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Subscription should not be its pay model


mish1609

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I can understand your sentiments on this mish, but it has been my experience that paying regular instalments actually keeps the quality of the game high and content consistent. In the past, I would not play any MMO that was free or micro-transaction based because the quality was usually equivalent to what you pay for, free = terrible.  :(

 

Now I have seen it mentioned that NQ is intending on implementing a PLEX system similar to EVE online, where players with extra in-game currency can purchase subscription time, and players will extra RL money will sell them in order to make up for less available play time. This I appreciate as I rarely have any amount of time to dedicate to any game, usually about 4-6 hours per month.

 

The trick with this system is finding the balancing point for the price, if buying the PLEX units is too expensive, or making in game money is overly time consuming were players have to devote considerable time in farming credits just to play another month, then this system could be bad from the beginning. I have confidence that the balance can be found early on though.

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No one likes pay to play i like the gameplay but the fact its going to be subscription based turns me off the game completely, ill be very sad if this stays-i wanna pay to keep a game not have to keep buying it :(

 

That first part was a bit of an overstatement, and actually overwhelmingly untrue. The subscription model certainly has some problems, but it does not, as you say, force you to keep buying a game. Ferran's points are true...with a subscription model, developers have incentive to further update the game, or else players will simply stop paying and playing. Players continue to have access to better content, and developers have a steady stream of funds to further improve content. With buy-to-play, developers see a huge influx of money at first, but that soon runs out and players are left with the game as it is, or worse, even more expensive DLC and expansion packs.

 

Take Netflix - you pay monthly for access to its library of titles, not buying all of the TV shows and movies themselves - that would be enormously expensive. Dual Universe is similar - you don't pay for the entire game and all of its content upfront - you pay periodically for access to a constantly evolving and constantly improving system.

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To be as honest as possible the subscription model helps keep masses of unwanted trash players, that will never spend 1.00$ on the game, out of the game.

 

NovaQuark should not use the Titanic game model that has been going ever since WoW took over the MMO market.

 

Can anyone name me a memorable free to play / cash shop game that they have stuck with and played for any length of time? They don't exist.

 

Planetside 1 in its time was vastly more fun than Planetside 2 will ever hope to be.

 

TOR, Wildstar and all the others that start as pay 2 play and go free to play is because they overhype and break the ship in half. There's nothing wrong with their games staying pay to play, but they don't want to put any effort into making the game better so they cop out ditch the sub and put in a cash shop.

Nobody is happy with 50,000 to 300,000 active subscribers anymore its laughable that the industry thinks the gold standard is reaching 1 million active sub's minimum to keep a game alive.

 

WoW and EV.E are the only successful games out there, though both of them are bordering dangerously close to failure with their cash shop's.

 

If you overtap your playerbase for money they'll burn through the content and ditch the game, sure you get a quick buck, but eventually your' game becomes lost in the wind of all the other free to fail games.

 

Once you start putting shares, quarterly revenue reports, and stockholder opinions above the quality of your' game you've lost, you aren't a game anymore.

All they care about is hyping stuff up in order to drive "traffic" into the game, and subjecting them to the highest degree of advertising and pressure to buy garbage from the cash shops.

 

If you like the sound of this game, if you want a community, if you want content, support the developers in their quest to return the glory of subscription's.

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I actually like the subscription model. As Saffi said it will help to keep the quality of player higher (the last thing we need is tens of thousands of trolls who come in briefly, mess with everything you have done, get bored then move to the next free to play game etc) and more importantly it gives the developers funds.

 

I assume this game will have massive ongoing costs for all of the servers etc, and the ongoing development and maintenance that will be inherent to the model, so I for one am more than happy to pay continually for the game. If a game has a campaign and once you complete that then you're done, then yes I expect to pay once and complete the game and move on, for a massive, evolving universe with near infinite replayability then I expect to pay for each month I play.

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No one likes pay to play i like the gameplay but the fact its going to be subscription based turns me off the game completely, ill be very sad if this stays-i wanna pay to keep a game not have to keep buying it :(

 

to be honest, only people who can't afford it dont like it^^

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Can anyone name me a memorable free to play / cash shop game that they have stuck with and played for any length of time? They don't exist.

 

Sorry to be the Devil's Advocate here, but still, I have to stand by Warframe here. Free to play, enormously popular, and almost a purely cosmetic cash shop (in that everything else can be acquired by playing). There is definitely a ridiculous grind here, which is why I quit, but it still remains a good game.

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Just throwing my 2 cents in here.

 

I think that there should be time codes or gift cards that you can gift to your friends and family. Not just items in game that you can use for paying for your subscriptions, but actual codes that you can send to friends outside of the game, or give away as prizes on streams/etc.

 

As an example, I'd love to gift subscriptions to WWII Online out to friends and people who are interested in trying it out. However, 13 years after launch, they still have never had the ability for me to pay for someone else's subscription in any way other than me creating an account and tying my credit card information to it. 

 

I have a few younger friends (15-17) who I've played way too much Minecraft with over the years, and requiring credit card information to create an account would exclude them from being able to play entirely. However I'm more than happy to help them out with a subscription if I'm able to gift them timecodes.

 

I can't remember how many times I've gifted games to people through steam just because I didn't want to play them alone. I'd believe, amongst my friends, that I'm giving out at least 10 games a month to various people. There have even been numerous times when a random person has hopped into our teamspeak while we were playing a game, and I've gifted them copies of the game we were playing just so they could join us and not feel left out.

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I like the Pay2Play model, so your whole argument fails under the first 6 words you said.

 

However i understand peoples concerns with pay to play and that a recurring payment to game can be a turn off, but i think that only applies to games that are not very good. Like someone said, you may pay for netflix or some other subscription based service because you enjoy them, same applies here. If you like the game, you'll be willing to pay the subscription. :)

 

Sorry to be the Devil's Advocate here, but still, I have to stand by Warframe here. Free to play, enormously popular, and almost a purely cosmetic cash shop (in that everything else can be acquired by playing). There is definitely a ridiculous grind here, which is why I quit, but it still remains a good game.

 

Also, i'm going to have to join astro as one of the Devils Advocates here and mention League of Legends. I've racked up a stupid amount of hours on that and that's F2P with cash shop. Still play it occasionally now. But that's more because the game is a exception to the rule of F2P games and is really good.

 

I do agree that the majority of F2P cash shop games i've played have been rubbish though.

 

nora,

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Good point. Depending on the pay2play model, it might not be as big of a turn of. An instance would be when they have, lets say a six month pay option that costs an average of $50. When you looking at some large games, they easily charge that amount. So basically, you buying 2 games worth a year.

 

But what does that contribute to being good? Well, when you do this, you give the devs an investment. With that investment, they must produce good content or you'll no longer invest. As well, this means that you will be putting effort into your game, as said by the community quality statements.

 

Really, your making an investment that must be shown for, or else you stop investing.

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I'd prefer buy-to-play (refuse to play 'free' to play games), but at least they are having a Plex-like system (https://devblog.dualthegame.com/2016/04/08/monetization-player-happiness-and-economic-viability/).  So, you can work your arse off in-game and spend some sort of currency to keep your sub going.

 

I sometimes feel like the richest people in Eve are the ones that do the least amount of work running scams of all types. I remember making my first billion isk in Eve running courier contract insurance scams without ever leaving my station, but people eventually picked up on what I was doing and the profitability dropped off significantly. 

 

Most of the people you hear about being super rich in Eve either did it by running some sort of scam (insurance scam, investment bank scam, lottery scam, etc.) or by being in charge of a large corporation and soaking up all the money. The only person I can think of off the top of my head who honestly earned all their hundreds of billions is probably Chribba, and he ran several accounts at once just mining veldspar for months on end to get there. 

 

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I don't mind subscription games, I actually prefer them due to the mentioned reasons. But I see a problem with a sub and Dual Universe. The devs have to make sure to constantly add content worth paying for. If you only offer an universe full of tools, sit back and hope for cash, this game will fail. Every sub has to generate the feeling to be worth is. If Dual Universe is only a persistant tool box universe, a B2P model would be more fitting to it.

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in my experience a game that is buy to play model don't last long, as this is a game that I hope will last years to decades I don't mind the subscription. I got my start playing runescape and I spent the first 4 years as a casual player in the free part of the game. but I had no issue paying at the time the 5 dollars a month for memebers. then I moved to wow which I paid about 80 dollars total for at the time (vanilla and bc expac) and still the 15 dollars a month didn't break my bank. I hope that they are able to keep updating the game and making it ever better so that it doesn't get left behind with old tech and/or the company running out of money to keep running the servers.

 as long as it isn't a pay to win model I don't much have an opinion how they do it. Iv seen games other than eve and possibly this one using ingame currency to be able to buy game time. I would say that hopefully they have a trial period for people who are interested but aren't sure if they wanna commit. either they being stuck in the confines of xkm from ark ship or a certain level is there is actually levels in this game.

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No one likes pay to play i like the gameplay but the fact its going to be subscription based turns me off the game completely, ill be very sad if this stays-i wanna pay to keep a game not have to keep buying it :(

 

You never have to pay a monthly subscription. Ever. Well, not as long as you play enough to earn it "in-game".

 

The devs have made that abundantly clear.

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You never have to pay a monthly subscription. Ever. Well, not as long as you play enough to earn it "in-game".

 

The devs have made that abundantly clear.

The problem comes with the earning it part. I'm totally fine with paying for a subscription if I need to but some people are not and if it costs more than you can possibly earn in a month or you have to work almost non-stop in order to get the ingame money to buy one then its not really worth even trying because you don't get to enjoy the game. I would prefer the B2P model with a cosmetic cash shop as those seem to have much better communities than F2P but still be decently large and keep out a lot of the players no one wants around but I get why the devs would go with the P2P model if they do so.

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I think that pay to play is perfectly fine as long as people can earn the ingame time by playing the game. I for one don't have us much free time as some, so I will be paying my monthly sub if and when that becomes applicable, but on the other hand I like that those who have time, but not that much money can join in and play with me. Buy to play doesn't give enough money to the Server based games unless they load the cash shop and in that case we are reaching the free to play domain which I genuinely dislike as it leads to underfunded games and terrible cash shop politics.

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I love that NovaQuark laid bare why they chose this model in their blogpost. It has very well laid out details on why the decision was made and I agree with many of them. The F2P model is hard to maintain, since the devs constantly have to add to the cash shops, but balance out whether the items added are merely cosmetic or whether they can actually influence gameplay. Many F2P games fall into this trap, even unintentionally sometimes. I've even seen a few B2P games that added a cash shop end up in similar situations.

 

I can however appreciate that not everyone can afford a subscription, as many of my long-time online friends fall into such a category. I think it is important that NovaQuark make it possible for those who put time and effort into the game be able to use those efforts to pay for their play through in-game means. I've played Eve Online and honestly while their model allows you to do it, actually earning enough to pay for your sub in-game was very time consuming and quite frankly, boring. I've done transporting, I've played the markets but if you're not a long time veteran with heaps of cash already, it's very tough to earn your way to the point where you can make an account pay for itself and you still actually have time for "fun".

 

Overall my point is I hope that NovaQuark will implement a way to pay for your sub that won't be just a boring grind. I guess time will tell on that.

 

Also I saw it mentioned before, please implement a system where you can "gift" subscription time to other players. I'd love to help my friends play, or see Twitch / Youtubers handing out subcriptions as rewards to their fans.

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I love that NovaQuark laid bare why they chose this model in their blogpost. It has very well laid out details on why the decision was made and I agree with many of them. The F2P model is hard to maintain, since the devs constantly have to add to the cash shops, but balance out whether the items added are merely cosmetic or whether they can actually influence gameplay. Many F2P games fall into this trap, even unintentionally sometimes. I've even seen a few B2P games that added a cash shop end up in similar situations.

 

I can however appreciate that not everyone can afford a subscription, as many of my long-time online friends fall into such a category. I think it is important that NovaQuark make it possible for those who put time and effort into the game be able to use those efforts to pay for their play through in-game means. I've played Eve Online and honestly while their model allows you to do it, actually earning enough to pay for your sub in-game was very time consuming and quite frankly, boring. I've done transporting, I've played the markets but if you're not a long time veteran with heaps of cash already, it's very tough to earn your way to the point where you can make an account pay for itself and you still actually have time for "fun".

 

Overall my point is I hope that NovaQuark will implement a way to pay for your sub that won't be just a boring grind. I guess time will tell on that.

 

Also I saw it mentioned before, please implement a system where you can "gift" subscription time to other players. I'd love to help my friends play, or see Twitch / Youtubers handing out subcriptions as rewards to their fans.

from what iv read or understand is that players can buy the item that gives the ingame time with real world money and sell it to other players. if that is the case then nothing stops you from just gifting it to a friend id believe. also if you are a successful trader or corp head you could always buy them with ingame currency and gift. it be an interesting dynamic in corps and other organizations to give out the game time tokens as a reward or bonus to members

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also if you are a successful trader or corp head you could always buy them with ingame currency and gift. it be an interesting dynamic in corps and other organizations to give out the game time tokens as a reward or bonus to members

 

It certainly would.  :)

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I think the best model for me would be a monthly subscription based with me option to do lifetime subscription. i.e. $10=1month or $300 = lifetime game time.

 

 

This allows those who just want to try the game... To try it and those who are serious and want to fully get into the game have an option to fully buy the game for life...

 

 

Plus with this model you can also have a cosmetic store that has micro-transactions, for those than want more customization or cosmetic items with out suffering the p2w nightmares.

 

 

This way you keep away all the negativities of a f2p model and the negativities from a b2p. If all my rambling makes sense..

 

Again. Subscription with lifetime option.

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I think the best model for me would be a monthly subscription based with me option to do lifetime subscription. i.e. $10=1month or $300 = lifetime game time.

 

 

This allows those who just want to try the game... To try it and those who are serious and want to fully get into the game have an option to fully buy the game for life...

 

 

Plus with this model you can also have a cosmetic store that has micro-transactions, for those than want more customization or cosmetic items with out suffering the p2w nightmares.

 

 

This way you keep away all the negativities of a f2p model and the negativities from a b2p. If all my rambling makes sense..

 

Again. Subscription with lifetime option.

 

I believe the best test method for users trying the game will be some form of 'trial period', short, but sweet. 

 

 

As for life time, the issue is the lifetime of this game can vary so much, it will either be around for years and years (I hope), or it may just stay a small community held game that really doesn't gain much attention and has to shut down. With this in mind, I like the system of Monthly, Tri-monthly, Half yearly or yearly subscriptions with a discount as you buy more and more time. 

This will allow the devs to keep atleast some form of a steady flow of income if people keep playing or until they end up using the in-game subscription items. I believe this system can and does still work with micro-transactions on some games, as people become super addicted (As I have before) and I end up spending way too much money on both the sub and micro-trans.

 

But I understand where you are coming from and does seem like a good idea regardless, just thought I'd add my ramblings too. 

 

 

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Lifetime subscriptions are the most useless payment method ever invented - from a developer point of view. Yes, you get cash fast, but after that you never get some again, which hurts the development in the end. Every company ever offering lifetime subs did regret it dearly. For us players, if a subbed game seems worth it, is sounds promising and might be. I played Lotro for year every now and then because of a lifetime abo.

 

The last subbed only games all jumped the F2P train after some time. It is hard to make it up for lifetimers, when a game goes F2P. With the exception of WoW (don't like it, don't know it much) the only long time subbed only game I know of is EvE. EvE is offering 2 free content expansions a year making the game worth paying for. Dual Universe don't offers 'content' at all. It will feature (hopefully) cool tools and an environment. For me this is a normal PC game. Buy it, play it, done. I doubt many players will stick to their sub, if there will be no content flowing in after release.

 

But I may be wrong. As the devs spare the money for content creation like quests and story, they might go for a very low sub of one or two $/€ a month. This might work, we will see.

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