some money from 10% of players and lots of money from 1% of players (exact figures may vary). The takeaway from that is that you need 10x as many people playing to start with.

That happens. In fact F2P games often do far better than that, because they're free, so you get 100x the regular number of players. But the more F2P games that come out, the more that market gets segmented. If you're relying on 10 million people playing your game, to be able to rinse the 1000 most active/rich players, that might work right now. But as has been mentioned, there is a time constraint. If every game was F2P, they wouldn't all be getting 10 million players, not even all the good ones. The market would be a lot fragmented.

[Unaco]

F2P is just a fad that will pass.

I'm not saying the model of Minecraft or Planetside 2 is going to go away because that would be stupid

That's what passing fads do.

Seriously, is there no moderation in the forum these days?

[Jesus_Phish]

Yeah saying Minecraft was a mistake, that was just on my mind because I was thinking of it's pay to play alpha/beta model.

My point is these big publishers and AAA developers seem to come out and say how F2P is the future and they're all jumping on it now. My problem with it is that it isn't the answer, making good games is.

Apart from Crytek who else has said they're going all the way f2p? And even they back tracked on that a little.

F2P games can be good, I don't know where you're getting the idea they're not from. Look at DDO, LOL, HON. They've been going for years as free games and they're still turning a profit.

If you're pointing that games like PS2 have a drop off after release because they're f2p and thus bad, ignore that it's f2p and just realize it's because its a game. Even great AAA games have drop offs after release when people want to go play something else or don't like the MP aspect of it. I myself enjoyed playing Gears 3 with my friends.

As a consumer F2P can be great. I tried tribes ascend out. Didn't care for it. All I lost was a couple of hours. If that wasn't a free to play game, I'd have been out probably €40 too. Same with DDO, played that for a while, got loads of enjoyment out of it but decided ultimately there were other games I wanted to play and I didn't have time for it. Didn't spend a cent on it.

[Mohorovicic]

F2P games can be good, I don't know where you're getting the idea they're not from. Look at DDO, LOL, HON. They've been going for years as free games and they're still turning a profit.

I hope you're not implying that if a game turns a profit it's automatically good.

f2p is not a fad, it's the model for the future. There are just too many advantages to it from money-making perspective: zero piracy, very accessible(free!), even if people don't pay anything they're still creating the environment for the paying customers(you could say "even people who don't play your game play your game"), and the nick-and-dime potential of microtransactions when applied to first world sheep(or should I say pigs to be more political?) is just insane.

[Jesus_Phish]

I hope you're not implying that if a game turns a profit it's automatically good.

No, but if a game is bad and people don't enjoy it then they won't play it and won't pay for any of it's content.

If LOL was a bad game (objective) then people wouldn't play it and wouldn't be spending money on it and RIOT wouldn't be on it's 17th gold yacht by now.

[Mohorovicic]

Well, for most people finding out the game's bad is too late anyway, since they've already bought it.

And LoL is a bad game. Stop confusing objective quality of something with enjoyment you can get out of it.

[Dominic Tarason]

And LoL is a bad game. Stop confusing objective quality of something with enjoyment you can get out of it.

... Are you suggesting that being broadly considered fun isn't a good metric for games? Because that... that...

(Insert Scanners head-explosion GIF here)

And are you now suggesting that people don't realize that the F2P game they're playing is somehow bad until they've already spent money on it? Because that's a statement worthy of Bizarro himself.

[Jesus_Phish]

Well, for most people finding out the game's bad is too late anyway, since they've already bought it.

Which is why I said F2P was great for consumers.

And LoL is a bad game. Stop confusing objective quality of something with enjoyment you can get out of it.

So a game thousands of people enjoy all those people are wrong because a random person on the internet thinks is a bad game, means it's bad? Or do you just not enjoy LoL enough to think it's good.

... Are you suggesting that being broadly considered fun isn't a good metric for games? Because that... that...

Some people on here are determined to have the most asinine definitions for everything about gaming.

[DWZippy]

I find it's easier to just ignore Mohorovicic - His opinions are usually pushed as fact and they're often tangential.

Also, this free to play thing hasn't just crept up, it's been the go-to model for the middle eastern RPG's for a long long time [many happy hours playing Gunz online, Silkroad and Anarchy online as a kid] it's just only now that it's being taken seriously by AAA publishers.

[Mohorovicic]

Where did I say they were "wrong"?

I'm just saying that equaling "I like this" with "This is good"(and vice versa) is like, fallacy 101.

[Jesus_Phish]

Where did I say they were "wrong"?

I'm just saying that equaling "I like this" with "This is good"(and vice versa) is like, fallacy 101.

Right, but we're talking about video games. I state this now before you go saying "oh so if someone likes murder does that make murder good?"

In video games, ones self enjoyment of that game is an absolutely great yard stick by which to measure that games quality of being good or bad. I personally use it because I'm not about to grade every game I play out of 100 with 10 points going in 10 categories from graphics to sound design to level design to gun play.

Fun game = good game. Simples.

[DWZippy]

Yeah, fun is the primary metric you should use to measure all leisure activities. IF you're having fun, the game has succeeded in it's aim, and as a result is a good game.

[sinister agent]

I don't think it'll pass. I think it'll change, and fade to some extent, but still exist in some games, or just in an altered form in others.

This strikes me as an experimental time for the MMO, and funding is one of the questions hanging over them. My hope is that they'll take the opportunity to experiment with gameplay and ideas more along with it. This seems more likely if free to play really is booming at the moment.

Free to play, if done well, suits me much better. I've never paid a subscription for a game and it's unlikely I ever will, and upfront fees for a type of game I can't demo and am very unlikely to enjoy aren't appealing either. But free to play done well, (e.g: planetside 2) means I'm far more likely to try a game out, and if I like it, throw some cash at the developers by way of thanks/support. Which all ties into the "treat your customers with respect and integrity" theme that's finally started to take root in some sections of the game industry, after decades of contempt and lies.

[Drake Sigar]

But free to play done well, (e.g: planetside 2) means I'm far more likely to try a game out, and if I like it, throw some cash at the developers by way of thanks/support.

I haven't tried Planetside 2, but the prices for simple stuff like unlocking one of the million guns that look exactly the same seemed absolutely appalling.