Buy to play isnt good enough to provide income for server maintainance and expanssions. Sub fee without box purschapse and a small amount of cosmetics shop is the best.
To be honest a Buy to play model without a cash shop is not sustainable (talking about mmos here). Even with cash shop this will lead to rushed content or convenience items in the cash shop imo.
@KelloPudgerro In WoW its really easy to get enough ingame gold to buy the sub, you would need 1 month to get into the game and then another to farm your first free sub. You just buy the last expansion and 2 months sub and you are set, I spend like 30 min a day crafting and in 20 days I have enough gold for a Token.
I think free to play games in general are not the real problem, it's developers who design their free to play games solely for the purpose to generate as much money as possible...I mean look at mobile "strategy" games. One of the main game elements is WAITING for builidings or troops to get finished and the only way to get around that is to pay money.
That is because mobile games with that model makes 99.9% of all income from addicts paying for stupid shit like that ^^ South park manage to sum the "mobile game" industry up real good in Season 18, Episode Freemium Isn't Free. But i guess you are right, F2P in itself might not be the real problem, but the devolopers is.
Exactly...and the problem especially is that (as he mentions in the video), these designs only work for short term profits. Long term, they will fail because people eventually wise up to the exploitation. With that said though, I have played a number of F2P games, and a lot of what I've played are not nearly as exploitative as their reputation suggests. EVERY MMO has a grind, regardless of the pricing model...and a lot of F2P games you can grind to get by without breaking your wallet.
Archeage and Black Desert both were good enough games at their core to be the biggest MMOs on the market but were ruined by their terrible monitization systems.
Archeage is not p2w anymore, it is play to win and you can get the best gear in the game just grind mobs for 3 to 4 months. Archeage is more easy now to get the best gear compare to other MMO. If they want to p2w it is only 1 percent chance. Yes archeage still have a cash shop but it did not make them winning.
Archeage had a lot of really cool ideas mixed with some of the worst ones i've ever seen. Putting limited real estate into a game that uses land to do just about everything and then letting the first people on the server to make tons of $$ buy it all up is just a terrible game mechanic.
Buy to play is clearly the best option, you said it yourself, subscription mmos focus on content that you NEED to play to stay relevant, Buy to play just wants you to enjoy the game without that stress, GW2 has the best mmo setup i find, buy the game, play, u only find cosmetic or novely items on the store which you have an option to buy with ingame gold
Love gw2 and it's my favorite MMO out right now, but not a fan of their business model. Honestly, I am just not a fan of cash shops at all, since it can take away some wonder of the world. I just think if they want to add cool stuff its even cooler if it is tied to the world, deep in lore. A small thing I like that gw2 does in this is basic mechanics being in lore, like fast travel as an example. Why not make these cool skins actually incorporated as armor? Sure it takes more work, which is why personally I am growing to like the sub fee business model more, it takes more imagination to do it right and it forces the devs to ask themselves when they want to add some kind of armor or convience, "How can I impliment this?" rather than "How much money do I want to gain off of this?".
The world is amazing and what kept me playing for more than 100 hours earlier this year (after watching a Peon video) but it had no meaningful/rewarding endgame that I could find. Leveling up and exploring each zone was amazing. Once that was done... eh. Also, after purchasing PoF for the mount, I cannot imagine trying to level a new character without one.
As a grown ass man with a grown up man job, I don't really care about a game model. At least it's not a monetary decision. And I think there's quite a few people like me. The older generation of MMORPG players should probably increase in size over time. I have a personal distaste for "free to play" games, because I hate the roundabout way they try to suck money out of you. I like to be charged upfront. There are of course some exceptions, but not many. I voted for "buy to play", because sometimes I like to have an option to skip the grind, but I also want to be able to experience the entire game frustration-free, when I have free time. But really, all I care about is game quality. If it's not fun, why bother?
lol While I agree with your opinion starting with the grown ass man with a grown up man job is humorous. Is that really how a "grown ass man" would phrase that? Everyone gets it you try really hard at adulting in a very (seemingly important) manly way.
I would also vote for Buy 2 play but since I'm a Fascist, I would force the MMOs to be Buy 2 Play through tyrannical and dictatorial force. It means the game usually won't be P2W and I would be able to play the game on my own time. F2P is usually P2W, and S2P takes your life away but I have a life worth living.
I'm so glad to hear someone saying that subscription forces you to play, that's why i always preferred F2p or B2p, you're really free and in a sense, you "own" your character, you don't need to pay a fee to access what is actually yours, if not by money, by the hard work you put in it, something that actually worth a lot more.
True, but over the years, and playing many live service games with no sub, i've come to accept that a sub fee is needed to sustain a live service game and keep it going in the right direction.
Buy to play with a cosmetic only cash shop is my favourite type. I hate sub because I feel pressured to play and if I don't, I feel like im wasting my money.
Well one thing to keep in mind with those animes is that the developers care about allowing players to stand out. I don't care much for the premise of a few of them (where apparently someone missed the memo that people despise p2w), they generally allow one player or a small cast to be wildly more powerful than the rest of the players and it's kind of something I miss in games these days. I mean, exclusivity is silly, but not giving players a challenge to complete and a proper reward is more silly as far as I'm concerned. And when it comes to "good game design", nothing gameplay-wise should ever be exclusive (things I can think of off the top of my head in the animes that do this would be like Kirito from SAO being the only person in the game allowed to dual wield or how Diablo from How Not to Summon a Demon Lord is the only person in the game with an item that can reflect magic). Meanwhile I'd consider it good design to have things in the game that take tremendous amounts of effort to accomplish, akin to the quest items in games like Ragnarok Online where you could spend days or weeks to get a piece of gear. Some of them were a bit too much like the god items, but some were pretty reasonable (like the Sakkat). Unfortunately there's no game out there that I can call a perfect example of good game design. There are just games that got most of the critical points correct or understood what aspect of game design they were going to focus on and refined it to an unrivaled level while letting the other areas slack. It's truly a disappointment but I understand. Game design is expensive and it's reached a point where taking risks is hardly feasible.
It's kind of hard to call these MMOs worlds when everyone is running on their own set of rules. Paying to skip content, buying boosters for experience or item collection, + to RNG rolls, bag/bank space and the like. It's really becoming ridiculous. You can't get a straight deal with MMOs anymore and that's affecting the base gameplay. Gathering color coded loot and making bars grow is not compelling gameplay. The Skinner box is the default MMO gameplay loop now because that's the most effective way to make money based on wasting our time grinding to nowhere. Zynga would be proud. That company was constantly derided because of their trash gameplay loop, which is now the standard. We need a new deal, one that recognizes the reality of what an MMO is. An MMO is not a one time buy. B2P is a pipe dream much in the same way F2P is. B2P's initial infusion of cash soon evaporates and they have to rely on the trash schemes that F2P does to make their money. The initial price of B2P soon has to go away because the games bleed players just like F2P and their insipid grind to nowhere content updates can't last. Developers need to be taken to task about something with cosmetics, they do *not* cost that much to make and the *_RIDICULOUS_* prices that players actually spend on them are quite insane. Does anyone realize that because of the way cosmetics are being sold that we may never get character creators on the level of City of Heroes ever again? Think about features and upgrades to MMOs that will never be realized because of the way monetization has gone? *_Developers are being incentivised to make our experience trash in order to extract money._* There has to be better way to do this MMO deal without these garbage tier design philosophies. People say they can't afford .50 USD a day for a 30 day month (15.00 USD)? Sounds strange. Maybe there's a problem if you're trying to play every MMO in existence, but aren't most people looking for *1* solid MMO to play? How about a model that charged you by the day? _If you're not playing, you're not paying._ You buy tokens or whatever you call them for .50 a pop like an arcade and you spend them to log into the game. Discounts if you buy tons of them. Family/guild/friend discount options and the like. We have to stop settling for this weak nonsense being dribbled out by these companies, they have our number and they're playing us for fools. The games are *N-O-T* getting better! Fool yourself if you want to! Logging in to blitz run through brain dead content just pull a virtual lever for your color coded loot can only go on for so long before you have to admit you're just spinning your wheels and going nowhere. MMOs can do better, but first we need to kick this cash shop crutch right out from under developers/publishers and get them to get back to experimenting on making worlds and compelling gameplay systems again!
I agree. Monetization in the gaming industry as a whole has gotten so incredibly out of control. Not only are we players paying more money than ever for games, but we're receiving a crappier product at the same time. Games are buggier and unfinished and even purposely cut down for sale from day 1. 10 years ago, you'd buy a game for $60 and get a full story with co-op and splitscreen multiplayer and maybe even a level editor (ie. Timesplitters franchise) that provided the consumer with many hours of entertainment. Nowadays, you pay up to $100 for this year's rehash of a franchise with loot boxes, paid DLC and season passes for singleplayer games. Paid online subscription required. No co-op or multiplayer anymore because "what's that?". MMOs are just as bad. If they're not cash-grab localisations of Asian games that go P2W within a year (or, even worse, from launch), they're asking for up to $10k pledges in founders packs before the game is even released. I love your idea of "pay as you go" game time. It's highly convenient and low barrier to entry for players as well as upfront benefit for developers. Got the whole weekend to play? Buy 20 hours of game time. Something comes up and your plans change? You still have those 20 hours there waiting for use at your leisure. If your schedule is erratic and you don't know if you'll be able to play a lot for some months, you don't need to cancel your sub or feel like you're not getting your money's worth. Gift cards for game time could be available for those who can't or don't wish to pay online. It allows people to pay for or gift game time to friends or guildies. No worries about forgetting to cancel your sub and being charged for another whole month. If you have excess game time tokens and think you'll quit or won't use them, you can give them away to someone who does instead of just letting the time tick down on an inactive account. There's no doubt that this would be more expensive over time than a typical subscription game, but you pay for that convenience. Even the sweatiest nerds who play 18 hours a day still "waste" 30% of the sub time that they paid for, as the cost per hour of traditional subs increases for every hour you don't spend playing the game.
I love how you actually gave a good alternative solution to the payment problem. Tho i had an idea myself to add, lets say they do the 50cents token but also give the sub options for those hardcore daily players. Set it price to like 13$ or something like that that will give people the incentive to sub instead of buying tokens. Allot of people with extra moneywill end up subbing because it seems like a good deal and might miss a few days or take a few weeks off and end up paying more than they would if they used tokens. Now this was there own fault and they shouldn't be blaming the developers for it because they could have just cancelled there subs and bought tokens. But the developers will get extra no hard feelings cash in the process)
@@nanashivii9237 pay as you go actually sounds good because that actually would be the best business model for the older crowd that has jobs, other real life obligations. Who can probably only game for 1 or 2 hours a day.
"Logging in to blitz run through brain dead content just pull a virtual lever for your color coded loot", OMG i just reailized what i was doing in GW2 for the past 4 years in between big expansions
B2P for me. I play Guild Wars 2 and have been looking into ESO. I'm a student with no part time job, so subfee model is not possible for me (I really wanna try FFXIV, can't afford it). I also only play casually, so it might not pay off when exams come around and I'll stop playing for six weeks while drowning in schoolwork. MMORPGs for me are a way to enjoy immersive stories and fun experiences with your friends, so casual-friendly titles are more likely to draw my attention.
i played ff14 untill the last 2 Story chapters... i have to say i ve seen better stories. not rly in ESO but GW2 and BnS definately hooked me more, plottwists, great character writing and rather unexpecting scenarios...while most of the story in ff14 is predictable af. Not bad, but not worth a sub as well. Btw have you tried the free trial in ff14? try it and convince yourself. Although be warned earlygame is very slow paced but becomes great towards max lvl, depending on the job (class)
I played the free trial this summer, didn't enjoy the combat as much as GW2 and the lack of voice acting had me a bit worried, but I really want to see more of the story and simply can't because of the sub.
On top of that, you can buy "Bonds" which are consumable items in-game that grant membership, then sell those to other players, so even if you're f2p you can still play enough to get membership off of in-game work rather than real money, for those with a lot of time but no money
Back in the day when I was young it was basically WoW vs GW1. At the time the subscription based model for WoW was what made me play GW1 instead, since I was too young to have my own monthly income there was no way I would ever consider making a monthly financial commitment to anything, whereas buy to play was perfect. I would say this too is one of the cons for subscription based games, it generally scares away the younger audience.
Hey Peon, love your vids. I have stopped playing MMO's for years but I'm still waiting for the Holy Grail! Your channel helps me keep up with the industry. Cheers
Very good video, clear and well explained points. Personally, i'm for subscription based MMOs: guarantee rewenue for devs, periodical content update for a lomg term experience. I dont mind if publisher ask me for a "staring box" fee either. Also, paying a monthly fee, the player base do have some voice as we are paying for a service. Devs have to eventually adress tech issue, broken mechanics and balance in the game. Businness model really define what kind of playerbase the devs/publisher are targeting: fast paced casual - mainstream grindfest or "chill" long term achievments players. If being sub based means the game will be niche and not mainstreamf**kwow killer, i dont care.
Pay to play + subscription. Give them a massive headstart so they can use that to work on a new expansion, and once that is done, the money from subscription during the making of that expansion can be used for the next one.
I think Runescape's sub model is probably the best in the industry. It's hard to get people to try games that have a fee attached to them, and you'd have to be really into the mmorpg scene to know what upcoming pay to play games are going to be worth your time and money. In the Runescape model, players have access to a huge chunk of the game for free, and after tens of hours of playtime can determine if the game is worth their sub. They make the money of a "traditional" sub model (WoW, FF14), while also attracting a wider audience that's drawn in by the free trial. Unfortunately, I can't see it working in any upcoming mmo, as RS started as a f2p game before successfully transitioned into the subscription model. Thanks to those early years of development as an f2p game, paired with the incredibly wise decision to keep all of that content free, RS' free trial is already packed with more gameplay than many of the new mmos hitting the market nowadays. To succeed on a similar level, game devs would have to put years worth of fun, long term gameplay, which just seems impossible.
Great video but you're also forgetting a major point: cheaters/hackers. In F2P games the barrier of entry is less so that results in more hackers, botters, and cheaters. Since they can (and will) easily replenish accounts when banned. Compare that to games that are B2P, for example, you don't wanna cheat/bot because if you lose that account you gotta buy a NEW one and lose more money.
When I hear "free to play" I tend to cringe, so it's definitely not a market strategy that works on me. I've played a lot more terrible, moneygrab free to play games than I have good ones.
I think PoE has the best business model right now, entire game with no restrictions is free, expansions are free and aside from various stash tabs the shop is all cosmetics and easily ignored if you choose. GW2 has a fairly nice model as well but their inventory is very restrictive and you will most certainly feel compelled to spend money on that at some point, which isn't terrible considering how cheap the buy in for that is now. Unsurprisingly the very worst model right now is SWTOR under EA's umbrella. I refer to that as a free to try instead of free to play but aside from how restrictive their F2P model is, even once you sub you still end up spending just as much money as a F2P player in their shop if you actually want anything cool. All the sub does is lift the incredibly stringent restrictions they place on F2P players to force them into subbing. For me if you're paying a sub fee that should mean you can earn everything you want by playing the game and SWTOR is not like that.
It's an online multiplayer game with a daily concurrent player count in the thousands, qualifies it as an MMO to me and if you look up the definition it says basically exactly that. Regardless of your opinion on that though it has a payment model in an online environment, that's kind of the point of the question.
I appreciate that this video wasn't an attack on a specific model or game, and was your honest summary of the different models. It's hard to find videos on gaming monetization that aren't poorly disguised rants.
Yeah, but it isn't exactly an MMORPG. F2P model is not a good model for MMORPGS, it can work for other genres like mobas (LoL and Dota 2), battle royales (Fortnite) and some shooting games (Warframe), but it is ABSOLUTELY THE WORST model for MMORPGS!
All valid points, well thought out and put together video, sums up the pros and cons of each model. I would add one more con to the F2P model though, one that annoys me the most and thats the cost increase over time as population goes down. At first you may end up paying 10-15$, but as time goes on and population starts to dwindle you start paying more and more because devs/publishers need to keep the suits happy. Basically you never know what you sign up for with F2P on the long run. With B2P/subscription you know you have to pay 15$ a month and that's it. So in essence its very difficult to commit playing a F2P game as soon as signs of greed starts to emerge.
Runescape is limited free. You can play free, but there will be a point where you will want to sub to get access to a lot of other stuff. (But it's not pay to win because free players are never pitted against paying players. If a paying player wants to fight a free player, the paying player can only use free player items.)
I wouldent call Runescape free lol. There is like no content at all in the game except if you acculy pay for a membership. You have access to like 10% of the game if you dont pay. But if you are pleased with being limited to rune armor and such, then sure you dont have to pay. But Runescape isent really a good game if you dont pay for it, The Free part of the game is like a "demo" However, Bonds can be bought with ingame currency, So i guess you can acess the whole game whitout spending a single dime if you want to.
It's nice and all, but that's kinda consider as p2w since you can turn cashshop item into in game gold. But it's nice for f2p player to get item in cashshop without spending money, so I guess its win win situation?
@@sozo3336 In the end you either spend Time to play and earn it OR spend time to earn money and buy it, if you compare both actually playing 1 month to gain an item in a game is not worth it, because in real life you can work 1 month and buy 5 of those items.
Y'know what's funny? I don't even play MMOs anymore... ... *_but I watch every video of yours the day it's uploaded._* Purely because I enjoy listening to you, that's all. Goes to show the power of charisma, likability and being able to put your thoughts out there in a compelling way.
5:50 I always love seeing myself die in that siege. Those couple of weeks where we in Venari took Calpheon and then had some amazing castle fights were probably the best weeks of the game for me.
Peon please play Guild Wars 2 during Halloween theirs Halloween content is insanely good. And do a video about it :D BTW I think Buy to Play is the best model to use, ArenaNet with Guild Wars 2 is so damn humble how much content they give the players for nearly any cost.
Nice essay! Gave me a new perspective on games I play. I stared playing maple story again, just casual. Just going to nostalgia memory lane. I’ve always felt the pay to play with that game for convenience stuff like pets picking up items and what not. Without some of these things you feel like the grind is a lot slower than it should be.
There is 1 more Business Model , name Archeage . Need a new name for this Business Model because pay2win is to good . Maybe ultra pay2win or beyond pay2win
The worst part is that in Alpha, ArcheAge didn't have regrading, so all of the cash shop was cosmetic... Regrading came about at launch, but it wasn't so bad that it limited pvp. I sold Apex just to make up for the grind I couldn't do while at work. With each patch though (especially with 2.9 and since) the gear gap just got atrocious... For it to come back now, it'd need a complete overhaul of the combat (action combat is the new industry standard) and an overhaul to the equipment system (diminishing returns so that it doesn't take months of daily grinding to be more than cannon fodder). It won't happen though and that game will shut down next year. :p
+Terrific Life Nah, Archeage is p2w as fuck, but there are MANY more MMOs that are just as bad if not worse. See games publisher by Aeria, Gameforge, Perfect World, etc. Coming from someone who has played quite a bit of Archeage, you can actually become somewhat competitive within 2 months of their "optional" subscription. Obviously you won't be at the top by any means but you will be strong enough to competitively do world PvP. The real shame with Archeage is the fact that the game itself is absurdly good, but it is completely ruined by Trion not listening to their consumers.
Personally i don't care about getting my money's worth out of a game. Find me something that has BDO's visuals, WoW's dungeon & raiding depths, Runescape style questing, ArcheAge's pvp/POH system and I'll fucking pay whatever they ask.
Awesome video/commentary/redaction/discussion... haha, very cool I really I listened every single sentence. Willing to play ashes of the creation I prefer the subscription method but so far I haven't found any MMO with this model that really attracts me a lot to stay very long time or at least constantly like some of the "freemium" games out there.
"Pay for convenience" is cleverly disguised Pay to Win. Anyone that disagrees with that, ether doesn't understand what is being talked about, or have an absurd definition that they use where you literally buy things that cause you to win. Saying stupid things like "you cant win in an MMO" or "Someone with skill can still beat you"
I generally judge something to be pay to win if it gives you an end game advantage over players who didn't pay. XP boosters for example are not pay to win cause it doesn't effect how you perform in the end game. True pay to win games are games where the best loot and abilities are only available to people who pay or at the very least are extremely difficult to get if you don't pay. It's also worth adding for pvp sandbox games where groups of players amass resources, the purchase of said resources is also pay to win.
EXP and drop rate reduce the amount of time needed to reach the progression cieling. They do not increase the progression cieling beyond what anyone else can achieve. This is the fundemental difference between "Conveniance" and P2W. Wether you find this acceptable or not is up to you.
Except there are MMOs where you're not really expected to hit the max lvl. Games like Lineage 2, where the grind is real and you lose xp when you die. In such games 'pay for convenience' becomes 'pay to win'. Hell, let's take a cookie-cutter, theme-park MMO, something akin to WoW. Let's say we all start at lvl 1. If player A buys a 100% XP boost and player B doesn't even if they play at the same efficiency player A will hit certain milestones earlier. That will allow him to earn certain things earlier (items, skills, money). Those new items/skills/money will widen the gap even more for however long it will take player B to catch up. Now, player A has had a lot more time to set them selves up for LIFE solidifying his reign on the auction house, while player B will have to just be a cog in the machine. It's clearly P2W. Sure, it's P2W for a time period, but if you saw 'INCREASE DAMAGE BY 50% for 24 hours' for 9.99$ or '10k gold for 4.99$' in the item store I highly doubt you'd call it 'PAY FOR CONVENIENCE'.
That was a really great vid, peon! Your pro-con-video style from your first impressions videos really carries over nicely to discussion videos like this. I hope you enjoy making content like this, because I'd love to watch / listen to more. :)
You lost me at MOBAs and pay to unlock heroes, sorry but thats shitty practices, DOTA 2 is the only one where you dont need to buy anything to enjoy the game the same way as everyone. Locking heroes with a paywall can be considered pay to win, but I guess that doesnt mean shit since League has forever shitty "champions" and meta. Thats the only logical explanation.
I guess you never played anthing else than Dota2? LoL is the same way. Heroes of the Storm as well. And yes I played all of them and no I am not biased.
In what way is Lol And Heroes of the storm the same as Dota 2? You got acess to every single character right from start on Dota. LoL And HOTS instead have a number of free characters each week. I played all of them aswell, And HOTS and LoL is nothing like Dota 2.
I agree with you but that's not smite's problem (it's so ez to get a god with the in game currency ) though smite has shitty practices when it comes to selling skins (lootboxes where you have to get certain skins in a chest), but I agree he didn't sound really convincing after that.
heroes buying is actually great design. It keeps you playing with the goal of getting a new hero and letting people buy said hero with real money gives the developers income to run there free game. If your mad that you don't get given every part of the free game when you open it then that's not the developers problem (this came out a bit harsh but im not that good with words to word it properly and less offensive) Also keeping a hero rotation stops a new person from getting overwhelmed
Every point you said is true (well except "great design") but it hurts the fair element and introduces pay2win elements. Current metas and always shifting (im only aware of DOTA 2's meta, not League's altho I did hear bad remarks about it everywhere online) are really important, what happens when a said player doesnt have the means to play a really strong hero in the current meta just cause he didnt spend money? I havent even mentioned the part about needing 700 DOLLARS for every single hero, that is absurd. DOTA's new ban and hero rotations are way better implemented on top of every hero being available. Heroes chosen within the weekly gains an extra Mango which replenishes mana once. And bans, player can "vote" on which heroes to be banned at the start of the game to reduces the possibility of a really annoying and strong hero in the current meta. I dont understand why League players cant all this as absurd.
Monetizing our game (ReWorld Online) was quite a challenge and we manage do to something very cool. We have created “Adventurer” and “Hero” passes that will give users access to different feature unlocks within the game. We have modeled ReWorld to remain a free to play game and not a pay to win model (or convenience). The player will be able to create a world and mod it (like Ultima Online's shards) VIP packages will allow the owner(s) of a world to not pay for their online presence, which will drastically reduce the hosting costs. In addition, a sum will be given to creators to encourage and foster diversity through modification kickbacks. ReWorld will also offer rewards that have no impact on the player's character power. These upgrades will be implemented though cosmetics, dance, spell animations or even house/boat designs and upgrades. The Hero's package is the same as adventurer, but 5$ will be given every month to the creators of mods and worlds. Nice video!
IMO I think POE has set the standard for a free to play game they're always updating it none stop always making it better always listening to their players and because of that mostly people want to go out of their way to spend money to look better have more space for more items because they're hooked on the game and they made a choice not because the game made them do it in anyway and that is what I call a real game
Or you could be blizzard, buy the game buy the subscription put all the good cosmetic mounts on the cash shop. Sell gold for real money profit from three sides🤣
Only mmo's that kept me hooked for years were Runescape and FFXIV. I've tried others, but none of them hooked me in as much as these did. Pinpoiting all the reasons why I enjoyed them more will take hours at least, therefore I'm going with the assumption that Sub based models often times improve the game.
Maybe you can make review of GameZbd private black desert sever or even try it for your self we have EU and NA servers and just reached 7k total online players
This video was an excellent synopsis of what's going on in the MMO genre. I hadn't considered some of the design decisions that would go into a subscription based model and it was really enlightening. All in all I think that cash stores completely nullify a lot of what is enticing about an MMO to me. Seeing an extremely rare BOP item in WoW or a Jedi in Star Wars Galaxies Pre-CU was a sort of awe inspiring feeling that I find lacking in any game that allows dope stuff to be purchased, circumventing the absurd time constraints that although I never have been able to fulfill I can appreciate a hardcore player's dedication.
When the content is good there is no problem to sell the game for 49.99 bucks. But a good free to play model is also an good option - when its done right!
There's a reason why sub MMOs have died out, with very few still remaining [and even almighty WoW barely has a fraction of the subs it used to have]. F2P with micro-transactions simply earn more money.
@@AzureRoxe I'm curious where you get your information. MMOs with a subscription pay model aren't dying. The smaller ones die or go F2P or B2P because the larger ones dramatically overshadow them, from what I can tell. WoW isn't losing sub numbers because it's a subscription based game, but because people don't like the direction the game is going in general. FFXIV isn't dying, it's just not as popular as WoW because some people don't care for the combat being more methodical versus a more engaging proc-based reaction combat system, like WoW, or just the Eastern feel to the game. I've played several F2P games, they typically just lack the same variety or care that a sub game has to offer, or end up moving towards a P2W model which is disgusting as far as I'm concerned. Not mention most, if not all, subscription based games also have in game stores for cosmetics as well. TLDR: sub games don't die because they're sub games.
I was fine with the WoW sub because it felt like I got everything in the game. ESO is cool and fun to level up in until you realize all of the cool stuff either costed crowns or was DLC.
How far did you get into the game and how long ago was that? Because now you're able tons of cool outfits for free without dlc, There is also a way to get a large chunk of crown store cosmetics for free.
"Pay for convenience" is really in a grey zone. If we're playing the amount of hours but I'm using cash shop items to give me an advantage that's equivalent to hours of playing time, at what point do you get to call me out for Paying to Win or paying to get ahead?
@Rémy Boivin You mean if you got the money, why not just pay to win or get ahead? Yes that's fine for people with the money... but it ruins the experience for others that are looking for a fair game. It's the same reason why performance enhancing drugs are not allowed in sports
The best pay model is Steal 2 Play. You just go and play on p.servers of your fav game, for example BDO, Metin2, Aion, Dekaron, Tibia, 4story (I remember times on Eternia Games)
I only quickly want to mention that there is a subscription based model in eso, that somewhat overlaps with the buy to play model and the cash shop. To quickly hit up the difference it makes, the subscription will cover more bag space (indirectly since crafting bag becomes separate and infinite, however bank space is doubled) and access to most DLC content ( i say most here since summerset is technically not considered DLC but a new chapter or something but is however downloadable additional content). What this means for the player, if you want to try out eso as a new player the entry buy to play is very low, often in sale and sometimes even with the try for free weeks. People can enjoy a massive amount of content lore and story without much limitation for a very little amount of money. After that in general there is the distinction between subscription base and buying every dlc separate. Normally this would split the player base quite heavily where the subscription based is used for somewhat hardcore players or at least dedicated players and the buying dlc separately is for the player that dives into the lore step by step. However the way eso is setup without any crazy grind mechanics and with a normalized damage coverage over the levels (basically making a lvl 10 character about similar in usefulness as a lvl 50) encourages the players to play together greatly. A hardcore player can still optimize his build and find ways to keep him busy and maximize damage or test himself in pvp while also being able to join up for some dungeons with more casual players. If you ask me a nice balance from a player perspective. A quick mention that losing subscription is hardly punished at all, most gameplay items are obtainable trough gameplay and daily rewards will give you glimpses of what the cash shop can offer you (more often than not the daily rewards make you look cool give you a decent mount and pet and some extra help for players that don't have all day to play). This turned out to be longer than intended but i feel like a big portion of business model of eso is subscription based, which is a bit misleading after watching your video. Great video besides that, shoutouts to the ever so sturdy subscription based mmo of EVE online and looking forward to your next topic.
Buy to play+Subscription BUT free DLC and Expansions. edit: and if cash shop then only cosmetics and nothing else. edit 2: Free to Play is the worst scam ever
yes. this is why WoW is still around cause they have money to keep em going. And I prefer to give a sub rather than p2w aspects. the only thing though that I believe is fair is free dlc and expansions since you pay the sub
You know that ESO tried this and had to go f2p within a year after launch cause it failed so badly right? They had a $/€60 pricetag and a $/€15 sub fee with in-game cash shop. WoW only managed to get this far with it because a big MMO like that was still pretty new back when that first came out and their player base now pays for it because they don't know better. However even WoW has changed their payment program, you pay for sub and you get base game+all expansions right up to the newest one(so till lvl 110 currently) but you only pay extra to play the newest expansion (to lvl 120). And even WoW has a cash shop that can be considered p2w with max level boosts and paying real money for in-game currency.
yeah i know about ESO is my main mmorpg these days. To be honest, I dont care 100% about the business model. The only thing i dont want is f2p and p2w. You have to pay the game or a sub. Somehow they must make money. ESOplus is actually a good sub model and i like guildwars 2 business model. WoW would be good if it wasnt for the overpriced expansion and the extremely overpriced extras e.g 20 euros to change your race ffs
I don't care too much what the model is, I don't mind paying for games. I like GW2s model of F2P with B2P expansions and optional cash shop. GW2 has the best execution of a F2P system in any MMO. I still spend about 20-50 dollars a month on GW2, but most of that is cosmetics and is in no way required to play the game. I know friends who don't buy any gems with real money and it doesn't hidner their game play whatsoever.Also, at the moment I like that it doesn't have a sub fee because I don't have as much time to play the game as I used to.
I only play subscription based MMO's. It keeps quite a lot of plebs out and most importantly it's actually cheaper then a Free to Play game where you have to buy stuff like dungeon tokens and like dungeons and what not locked behind purchases. I'd much rather pay a monthly fee and have the full game available. This is why I only play WoW and FF XIV.
Glenn Van Laere truth! Though guild wars 2 is incredibly fair and fun. Buy the expansions and then some fair micros. I prefer subscription but GW2 feels like a sub based mmo
@@synth_pulse3098 nah, ESO feels like a sub based mmo, charging for every little adition to the game... or just plainly demand a sub fee to have it for """free""", kind of ironic
M.A.Palacios ummm contradictory? Eso requires every patch to be paid for for the free to play user. Unless your subbed you buy the expacs and that’s it. GW2 you buy the expacs and as long as you log in and play during living world seasons it’s free to keep.
@@synth_pulse3098 thats what i said, GW2 is truly a b2p model because it only requires you to buy the base game + expansions, ESO on the other hand charges you on every little patch they unless you have a sub (in which case they advertise as "having the content for free", which is ironic), so i personally dont consider it a truly b2p game.
"I'd much rather pay a monthly fee and have the full game available. This is why I only play WoW" ???????????????????? You got be fucking kidding you put this two phrases together... Wow you need pay to play, pay to the expations, AND PAY THE FUCKING PREMIUM... HOW CAN THIS POSSIBLE BE ONLY THE SUBSCRIPTION?
Great video mate. There's nothing more to add, as always I guess. Nicely researched, and pretty much summed up my thoughts. :D Specially the BDO example. Love ya Peon! :D Hope your uncle is fine, and that we get to see more content, specifically AoC content, of you soon :)
I think they are both good in their own ways. Ive been playing both Blade and Soul and Black Desert Online since release in the west, and I enjoy both of their combat styles. When it comes down to it, I think BnS was so fun to play combat wise due to the fact that the combat felt so smooth and impactful. Whereas black desert has a lot more skills and has almost the same effect.
Very nice breakdown , i personally would prefer a buy to play game with small cosmetic options because i find it hard to commit to a monthly sub fee , the game would have to be really good to make me pay for it monthly , sub fee model does seems to be the best but the game itself has to stand out to encourage ppl to pay for it monthly. Also i see you’re using Adrian Von Ziegler music , celtic and fantasy music are my favourites with Brunuhville and Adrian being 2 of my fav composers , didn’t expect to hear their music in the background xD Are you also a fan of this genre of music ? :o
One thing not mentioned is WoW tokens. If a player is investing time into the MMO, they can use in game currency to purchase game time, provided someone else has spent money (essentially to purchase gold). It has the added benefit of preventing gold farmers and third party gold selling services. It seems like a difficult thing to balance, but there are some real benefits to the system, and allows those who spend a great deal of time in game to essentially play for free. I wonder how a game with a mixture of theme park and sandbox features would do with a lower sub fee (maybe $5 a month), the need to buy expansions, a cash shop that is not P2W, and a token system. You could allow players to play completely for free up to a certain level, at which point they would have to buy the base game and pay sub fee (either with cash or tokens). Allowing players to play until a certain level would make it easy for anyone to pick up the game... and if it is a high enough level hopefully they will become invested (think how differently it would be to let someone play to level 40 or 50 in WoW instead of the current lvl 20). The sub fee would be lower (and could be offset by tokens) which would be a big draw over the $15 dollar model, and easier to convince people to sub (and keep number of active players potentially higher). They would rely a touch more on cash shops, similar to the buy to play model, but the sandbox features and the 1/3 of steady revenue from subs could keep revenue a bit more stable between expansions. The small sub would make them slightly less reliant upon the cash shop (compared to f2p and even buy to play), meaning less chance of making the game overly grindy or inconvenient to keep the game funded. I think this system would be a happy medium between buy to play and subscription models, with certain features that makes free to play attractive to players (getting into the game without spending a dime, leading to investment in the game before a purchase is made, and a token system allowing players to pay for free). The lower sub would be a big draw to people currently paying $15 dollars a month, and less of a barrier to entry to those who have not paid for a sub game before. The cash shop would not be overly relied upon like in f2p, but could be an easy way to generate additional income. What do you guys think of this? Would you play this kind of game? If it was good enough, could it pull you from WoW or FFIV? If you've never paid a sub fee, would this make you more likely to try it? Do you think this model would be viable from a business standpoint?
i guess its all about priorities. would you rather spend those 15 dollars for one meal or the chance to entertain yourself for potentially hundreds of hours... the choice is yours
ok sure but if you have a pc and you have enough freebtime to play the game. you are probably not that poor. i dont think people who cant spend 15 dollars a month would even care about getting entertained by games
@@kefkapalazzo1092 Its more expensive than any other model.. Its not that it is expensive in itself, its that compared to just buying a 60$ game and nothing else, it is wildly more expensive. over a 5 year period you are paying 900$ for a single game.
I've never felt the need to play every day to get my money's worth in WoW. At $15/month, just a few hours makes it worth it - and if I run out of content I enjoy playing I just stop paying the monthly sub fee and move on to something else until more content is added. WoW is actually being developed this way since Legion with more content being added on a regular basis between Xpacks, so there is good reason to quit for a month or two and come back later when there's more new stuff to do. Anyhoo great topic well covered Peon, thanks for the vid!
There are two hybrid business models that I'm surprised you didn't cover. Free to Play with optional subscription, or the dual subscription model where a player can pay with real money or in-game currency. Just looking at the top 3 MMOs that use(d) these models: World of Warcraft, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and Wildstar(before it went F2P). I think the existence of the latter model is a major contributing factor to WoW's ability to maintain subs during content droughts. It's a much easier sell to ask a veteran player to pay some gold for their monthly sub instead of real money. I would also bet that if Wildstar's core gameplay and content was done better in it's early days, then it would have been able to maintain the dual-subscription model. Finally, in the case of Star Wars: The Old Republic, it's an example of how to transition into free to play the right way. Offering players an absolute truck ton of good cosmetics and ONLY cosmetics for real money. It still has the hallmarks of a F2P game in terms of restrictions on gameplay, but unlike other games simply offers a monthly sub fee to remove all restrictions on top of offering free Cartel Coins (the premium currency) each month with your sub.
USBEN, What are you talking about lol? There is more content in the base game than all of the additional content put together with story-rich content that is way higher quality than most MMOs.
Not really. Sure it's handy to have it but it's not needed at all, I went a full year without it and I was fine. And does having a bag for mats make the game more fun lol?
Just a thought, i don't know if someone already suggested this but if anyone sees this let me know what you think and possible problems that can occur. What about a hybrid model? like one that starts free to play with its own free to play end game, and a subscription/buy to play ADDITION that allows the individual to continue the story, get new things that can't be obtained in the free to play version, have a better visual in comparison in terms of graphics, and a advancement in class skills that wouldn't be seen in the free to play. On top of that have a buy to play/subscription with its own end game. I think this would cater to a larger interest since those with low spec computers have the chance to play the game until they want to truly devote their time and effort into the game, so kind of like a long free trial into a buy-to-play/subscription version. Free to play version would have cash items for convenience, and cosmetics. 1. The cash items for convenience must be obtainable through in-game events that anyone can participate in, but is a bit of a grind to get. These can occur during special holidays and not all the time obviously. 2. The cash items for convenience doesn't necessarily tip the game into the pay to win realm but rather takes off an hour or 2 from a grind. 3. Unlike black desert where the cosmetics are the only way to look good, the game has equipment that fits its setting, ex) medieval with weapons and armour that would seem to belong to that era, but still look decent, and the only effect the cosmetics have is to break that immersion so ex) fancy tuxedo, modern clothes, futuristic looking sht. Although some people might not like it since it might break immersion... Buy to play/subscription would have cash items for convenience, and cosmetics. HOWEVER there needs to be a special discount on cash items, and the events must be easier for the buy to play/subscription. There would need to be a pvp separation for the 2 "versions" of the game since its downright unfair to match a buy to play with free to play. Perhaps a separation in servers to but idk.
Woo shout out to Runescape! Seriously tho thank you, I've seen a lot of videos about MMOs and Runescape seems to just get forgotten a lot of the time. I'm sure there are a lot of people who'd say "Runescape LUL" but it's got a decent amount of subscribers and it's player count has been on the rise in recent years.
Buy to play with the option for a subscription to offer faster leveling/Convince (Nothing that can effect combat/gear etc). You can sub while your leveling new characters and play casually with out the feeling of having to play to get your moneys worth.
I think the biggest issue is that the considered acceptable prices for B2P and subs have remained static - $60 and $15, respectively. But meanwhile, inflation has definitely surpassed population increases (let's use wow as a baseline in 2006 - then 25% and 10% respectively) meaning that a game dev is having to lose that gap somewhere in the process, and usually by delivered content or microtransactions (or usually both). Since a game company is effectively having to make do with less, and meanwhile, our expectations of what the "next big thing" would deliver is a superset of everything cool from stuff we've seen before, I don't think we're ever going to get that if they use classic business models, even if they're considered more consumer friendly.
Black desert is buy to play, pay to win, play to win, and subscription model alltogether. Don't believe me? In sea server the game costs 10 usd minimum (5 usd if discount) to even have permanent access, yes they use USD for some reason thus it's buy to play. U have to grind crazily. 6 hrs a day is a minimum to catch up, otherwise you wouldn't be able to enjoy one of the biggest aspect of the game, that is pvp. Thus it's play to win. Don't wanna grind that much? That's fine. You could always buy all these extremely convenient tent, costume, exp up, pet etc to boost your gaining and exp by up to 300% othe.. wait that's pay for convenience you say? Oh no problem you could always sell these pearl items to marketplace. Instant money! You could buy end game gears rightaway with that money. Thus it's pay 2 win. But wait.. you still need to pay extra 10 dolars per month to use the marketplace effectively. Unless you want all of your sold items to be almost half the price.. that's up to you though.. but as low as 10 usd per month you can get value pack! Eeeextra inventory space, exp up, mount exp up etc.for 30 days! Thus it's subscription based..
The best model imo is one that allows you to build an mmorpg designed to have everything included without having to spend extra money, buy it once, get everything, expansion releases? buy expansion and yet again have 100% access to everything via in-game progress and no artificial barriers to slow down grind of any kind or to boost it of any kind. For online mmorpg's obviously a subscription on top of that is needed to keep making money with such a model, but it's something i personally feel is an acceptable fee for a game i enjoy and want to play. I think a good option is Free to Play up to a certain level (like a trial period but permanent) and then it becomes subscription fee to continue playing, with expansions costing money. That way you can still develop the game from top to bottom to be a complete game without an in-game shop interference and you make sure players can try out the game without having to spend money up-front before they have tried it out which seems to be a big barrier of entry for many casual players (which is the majority)
i really liked the way ddo made the game, free to play with a subscription option that give you access to all quests, class and race and that you can win points in game that allows free to play player to get as far as the p2p players (granted through a big grind) it allows players to have the same gear without being forced to pay (although recommended).
During the buy-to-play segment, you showed a lot of ESO clips. I would personally put it into P2W, since it is actually damn near impossible to play without paying the "optional" sub. Without a sub, you have very limited bag/bank space, no reagent bank access, and other things. AND on top of that there are loot-boxes.
you should try looking into oldschool runescapes business model. its really interesting, you can play it for free but it locks you out of some content, and you can buy a subscription to get acsess to the full game, but whats really interesting is that runescape uses something called a bond, it lets you get mebership for 14 days and players can trade it to eachother, what this means is that if you really want to you can earn enough money ingame to substain your mebership by buying bonds from other players whitout paying anyting and vice versa you can buy and sell a bond to get some extra cash, this system works incredibily well.
I hate the subscription model, because it forces you to play, it costs the most in the long run and it also feels like a wayste of money because what you get for the money is time to play, while in other games you get something that keeps existing, like exclusive cosmetics or the game by itself.
I like subscriptions games. I think the hurdle to get new players involved is to offer free weekends (Like FFXIV does) or offer it free up to a certain level with no other restrictions (except for more permeant things like player housing or joining guilds).
Vote on this strawpoll with what business model you think is best :) - strawpoll.com/sb3z4s44
B2P all the way IMO
Where's the Warframe business model?
The F2P Pay to win option is meaningless
Buy to play isnt good enough to provide income for server maintainance and expanssions. Sub fee without box purschapse and a small amount of cosmetics shop is the best.
just give me BDO with sub fees, no p2w and actual content, ty daddy
Buy to play is always the best, or the Guild Wars 2 model where they offer F2P on the base game and B2P for expansions.
Agreed, i really wish wow went buy to play, i cant stand the feeling of NEEDING to play a certain amount to get my moneys worth
Its not always best. Any of these models can be done well as long as they dont abuse the players
This is why i only play that game.
To be honest a Buy to play model without a cash shop is not sustainable (talking about mmos here). Even with cash shop this will lead to rushed content or convenience items in the cash shop imo.
@KelloPudgerro In WoW its really easy to get enough ingame gold to buy the sub, you would need 1 month to get into the game and then another to farm your first free sub. You just buy the last expansion and 2 months sub and you are set, I spend like 30 min a day crafting and in 20 days I have enough gold for a Token.
I think free to play games in general are not the real problem, it's developers who design their free to play games solely for the purpose to generate as much money as possible...I mean look at mobile "strategy" games. One of the main game elements is WAITING for builidings or troops to get finished and the only way to get around that is to pay money.
Well, it's not the developers in most cases but the publishers who drive the P2W agenda tbh.
That is because mobile games with that model makes 99.9% of all income from addicts paying for stupid shit like that ^^ South park manage to sum the "mobile game" industry up real good in Season 18, Episode Freemium Isn't Free.
But i guess you are right, F2P in itself might not be the real problem, but the devolopers is.
Zardoz facts
Exactly...and the problem especially is that (as he mentions in the video), these designs only work for short term profits. Long term, they will fail because people eventually wise up to the exploitation. With that said though, I have played a number of F2P games, and a lot of what I've played are not nearly as exploitative as their reputation suggests. EVERY MMO has a grind, regardless of the pricing model...and a lot of F2P games you can grind to get by without breaking your wallet.
that it did, issue was getting people back after the horrid launch.
Archeage and Black Desert both were good enough games at their core to be the biggest MMOs on the market but were ruined by their terrible monitization systems.
Seventy Monocle Archeage would have been absolutely massive if it didn’t go pay to win, such a shame :(
Archeage is not p2w anymore, it is play to win and you can get the best gear in the game just grind mobs for 3 to 4 months. Archeage is more easy now to get the best gear compare to other MMO. If they want to p2w it is only 1 percent chance. Yes archeage still have a cash shop but it did not make them winning.
Archeage had a lot of really cool ideas mixed with some of the worst ones i've ever seen. Putting limited real estate into a game that uses land to do just about everything and then letting the first people on the server to make tons of $$ buy it all up is just a terrible game mechanic.
They are making it better with hiram and library gear you can get 11-12k gear score but of course if you pay you get power faster
i miss archeage...it had so much potential and so many cool ideals yet even now its still a p2w pile of trash i would never play again
Buy to play is clearly the best option, you said it yourself, subscription mmos focus on content that you NEED to play to stay relevant, Buy to play just wants you to enjoy the game without that stress, GW2 has the best mmo setup i find, buy the game, play, u only find cosmetic or novely items on the store which you have an option to buy with ingame gold
elasmar1337 just started playing, just hit level 30 and currently, I cannot fathom going back to WoW. The world is incredibly designed!
Love gw2 and it's my favorite MMO out right now, but not a fan of their business model. Honestly, I am just not a fan of cash shops at all, since it can take away some wonder of the world. I just think if they want to add cool stuff its even cooler if it is tied to the world, deep in lore. A small thing I like that gw2 does in this is basic mechanics being in lore, like fast travel as an example. Why not make these cool skins actually incorporated as armor? Sure it takes more work, which is why personally I am growing to like the sub fee business model more, it takes more imagination to do it right and it forces the devs to ask themselves when they want to add some kind of armor or convience, "How can I impliment this?" rather than "How much money do I want to gain off of this?".
The problem is so many go free to play even when it starts buy to play I think it's best to start as sub then go buy to play of the game dies down.
Ff14 isn't this way
The world is amazing and what kept me playing for more than 100 hours earlier this year (after watching a Peon video) but it had no meaningful/rewarding endgame that I could find. Leveling up and exploring each zone was amazing. Once that was done... eh. Also, after purchasing PoF for the mount, I cannot imagine trying to level a new character without one.
As a grown ass man with a grown up man job, I don't really care about a game model. At least it's not a monetary decision. And I think there's quite a few people like me. The older generation of MMORPG players should probably increase in size over time.
I have a personal distaste for "free to play" games, because I hate the roundabout way they try to suck money out of you. I like to be charged upfront. There are of course some exceptions, but not many.
I voted for "buy to play", because sometimes I like to have an option to skip the grind, but I also want to be able to experience the entire game frustration-free, when I have free time. But really, all I care about is game quality. If it's not fun, why bother?
lol While I agree with your opinion starting with the grown ass man with a grown up man job is humorous. Is that really how a "grown ass man" would phrase that? Everyone gets it you try really hard at adulting in a very (seemingly important) manly way.
*David Grouix*
What makes you think that is how he normally speaks?
It was probably just a stylistic choice.
I was just joking, man. About my man job that is. My job is quite boring, in fact.
I would also vote for Buy 2 play but since I'm a Fascist, I would force the MMOs to be Buy 2 Play through tyrannical and dictatorial force. It means the game usually won't be P2W and I would be able to play the game on my own time. F2P is usually P2W, and S2P takes your life away but I have a life worth living.
I'm so glad to hear someone saying that subscription forces you to play, that's why i always preferred F2p or B2p, you're really free and in a sense, you "own" your character, you don't need to pay a fee to access what is actually yours, if not by money, by the hard work you put in it, something that actually worth a lot more.
True, but over the years, and playing many live service games with no sub, i've come to accept that a sub fee is needed to sustain a live service game and keep it going in the right direction.
Zenith VRMMORPG on SteamVR\Quest is sold for $30, and has free:updates for life, and has no cash:shop as of now.
Buy to play with a cosmetic only cash shop is my favourite type. I hate sub because I feel pressured to play and if I don't, I feel like im wasting my money.
Or just take a break.
That moment when MMORPGs are more popular as an anime concept than actual game :(
Well one thing to keep in mind with those animes is that the developers care about allowing players to stand out. I don't care much for the premise of a few of them (where apparently someone missed the memo that people despise p2w), they generally allow one player or a small cast to be wildly more powerful than the rest of the players and it's kind of something I miss in games these days. I mean, exclusivity is silly, but not giving players a challenge to complete and a proper reward is more silly as far as I'm concerned. And when it comes to "good game design", nothing gameplay-wise should ever be exclusive (things I can think of off the top of my head in the animes that do this would be like Kirito from SAO being the only person in the game allowed to dual wield or how Diablo from How Not to Summon a Demon Lord is the only person in the game with an item that can reflect magic). Meanwhile I'd consider it good design to have things in the game that take tremendous amounts of effort to accomplish, akin to the quest items in games like Ragnarok Online where you could spend days or weeks to get a piece of gear. Some of them were a bit too much like the god items, but some were pretty reasonable (like the Sakkat).
Unfortunately there's no game out there that I can call a perfect example of good game design. There are just games that got most of the critical points correct or understood what aspect of game design they were going to focus on and refined it to an unrivaled level while letting the other areas slack. It's truly a disappointment but I understand. Game design is expensive and it's reached a point where taking risks is hardly feasible.
@@Wildcolt damn dude...I'm not gonna read that, idk how my simple comment can escalate this insanely LOL
Sorry, I got to rambling ;p
most of my friends couldn't get to like GW2 or a bit of ESO because they were not anime-ish enough like BDO, tera, etc
It's kind of hard to call these MMOs worlds when everyone is running on their own set of rules. Paying to skip content, buying boosters for experience or item collection, + to RNG rolls, bag/bank space and the like. It's really becoming ridiculous. You can't get a straight deal with MMOs anymore and that's affecting the base gameplay.
Gathering color coded loot and making bars grow is not compelling gameplay. The Skinner box is the default MMO gameplay loop now because that's the most effective way to make money based on wasting our time grinding to nowhere.
Zynga would be proud. That company was constantly derided because of their trash gameplay loop, which is now the standard. We need a new deal, one that recognizes the reality of what an MMO is. An MMO is not a one time buy. B2P is a pipe dream much in the same way F2P is. B2P's initial infusion of cash soon evaporates and they have to rely on the trash schemes that F2P does to make their money. The initial price of B2P soon has to go away because the games bleed players just like F2P and their insipid grind to nowhere content updates can't last.
Developers need to be taken to task about something with cosmetics, they do *not* cost that much to make and the *_RIDICULOUS_* prices that players actually spend on them are quite insane.
Does anyone realize that because of the way cosmetics are being sold that we may never get character creators on the level of City of Heroes ever again? Think about features and upgrades to MMOs that will never be realized because of the way monetization has gone? *_Developers are being incentivised to make our experience trash in order to extract money._*
There has to be better way to do this MMO deal without these garbage tier design philosophies. People say they can't afford .50 USD a day for a 30 day month (15.00 USD)? Sounds strange. Maybe there's a problem if you're trying to play every MMO in existence, but aren't most people looking for *1* solid MMO to play? How about a model that charged you by the day? _If you're not playing, you're not paying._ You buy tokens or whatever you call them for .50 a pop like an arcade and you spend them to log into the game. Discounts if you buy tons of them. Family/guild/friend discount options and the like.
We have to stop settling for this weak nonsense being dribbled out by these companies, they have our number and they're playing us for fools. The games are *N-O-T* getting better! Fool yourself if you want to! Logging in to blitz run through brain dead content just pull a virtual lever for your color coded loot can only go on for so long before you have to admit you're just spinning your wheels and going nowhere. MMOs can do better, but first we need to kick this cash shop crutch right out from under developers/publishers and get them to get back to experimenting on making worlds and compelling gameplay systems again!
I agree. Monetization in the gaming industry as a whole has gotten so incredibly out of control. Not only are we players paying more money than ever for games, but we're receiving a crappier product at the same time. Games are buggier and unfinished and even purposely cut down for sale from day 1.
10 years ago, you'd buy a game for $60 and get a full story with co-op and splitscreen multiplayer and maybe even a level editor (ie. Timesplitters franchise) that provided the consumer with many hours of entertainment. Nowadays, you pay up to $100 for this year's rehash of a franchise with loot boxes, paid DLC and season passes for singleplayer games. Paid online subscription required. No co-op or multiplayer anymore because "what's that?".
MMOs are just as bad. If they're not cash-grab localisations of Asian games that go P2W within a year (or, even worse, from launch), they're asking for up to $10k pledges in founders packs before the game is even released.
I love your idea of "pay as you go" game time. It's highly convenient and low barrier to entry for players as well as upfront benefit for developers.
Got the whole weekend to play? Buy 20 hours of game time. Something comes up and your plans change? You still have those 20 hours there waiting for use at your leisure.
If your schedule is erratic and you don't know if you'll be able to play a lot for some months, you don't need to cancel your sub or feel like you're not getting your money's worth.
Gift cards for game time could be available for those who can't or don't wish to pay online. It allows people to pay for or gift game time to friends or guildies.
No worries about forgetting to cancel your sub and being charged for another whole month.
If you have excess game time tokens and think you'll quit or won't use them, you can give them away to someone who does instead of just letting the time tick down on an inactive account.
There's no doubt that this would be more expensive over time than a typical subscription game, but you pay for that convenience. Even the sweatiest nerds who play 18 hours a day still "waste" 30% of the sub time that they paid for, as the cost per hour of traditional subs increases for every hour you don't spend playing the game.
I love how you actually gave a good alternative solution to the payment problem. Tho i had an idea myself to add, lets say they do the 50cents token but also give the sub options for those hardcore daily players. Set it price to like 13$ or something like that that will give people the incentive to sub instead of buying tokens. Allot of people with extra moneywill end up subbing because it seems like a good deal and might miss a few days or take a few weeks off and end up paying more than they would if they used tokens. Now this was there own fault and they shouldn't be blaming the developers for it because they could have just cancelled there subs and bought tokens. But the developers will get extra no hard feelings cash in the process)
and then dieing out like wildstar
@@nanashivii9237 pay as you go actually sounds good because that actually would be the best business model for the older crowd that has jobs, other real life obligations. Who can probably only game for 1 or 2 hours a day.
"Logging in to blitz run through brain dead content just pull a virtual lever for your color coded loot", OMG i just reailized what i was doing in GW2 for the past 4 years in between big expansions
B2P for me. I play Guild Wars 2 and have been looking into ESO. I'm a student with no part time job, so subfee model is not possible for me (I really wanna try FFXIV, can't afford it). I also only play casually, so it might not pay off when exams come around and I'll stop playing for six weeks while drowning in schoolwork. MMORPGs for me are a way to enjoy immersive stories and fun experiences with your friends, so casual-friendly titles are more likely to draw my attention.
GW2 and ESO are perfect for this situation (as you already mentioned)
Now i just hope I can hold out and not impulse-sub to FFXIV just because story.
i played ff14 untill the last 2 Story chapters... i have to say i ve seen better stories. not rly in ESO but GW2 and BnS definately hooked me more, plottwists, great character writing and rather unexpecting scenarios...while most of the story in ff14 is predictable af. Not bad, but not worth a sub as well.
Btw have you tried the free trial in ff14? try it and convince yourself. Although be warned earlygame is very slow paced but becomes great towards max lvl, depending on the job (class)
You can play FFXIV as much as you want, up to lvl 35 for free. Which is pretty nice considering you can play most of the classes on one char.
I played the free trial this summer, didn't enjoy the combat as much as GW2 and the lack of voice acting had me a bit worried, but I really want to see more of the story and simply can't because of the sub.
runescapes success comes from the fact they have a f2p model in conjunction with a sub fee model.
Anthrax And Anarchy that’s true, and it works perfectly
The only mmo that kept me playing for years. Only reason I stopped was because my in game friends stopped logging on and real life got busy.
On top of that, you can buy "Bonds" which are consumable items in-game that grant membership, then sell those to other players, so even if you're f2p you can still play enough to get membership off of in-game work rather than real money, for those with a lot of time but no money
Back in the day when I was young it was basically WoW vs GW1. At the time the subscription based model for WoW was what made me play GW1 instead, since I was too young to have my own monthly income there was no way I would ever consider making a monthly financial commitment to anything, whereas buy to play was perfect. I would say this too is one of the cons for subscription based games, it generally scares away the younger audience.
WoW vs FFXI.
You say con -- sounds like a pro to me!
Everquest 1 and 2 would like a word with you.
not if you have unlocked the skill: Moms credit card
That's exactly how I feel t where I was young
>Buy to play
>Everything in game is free
>If you wanna buy something its only in game cosmetic items: costumes/mounts (if the game has mounts)
>ez
So same with F2P but you can get into it for free mhhhhhh
Hey Peon, love your vids. I have stopped playing MMO's for years but I'm still waiting for the Holy Grail! Your channel helps me keep up with the industry. Cheers
troyX we’ll get a game like that one day dude :)
Very good video, clear and well explained points. Personally, i'm for subscription based MMOs: guarantee rewenue for devs, periodical content update for a lomg term experience. I dont mind if publisher ask me for a "staring box" fee either. Also, paying a monthly fee, the player base do have some voice as we are paying for a service. Devs have to eventually adress tech issue, broken mechanics and balance in the game. Businness model really define what kind of playerbase the devs/publisher are targeting: fast paced casual - mainstream grindfest or "chill" long term achievments players.
If being sub based means the game will be niche and not mainstreamf**kwow killer, i dont care.
Pay to play + subscription. Give them a massive headstart so they can use that to work on a new expansion, and once that is done, the money from subscription during the making of that expansion can be used for the next one.
I think Runescape's sub model is probably the best in the industry. It's hard to get people to try games that have a fee attached to them, and you'd have to be really into the mmorpg scene to know what upcoming pay to play games are going to be worth your time and money. In the Runescape model, players have access to a huge chunk of the game for free, and after tens of hours of playtime can determine if the game is worth their sub. They make the money of a "traditional" sub model (WoW, FF14), while also attracting a wider audience that's drawn in by the free trial.
Unfortunately, I can't see it working in any upcoming mmo, as RS started as a f2p game before successfully transitioned into the subscription model. Thanks to those early years of development as an f2p game, paired with the incredibly wise decision to keep all of that content free, RS' free trial is already packed with more gameplay than many of the new mmos hitting the market nowadays. To succeed on a similar level, game devs would have to put years worth of fun, long term gameplay, which just seems impossible.
Great video but you're also forgetting a major point: cheaters/hackers.
In F2P games the barrier of entry is less so that results in more hackers, botters, and cheaters. Since they can (and will) easily replenish accounts when banned.
Compare that to games that are B2P, for example, you don't wanna cheat/bot because if you lose that account you gotta buy a NEW one and lose more money.
You're right, shame I overlooked that :/
When I hear "free to play" I tend to cringe, so it's definitely not a market strategy that works on me. I've played a lot more terrible, moneygrab free to play games than I have good ones.
Pay to win, obviously 😂👌💯
glad someone agrees. dual wielding credit cards is the way to go.
@@Peter-wl5xm
Especially when dual wielding mom's credit cards
my mums credit card is the best legendary weapon that works in every game
you guys are nuts
I laughed more than I should at the comments hahaha :D you guys deserve your likes
I think PoE has the best business model right now, entire game with no restrictions is free, expansions are free and aside from various stash tabs the shop is all cosmetics and easily ignored if you choose. GW2 has a fairly nice model as well but their inventory is very restrictive and you will most certainly feel compelled to spend money on that at some point, which isn't terrible considering how cheap the buy in for that is now.
Unsurprisingly the very worst model right now is SWTOR under EA's umbrella. I refer to that as a free to try instead of free to play but aside from how restrictive their F2P model is, even once you sub you still end up spending just as much money as a F2P player in their shop if you actually want anything cool. All the sub does is lift the incredibly stringent restrictions they place on F2P players to force them into subbing. For me if you're paying a sub fee that should mean you can earn everything you want by playing the game and SWTOR is not like that.
Good think bag slots go on sale quite often and u can by them with gold.
Well Path of Exile is not an MMO in the first place, but rather would be a "co-op ARPG" so can't really compare it to actual MMO's
It's an online multiplayer game with a daily concurrent player count in the thousands, qualifies it as an MMO to me and if you look up the definition it says basically exactly that. Regardless of your opinion on that though it has a payment model in an online environment, that's kind of the point of the question.
EA is straight up trash
Honestly if you are playing an EA game at this time and age, you really deserve everything EA throws at you.
I appreciate that this video wasn't an attack on a specific model or game, and was your honest summary of the different models. It's hard to find videos on gaming monetization that aren't poorly disguised rants.
This video is very well made, almost feels like a mini doc, goed gedaan!
Warframe. A fair cash shop and f2p system.
davidiswhat here I come saying warframe isn’t what I would call an mmorpg.
Would explain why it's player base is thriving
Yeah, but it isn't exactly an MMORPG. F2P model is not a good model for MMORPGS, it can work for other genres like mobas (LoL and Dota 2), battle royales (Fortnite) and some shooting games (Warframe), but it is ABSOLUTELY THE WORST model for MMORPGS!
ARPGs are another genre that also work with F2P, just like Peon mentioned with Path of Exile.
Wildstar is closing down though
All valid points, well thought out and put together video, sums up the pros and cons of each model. I would add one more con to the F2P model though, one that annoys me the most and thats the cost increase over time as population goes down. At first you may end up paying 10-15$, but as time goes on and population starts to dwindle you start paying more and more because devs/publishers need to keep the suits happy. Basically you never know what you sign up for with F2P on the long run. With B2P/subscription you know you have to pay 15$ a month and that's it. So in essence its very difficult to commit playing a F2P game as soon as signs of greed starts to emerge.
Tbh in my experience ive found that subfee has the best quality of mmorpg. One great example being oldschool runescape.
Runescape is limited free. You can play free, but there will be a point where you will want to sub to get access to a lot of other stuff. (But it's not pay to win because free players are never pitted against paying players. If a paying player wants to fight a free player, the paying player can only use free player items.)
Now look at WoW and the fact the 12 million peak sub-base dropped bellow 2 million.
@@AzureRoxe Wait. Where did you find that?
That tweet was proven to be false and the author of the tweet has changed it. False information spreading like wildfire.
I wouldent call Runescape free lol.
There is like no content at all in the game except if you acculy pay for a membership.
You have access to like 10% of the game if you dont pay.
But if you are pleased with being limited to rune armor and such, then sure you dont have to pay.
But Runescape isent really a good game if you dont pay for it, The Free part of the game is like a "demo"
However, Bonds can be bought with ingame currency, So i guess you can acess the whole game whitout spending a single dime if you want to.
I love that you fire some shots at wow in this vid!! Great vid mate love your stuff!
I prefer Free to Play games as long as all cashshop item can be sell to marketplace.
It's nice and all, but that's kinda consider as p2w since you can turn cashshop item into in game gold. But it's nice for f2p player to get item in cashshop without spending money, so I guess its win win situation?
@@sozo3336 In the end you either spend Time to play and earn it OR spend time to earn money and buy it, if you compare both actually playing 1 month to gain an item in a game is not worth it, because in real life you can work 1 month and buy 5 of those items.
Y'know what's funny? I don't even play MMOs anymore...
... *_but I watch every video of yours the day it's uploaded._*
Purely because I enjoy listening to you, that's all. Goes to show the power of charisma, likability and being able to put your thoughts out there in a compelling way.
ahh... Adrian von Ziegler music... I see you are man of culture aswell
5:50 I always love seeing myself die in that siege. Those couple of weeks where we in Venari took Calpheon and then had some amazing castle fights were probably the best weeks of the game for me.
Peon please play Guild Wars 2 during Halloween theirs Halloween content is insanely good.
And do a video about it :D
BTW I think Buy to Play is the best model to use, ArenaNet with Guild Wars 2 is so damn humble how much content they give the players for nearly any cost.
Nice essay! Gave me a new perspective on games I play. I stared playing maple story again, just casual. Just going to nostalgia memory lane. I’ve always felt the pay to play with that game for convenience stuff like pets picking up items and what not. Without some of these things you feel like the grind is a lot slower than it should be.
There is 1 more Business Model , name Archeage . Need a new name for this Business Model because pay2win is to good . Maybe ultra pay2win or beyond pay2win
The worst part is that in Alpha, ArcheAge didn't have regrading, so all of the cash shop was cosmetic... Regrading came about at launch, but it wasn't so bad that it limited pvp. I sold Apex just to make up for the grind I couldn't do while at work. With each patch though (especially with 2.9 and since) the gear gap just got atrocious...
For it to come back now, it'd need a complete overhaul of the combat (action combat is the new industry standard) and an overhaul to the equipment system (diminishing returns so that it doesn't take months of daily grinding to be more than cannon fodder). It won't happen though and that game will shut down next year. :p
+Terrific Life Nah, Archeage is p2w as fuck, but there are MANY more MMOs that are just as bad if not worse. See games publisher by Aeria, Gameforge, Perfect World, etc.
Coming from someone who has played quite a bit of Archeage, you can actually become somewhat competitive within 2 months of their "optional" subscription. Obviously you won't be at the top by any means but you will be strong enough to competitively do world PvP.
The real shame with Archeage is the fact that the game itself is absurdly good, but it is completely ruined by Trion not listening to their consumers.
People spend over a grand on BnS
Personally i don't care about getting my money's worth out of a game. Find me something that has BDO's visuals, WoW's dungeon & raiding depths, Runescape style questing, ArcheAge's pvp/POH system and I'll fucking pay whatever they ask.
i think that the problem is that there is no more PASION, only greed
Every game starts from the passion of a game developer, but it gets lost on the way to the finish and interests invade it
Which is why im enjoying ff14, it went from a failed game to 1 of the biggest mmo trough the passion of the director yoshiP and his team.
ff14 is worst than free to play because it has a subscription model and microtrantations...
Awesome video/commentary/redaction/discussion... haha, very cool I really I listened every single sentence. Willing to play ashes of the creation I prefer the subscription method but so far I haven't found any MMO with this model that really attracts me a lot to stay very long time or at least constantly like some of the "freemium" games out there.
"Pay for convenience" is cleverly disguised Pay to Win. Anyone that disagrees with that, ether doesn't understand what is being talked about, or have an absurd definition that they use where you literally buy things that cause you to win. Saying stupid things like "you cant win in an MMO" or "Someone with skill can still beat you"
'Oh, it just increases your xp & drop rate, it totally doesn't matter at all since it doesn't give you power!'
I generally judge something to be pay to win if it gives you an end game advantage over players who didn't pay. XP boosters for example are not pay to win cause it doesn't effect how you perform in the end game. True pay to win games are games where the best loot and abilities are only available to people who pay or at the very least are extremely difficult to get if you don't pay.
It's also worth adding for pvp sandbox games where groups of players amass resources, the purchase of said resources is also pay to win.
EXP and drop rate reduce the amount of time needed to reach the progression cieling. They do not increase the progression cieling beyond what anyone else can achieve. This is the fundemental difference between "Conveniance" and P2W. Wether you find this acceptable or not is up to you.
You pay so much convenience that you spend more than p2w
Except there are MMOs where you're not really expected to hit the max lvl. Games like Lineage 2, where the grind is real and you lose xp when you die. In such games 'pay for convenience' becomes 'pay to win'. Hell, let's take a cookie-cutter, theme-park MMO, something akin to WoW.
Let's say we all start at lvl 1. If player A buys a 100% XP boost and player B doesn't even if they play at the same efficiency player A will hit certain milestones earlier. That will allow him to earn certain things earlier (items, skills, money). Those new items/skills/money will widen the gap even more for however long it will take player B to catch up. Now, player A has had a lot more time to set them selves up for LIFE solidifying his reign on the auction house, while player B will have to just be a cog in the machine.
It's clearly P2W. Sure, it's P2W for a time period, but if you saw 'INCREASE DAMAGE BY 50% for 24 hours' for 9.99$ or '10k gold for 4.99$' in the item store I highly doubt you'd call it 'PAY FOR CONVENIENCE'.
Hey! welcome back to the videos, we missed you. :)
Come Peon halloween is in GW2🤗 we have so much funn
Yes! Its so great going to lions arch in my Halloween outfit to see everyone else in some too and see so many people having costume brawl
That was a really great vid, peon!
Your pro-con-video style from your first impressions videos really carries over nicely to discussion videos like this.
I hope you enjoy making content like this, because I'd love to watch / listen to more. :)
if free to play is done right you will get game like Warframe. Otherwise i prefer pay to play or subscription.
Thank you so much for the video and especially for the info of the bdo private server. Gonna try it out!
You lost me at MOBAs and pay to unlock heroes, sorry but thats shitty practices, DOTA 2 is the only one where you dont need to buy anything to enjoy the game the same way as everyone. Locking heroes with a paywall can be considered pay to win, but I guess that doesnt mean shit since League has forever shitty "champions" and meta. Thats the only logical explanation.
I guess you never played anthing else than Dota2? LoL is the same way. Heroes of the Storm as well. And yes I played all of them and no I am not biased.
In what way is Lol And Heroes of the storm the same as Dota 2?
You got acess to every single character right from start on Dota.
LoL And HOTS instead have a number of free characters each week.
I played all of them aswell, And HOTS and LoL is nothing like Dota 2.
I agree with you but that's not smite's problem (it's so ez to get a god with the in game currency ) though smite has shitty practices when it comes to selling skins (lootboxes where you have to get certain skins in a chest), but I agree he didn't sound really convincing after that.
heroes buying is actually great design. It keeps you playing with the goal of getting a new hero and letting people buy said hero with real money gives the developers income to run there free game. If your mad that you don't get given every part of the free game when you open it then that's not the developers problem (this came out a bit harsh but im not that good with words to word it properly and less offensive)
Also keeping a hero rotation stops a new person from getting overwhelmed
Every point you said is true (well except "great design") but it hurts the fair element and introduces pay2win elements.
Current metas and always shifting (im only aware of DOTA 2's meta, not League's altho I did hear bad remarks about it everywhere online) are really important, what happens when a said player doesnt have the means to play a really strong hero in the current meta just cause he didnt spend money?
I havent even mentioned the part about needing 700 DOLLARS for every single hero, that is absurd.
DOTA's new ban and hero rotations are way better implemented on top of every hero being available. Heroes chosen within the weekly gains an extra Mango which replenishes mana once. And bans, player can "vote" on which heroes to be banned at the start of the game to reduces the possibility of a really annoying and strong hero in the current meta.
I dont understand why League players cant all this as absurd.
Monetizing our game (ReWorld Online) was quite a challenge and we manage do to something very cool. We have created “Adventurer” and “Hero” passes that will give users access to different feature unlocks within the game. We have modeled ReWorld to remain a free to play game and not a pay to win model (or convenience). The player will be able to create a world and mod it (like Ultima Online's shards) VIP packages will allow the owner(s) of a world to not pay for their online presence, which will drastically reduce the hosting costs. In addition, a sum will be given to creators to encourage and foster diversity through modification kickbacks.
ReWorld will also offer rewards that have no impact on the player's character power. These upgrades will be implemented though cosmetics, dance, spell animations or even house/boat designs and upgrades. The Hero's package is the same as adventurer, but 5$ will be given every month to the creators of mods and worlds.
Nice video!
IMO I think POE has set the standard for a free to play game they're always updating it none stop always making it better always listening to their players and because of that mostly people want to go out of their way to spend money to look better have more space for more items because they're hooked on the game and they made a choice not because the game made them do it in anyway and that is what I call a real game
a real boring one. Id prefer to shoot myself than experience the leveling again
would be nice to see you stream every now and again big guy!
Or you could be blizzard, buy the game buy the subscription put all the good cosmetic mounts on the cash shop. Sell gold for real money profit from three sides🤣
make the game grindy so players have to keep subscribing for long time.
You left out buying a max lvl boost for all your allied race alts that you don't want to waste 20+ hours leveling.
Amazing video Peon, you definently took the time to explain and compare these business models. Very interesting and informative video.
Only mmo's that kept me hooked for years were Runescape and FFXIV. I've tried others, but none of them hooked me in as much as these did. Pinpoiting all the reasons why I enjoyed them more will take hours at least, therefore I'm going with the assumption that Sub based models often times improve the game.
Another great video! GJ dude!
Maybe you can make review of GameZbd private black desert sever or even try it for your self we have EU and NA servers and just reached 7k total online players
This video was an excellent synopsis of what's going on in the MMO genre. I hadn't considered some of the design decisions that would go into a subscription based model and it was really enlightening.
All in all I think that cash stores completely nullify a lot of what is enticing about an MMO to me. Seeing an extremely rare BOP item in WoW or a Jedi in Star Wars Galaxies Pre-CU was a sort of awe inspiring feeling that I find lacking in any game that allows dope stuff to be purchased, circumventing the absurd time constraints that although I never have been able to fulfill I can appreciate a hardcore player's dedication.
buy to play is better
When the content is good there is no problem to sell the game for 49.99 bucks. But a good free to play model is also an good option - when its done right!
i'd say subscription mmos
I don't agree
Nojus Skapas why is it that you disagree?
There's a reason why sub MMOs have died out, with very few still remaining [and even almighty WoW barely has a fraction of the subs it used to have].
F2P with micro-transactions simply earn more money.
@@AzureRoxe earn more in the short term where if you want to enjoy the game usually you spend more than a sub anyways
@@AzureRoxe I'm curious where you get your information. MMOs with a subscription pay model aren't dying. The smaller ones die or go F2P or B2P because the larger ones dramatically overshadow them, from what I can tell.
WoW isn't losing sub numbers because it's a subscription based game, but because people don't like the direction the game is going in general.
FFXIV isn't dying, it's just not as popular as WoW because some people don't care for the combat being more methodical versus a more engaging proc-based reaction combat system, like WoW, or just the Eastern feel to the game.
I've played several F2P games, they typically just lack the same variety or care that a sub game has to offer, or end up moving towards a P2W model which is disgusting as far as I'm concerned.
Not mention most, if not all, subscription based games also have in game stores for cosmetics as well.
TLDR: sub games don't die because they're sub games.
Excellent video Peon, I’ve enjoyed it. 🤗
I was fine with the WoW sub because it felt like I got everything in the game. ESO is cool and fun to level up in until you realize all of the cool stuff either costed crowns or was DLC.
How far did you get into the game and how long ago was that? Because now you're able tons of cool outfits for free without dlc, There is also a way to get a large chunk of crown store cosmetics for free.
"Pay for convenience" is really in a grey zone. If we're playing the amount of hours but I'm using cash shop items to give me an advantage that's equivalent to hours of playing time, at what point do you get to call me out for Paying to Win or paying to get ahead?
@Rémy Boivin You mean if you got the money, why not just pay to win or get ahead?
Yes that's fine for people with the money... but it ruins the experience for others that are looking for a fair game. It's the same reason why performance enhancing drugs are not allowed in sports
The best pay model is Steal 2 Play.
You just go and play on p.servers of your fav game, for example BDO, Metin2, Aion, Dekaron, Tibia, 4story (I remember times on Eternia Games)
I only quickly want to mention that there is a subscription based model in eso, that somewhat overlaps with the buy to play model and the cash shop. To quickly hit up the difference it makes, the subscription will cover more bag space (indirectly since crafting bag becomes separate and infinite, however bank space is doubled) and access to most DLC content ( i say most here since summerset is technically not considered DLC but a new chapter or something but is however downloadable additional content).
What this means for the player, if you want to try out eso as a new player the entry buy to play is very low, often in sale and sometimes even with the try for free weeks. People can enjoy a massive amount of content lore and story without much limitation for a very little amount of money. After that in general there is the distinction between subscription base and buying every dlc separate. Normally this would split the player base quite heavily where the subscription based is used for somewhat hardcore players or at least dedicated players and the buying dlc separately is for the player that dives into the lore step by step. However the way eso is setup without any crazy grind mechanics and with a normalized damage coverage over the levels (basically making a lvl 10 character about similar in usefulness as a lvl 50) encourages the players to play together greatly. A hardcore player can still optimize his build and find ways to keep him busy and maximize damage or test himself in pvp while also being able to join up for some dungeons with more casual players. If you ask me a nice balance from a player perspective.
A quick mention that losing subscription is hardly punished at all, most gameplay items are obtainable trough gameplay and daily rewards will give you glimpses of what the cash shop can offer you (more often than not the daily rewards make you look cool give you a decent mount and pet and some extra help for players that don't have all day to play).
This turned out to be longer than intended but i feel like a big portion of business model of eso is subscription based, which is a bit misleading after watching your video. Great video besides that, shoutouts to the ever so sturdy subscription based mmo of EVE online and looking forward to your next topic.
Excuse me but what is the game called on 1:18? Is it Moonlight Blade? Please answer! Love your videos. :)
古剑奇谭网络版(it's one of the best MMOs out there but only designed for chinese players, better than WoW imo), subscription model MMORPG
This video is very good. You definitely are the best MMO critics reference out there.
Buy to play+Subscription BUT free DLC and Expansions.
edit: and if cash shop then only cosmetics and nothing else.
edit 2: Free to Play is the worst scam ever
... So you want to have to pay a subscription fee for something you already paid for.
Mk.
yes. this is why WoW is still around cause they have money to keep em going. And I prefer to give a sub rather than p2w aspects. the only thing though that I believe is fair is free dlc and expansions since you pay the sub
You know that ESO tried this and had to go f2p within a year after launch cause it failed so badly right? They had a $/€60 pricetag and a $/€15 sub fee with in-game cash shop.
WoW only managed to get this far with it because a big MMO like that was still pretty new back when that first came out and their player base now pays for it because they don't know better. However even WoW has changed their payment program, you pay for sub and you get base game+all expansions right up to the newest one(so till lvl 110 currently) but you only pay extra to play the newest expansion (to lvl 120).
And even WoW has a cash shop that can be considered p2w with max level boosts and paying real money for in-game currency.
yeah i know about ESO is my main mmorpg these days. To be honest, I dont care 100% about the business model. The only thing i dont want is f2p and p2w. You have to pay the game or a sub. Somehow they must make money. ESOplus is actually a good sub model and i like guildwars 2 business model.
WoW would be good if it wasnt for the overpriced expansion and the extremely overpriced extras e.g 20 euros to change your race ffs
I don't care too much what the model is, I don't mind paying for games. I like GW2s model of F2P with B2P expansions and optional cash shop. GW2 has the best execution of a F2P system in any MMO. I still spend about 20-50 dollars a month on GW2, but most of that is cosmetics and is in no way required to play the game. I know friends who don't buy any gems with real money and it doesn't hidner their game play whatsoever.Also, at the moment I like that it doesn't have a sub fee because I don't have as much time to play the game as I used to.
I only play subscription based MMO's.
It keeps quite a lot of plebs out and most importantly it's actually cheaper then a Free to Play game where you have to buy stuff like dungeon tokens and like dungeons and what not locked behind purchases.
I'd much rather pay a monthly fee and have the full game available. This is why I only play WoW and FF XIV.
Glenn Van Laere truth! Though guild wars 2 is incredibly fair and fun. Buy the expansions and then some fair micros.
I prefer subscription but GW2 feels like a sub based mmo
@@synth_pulse3098 nah, ESO feels like a sub based mmo, charging for every little adition to the game... or just plainly demand a sub fee to have it for """free""", kind of ironic
M.A.Palacios ummm contradictory? Eso requires every patch to be paid for for the free to play user. Unless your subbed you buy the expacs and that’s it. GW2 you buy the expacs and as long as you log in and play during living world seasons it’s free to keep.
@@synth_pulse3098 thats what i said, GW2 is truly a b2p model because it only requires you to buy the base game + expansions, ESO on the other hand charges you on every little patch they unless you have a sub (in which case they advertise as "having the content for free", which is ironic), so i personally dont consider it a truly b2p game.
"I'd much rather pay a monthly fee and have the full game available. This is why I only play WoW"
???????????????????? You got be fucking kidding you put this two phrases together...
Wow you need pay to play, pay to the expations, AND PAY THE FUCKING PREMIUM... HOW CAN THIS POSSIBLE BE ONLY THE SUBSCRIPTION?
Great video mate. There's nothing more to add, as always I guess. Nicely researched, and pretty much summed up my thoughts. :D Specially the BDO example.
Love ya Peon! :D
Hope your uncle is fine, and that we get to see more content, specifically AoC content, of you soon :)
Blade&Soul has a better combat system than Black Desert don't @ me
I think they are both good in their own ways. Ive been playing both Blade and Soul and Black Desert Online since release in the west, and I enjoy both of their combat styles. When it comes down to it, I think BnS was so fun to play combat wise due to the fact that the combat felt so smooth and impactful. Whereas black desert has a lot more skills and has almost the same effect.
well in my case i prefered gw2 and tera gameplay ^^
Very nice breakdown , i personally would prefer a buy to play game with small cosmetic options because i find it hard to commit to a monthly sub fee , the game would have to be really good to make me pay for it monthly , sub fee model does seems to be the best but the game itself has to stand out to encourage ppl to pay for it monthly.
Also i see you’re using Adrian Von Ziegler music , celtic and fantasy music are my favourites with Brunuhville and Adrian being 2 of my fav composers , didn’t expect to hear their music in the background xD Are you also a fan of this genre of music ? :o
can u play gamez bd in europe?
yeah that's what I play on, they opened EU servers last week
WOW really? I didnt try it because they only had NA with 100+ ping, good news
One thing not mentioned is WoW tokens. If a player is investing time into the MMO, they can use in game currency to purchase game time, provided someone else has spent money (essentially to purchase gold). It has the added benefit of preventing gold farmers and third party gold selling services. It seems like a difficult thing to balance, but there are some real benefits to the system, and allows those who spend a great deal of time in game to essentially play for free.
I wonder how a game with a mixture of theme park and sandbox features would do with a lower sub fee (maybe $5 a month), the need to buy expansions, a cash shop that is not P2W, and a token system. You could allow players to play completely for free up to a certain level, at which point they would have to buy the base game and pay sub fee (either with cash or tokens).
Allowing players to play until a certain level would make it easy for anyone to pick up the game... and if it is a high enough level hopefully they will become invested (think how differently it would be to let someone play to level 40 or 50 in WoW instead of the current lvl 20). The sub fee would be lower (and could be offset by tokens) which would be a big draw over the $15 dollar model, and easier to convince people to sub (and keep number of active players potentially higher). They would rely a touch more on cash shops, similar to the buy to play model, but the sandbox features and the 1/3 of steady revenue from subs could keep revenue a bit more stable between expansions. The small sub would make them slightly less reliant upon the cash shop (compared to f2p and even buy to play), meaning less chance of making the game overly grindy or inconvenient to keep the game funded.
I think this system would be a happy medium between buy to play and subscription models, with certain features that makes free to play attractive to players (getting into the game without spending a dime, leading to investment in the game before a purchase is made, and a token system allowing players to pay for free). The lower sub would be a big draw to people currently paying $15 dollars a month, and less of a barrier to entry to those who have not paid for a sub game before. The cash shop would not be overly relied upon like in f2p, but could be an easy way to generate additional income.
What do you guys think of this? Would you play this kind of game? If it was good enough, could it pull you from WoW or FFIV? If you've never paid a sub fee, would this make you more likely to try it? Do you think this model would be viable from a business standpoint?
Pay to play with cosmetic cash shop.
180$/year for subscription is not worth it.
Not having a credit card or paypal account, for example.
If you can't afford 0,50$ a day for gaming entertainment, you probably shouldn't be spending your time playing games...
i guess its all about priorities. would you rather spend those 15 dollars for one meal or the chance to entertain yourself for potentially hundreds of hours... the choice is yours
Subscription isn't cheap for people from another country like me (saying just to raise a subject).
ok sure but if you have a pc and you have enough freebtime to play the game. you are probably not that poor. i dont think people who cant spend 15 dollars a month would even care about getting entertained by games
I'd rather play a pay to win free to play fucked up game than play a good subscription game.
Monthly subscription and people still need to pay for expansions 😂
For me the best model is buy to play.
Ya cause 15 a month is soooo expensive 😂😂😂😂.
What a joke.
@@kefkapalazzo1092 Its more expensive than any other model.. Its not that it is expensive in itself, its that compared to just buying a 60$ game and nothing else, it is wildly more expensive. over a 5 year period you are paying 900$ for a single game.
as a bdo-player, your mass-pvp nukes as mrkrabs are so joyful to watch.
Good times, RIP MrKrabs :(
I think sub fee is the best way to go
I've never felt the need to play every day to get my money's worth in WoW. At $15/month, just a few hours makes it worth it - and if I run out of content I enjoy playing I just stop paying the monthly sub fee and move on to something else until more content is added. WoW is actually being developed this way since Legion with more content being added on a regular basis between Xpacks, so there is good reason to quit for a month or two and come back later when there's more new stuff to do.
Anyhoo great topic well covered Peon, thanks for the vid!
PLAY LINEAGE 2 CLASSIC
"...create problems to sell solutions". This really hits the nail on the head for so many games, particularly of late.
but here is the thing, black dessert isnt free to play, its buy to play
For US it's B2P. In almost every other region the game is out, it's completely F2P and was designed, from the start, to be free.
In EU it is B2P too. Get your facts straight.
@@wasteyourtime8935 in middle east too
The Shy Guy did you not watch the video? It was designed to be a f2p
There are two hybrid business models that I'm surprised you didn't cover. Free to Play with optional subscription, or the dual subscription model where a player can pay with real money or in-game currency. Just looking at the top 3 MMOs that use(d) these models: World of Warcraft, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and Wildstar(before it went F2P). I think the existence of the latter model is a major contributing factor to WoW's ability to maintain subs during content droughts. It's a much easier sell to ask a veteran player to pay some gold for their monthly sub instead of real money. I would also bet that if Wildstar's core gameplay and content was done better in it's early days, then it would have been able to maintain the dual-subscription model. Finally, in the case of Star Wars: The Old Republic, it's an example of how to transition into free to play the right way. Offering players an absolute truck ton of good cosmetics and ONLY cosmetics for real money. It still has the hallmarks of a F2P game in terms of restrictions on gameplay, but unlike other games simply offers a monthly sub fee to remove all restrictions on top of offering free Cartel Coins (the premium currency) each month with your sub.
Buy to play with optional subscription
give me an example of what this "subscription" will offer...
If it's like ESO then hell no! Optional sub is flawed because the core free game is designed to be boring so the player buys 'optional sub' . Nope.
USBEN, What are you talking about lol? There is more content in the base game than all of the additional content put together with story-rich content that is way higher quality than most MMOs.
The crafting inventory limit . Nuff said.
Not really. Sure it's handy to have it but it's not needed at all, I went a full year without it and I was fine. And does having a bag for mats make the game more fun lol?
Great vid man!
Buy to play...
Just a thought, i don't know if someone already suggested this but if anyone sees this let me know what you think and possible problems that can occur. What about a hybrid model? like one that starts free to play with its own free to play end game, and a subscription/buy to play ADDITION that allows the individual to continue the story, get new things that can't be obtained in the free to play version, have a better visual in comparison in terms of graphics, and a advancement in class skills that wouldn't be seen in the free to play. On top of that have a buy to play/subscription with its own end game.
I think this would cater to a larger interest since those with low spec computers have the chance to play the game until they want to truly devote their time and effort into the game, so kind of like a
long free trial into a buy-to-play/subscription version.
Free to play version would have cash items for convenience, and cosmetics.
1. The cash items for convenience must be obtainable through in-game events that anyone can participate in, but is a bit of a grind to get. These can occur during special holidays and not all the time obviously.
2. The cash items for convenience doesn't necessarily tip the game into the pay to win realm but rather takes off an hour or 2 from a grind.
3. Unlike black desert where the cosmetics are the only way to look good, the game has equipment that fits its setting, ex) medieval with weapons and armour that would seem to belong to that era, but still look decent, and the only effect the cosmetics have is to break that immersion so ex) fancy tuxedo, modern clothes, futuristic looking sht. Although some people might not like it since it might break immersion...
Buy to play/subscription would have cash items for convenience, and cosmetics. HOWEVER there needs to be a special discount on cash items, and the events must be easier for the buy to play/subscription.
There would need to be a pvp separation for the 2 "versions" of the game since its downright unfair to match a buy to play with free to play. Perhaps a separation in servers to but idk.
Woo shout out to Runescape! Seriously tho thank you, I've seen a lot of videos about MMOs and Runescape seems to just get forgotten a lot of the time. I'm sure there are a lot of people who'd say "Runescape LUL" but it's got a decent amount of subscribers and it's player count has been on the rise in recent years.
Buy to play with the option for a subscription to offer faster leveling/Convince (Nothing that can effect combat/gear etc). You can sub while your leveling new characters and play casually with out the feeling of having to play to get your moneys worth.
I think the biggest issue is that the considered acceptable prices for B2P and subs have remained static - $60 and $15, respectively.
But meanwhile, inflation has definitely surpassed population increases (let's use wow as a baseline in 2006 - then 25% and 10% respectively) meaning that a game dev is having to lose that gap somewhere in the process, and usually by delivered content or microtransactions (or usually both).
Since a game company is effectively having to make do with less, and meanwhile, our expectations of what the "next big thing" would deliver is a superset of everything cool from stuff we've seen before, I don't think we're ever going to get that if they use classic business models, even if they're considered more consumer friendly.
Black desert is buy to play, pay to win, play to win, and subscription model alltogether.
Don't believe me?
In sea server the game costs 10 usd minimum (5 usd if discount) to even have permanent access, yes they use USD for some reason thus it's buy to play.
U have to grind crazily. 6 hrs a day is a minimum to catch up, otherwise you wouldn't be able to enjoy one of the biggest aspect of the game, that is pvp. Thus it's play to win.
Don't wanna grind that much? That's fine. You could always buy all these extremely convenient tent, costume, exp up, pet etc to boost your gaining and exp by up to 300% othe..
wait that's pay for convenience you say? Oh no problem you could always sell these pearl items to marketplace. Instant money! You could buy end game gears rightaway with that money. Thus it's pay 2 win.
But wait.. you still need to pay extra 10 dolars per month to use the marketplace effectively. Unless you want all of your sold items to be almost half the price.. that's up to you though.. but as low as 10 usd per month you can get value pack! Eeeextra inventory space, exp up, mount exp up etc.for 30 days! Thus it's subscription based..
I prefer PoE's free to play model personally. GJ on this video btw.
This was a really good video and very informative, i liked it a lot keep up the good work and hope you post more, best of luck
The best model imo is one that allows you to build an mmorpg designed to have everything included without having to spend extra money, buy it once, get everything, expansion releases? buy expansion and yet again have 100% access to everything via in-game progress and no artificial barriers to slow down grind of any kind or to boost it of any kind. For online mmorpg's obviously a subscription on top of that is needed to keep making money with such a model, but it's something i personally feel is an acceptable fee for a game i enjoy and want to play.
I think a good option is Free to Play up to a certain level (like a trial period but permanent) and then it becomes subscription fee to continue playing, with expansions costing money. That way you can still develop the game from top to bottom to be a complete game without an in-game shop interference and you make sure players can try out the game without having to spend money up-front before they have tried it out which seems to be a big barrier of entry for many casual players (which is the majority)
i really liked the way ddo made the game, free to play with a subscription option that give you access to all quests, class and race and that you can win points in game that allows free to play player to get as far as the p2p players (granted through a big grind) it allows players to have the same gear without being forced to pay (although recommended).
During the buy-to-play segment, you showed a lot of ESO clips. I would personally put it into P2W, since it is actually damn near impossible to play without paying the "optional" sub. Without a sub, you have very limited bag/bank space, no reagent bank access, and other things. AND on top of that there are loot-boxes.
you should try looking into oldschool runescapes business model. its really interesting, you can play it for free but it locks you out of some content, and you can buy a subscription to get acsess to the full game, but whats really interesting is that runescape uses something called a bond, it lets you get mebership for 14 days and players can trade it to eachother, what this means is that if you really want to you can earn enough money ingame to substain your mebership by buying bonds from other players whitout paying anyting and vice versa you can buy and sell a bond to get some extra cash, this system works incredibily well.
great vid mate!
Guild wars 2 has the best business model ever! After playing black desert online for almost 2 years I came back for latest expansion and it’s a blast!
tath same happened to me hahaa
I hate the subscription model, because it forces you to play, it costs the most in the long run and it also feels like a wayste of money because what you get for the money is time to play, while in other games you get something that keeps existing, like exclusive cosmetics or the game by itself.
I like subscriptions games. I think the hurdle to get new players involved is to offer free weekends (Like FFXIV does) or offer it free up to a certain level with no other restrictions (except for more permeant things like player housing or joining guilds).