Pay to Win

[Kingsbount]

So.. you want cannon fodder. Got it.

 

Thing is.. freemium games do not provide "queue fillers" with parity capability to you the subscriber, UNLESS they are working the non-sub side of the access model and paying a-la-cart.

 

True free games do.. but then again.. that's an entirely different business model in the MMO genre... and not actually free.

 

1) Subscription Only

2) Freemium

3) Free

 

And NONE of them are FREE. They each have their own specific monetization models that they follow. And generally speaking.. it is the "Free" business model that injects the most problematic P2W components into the game play.

 

True.

[BUBBUH]

As an investor I am taking my hard-earned money and investing it in EA in hopes that I might make more money than I do on a CD that offer 1/2 a percent interest. But I'll forego dividends and current income in hopes the stock price will rise. It might fall, in which case I will lose part or even all my investment. The point is that I RISK my money to invest in EA hoping they will make a profit and a part of that will pass to me, which I can then use for living expenses in an attempt to stay off the welfare rolls and support myself.

 

And what I see here is a bunch of clueless people who have no idea whatsoever about how to run a company or program a game who seem to feel they are instant experts on both and entitled to call the shots just because they subscribe for a measly $15 a month, the entitlement generation who want character transfers for free just because they say so.

 

Now who is the most greedy? The guy who risks his life savings in hopes a company will do well and make a profit? Or the guy who sucks everything they can out of a company claiming profit is a dirty word?

 

What kind of an investor are you? An average lonely home joe who makes 30k a year? You are dumb for investing if that's the case. On top of it the investors he's talking about are the ones who already made quadruple their profits(AKA millionaires and billionaires, because i highly doubt EA will take the guy who invested a simple 5k and ask for his opinion), Once the fat cats dial it in and make the cash, let the game die off, no more updates, no more support, just dumb pets and a cartel market. For again, more profit that they already made 4 times over.

 

And also if you invest in EA, you are dirty. You thrive off of killing good IP's. So you should lose your "profits" just based on principles.

[Gavin_Kelvar]

eh I wouldn't say a sub is pay to win. Are there a lot of annoying, sometimes seemingly pointless, restrictions on Preferred/F2P people that could/should be changed? Yes. Does that make subscription P2W? No.

[MSchuyler]

What kind of an investor are you? An average lonely home joe who makes 30k a year? You are dumb for investing if that's the case. On top of it the investors he's talking about are the ones who already made quadruple their profits(AKA millionaires and billionaires, because i highly doubt EA will take the guy who invested a simple 5k and ask for his opinion), Once the fat cats dial it in and make the cash, let the game die off, no more updates, no more support, just dumb pets and a cartel market. For again, more profit that they already made 4 times over.

 

And also if you invest in EA, you are dirty. You thrive off of killing good IP's. So you should lose your "profits" just based on principles.

 

What absolute and utter nonsense. When I invest in a company I risk my capital. When you subscribe, you risk nothing. Investors are not "dirty" and they are not Bad Guys. And they are not Greedy. People who want everything for free are the greedy ones. These forums are nothing but a Greed Fest of spoiled children who's only refrain is, "I want! I want! I want! And I want for FREEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!" Pathetic little buggers.

[OddballEasyEight]

So.. you want cannon fodder. Got it.

 

Thing is.. freemium games do not provide "queue fillers" with parity capability to you the subscriber, UNLESS they are working the non-sub side of the access model and paying a-la-cart.

 

True free games do.. but then again.. that's an entirely different business model in the MMO genre... and not actually free.

 

1) Subscription Only

2) Freemium

3) Free

 

And NONE of them are FREE. They each have their own specific monetization models that they follow. And generally speaking.. it is the "Free" business model that injects the most problematic P2W components into the game play.

 

Exactly this.

F2P players cannot contribute much to bolstering the ques to PvP, Ops and FP's in general since they are only allowed a small number of those each week.

[Propane]

These forums are nothing but a Greed Fest of spoiled children who's only refrain is, "I want! I want! I want! And I want for FREEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!" Pathetic little buggers.

 

It isn't greed when you supported the game by paying 60$ when the game launches, only to get treated as a player who invested 5 dollars in the cartel market. Now stop acting like you are bigger and more important than everyone else on this forum.

[BUBBUH]

What absolute and utter nonsense. When I invest in a company I risk my capital. When you subscribe, you risk nothing. Investors are not "dirty" and they are not Bad Guys. And they are not Greedy. People who want everything for free are the greedy ones. These forums are nothing but a Greed Fest of spoiled children who's only refrain is, "I want! I want! I want! And I want for FREEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!" Pathetic little buggers.

 

If you support EA via investments, you're dirty. And to say investing is not greedy is just a complete lie. Which again just shows you took a lame personal finance class and are all of a sudden an expert wall street megalomaniac who invests billions each day. Not.

 

And did you just compare subscribing to investing and call subscribers greedy because of it? Are you kidding me? Subscribers get in-game content for a set time period. When you invest you obviously risk money, but you also have a chance to MAKE MONEY.

[TheronFett]

Don't worry. Soon the entire game will be F2P because there won't be enough subscribers left to even bother with it.

[Propane]

Don't worry. Soon the entire game will be F2P because there won't be enough subscribers left to even bother with it.

EA would shut down the game rather for them move past this glorified demo version of a F2P model.

[AlexDougherty]

It isn't greed when you supported the game by paying 60$ when the game launches, only to get treated as a player who invested 5 dollars in the cartel market. Now stop acting like you are bigger and more important than everyone else on this forum.

 

60$ might be enough if the game was single player and didn't require servers (which cost money), but an MMO requires upkeep, which is what the Subscription is supposed to do.

 

Free to play MMO's require people to buy things to make the game playable, this is so money comes in, which in turn helps pay for the running of the servers. This is frequently called Pay to Win.

Edited July 21, 2013 by AlexDougherty

[Propane]

60$ might be enough if the game was single player and didn't require servers (which cost money), but an MMO requires upkeep, which is what the Subscription is supposed to do.

 

Free to play MMO's require people to buy things to make the game playable, this is so money comes in, which in turn helps pay for the running of the servers. This is frequently called Pay to Win.

 

MMOs can easily go without subscription. GW2 is a prime example of that. A cash shop alone can hold a free to play game afloat, and swtor DOES have a good cartel market offering almost nothing that is pay to win. As I have been saying - altho League of Legends isn't a MMO - it's free to play model is one of the best out there. You can go 100% pro without paying a penny.

[Propane]

I am just waiting for this forum to be shut down, they defiantly do not want criticisms like this bashing their almighty cash cow.

[OddballEasyEight]

MMOs can easily go without subscription. GW2 is a prime example of that. A cash shop alone can hold a free to play game afloat, and swtor DOES have a good cartel market offering almost nothing that is pay to win. As I have been saying - altho League of Legends isn't a MMO - it's free to play model is one of the best out there. You can go 100% pro without paying a penny.

 

Yes, if they were designed to be F2P from the start.

This was not.

[Amaranth]

MMOs can easily go without subscription. GW2 is a prime example of that. A cash shop alone can hold a free to play game afloat, and swtor DOES have a good cartel market offering almost nothing that is pay to win. As I have been saying - altho League of Legends isn't a MMO - it's free to play model is one of the best out there. You can go 100% pro without paying a penny.

 

GW2 isn't technically F2P, it's B2P with microtransactions. But yes, a game can theoretically survive with just box sales and a cash shop. The question is whether that is more profitable for the company or not. If SWTOR had been able to maintain the 2 million subscribers they had at launch, they'd be infinitely more profitable than GW2 can ever hope to be. Now, they get $15 a month from around half a million subscribers, and extra money from people buying from the CM. Although I have no idea how much the two companies make in microtransaction sales, I'd be surprised if GW2 was more profitable.

 

Again, game companies don't provide F2P/B2P/hybrid services out of the goodness of their hearts. They do so be because they want to find ways to extract money from you. Some are definitely worse than others, but I have yet to play one of these MMOs where there wasn't some sort of restriction or incentive in place to entice people into spending money. That's the point of the whole model.

[Tsillah]

MMOs can easily go without subscription. GW2 is a prime example of that. A cash shop alone can hold a free to play game afloat, and swtor DOES have a good cartel market offering almost nothing that is pay to win. As I have been saying - altho League of Legends isn't a MMO - it's free to play model is one of the best out there. You can go 100% pro without paying a penny.

 

That is way too easy. You honestly can't compare the two. Sure GW2 looks pretty, but the story telling is poor, the voice acting is worse, they didn't have to pay for using something like the Star Wars universe, cause they used their own etc.

 

Honestly, you are starting to sound more and more self entitled as the thread goes along. You just want everything for nothing and that's not how things work in this world. If you like it so much that they are free, why not go play GW2 then?

 

All those games that are built around f2p lack substance and story telling. PvE endgame in GW2 is a handful of dungeons with boring boss fights and grinding yourself silly for a legendary weapon. That's it. If that's enough for you, then by all means go play those games.

 

Your kind of logic is based on comparing an element completely out of context and I tell you, without context it means nothing.

[Mercurial_Harpy]

F2P is to let you see the game and level to a decent level. Then it's up to you to decide if you want to partake fully in the game or just partly. [/i]

 

Quoted for truth. I've been a subscriber since launch and considered moving to Preferred more than once. However, the restrictions and unlock-purchases seemed to be too much of a hassle for me to make the switch. Which is precisely the point; otherwise how else would the game generate somewhat reliable profits? I know it can be done, and I may figure it out some day, but that day is not today.

 

F2P has never been more than a glorified trial mode. Which is fine; some people play the class stories and are done with it. But if you want to fully participate in the community via Operations, Warzones, crafting and Flashpoints, it's far easier to do when subscribed.

 

* * *

[xorcist]

My views on Free to play, paying, and subscribing. Who really pays and who wins:

 

The thing is that when this game went free to play, nothing really changed for the subscribers. Other than getting some cartel coins each month and that was it. Here, free to play is so restrictive that there are features that should not be so. The conciseness from word of mouth is from all the MMORPG's that have a free to play option, SWTOR has one of the worst free to play models today. There is no debate about it. Most of the restrictions are asinine. It is a fact. It almost feels like everyone outside looking in is laughing at Bioware right now. Once more, subscriptions in other MMO's that have both models give more to their subscribers than just cash shop currency. They make it much more advantageous and attractive to subscribe while their free to play model is far less restrictive. Even a one time purchase of the game entitles you to even less restrictions still. Everybody's happy. But here, we have basically nothing extra for subscribing, still have to pay for the barbershop feature and extra for newly added hairstyles etc. Holiday purchases? No event? Not even a little something?! Ah ok, fireworks. gotcha... Our $15 per month should pay for all the small extra features added. The one and only time this has happened was with the first attempt for the HK quest. Once complete, it could be purchased through Legacy. So I don't know how I feel about that. But I suppose you can look at it like an in game unlock.

 

However, the huge problem with this game is the greed from Bioware and EA. It sours everything. Just because they couldn't hold on to subscribers and sustain a profitable income from subscriptions alone, they used a band-aid in the form of a Cartel Market to keep things going. Fine, its not shutting down for now, great. But the problems that caused the mass exodus has not been resolved and I doubt it ever will be. This project had dozens of awfully bad decisions made during development. And for that, we'll always pay extra for it. It's unfortunate, but this game will continue to stay on life support with no change in sight. That is until players get tired of forking over hundreds of dollars extra on top of their subscription every month. But then again, the man in charge of the Cartel Market will always have some new candy in his van for you. I love Star Wars. I couldn't get into SWG. It just wasn't for me. Now, with all the greed Bioware and EA are emanating from this game, it makes it very difficult to support them. Such a shame... This project had such potential but they all simply stopped caring.

[Propane]

Yes, if they were designed to be F2P from the start.

This was not.

 

Then let us look at two games that were designed pay to play that came out around the same time swtor did that now have a free to play model that is 20x better than SWTOR's. Let's start with TERA. Tera is 100% running on their in game shop, which only offers cosmetic items. And they are doing much better log in numbers as swtor is right now. And the only thing good about that game is the combat. They don't have the "fourth pillar" of story. Swtor has better features than TERA and it is still loosing in numbers. Now lets look at RIFT. Here is a quote from them "No trials. No tricks. No traps." You can have EVERYTHING in the game without ever paying a single cent. And again, swtor still has better features than RIFT.

 

And these games are doing much better than swtor is now, wanna know why? The F2P model isn't a glorified demo.

Edited July 21, 2013 by Propane

[Amaranth]

Then let us look at two games that were designed pay to play that came out around the same time swtor did that now have a free to play model that is 20x better than SWTOR's. Let's start with TERA. Tera is 100% running on their in game shop, which only offers cosmetic items. And they are doing much better log in numbers as swtor is right now. And the only thing good about that game is the combat. They don't have the "fourth pillar" of story. Swtor has better features than TERA and it is still loosing in numbers. Now lets look at RIFT. Here is a quote from them "No trials. No tricks. No traps." You can have EVERYTHING in the game without ever paying a single cent. And again, swtor still has better features than RIFT.

 

And these games are doing much better than swtor is now, wanna know why? The F2P model isn't a glorified demo.

 

Please provide proof that "these games are doing much better than swtor is now". Ideally in terms of how much revenue each is generating.

Edited July 21, 2013 by Amaranth

[Propane]

Please provide proof that "these games are doing much better than swtor is now". Ideally in terms of how much revenue each is generating.

 

Seeing how Tera got an extra of 1.4 million new players playing daily, and Trion worlds praising the success of the f2p model and how they will start to integrate it into many of their new games. Not to mention Rift's servers are always on high, while in swtor we are lucky to have one on maybe medium. And then we have swtor that averages 344 players per server and shrinking.

Edited July 21, 2013 by Propane

[Propane]

Trying to show the truth to you all is like trying to tell the truth to an Xbox One buyer, they always gotta have a slip-around.

[Amaranth]

Seeing how Tera got an extra of 1.4 million new players playing daily, and Trion worlds praising the success of the f2p model and how they will start to integrate it into many of their new games. Not to mention Rift's servers are always on high, while in swtor we are lucky to have one on maybe medium. And then we have swtor that averages 344 players per server and shrinking.

 

According to EA back in March, SWTOR had added 2 million new players since launching F2P. As for server populations, I have no idea when you play, but there are way more than 344 people per server during both the day and night on my server. And at night the majority of the servers are heavy to very heavy from my experience.

 

Though honestly number of players isn't really that meaningful when talking about hybrid games. If SWTOR has 1 million players that are spending an average of $10 a month (counting subs), and Rift/Tera have 1.5 million players paying an average of $5 a month, SWTOR would be doing better. In that way, the SWTOR business model is probably more successful simply because they do force people to pay more money, even if F2Pers don't like the extra cost.

[Andryah]

Seeing how Tera got an extra of 1.4 million new players playing daily, and Trion worlds praising the success of the f2p model and how they will start to integrate it into many of their new games. Not to mention Rift's servers are always on high, while in swtor we are lucky to have one on maybe medium. And then we have swtor that averages 344 players per server and shrinking.

 

LOL WUT? /facepalm

 

That's all this extremely distorted and inaccurate application of forum text deserves IMO.

[Lord_of_Mu]

LOL WUT? /facepalm

 

Saw this thread last night. I facepalmed and left the thread.

[Amaranth]

...

 

Ah, the old "I can't actually prove my claims so I'll just call everyone who disagrees with me a fanboy".

 

In all seriousness, if you really want to give EA feedback on where they've gone wrong, the best way to do so is with your wallet. EA isn't really going to care if F2Pers feel there are too many restrictions if they continue to spend money. The only time they will start showing interest is if they lose a significant number of paying customers over it.

Edited August 1, 2013 by CommunityDroidEU
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