Yoshi-P talks swtor and why Final Fantasy XIV will be sub only.

[Knockerz]

I wouldn't say Western players always complain about skimpy outfits. I'd say it's a vocal minority that always complains about skimpy outfits.

 

TOR shows just this. In game...slave bikinis EVERYWHERE! Then some poster comes on the forums and says BW makes everything skimpy, when it's 3-6 outfits out of 100+

 

This doesn't even include the fact that with all those complaints about "Wouldn't wear a bikini into battle" what do we see requested? MINI SKIRTS!

 

It's not the look of scantily clad armor users (and FF is not on TERA's level of skimpy...even though people like to forget TERA has non skimpy options ) that will decide FF's NA fate, but whether there's a player-base that likes the play-style of FF.

 

And I know quite a few NA players who enjoy/enjoyed FF: XI and we often hear people say "I want my MMO to have the Healer/Damage/Tank setup" and yet here in your post we see "People don't want to team." when that's exactly what the Heal/DPS/Tank setup requires

 

Also, all MMOs are grind. The catch is, will FF's grind feel like fun to people or not.

 

I didn't want to go into more detail, but lets just say it's not just the outfits, but the animations too and might run into problem related to the female character models. For asian market, female characters can appear too young for western players. Female characters also tend to wear high heels and have different animation than their male counter-parts. There is also a disproportional amount of more female clothing made than male. I don't know about FF, but you need to compare the japanese version to the English version. Sony can have the same problem Blizzard had with woltk in china or the problem Tera had with Ellin. Having to maintain two separate codes is never cost effective.

 

It's a grind for people who play alone, which is what most of western players are used to doing. At least for leveling. Western players are not used to that level of team playing. In pso2 we form teams to level, which makes the mmorpg be more of a social event than just grinding instances to level.

 

If the game goes f2p, the game will be a mess for the western side. Japanese law is not as restrictive as it is in the usa or in the west concerning lottery or gambling tickets/boxes ect. Sony will have to heavily modify their western version to meet legal laws in those countries, specifically the usa. There also the possibility that their western version will be behind in terms of content. This was the case with the original pso. The japanese version was far ahead of their english version.

[Knockerz]

I'll be very impressed if they manage to survive their first year without having to resort to F2P in today's market.

SWTOR, TERA and TSW all tried and were eventually forced to go with the flow and convert to F2P after all.

SWTOR's conversion has been a rocky road, but I'd say the game is better than ever - as for not that many people playing it... I haven't had any trouble finding groups, heck even the queue times for a dps seem to have shortened lately.

 

The queue times aren't that long. For hm 55 queues I can get a queue to pop up before I'm done listing my junk on the gtm or searching for deals.

[lorelthesecond]

Wow this is crazy gamers are paying $168 for pre order codes that let you play the game a few days early. http://www.dualshockers.com/2013/08/19/japanese-gamers-really-want-the-final-fantasy-xiv-preorder-code-going-for-168-bucks-on-auction/

[Master_Hitsugaya]

I don't mean to sound like a tool here, because I actually agree with most of the things he says (like the fact that "the larger the scale of the MMO, it’s going to be better for the game if it’s on a subscription model") and kudos for calling the original release what it really was (a failure) but...

 

Square Enix developed a game that has been called a "step backward for the genre", it was considered unfinished, if not totally unplayable and one that "has greatly damaged the Final Fantasy brand".

 

Until they prove that they are actually willing to put a good game in the market instead of just reciting the old "yeah, the subscription model is changing but we truly believe Subs are the way to go" (not unlike Bioware did) I'm going to take everything he says with a grain of salt

 

1 it did not just damage it, it almost destroyed it. I don't see how you can go let's take the worst game we have ever made a game so bad it almost ended our company and remake..........what FF7 well sure that would sell a ton if we remade but why do that when you can lose money.

 

 

2 given how mmos are now I don't think the sub matter is viable now and don't see it again. I mean it is asking a lot for someone to buy a game at $30-60 then pay another $10-20 a month for any extended period of time.

 

3 I also don't see how they have proven a game is a hit just cause some beta testers( need a source) said they like it.

 

 

The biggest reason why swtor went free-2-play was simply that it could not provide a good enough reason for a majority of people to justify continually paying a monthly fee. Now each player might have had some things that made them stop suing it all fall back to paying a monthly fee for an extened period of time.

[Kilora]

2 given how mmos are now I don't think the sub matter is viable now and don't see it again. I mean it is asking a lot for someone to buy a game at $30-60 then pay another $10-20 a month for any extended period of time.

 

 

The biggest reason why swtor went free-2-play was simply that it could not provide a good enough reason for a majority of people to justify continually paying a monthly fee. Now each player might have had some things that made them stop suing it all fall back to paying a monthly fee for an extened period of time.

 

Your logic for #2 is rather strange considering your final statement.

 

The sub model is viable -- but sub-par games are trying to milk people for $60 + sub. SWTOR failed because it wasn't worth that. There was no end-game at launch, the client is still riddled with bugs, and content is released slowly.

 

FFXIV 1.0 was a horrendous game. Again, sub-par game trying to pull out a sub model.

 

EVE and WoW are running strong as sub-only. I'm fairly certain they are both attracting new players, as well as losing players -- it is a constant cycle. They have games that are worth the cost, lacking a bug around every corner. And there is a crazy amount of content to consume.

 

If a game can be released with the amount content people want/need, and of a high quality -- I see no reason sub-only model will fail. I highly disagree that the market is moving away from it.

 

100% anecdotale, but the vast majority of people I talk to regularly (who would play/do play/ have played MMOs) refuse to play a game that isn't sub-based, because "F2P = failed and sub-par."

[Laris_Rai]

They have proven it. Everyone in the Final Fantasy Online A Realm Reborn beta says the game is amazing.

 

I really doubt "everyone" shares an opinion on a game. That's about as likely as a whale break dancing down Madison Ave.

 

And beta don't prove jack. The Almighty Dollar will be the one to tell if they got it right.

[curtkram]

1 it did not just damage it, it almost destroyed it. I don't see how you can go let's take the worst game we have ever made a game so bad it almost ended our company and remake..........what FF7 well sure that would sell a ton if we remade but why do that when you can lose money.

 

 

2 given how mmos are now I don't think the sub matter is viable now and don't see it again. I mean it is asking a lot for someone to buy a game at $30-60 then pay another $10-20 a month for any extended period of time.

 

3 I also don't see how they have proven a game is a hit just cause some beta testers( need a source) said they like it.

 

 

The biggest reason why swtor went free-2-play was simply that it could not provide a good enough reason for a majority of people to justify continually paying a monthly fee. Now each player might have had some things that made them stop suing it all fall back to paying a monthly fee for an extened period of time.

 

but you're paying a sub. so am i. i would think most people active in this game pay the subscription. that's pretty good evidence that people are still willing to pay subscriptions. not only that, but a lot of people spend extra money on the cartel market. it sure seems to me there is a fairly significant number of people who want to play a good game and have no problem paying a subscription if it means the game continues to develop. the problem with all the failed subscription games is something other than cost.

[Amaranth]

I really doubt "everyone" shares an opinion on a game. That's about as likely as a whale break dancing down Madison Ave.

 

I played during the last beta weekend, and found the game to be quite boring and bland. Maybe it gets better after level 20 or something, but I definitely did not find it amazing.

[AGSThomas]

His name is Yoshi. No one takes that seriously

[Yungscion]

He loses me with this:

 

"But for a large game on that scale, what’s most important – more important than making a lot of money – is making a stable income, a stable amount of money over a long period of time. And so to develop a large-scale MMO like this, you need to spend a lot of time with a lot of resources and a lot of staff to make this game."

 

1) Making back initial development and marketing costs are most important. The funny thing is he talks about this almost immediately after making this statement, but without realizing, that it is box sales and initial 2-3 months of subs that will do this. Stable income is only important if you survive the initial 3 month window. SWTOR largely managed this as their initial box sales and first quarter online where relatively "successful" as they made a lot of initial money. But there was not a whole lot of game there to obtain long term stable income even on a subscription. Which leads me to why he statement is further incorrect....

 

2) Stable income is a myth, unless you only offer multi-month package subs. If you offer a month to month and 80% of you player base is on it, what happens if everyone of them drops sub? This was the keen marketing strategy behind Blizzards AP back in 2011. They knew they where going to have a dip in content and interest between Dragon Soul and Mists, so they locked people into a year for the income.

 

3) Subs are great if you have content and a good game, but also a market willing to plop down money on a monthly basis, and can get a large enough install base so that your sub retention is high (your going to lose about 50% of your initial players).

 

I don't know if it will be successful, time will tell, but there are no inherent merits from a game play or a monetization standpoint which makes P2P, F2P or B2P better. If done right all three can be equally successful. Though I would question why he is having to "defend" doing the game P2P, if it really is the "best".

[Drebs]

They have proven it. Everyone in the Final Fantasy Online A Realm Reborn beta says the game is amazing.

 

I'm in the XIV beta, and "amazing" is really stretching it. The game is not crap. It looks good and is relatively fun. That said, its got all the same old MMO tropes, but nothing innovative enough to move it beyond the quality of something like Tera. Its fine, but its a pretty standard MMO in a Final Fantasy world.

[Dyvid]

Well I've read this article and agree with him. FFXI has maybe 200,000 subs, not huge by todays standards but that's 200,000 subs for over eleven years. That's $343,200,000 made. For a game that development cost is said to be around $16 to $24 million that's not a bad return.

 

As for the game, it's true that they aren't trying to reinvent the wheel but that is a good thing. I read an article, FFXIV's Buffet Effect and it's true. It has a lot of the content you find in other MMO but all under one roof. The key in P2P is never letting the players get bored due to lack of content and FFXIV has content in spades.

Edited August 20, 2013 by Dyvid

[Kaludy]

this thread is full of lulz.

 

personally, i play both FFXIV and SWTOR. I love both. I just happen to love ARR a little more. The game truly caters to all types of various MMO enthusiasts. The crafting alone is some of the best around and matches that of vanguard....which most consider to be the best crating system to date. The ability to cap everything, 8 combat classes, 8 crafting classes and 3 gathering classes all without having to reroll is excellent as well.

 

To the guy that said something about "they have to charge now to make their money back." This is false. They charged subs for the latter six months or so of 1.0 version to much success...thus why so many players have "legacy" status.

 

To everyone else that says the game is not amazing or only played for a few minutes / hours....you've barely scratched the surface. I'm not preaching that the game is "amazing" but it certainly had way more to offer in the recent phase 4 beta than other MMOs out right now...

 

I will continue to play both games but SWTOR has too much fluff that sucks funds from being allocated to more important assets. Not to mention a greedy publisher. At least SE owns and publishes all their property.

[curtkram]

He loses me with this:

 

"But for a large game on that scale, what’s most important – more important than making a lot of money – is making a stable income, a stable amount of money over a long period of time. And so to develop a large-scale MMO like this, you need to spend a lot of time with a lot of resources and a lot of staff to make this game."

 

1) Making back initial development and marketing costs are most important. The funny thing is he talks about this almost immediately after making this statement, but without realizing, that it is box sales and initial 2-3 months of subs that will do this. Stable income is only important if you survive the initial 3 month window. SWTOR largely managed this as their initial box sales and first quarter online where relatively "successful" as they made a lot of initial money. But there was not a whole lot of game there to obtain long term stable income even on a subscription. Which leads me to why he statement is further incorrect....

 

There is not one single way to run a business. It's not wrong to say quickly recovering initial capital investment is a good thing, but it's also not wrong to say there are other ways to go about running a business. what's most important is not financing, what's most important is that the company keeps focused on their product.

 

2) Stable income is a myth, unless you only offer multi-month package subs. If you offer a month to month and 80% of you player base is on it, what happens if everyone of them drops sub? This was the keen marketing strategy behind Blizzards AP back in 2011. They knew they where going to have a dip in content and interest between Dragon Soul and Mists, so they locked people into a year for the income.

 

stable income is not a myth. stable income is stable income.

 

3) Subs are great if you have content and a good game, but also a market willing to plop down money on a monthly basis, and can get a large enough install base so that your sub retention is high (your going to lose about 50% of your initial players).

there will be a big drop in initial player base, as you mention. they can bridge that. they can even lose money for a couple months and keep developing the game and producing solid content. planning on abandoning the subscription model shortly after launch is one option, as is reducing or abandoning box costs. panicking is another way to go, which i kind of feel is closer to what swtor did. another option is to plan on having some server issues and having a lot of players leave, suffer through the couple difficult months, and then keep the subscription model for a long time after that because you'll likely have a stable game after the growing pains.

 

people are willing to pay for entertainment. there isn't a question there. we pay a hell of a lot more for concerts, sports, movies, etc., than we do for education, civic infrastructure, etc.

I don't know if it will be successful, time will tell, but there are no inherent merits from a game play or a monetization standpoint which makes P2P, F2P or B2P better. If done right all three can be equally successful. Though I would question why he is having to "defend" doing the game P2P, if it really is the "best".

 

p2p is inherently better for me because i don't want to have to budget an allowance and i don't want continuously escalating prices. if i enjoy a game, i prefer the development team to focus on new content for the game, not a new mount gated through a cash shop. more than likely if a developer is making a game they want to play, they'll have more drive and passion, and they'll make a game I want to play. developers of f2p games have to have a different focus than developers of a p2p game in order to keep enough money coming in so they can keep the servers on and they keep their jobs.

 

of course that's not to say p2p is better for everyone. there is still a market for f2p and b2p, and there will continue to be games with various hybrids of all payment models.

[Nemmar]

I'm in the XIV beta, and "amazing" is really stretching it. The game is not crap. It looks good and is relatively fun. That said, its got all the same old MMO tropes, but nothing innovative enough to move it beyond the quality of something like Tera. Its fine, but its a pretty standard MMO in a Final Fantasy world.

 

I wouldnt say its standard. Its the only MMO besides GW2 to feature dynamic events. It features telegraphs before Wildstar that touts them is even out.

It features its own sauce and spin on things and has an insane amount of content. With that said, we have only seen 20 levels so far. The future will tell how good this was, but for now its already been a huge step up for what was a failed game.

 

I wish Bioware and EA had the balls to redo SWTOR in the same way.

 

The only thing FFXIVARR is missing is the voice acting of SWTOR. But it has borrowed the best elements of all MMO's while giving the game its own unique FF sauce. I am quite impressed by it. It only has one problem, wich is the 2.5 second global cooldown. It could do with faster combat (despite abilities beeing off the GCD).

 

With that said, i love SWTOR and cant wait for more new things to come its way. But they need to be more ambitious than they have been post launch.

Edited August 20, 2013 by Nemmar

[ImpactHound]

 

The only thing FFXIVARR is missing is the voice acting of SWTOR.

 

Maybe I'm alone in this, maybe it has to do with being over 30, but I can somehow tolerate storylines that are not spoonfed to my ears by Spike & Ichigo. Is this strange Y/N?

 

Anyways, it's confirmed in multiple sources and by this thread that voice-acting is in post-beta, not sure why they didn't want to test it, but whatever.

 

The first iteration of FF14 was hilarious to read about; the development team admitted to never having played other MMOs, not even to do research on simple features, including FF11. It was so out of touch, the chocobos were misnamed "horsebirds."

[Hockaday]

You can't even install FF14. Go ahead, try it. Nothing but problems. It will be f2p and fast. Or flop...again.

[Yungscion]

p2p is inherently better for me because i don't want to have to budget an allowance and i don't want continuously escalating prices. if i enjoy a game, i prefer the development team to focus on new content for the game, not a new mount gated through a cash shop. more than likely if a developer is making a game they want to play, they'll have more drive and passion, and they'll make a game I want to play. developers of f2p games have to have a different focus than developers of a p2p game in order to keep enough money coming in so they can keep the servers on and they keep their jobs.

 

of course that's not to say p2p is better for everyone. there is still a market for f2p and b2p, and there will continue to be games with various hybrids of all payment models.

 

You misunderstand what I mean:

 

On point 1, any publicly traded company, needs to make back its initial investment as quickly as possible, otherwise it is operating in the red and they don't like that (causes lose of more money via share price fall out). Once initial investment is made back, how much and how quickly they are comfortable gaining revenue is of course on them to determine. But initial investment is the single most important thing until costs are recouped.

 

On point number 2, stable income is a myth not because you cant have it (though even then the money coming in can stop at anytime for any reason), but because you cannot operate on it no matter what your monetization is. You always operate on what you have already (this is why front loaded sub packages, time cards, and cash shop cards are loved by the industry), not what you expect to get (businesses that spend money before they have it tend not to stay open long). F2P cash shops in terms of income are no different from month to month subs, the only difference is that you may have more of a heads up on how much sub money you will lose, depending on how quickly into a month people cancel. So as I said, unless they operate on sub packages (3/6/12 etc) month to month subs are just as unstable as F2P.

[LightForse]

Installed and played all phase 4 with only 1 d/c...while playing swtor i still get booted 20% of the time i que for wz's and lag with high end machine...had no lag and just the 1 d/c all weekend with FFXIV..which is why i stopped playing swtor and uninstalled it yesterday.

[Andryah]

On point 1, any publicly traded company, needs to make back its initial investment as quickly as possible, otherwise it is operating in the red and they don't like that (causes lose of more money via share price fall out). Once initial investment is made back, how much and how quickly they are comfortable gaining revenue is of course on them to determine. But initial investment is the single most important thing until costs are recouped.

 

Small stuidos, yes, because they are generally cash strapped.

 

Large studios, no, as they have deep pockets. Of course large studios love money and they have the infrastructure to produce large box/digital_box distributions rapidly. It's not that they have to recoup investment costs though.. as those are capitalized and written off largely before they even launch. But they do very much want a revenue spike from box sales. This is especially true for large studios in holding companies like EA where they have a large business unit that does box and digital sales. It's short term revenue on the balance sheet for a quarter and looks good to investors. But that is immaterial to investment costs.

 

On point number 2, stable income is a myth not because you cant have it (though even then the money coming in can stop at anytime for any reason), but because you cannot operate on it no matter what your monetization is. You always operate on what you have already (this is why front loaded sub packages, time cards, and cash shop cards are loved by the industry), not what you expect to get (businesses that spend money before they have it tend not to stay open long). F2P cash shops in terms of income are no different from month to month subs, the only difference is that you may have more of a heads up on how much sub money you will lose, depending on how quickly into a month people cancel. So as I said, unless they operate on sub packages (3/6/12 etc) month to month subs are just as unstable as F2P.

 

Essentially true. Subscriptions in todays MMO market doe not = stable income, with the possible exception of the 6 and 12 month subscription plans (which are not where they get most of their revenue). Yoshi is simply spinning on that claim.

 

FFXIV goes live (again) next week. The community will know in a matter of months if Yoshi has to fall on his sword over this one.

[curtkram]

You misunderstand what I mean:

 

On point 1, any publicly traded company, needs to make back its initial investment as quickly as possible, otherwise it is operating in the red and they don't like that (causes lose of more money via share price fall out). Once initial investment is made back, how much and how quickly they are comfortable gaining revenue is of course on them to determine. But initial investment is the single most important thing until costs are recouped.

 

On point number 2, stable income is a myth not because you cant have it (though even then the money coming in can stop at anytime for any reason), but because you cannot operate on it no matter what your monetization is. You always operate on what you have already (this is why front loaded sub packages, time cards, and cash shop cards are loved by the industry), not what you expect to get (businesses that spend money before they have it tend not to stay open long). F2P cash shops in terms of income are no different from month to month subs, the only difference is that you may have more of a heads up on how much sub money you will lose, depending on how quickly into a month people cancel. So as I said, unless they operate on sub packages (3/6/12 etc) month to month subs are just as unstable as F2P.

 

on point one, i will reiterate that there is not one right way to run a company. ea is likely to run a company such that they consistently show quarterly gains so they can attract more short-term investors and pad executive compensation. i would say a company like berkshire hathaway is focused on long-term gains instead of 3-month gains. when warren buffet invests in company, he's likely going to intend to hold on to it over a course of years or even decades, and his intent is to have that company remain profitable over that span. it's ok if a company shows declines over a couple 3-month reports, as long as the long-term trend remains solid. i believe google operates in this way as well, and probably apple too (at least before steve jobs passed away). those companies are focused on the performance of their core products or vision statements rather than quarterly profits.

 

stability in point 2 is a long term goal. it costs money for any of these companies to create their product. for swtor, they had to put up all of their money before launch, and for whatever reason were unable to dump more money into the game when the servers were falling apart or when subs were bleeding. that might be because the financial backers had no confidence in the people running the game. for final fantasy, if they want, they can reinvest through a couple bad months where they might not be profitable enough, as long as they have the right people running the game and they can maintain long-term profitability. they don't have to make back all of their money in the first 6 months or whatever.

[Andryah]

Most people are missing the point about pure sub models and flexible access models.

 

These same people are fixated on the term "free-2-play. Free-2-play is not where the market for MMOs is headed at this point. It's headed to flexible access business models. There is a difference.. and people need to smarten up about this if they want to meta-discuss the business models of MMOs. F2P is largely marketing spin for the AAA tier of MMOs. They are actually flex access models.

 

And strictly speaking.... even FFXIV has a flex component to its business model as they have two tiers of subscriber in their model (Standard and Entry).

 

Wildestar also is going live with a flex model since they will push CREDD.. AND they WILL push CREDD as it's more revenue to them per 30 days of play time. And players that are cash rich in game will suckle up on it.

 

My Point?

1) All new MMOs are gong live with something more flexible then a single tier sub model.

2) Each company is doing things a little differently.. and that may continue or they may converge to a more standard model. Personally, I believe they will largely converge on the LoTRO model +/-. FF XIV, and Wildstar think they can avoid doing this.. but unless they are wildly successful (on a commercial scale, not fanboi rhetoric).. water seeks it's own level and they will converge on the LoTRO model with some nominal variation.

3) The LoTRO model is a true dual access flex model and is what SWTOR, Rift, and Tera are all following to a large degree. It offers subs for the sub hungry, and it offers microstransaction access for the freebs. The net of the model is it offers flexibility in accesss to an audience that more and more wants that flexibility... which commercially realizes more players and more total revenue for the MMO.. which for companies is what it is about. A beneficial side effect for players is more MMOs stay on the market, rather then shudder their doors, and that means more choices and with more flexibility to access those choices. The flex model is a win for companies and a win for players.

Edited August 20, 2013 by Andryah

[Kilora]

You can't even install FF14. Go ahead, try it. Nothing but problems. It will be f2p and fast. Or flop...again.

 

LOL what are you talking about?

 

If you're going to make stuff up, at least get creative. The ONLY problems apparent in the Phase 4 FFXIV:ARR beta were 2 errors -- both of which were directly related to the fact that the P4 beta was a server stress test.

[DarthOvertone]

FF XIV will be lucky to have 500K subs after the first 3 months of launch.

 

lawl@continuingtobelieveMMOpre-launchhype

[curtkram]

Most people are missing the point about pure sub models and flexible access models.

 

instead of "f2p," i think the argument as i see it is "focused on developing gameplay content" and "focused on developing cash shop content."

 

or, "access to everything for a set fee" versus "we're going to charge you a little more every month until you quit."