F2P leaves such a bad taste in my mouth (if it is not a limited F2P). I have been involved with Lord of the Rings Online since it's first release some 7 years ago or more and when they went F2P it just destroyed the community. I am sure that i brought in more revenue, but oh how the channels turned into cesspools. Now, I can forsee a limited F2P (like weekends) to draw people in, but my major concern is provide some ability for those who may be on a more limited budget to be involved who still wish to contribute. I think a situation where ingame currency can be used to pay for monthly subscription would fulfill that--it just opens the door for gold merchants to pay for the bots--so I don't know if it is worth it.
I am going to throw this out as well as a monetization concept since I am a builder (and I believe I've seen Lady Astrum about who is a builder as well). Many builders have skill sets beyond just laying voxels or meshes down to create things. Many of us also have marginal skills in creating custom textures. Myself, I have quite a few textures laying about that I created for other virtual worlds that would work well for voxels in Dual. As such, I would be willing to pay a fee (to cover the cost of uploading and review by the game developers) to use those textures either for my own creations, or to sell for others to use in Dual. That would provide three benefits: a revenue stream of fees for the processing of the textures into the game, a revenue stream of Dual's "cut" for any texture packs sold on the game store to builders, and finally the added benefit of building content to expand the look and feel of the game (which has been reviewed by the Developers for style) without cost to the development staff.
Let's face it, every corporation is going to want for their own structures/ships/vehicles to have a personal "look". Expecting the Art Team to come of with all those textures would be a daunting task. Why not, in essence, unload part of that process to in-game builder who enjoy that and change the process from a cost center to a profit center?
B2P is my preference. P2P is okayish. The Game-time token worked really nicely in Wildstar, but what happens when one of those people who can't do a subscription (me) runs out of game time? Is it game over for them?
Run a P2P with an expensive lifetime sub would be my input. I can fork out a large amount in one go. I just don't believe in subscriptions.
Here is were I stand... to me, the perfect model it's a P2P or with a Lifetime Subscription...
Essentially this allows players to pay for when ever they want to play... i.e 2/3 months... but those with more passion on the game can have the option to fully back the game with a lifetime subscription.... 1 pay - free to play rest of the game's life...
- Monthly Subscriptions
- Free-To-Play trial weekends once in a while (there can still be the Free 1-2 week long trial period as well, but it should only be useable once)
- Game Expansions
- Cosmetic Cash Shop
