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[XANDER CAGE]

I love the idea of free-to-play games, but most of their business models drive me up the wall. For example, I recently tried spending some money on the otherwise-quite-fun Blacklight: Retribution. I dropped 20 bucks on some Zen, and was pretty annoyed to discover that, if I was buying items permanently, I could only buy one piece of armor, one gun, and an attachment for my 20 dollars worth. That's kind of fucked.

The problem is, while I do love that F2P allows people who maybe couldn't afford a game/people who don't want to spend money on games all the time a chance to play great titles, the model makes things kind of difficult for customers like me who really don't have a problem paying 20, 30, 50, maybe 60 dollars on a full game. Granted, there are plenty of games "for me" that don't have their content tied to playtime or money, but there are F2P games coming out that really, really interest me: namely, Planetside 2 and Hawken. I would happily spend a sum of money to have all of the content of those games, and I was pretty disappointed to hear that Hawken was going to be F2P. I just like the feeling of paying for a game and knowing I have everything available to unlock, without having to worry about further budgeting, which is why I also find DLC annoying most of the time.

How realistic would it be for a company to offer their game with a F2P model or a flat-rate "get everything" fee? Considering that the cash shops probably rake in far more than just 60 dollars, I'd be fine with seeing, I dunno, 100 dollar up-front payments to have access to everything in Planetside 2 without having to worry about microtransactions, since that's a game I will sink a ton of time into. Naturally, I don't want literally everything right off the bat, but I'd rather work through the game's progression at my own pace rather than buy individual guns and whatnot, if that's how the game's model is going to look.

Could this ever happen? Has anyone ever tried it?

 

[aeolist]

One big problem with this is that F2P games are constantly dropping new content so anyone who hits the "buy everything" button would either have to get everything for free for the life of the game or quickly become out of date.

 

[XANDER CAGE]

One big problem with this is that F2P games are constantly dropping new content so anyone who hits the "buy everything" button would either have to get everything for free for the life of the game or quickly become out of date.

Free for life might work, especially if we were talking 100+ dollars up front. Maybe it'd work better if game content was divided up into "seasons", or something, and you could pay a flat 50 bucks for the game and 20 per season of new content. I don't know. I want to like F2P, I really do.

 

[Emitan]

I think the issue for me is that I really doubt I'm ever going to find a F2P game where I love it so much I want to drop $100+ on it at once. There are very few games I would spend that much money on.

 

[Odrion]

I really wish this was a thing.

But unfortunately, their plan is to target "whales" who'll spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars.

 

[XANDER CAGE]

I think the issue for me is that I really doubt I'm ever going to find a F2P game where I love it so much I want to drop $100+ on it at once. There are very few games I would spend that much money on.

I think that'd almost work in their benefit. There are crazy people like me who would pay a good chunk of money up front for Hawken because it has big jiant robuts in it, which would be a front-loaded monetary gain for them. Most people would probably be content just playing entirely for free or dropping smaller amounts of money every now and then on the game, which would be their bread and butter anyway.

 

[Emitan]

I think that'd almost work in their benefit. There are crazy people like me who would pay a good chunk of money up front for Hawken because it has big jiant robuts in it, which would be a front-loaded monetary gain for them. Most people would probably be content just playing entirely for free or dropping smaller amounts of money every now and then on the game, which would be their bread and butter anyway.

or like MMOs where you get a sub for life and then get bored and stop playing and they made hundreds of dollars off sub fees you would have never paid

 

[Polyphonic]

BlackLights F2P model is not a good payment model. There are many games that do it better, like League of Legends. They sell purely cosmetic items that do not affect the gameplay at all.

 

[Detox]

One big problem with this is that F2P games are constantly dropping new content so anyone who hits the "buy everything" button would either have to get everything for free for the life of the game or quickly become out of date.

That would be a major reason why they wouldn't have a buy everything option. The buy everything option could also be exorbitantly priced. The only F2P model I don't problems with is Valve's in Dota 2 which has no effect on the actual gameplay. With Valve's model I'm not bothered by how much it would cost me to buy everything because it is purely for vanity so I will spend and buy how much I want without feeling like my gameplay experience is being hindered.

Not sure what models other companies will adopt or if the F2P model will ever standardiese. It will be interesting to see what the other MOBA games do once Dota 2 is launched.

BlackLights F2P model is not a good payment model. There are many games that do it better, like League of Legends. They sell purely cosmetic items that do not affect the gameplay at all.

Doesn't LoL sell heroes which significantly affects the gameplay.

 

[Glix]

A lot of F2P games have their gameplay exposed when you pay for everything. They just discussed this on one of the E3 Bombcasts.

 

[Gravijah]

maybe a monthly fee option that gives you access to everything?

 

[Face it Tiger..]

One big problem with this is that F2P games are constantly dropping new content so anyone who hits the "buy everything" button would either have to get everything for free for the life of the game or quickly become out of date.

Buy everything seasonally, that would be a good option.

 

[Atomski]

BlackLights F2P model is not a good payment model. There are many games that do it better, like League of Legends. They sell purely cosmetic items that do not affect the gameplay at all.

Yeah Blacklight is sadly awful. They are going the shittiest route with making permanent gear expensive as hell and forcing you to "rent items". Most good F2P games dont do this.

 

[Derrick01]

I doubt it. The whole point of F2P is to try and get you to pay more and to keep paying, so a 1 time buy everything option defeats that scheme.

Also as stated updates throw a wrench into that too.

 

[XANDER CAGE]

or like MMOs where you get a sub for life and then get bored and stop playing and they made hundreds of dollars off sub fees you would have never paid

Yeah, so even if Hawken sucks they'd get more money out of me by doing this!

maybe a monthly fee option that gives you access to everything?

When LOTR:O went F2P, did it ditch subs entirely and go for a "if you pay us 10 bucks you get to the next tier of 'free'" model, or retain subs? I forget.

 

[aeolist]

All I can say is that I'm far more likely to play a F2P game if the purchases are entirely cosmetic or can easily be (permanently) unlocked without paying.

TF2 is good at this, too bad I have no interest in DOTA 2. Really hoping Hawken has a good scheme for non-payment unlocks.

 

[Forsaken82]

Yeah, so even if Hawken sucks they'd get more money out of me by doing this!



When LOTR:O went F2P, did it ditch subs entirely and go for a "if you pay us 10 bucks you get to the next tier of 'free'" model, or retain subs? I forget.

It has the monthly premium sub as well as the F2P model.

 

[androvsky]

I really wish this was a thing.

But unfortunately, their plan is to target "whales" who'll spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars.

Or thousands upon thousands. Or more. A real "buy everything" option would have to include airfare to the developer's bank.

 

[jono51]

Only real similar thing to this is f2p mmo's with a monthly subscription route which gets you everything. A few of these have a lifetime option ($200+) so it wouldn't be cheap.

 

[Tellaerin]

I'd rather they just go with a freemium model. Let me either play free and buy stuff ala carte, or pay a monthly sub for unrestricted access to the content. I don't like paying piecemeal for content, mainly because the entire point is to get me to shell out more than I would otherwise, and I hate the naked nickel-and-diming. On the other hand, companies seem to be in love with the model nowadays because they can strip-mine the fuck out of their 'whales' that way, and there are some people who apparently hate paying a subscription fee. So long as you give me the option of a traditional pay-to-play subscription for a reasonable fee as an alternative and you can do whatever the hell you like on the F2P side, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Dice]

Lifetime Gold status on Star Trek Online is $200. Gets you access to more, good bonuses, and you also get a decent monthly chunk of currency for the store. I think that's a good way to handle it.

 

[Des0lar]

Yeah Blacklight is sadly awful. They are going the shittiest route with making permanent gear expensive as hell and forcing you to "rent items". Most good F2P games dont do this.

Blacklights system is far from awful. Permanent weapon classes are about 5000GP which accounts for maybe 25-30 games, each game being about 7 minutes. That's about 4 and 1/2 hours of playtime (in reality it will take you longer of course, I am not accounting for entering games, lobbies, server crashes, other unforseen stuff) for a permanent weapon class change (like from assault rifle to bolt action rifle)
A weapon in Tribes ranges from 42000XP to 100000XP. To get 100000XP in Tribes is around 40hours, considering you get 1000XP per game and every game lasts 25min. The actual numbers may vary depeding on player skill and boni like "first win of the day" in Tribes.

Muzzles, stocks, scopes etc are even cheaper. The only thing that's too expensive in Blacklight are the backpack equipments like revival kits, or the stealth addon.

Personally, I don't even see the need to upgrade anything as the stock assault rifle is already that good. Only purely cosmetic items are "zen" only. Also the renting system is far better than for example the Tribes system (I love you tribes but sorry) because at least it gives me the option to see if the item is worth it. Purchasing without trying is risky. I have to rely on internet forums and videos if the item is worth it.

The only thing that really sucks about the Blacklight system is, that things are too expensive in real money. I agree with their GP prices, but a "hero" (just a reskin) being 2000 Zen (about 20$) is ridiculous.

 

[jim-jam bongs]

they could, but the strength of the model is microtransactions. in my experience as both a customer and a vendor in microtransaction-driven industries, it's much easier to bleed the disposable income from a customer gradually than to grab a chunk up-front.

of course you can simply have it as an option for those who choose to partake, but then you'll risk upsetting the people who can't afford it. the social-politics of desire and aspiration in virtual economies is fascinating.

 

[Htown]

When LOTR:O went F2P, did it ditch subs entirely and go for a "if you pay us 10 bucks you get to the next tier of 'free'" model, or retain subs? I forget.

Three tiers: Free, Premium or VIP. Subscription gets you everything except expansions. You can also just buy all the quest packs up front, but there are still new store-only items they made after the transition. Free players can earn turbine points in-game to buy stuff.

 

[Coppertracks]

Even though it wouldn't really work I do wish this was an option for Spiral Knights. I'd gladly shell out £30 for a physical copy, possibly on 3DS.

 

[Alphahawk]

Some of y'all are missing the point of how F2P works. They don't want you paying $15 a month because they already get several users who pay much more than that.

 

[rohlfinator]

Some of y'all are missing the point of how F2P works. They don't want you paying $15 a month because they already get several users who pay much more than that.

I guess the question is whether adding a "buy everything" option would attract enough new paying customers to make up for the "whales" who would end up paying less than they do now.

The only F2P game I play with any regularity is Super MNC, and I would easily drop $30-40 to buy all the non-cosmetic stuff if I could. As it is now, I've only spent about 5 bucks on the game, and that was mostly just to throw the devs some money since I play it a lot.

 

[DiscoJer]

Some of y'all are missing the point of how F2P works. They don't want you paying $15 a month because they already get several users who pay much more than that.

Exactly. I can't believe how this place has such a time grasping why F2P appeals to publishers so much - while you get freeloaders, the people who spend money, on average spend more than they would under a $15 subscription model.

 

[Grinchy]

I think they'd rather that the people willing to spend $100 spend more than $100 over time.

Look at the people who spend thousands of dollars on some F2P games. If they could have gotten away with a one time $100 fee, those games wouldn't make anywhere near as much as they do.

 

[Tellaerin]

Some of y'all are missing the point of how F2P works. They don't want you paying $15 a month because they already get several users who pay much more than that.

I understand what they want. My comment isn't about what they want (that being, to make as much money on consumers as humanly possible). It's about what I want (that being, getting what I feel is a fair return on my money, which I feel I get from a subscription, but not from the usual F2P plus cash shop model.)

 

[XANDER CAGE]

Exactly. I can't believe how this place has such a time grasping why F2P appeals to publishers so much - while you get freeloaders, the people who spend money, on average spend more than they would under a $15 subscription model.

Some of y'all are missing the point of how F2P works. They don't want you paying $15 a month because they already get several users who pay much more than that.

I understand how F2P currently works, I'm just wondering if a model that appeals to someone like me more would be viable/possible/even exists.

 

[DiscoJer]

Or look at Lord of the Rings Online. They offered a Lifetime Subscription (for $200 or $300) which was very popular. (I bought one because I was sick of being nickled and dimed, well, $5 and $10ed in F2p games)

Then I think they realized they sold too many of them. I'm not saying it's their only factor in going F2P, but I think it was a factor.

Sure, they give lifetime members 500 points a money, which is $5, but then they wheel around and offer a new horse in the store every month or so for $15 (per character). And still sell expansions (you can eventually buy the stuff in it for points, but it costs twice as many points as it would if you bought it with money)

I understand how F2P currently works, I'm just wondering if a model that appeals to someone like me more would be viable/possible/even exists.

Yeah, but the whole point is to maximize revenue for the company in question. As it is, people are willing to spend $1000s on F2P games, and so those people are going to be catered to. And hard core fans tend to be willing to spend more money than $15 a month (double I think, if I remember some study from a few years ago correctly).

 

[Alphahawk]

I guess the question is whether adding a "buy everything" option would attract enough new paying customers to make up for the "whales" who would end up paying less than they do now.

.

No, the vast majority of people who don't buy are not going to ever pay any money, and this would just decrease the number they'd get from paying customers.

 

[Sentenza]

Well, we were just discussing this topic in another thread, so if you don't mind I'm going to paste my two replies about that argument here:

Here's usually my problem with F2P games: while I can understand that they are supposed to be free just as a trial version and they aim to convince the player to pay money, which I'm totally fine with, they usually have a monetizing model based on exploiting the player's addiction, pushing him/her to spend insane amounts of dollars for trivial gains.

Let's take Vindictus as an example: of course it offers for free pretty much all you need to play, but if by any chance you decide that you like the game and you are willing to pay for the extra features, then you have to face ridiculous things like "ten dollars for the skin of a leather jacket, other five dollars for a hat" and so on.

What about a free2play model where if I decide that I'm fine with buying your game, because I like it enough to care for the extra features, skins, etc, then I can do it at a reasonable price, with an all-included package and without feeling an idiot who's throwing away his money in the process?

Which is exactly my problem with it.
I'm never going to buy anything in a free2play game cause they don't give me the option to make a smart, convenient purchase. They just try to exploit people's addiction with the game.

My only practical options are:
- be a cheap ass and never spend a cent into the game.
- waste money in overpriced crap which isn't even remotely worth what it costs.

And if I'm not too fond of the first, I genuinely hate the second.

 

[GrizzNKev]

I think that'd almost work in their benefit. There are crazy people like me who would pay a good chunk of money up front for Hawken because it has big jiant robuts in it, which would be a front-loaded monetary gain for them. Most people would probably be content just playing entirely for free or dropping smaller amounts of money every now and then on the game, which would be their bread and butter anyway.

Oh hell yes. Hawken was amazing. It took me a while to remember it was F2P. I wanted to hand the devs my money right there on the show floor. Anyone who likes mechs is going to be spending on this game. I was stunned that a F2P game could wow me more than anything else at E3, and although I didn't get to play it, Planetside 2 was looking fantastic as well. F2P as a whole is consistently improving as a model for big, great games.

 

[rohlfinator]

Which is exactly my problem with it.
I'm never going to buy anything in a free2play game cause they don't give me the option to make a smart, convenient purchase. They just try to exploit people's addiction with the game.

My only practical options are:
- be a cheap ass and never spend a cent into the game.
- waste money in overpriced crap which isn't even remotely worth what it costs.

And if I'm not too fond of the first, I genuinely hate the second.

Exactly, all of my friends who have played F2P games share this same opinion.

I would love to see some statistics on F2P buyers. I know there are people who indiscriminately buy everything ever released, but it seems like these companies are leaving a lot of money on the table by overpricing so much of their content in the eyes of most of their players.

 

[XANDER CAGE]

Well, we were just discussing this topic in another thread, so if you don't mind I'm going to paste my two replies about that argument here:

I definitely agree with a lot of what you say there. I appreciate the F2P model, but its implementation really turns me off most of the time.

 

[markot]

Most of the time buying it all would cost like... hundreds of dollars.

 

[famousmortimer]

I have a friend who has been working on free to play games for years, both on facebook and ios (nothing hardcore like Tribes/age of empires though). According to him the entire model is about the very small group of people who spend an absurd amount of money. They don't care about the free users, they don't care about those who buy here or there, they build the thing around making the people who drop over $10,000 in a month on a single game.



And I'm not pulling that $10,000 number out of my ass. He worked on a Monopoly game that was on Facebook (which has since been replaced by a different company with the licence) and he said there was a guy that spent atleast $10,000 a month... EVERY MONTH.



It's one of those things where as a designer he knows that it makes his games worse but if you're going free to play and you ignore these customers and try to make money just on the nickle and dimers you will fail.

 

[hamchan]

Nope, putting a cap on the amount of money they can make from each person is not a good move at all.

 

[Bjern Fita]

as soon as WoW or the current top of the pile MMO has a life-time subscription...

Come on mate, are people that desperate to start threads that they throw out dross like this?

The providers make the calls here mate, if there's an option you'd like to be available, there's a reason why it's not...

 

[Orayn]

Free for life might work, especially if we were talking 100+ dollars up front. Maybe it'd work better if game content was divided up into "seasons", or something, and you could pay a flat 50 bucks for the game and 20 per season of new content. I don't know. I want to like F2P, I really do.

"Seasons" would definitely be a good approach to it. TF2 does something like that when it sells each large group of new weapons as a single pack, though I really think the prices are a bit too high.

 

[rohlfinator]

And I'm not pulling that $10,000 number out of my ass. He worked on a Monopoly game that was on Facebook (which has since been replaced by a different company with the licence) and he said there was a guy that spent atleast $10,000 a month... EVERY MONTH.

That is obviously an outlier, though.

The fraction of players who could even afford to drop $10,000 a month for entertainment is pretty small.

 

[XANDER CAGE]

as soon as WoW or the current top of the pile MMO has a life-time subscription...

Come on mate, are people that desperate to start threads that they throw out dross like this?

The providers make the calls here mate, if there's an option you'd like to be available, there's a reason why it's not...

I don't really know what you're trying to say here. I'm very sorry that my thread about video game business models is not up to your standard of random Crysis giveaways.

"Seasons" would definitely be a good approach to it. TF2 does something like that when it sells each large group of new weapons as a single pack, though I really think the prices are a bit too high.

It's also worth noting that TF2 gives you a lot more content for free than most F2P shooters, especially Blacklight. You get all of the classes and all of the class base weapons, as well as random chances to get permanent item drops.

 

[Emitan]

That is obviously an outlier, though.

The fraction of players who could even afford to drop $10,000 a month for entertainment is pretty small.

Those players are what support the entire game. They're not outliers, they're the target.

 

[chixdiggit]

I love the idea of free-to-play games, but most of their business models drive me up the wall. For example, I recently tried spending some money on the otherwise-quite-fun Blacklight: Retribution. I dropped 20 bucks on some Zen, and was pretty annoyed to discover that, if I was buying items permanently, I could only buy one piece of armor, one gun, and an attachment for my 20 dollars worth. That's kind of fucked.

I was having a lot of fun playing Black Light until I discovered how expensive Zen was. I totally was fine playing the game for free but just was turned off by the whole thing and haven't touched it since.

 

[Orayn]

Those players are what support the entire game. They're not outliers, they're the target.

On a smaller scale, you can have "whales" who only spend tens of dollars each month and lead to a nice average income/player even with lots of people who spend nothing.

 

[famousmortimer]

That is obviously an outlier, though.

The fraction of players who could even afford to drop $10,000 a month for entertainment is pretty small.

That project, the monopoly game, made 100k a month. He said about 85% of it were from the "whale" (what they called those that paid $1000+ a month to play).



You would be surprised how many people have money and no brains.

 

[rohlfinator]

On a smaller scale, you can have "whales" who only spend tens of dollars each month and lead to a nice average income/player even with lots of people who spend nothing.

Exactly.

That project, the monopoly game, made 100k a month. He said about 85% of it were from the "whale" (what they called those that paid $1000+ a month to play).

Huh, that's more than I would have expected but $1,000 a month sounds way more reasonable (relatively at least, lol) than $10,000 a month.

I wonder how much demographics play a role. A Facebook game that hits a huge number of players seems like it's going to have a much better chance of finding "whales" than something more niche like Hawken.

 

[yurinka]

I worked in several Facebook and phone F2P succesful, award winning games. Won't share numbers, but 100K a month for a Facebook game is a really bad performance for a Facebook game.

Most people don't pay a cent, a small amount of people who pay a "small" amount of money and then you have a really amount of whales (yep, they pay thousands of dollars). I saw several cases of people spending more than $10000.
Yep, the whales gives you a lot of money but if the game is well designed your game will be sustained by this middle class player because the people don't play forever and they leave sooner or later the game. And you don't want to add too much users blindly just expecting that you'll have more whales, instead you want to balance the number of users with their cost of adquisition, server costs, scalability issues and revenue generated in average.

The idea of keeping adding new content is to keep the game fresh, and to make them come back again during more days (retention) to see the new stuff and to spend more. It's also very importanto to engage them to keep inviting more friends (virality). And you need to have both good retention and virality to reduce your cost per adquisition. And if the game is well designed, you'd be able to spend a shit ton of money on it, and this is why a lot of this buyable stuff use to be consumed (game currency, health, temporal shields, etc refills).

This is why a 'buy everything' button doesn't make sense at all in F2P games.
.