.. and the award for Worst MMO Business Model in 2016 goes to ...

[dr_mike]

Hope not or they'd ideally have to do the same with every other thread in general that paints the game in a bad light which lately is probably over half of them.

 

Anyway it's a general topic about this game in particular so not even sure what grounds there would be to move it.

 

There was an "Should I play ESO instead?" thread going for a couple of days. It got moved first and then disappeared.

 

At least I don;t see it any more.

[Theeko]

Yeah no game forum wants advertisements for other games on it, just blizzard is quicker than anyone to delete these kind of posts

[jedip_enguin]

This game has a business model?

[Dilemmas]

Actually they pretty decide what get the majority happens almost all of the time if not aways. That why I never understood why with them not let the public vote before that actual announcement rather than after swaying the votes.

http://massivelyop.com/2016/12/15/massively-ops-best-of-2016-awards-best-mmo-business-model-2016/ If you notice on who got the best business model gw2 won and got 1000 votes while wow got 91 I can tell you those number would of never been like that if they did it before the actual announcement.

 

I would have voted for GW2 without even thinking twice. I'm sure many others did too.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Actually they pretty decide what get the majority happens almost all of the time if not aways. That why I never understood why with them not let the public vote before that actual announcement rather than after swaying the votes.

http://massivelyop.com/2016/12/15/massively-ops-best-of-2016-awards-best-mmo-business-model-2016/ If you notice on who got the best business model gw2 won and got 1000 votes while wow got 91 I can tell you those number would of never been like that if they did it before the actual announcement.

 

Fair point on the votes aspect but it still doesn't detract from the fact many are indeed voting that way and if you read through the comments you can get a feel of why and it's more than just "voted because the article named that game".

 

Also the topic itself still has this game named worse out of all - could there be bias there? Possibly but it is what it is.

[Deewe]

And the award for Worst MMO Business Model in 2016 goes to

What few know is SWTOR has the best ROI MMO wide(*).

 

So either they are pulling out quite some insane cash and not investing it back in the game or the crew is paper thin.

 

 

(*) Might change with the subs drop we should see in the next 2-3 months following 5.0

Edited December 17, 2016 by Deewe

[HelinCarnate]

And player votes show around 70% of the votes for SWTOR. The game in 2nd place has 5% of the votes. Pay attention BW

[MeNaCe-NZ]

What few know is SWTOR has the best ROI MMO wide(*).

 

So either they are pulling out quite some insane cash and not investing it back in the game or the crew is paper thin.

 

 

(*) Might change with the subs drop we should see in the next 2-3 months following 5.0

 

How exactly do you justify that statistic? Afaik EA has never released the profits this game pulls in either from subs or CM so how then could anyone compare it to other MMOs to make such a statement?

[Radzkie]

I think I almost feel bad for SWTOR but I mean....

 

The "put lockboxes inside lockboxes" legit made me snort laugh.

[Deewe]

How exactly do you justify that statistic? Afaik EA has never released the profits this game pulls in either from subs or CM so how then could anyone compare it to other MMOs to make such a statement?

Was in an interview of our beloved James Ohlen if I remember well, sorry did not bookmark it but I was certainly o_O ?

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Was in an interview of our beloved James Ohlen if I remember well, sorry did not bookmark it but I was certainly o_O ?

 

Unfortunately we certainly can't believe such a statement out of his mouth unless he suddenly got an insight into the financials of every other MMO out there and if so ... how are they still stuffing this game up?

[lobstah_rofls]

It only has tons of votes because the reddit sub linked to it.

 

Honestly, the business model of this game is not bad at all. The recent CXP stuff is game design, not business model. People are just raging now.

 

The Massively OP writer who is whining about not being able to afford a cash shop item on the GTN is the biggest laugh. I mean come on, that is pathetic. 'QQ I can't afford Darth Emo's unstable lightsaber, worst business model evar.'

 

Everyone got used to the cosmetic cash shop a long time ago, and it saved this game. And really there are only a few items where you'd have to throw money at Bioware to get them. For the vast majority, all he'd have to do is gather or craft or sell flashpoint/ops drops.

 

What is really going on? It's not about the business model at all. Bottom line: the redditors/ops people hate having to grind. That's it. That's all the hate right now. So many just want to show up on ops night, play for two hours or so, get their token and/or gear drop, and see you next week.

[Zasszz]

This confirms what Ive said for some time now.

 

The devs dont know what they are doing, they constantly pick the worst possible ways to fix problems that werent problems or create problems when a much simpler and actually OBVIOUS solution is right in their faces. The "exciting" cartel market loot box opening animation and command system crap boxes only seems to blow THEIR skirts, not ours. They call this an MMO yet the story is now completely single player gameplay for the second time. The story is nice but after the success of the class stories in vanilla they should have kept that concept with hutt cartel, revan and ziost. Kotfe and Kotet should be like that too. I even liked the chapters 10-16 and how they released them. But still they were single player. The story doesnt even make sense from some classes point of view. Actually the story doesnt make sense from a non-force using class. A soldier/agent/smuggler/mercenary beats two of the most powerful force users with an alliance behind them? Come on.

 

Adding new items to the cartel market didnt help much. The people on that site confirm it. Adding more rare items hurt the players, the ingame economy and deceived the players. The expansions got worse and probably will continue to get worse. That will not attract many new players or motivate long time players or even short time players that only tested Kotfe and Kotet to stay with the game. Those people and me might test the next expansion for a month or maybe just for some days and then leave the game again. Adding another expansion would actually be a bad idea because the resources invested wont be returned by new cartel market items then. People just wont take it any longer. A small "loyal" or blind part will carry the burned flag for awhile but getting nothing new outside the story wont keep them either.

 

I say it out loud: the devs are incompetent.

It doesnt really matter if they are instructed from a higher position in the chain of command, who probably have no clue about gaming, or run the game into the ground by themself. This isnt something you do by accident. I see it, the people in this forum see it, the long time players ingame see it... Hell, even the short time players with experience from other MMOs see it!! I dont believe for a second that the devs are this incapable of seeing it! They just dont want to game to be shut down but they have no clue to save it either.

 

Just look at the dev streams. Ive seen other devs from other games, other announcements of expansions and patches. What we saw in the streams are... something.... but no players, who pretend to be players but then run a game into the ground like business people who only care about money. Its like they have a complete lack of morality when it comes to the game and expansions. Even tho I had a small kind moment with eric on twitter. It makes zero sense.

 

I love the class stories, I even started to like makeb, rishi and ziost. Yes, I played through Kotfe with 4 chars, out of 13. I played through Kotet 3 times and problably wont again. But outside of that what I see is an insult to the community. We sat there like puppies with huge eyes (*immitates cat with boots from shrek), got a decent bowl of food with an awful aftertaste again and again and it got worse. We know this bowl isnt healthy for us, it has little to no nutritional value left but it keeps rising in costs for us...

 

Its like an abusive relationship. We love the game but it hurts whats being done to us, to the game. We get slapped over and over and over... but we stay, we continue our subscription in the hope "the devs come around eventually! THEY MUST!!!"... BECAUSE WE LOVE THIS GAME!!

[Belegnole]

What few know is SWTOR has the best ROI MMO wide(*).

 

So either they are pulling out quite some insane cash and not investing it back in the game or the crew is paper thin.

 

 

(*) Might change with the subs drop we should see in the next 2-3 months following 5.0

 

I believe the award was from the customers perspective.....

[Xienive]

When was the last time they put any really coveted armor sets or weapons in game as items to work for, or to craft? Instead almost all new gear looks like trash, and they 100% know it. Anything even half way decent is put on the cartel market. Whereas I can take an old MMO like EQII and find TONS of cool armor and weapons in game AND find good looking stuff in the cash shop.

 

On top of them already only adding the good stuff to the CM, they also have removed in game obtainable orange shells so that there are even fewer options without the CM. It's not even close to a contest for being the worst business model and that's why it's leading.

[Dilemmas]

It only has tons of votes because the reddit sub linked to it.

 

Honestly, the business model of this game is not bad at all. The recent CXP stuff is game design, not business model. People are just raging now.

 

The Massively OP writer who is whining about not being able to afford a cash shop item on the GTN is the biggest laugh. I mean come on, that is pathetic. 'QQ I can't afford Darth Emo's unstable lightsaber, worst business model evar.'

 

Everyone got used to the cosmetic cash shop a long time ago, and it saved this game. And really there are only a few items where you'd have to throw money at Bioware to get them. For the vast majority, all he'd have to do is gather or craft or sell flashpoint/ops drops.

 

What is really going on? It's not about the business model at all. Bottom line: the redditors/ops people hate having to grind. That's it. That's all the hate right now. So many just want to show up on ops night, play for two hours or so, get their token and/or gear drop, and see you next week.

 

No... I'm afraid not. That reddit thread doesn't have the traffic to push the votes that far, and SWTOR was already leading the way by a few hundred votes before it was even posted.

 

Keep rocking those rose-tinted glasses though.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

It only has tons of votes because the reddit sub linked to it.

 

Honestly, the business model of this game is not bad at all. The recent CXP stuff is game design, not business model. People are just raging now.

 

It's completely business model also in regards to an MMO - it's the design choices that define whether or not people are going to stick around and pay for your product. In the case of GC it is having a negative impact and thus it becomes part of a poor business model.

 

Of course there was plenty of other things to GC that happened in relation to the business model this game employs in 2016 that you ignored so far. In fact you focused on something they didn't even mention on the OP page ( GC ).

 

The Massively OP writer who is whining about not being able to afford a cash shop item on the GTN is the biggest laugh. I mean come on, that is pathetic. 'QQ I can't afford Darth Emo's unstable lightsaber, worst business model evar.'

 

Yet it's still a factor in whether people stick around or not. If all the vanity items that might act as a nice lure to people suddenly become too expensive too afford through normal gameplay means they have nothing then to grind credits for and it's yet another push towards them leaving.

 

Of course not everyone will feel this way but it needs to considered.

 

What is really going on? It's not about the business model at all. Bottom line: the redditors/ops people hate having to grind. That's it. That's all the hate right now. So many just want to show up on ops night, play for two hours or so, get their token and/or gear drop, and see you next week.

 

OK well how about rather than implying everyone doesn't understand a business model except you how about you justify how it IS a good business model then?

[MeNaCe-NZ]

When was the last time they put any really coveted armor sets or weapons in game as items to work for, or to craft? Instead almost all new gear looks like trash, and they 100% know it. Anything even half way decent is put on the cartel market. Whereas I can take an old MMO like EQII and find TONS of cool armor and weapons in game AND find good looking stuff in the cash shop.

 

On top of them already only adding the good stuff to the CM, they also have removed in game obtainable orange shells so that there are even fewer options without the CM. It's not even close to a contest for being the worst business model and that's why it's leading.

 

You do get orange shells via GC now ( no vendors have any anymore? ) but yeah its RNG which is pretty stupid.

 

The idea they have is either you pay cash to RNG for armor, you pay cash to sell stuff for credits to get the armor you want or you grind away to buy the stuff because someone else at some point paid cash.

 

It's not an inherently bad idea but when you couple it with everyone else going wrong in the game lately it becomes one more factor in the "I think I might unsub" thought process.

[LordArtemis]

I dont know if I agree that SWTOR has the worst model...certainly one of the most restrictive.

 

I would say, however, that it has one of the worst with respect to likely generating revenue IMO.

 

If I were in charge of the F2P system, here are the changes I would make....

 

1) ability to earn CC in game with in game activities...would choose new ones each week that would get a bonus.

2) allow folks to use CC to purchase game time.

3) Game would be almost entirely free, unhindered, up to the end of class story, except for the items listed below. F2P cap would be level 50.

4) Credit limit would be set at 999,999 with current escrow, no spam.

5) I would open two more chat channels...free and open. Free would be for free folks only, open would be for free and subs, general would be sub only.

6) GTN would be split into free and sub groups.

7) Ignore would be altered to be account wide if desired, and also could be set to ignore free players, including mail,

8) Free players could not mail to anyone but other free players.

9) The following would be unlockable for 30 days for 5.00, permanently for 20.00 each, payments REQUIRED in cash....

 

a. 250k credit tiers (for 5.00 each permanent)

b. PVP

c. GSF

d. Flashpoints and Operations

e. RotHC

f. SoR

g. KotFE

h. KotET

i, Mail

j. Chat (open channel)

K. Chat (general channel)

 

...I would keep the Command system sub only, and would increase the drops in command crates to include the entire cartel market inventory past and present as possible drops.

 

This, IMO, would allow a player to purchase the parts of the game they wish to buy, and end up paying out a healthy sum to unlock most of the game if they wished.

 

If they unlocked everything, for example, they would end up paying (excluding credit limits) around 200 dollars plus the regular credit limit unlocks. To carry 10 mil they would have to pay 180 more.

 

A sub player pays 180 dollars a year and gets bonus coins.

 

This, IMO, would be a system that would far less draconian, and would encourage free folks to actually pony up cash.

[DanNV]

I was rather surprised to see how far ahead SWTOR is in the poll for worst business model. I can't really argue with it, though. They've made some really bad decisions over the last year, the recent once are just the icing on the cake.

[Alec_Fortescue]

Any who the hell are these people to be any kind of authority? SWTOR offers best it has for nothing. It's the end game grind that you have to pay for. It's the other way around in other games. Pay for extra toolbars? How's that a problem? I don't need more than three on any of my toons. And you definitely don't need more than two if you're doing vanilla pre-endgame content. Edited December 17, 2016 by Alec_Fortescue

[AshenK]

Any who the hell are these people to be any kind of authority? SWTOR offers best it has for nothing. It's the end game grind that you have to pay for. It's the other way around in other games. Pay for extra toolbars? How's that a problem? I don't need more than three on any of my toons. And you definitely don't need more than two if you're doing vanilla pre-endgame content.

they are real gamers who care about gaming.

 

unlike tor and bioware and most of the drones. those that care about games get subs its why ffxiv is one of the biggest mmos on the planet right now. oh and btw stay away from eso and sto both are cashcow systems that rip the player off big time. eso has one of the worst player bases i've ever had to deal with as all they do is kill steal and insult people. sto has some good players but that's about it.

[kimiko_tomiyama]

Call me a conspiracy theorist if you like, but I find it mildly entertaining thataround the same time that SWTOR wins this award, a good many members of the community get an email survey about the game, a first in my decade and change of MMO'ing. There is a second livestream so quickly on the heels of the first, with a very different tone.

 

Is 70% inflated? Probably. But the fact that SWTOR does have a large lead over the other games should be cause for concern. Even if you have the number and double the second place finisher it is still a trend too large to just mind trick away.

[JabbaWabbA]

it will be funny when swtor dies and ends up having a shorter life than SWG's.

[lobstah_rofls]

It's completely business model also in regards to an MMO

 

If you think a game's design is literally the same thing as the game's business model, I can't help you. You are mentally jumping through hoops that I just won't follow you through. The business model is about how the game makes money, not about the content itself.

 

As close as I could get to agreeing with you would be to agree that content release schedule and what sort of content gets done is part of it. But in this particular case, the game has been this way for basically ~2 years now. So why would people suddenly freak out if they got exactly what they expected?

 

Thus it's not at all what people are freaking out about currently. Some people are freaking out now because they hate the CXP grind.

 

Yet it's still a factor in whether people stick around or not. If all the vanity items that might act as a nice lure to people suddenly become too expensive too afford through normal gameplay means they have nothing then to grind credits for and it's yet another push towards them leaving.

 

My point is that people are raging about everything now, because they are angry about something in particular, but most of them can't stop raging long enough to figure out what is actually making them rage. That something is grind, not the cash shop.

 

This game is the best 'virtual action figures' MMO there is, period. Nothing comes close. Tons of alts, tons of gear. There are literally only a tiny tiny few gear items that end up extremely unaffordable to most players. Everything else is widely available. Every time a pack goes on sale, pack item prices crash and you can get gold armor sets for under a million. Thexan's robes cost ~$14 but seldom go for even just 14 million on the GTN. I mean I could go on and on. I've literally never bought cartel coins and I have a dozenish characters tricked out maybe not perfectly, but I like them.

 

So yes, I'm completely fine with saying that the cash shop is the dumbest thing to be raging about right now.

 

OK well how about rather than implying everyone doesn't understand a business model except you how about you justify how it IS a good business model then?

 

Lol, challenge accepted.

 

First of all though, I'm definitely right that people are raging right now. I think most would understand the difference when they calm down about it enough to talk about the issue without just raging again. For now they do not understand that the business model is not at all why they are currently raging.

 

SWTOR mostly has a good business model. Pay a sub to do most things. If anything, it clearly hurts SWTOR to let people sort of play the game in the way that they do. FFXIV puts out more content and has no F2P at all to draw people in, and they have only recently started doing free trials, which are only about 4 days long. They're an interesting comparison because they are both very strong franchises. If FF doesn't need F2P to draw in new players, why would Star Wars?

 

I think a better way to do a 'free to try' MMO and 'ok to stick around a bit while you aren't subbed' MMO would be to limit the amount of time you can play per week. Have the first planet or two free to give people a try to lure in new customers. Then you can hang out on fleet or in your strongholds or guild flagships all you want. But if you aren't a sub, they should just limit how much time you can play instead of letting people play as much as they want with a gimped experience.

 

Overall though? Go look at corporate financial data if you want to see how much money SWTOR makes now. The business model is clearly doing very well.

 

Is everything perfect on the business side of things? No, of course not. The difference between FFXIV and SWTOR is that Square Enix owns itself and cares about it's brand value. Whereas EA owns Bioware and does not care about Bioware's brand value. Square Enix does not go cheap on content. EA sucks up the profit. Big difference. They could easily put a few more millions per year into SWTOR and do a better job about most of what people complain about, like lack of endgame content, which comes from EA forcing Bioware to make tough choices in the name of maximizing profits.

 

Great example of how it effects things: pets. SE puts some time in to design pets. Most of them they don't even charge extra for. SWTOR only puts out miniature versions of already existing enemies, ships, etc. SE will go the extra mile for their aesthetic because it is brand value. Bioware doesn't have control over their aesthetic anymore and you can tell because they are compromising and changing a lot of what made Bioware Bioware in the first place.

 

But that all is a difference in how the companies are run, not the business model. The 'business model' is not all things to do with business. And is any of that WHY people are raging now? No. Stuff like that may come up when they are raging, but it is not why they are raging now.

 

This is a lot like the horrible internet rage over the Star Wars 'blame Lucas' prequals, a mini version really. The reason people are prone to rage about Star Wars in general is that people love Star Wars and everyone wants it the way they want it. They care about it, so they are more prone to rage about it.

 

More specifically, for every rage, there is a trigger. Something intolerable. As the Fallout franchise puts it, "You've been pushed around long enough!" Once something triggers the rage, they rage about everything that displeases them. Phantom Menace? Jar Jar was the trigger. It's that simple. People raged about everything that wasn't quite like they wanted it, but only Jar Jar triggered the rage. Jar Jar was horrible. How could Jar Jar happen? Why didn't somebody do something? TRIGGERED. Jar Jar was the last straw, they weren't going to take it any more.

 

In this case, none of the business model stuff was the trigger. The game has been this way for about 2 years now. CXP Grind was the trigger. The ops players are mostly casuals now. They don't have time to grind like that. They want to do their weekly scheduled op or two with the old gang. The game has transitioned away from them being the focus for years now, but this CXP grind was clearly a rage trigger 'last straw' sort of thing.