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Price model, SAY NO TO MONTHLY SUBSCRIPTION!


Reverant_Spark

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except for 

 

 

except for gw each one of those was subscription-based in the beginning, wich definitely played a big role in their initial earnings and development.

True and a valid point to note. I'm sure it was something NQ considered when looking at payment options.

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you can go from initial purchase with a monthly sub p2p model to a b2p with a cash shop or a p2p to a f2p but you can never go from f2p or b2p to p2p unless you just like not having a game anymore. people who don't mind paying a sub or who are like me and actually prefer it as it shows that the game is actually cared for by the dev team wont bitch to much if it goes f2p. but no one who is playing a f2p game and the game switches to p2p is going to pay to keep playing.

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you can go from initial purchase with a monthly sub p2p model to a b2p with a cash shop or a p2p to a f2p but you can never go from f2p or b2p to p2p unless you just like not having a game anymore. people who don't mind paying a sub or who are like me and actually prefer it as it shows that the game is actually cared for by the dev team wont bitch to much if it goes f2p. but no one who is playing a f2p game and the game switches to p2p is going to pay to keep playing.

Now I'm genuinely curious (No sarcasm here).  I need to check out the game the started F2P and went P2P. 

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Not that I'm an expert nor "guru" on these models and what is good and bad and blahblahblah.

 

But I would not mind paying a monthly small fee. Perhaps it doesn't have to be your average monthly MMO fee and a bit less but I would not mind. Then again more people would play this if it was more ... accessible in financial terms by having less or no initial cost, or perhaps only an initial cost but no sub fees or similar.

 

So I roughly wonder in general and specifically over time here:

 

Free to play (with initial fee)? Can that work, will it sustain the company over a long time, what options are there to generate income?

Pay to play? A more stable income but somewhat ... "outdated" for some

 

In addition you can ask whether some kind of "shop" makes sense to generate income. Of course the biggest controversy is created by anything going into the "Pay 2 Win" direction where people can spend cash and obtain hard ingame advantages. The softest variant of items or ingame stuff sold with hard currency would be mostly cosmetic items or minor boosts for XP for example. That seems okay. Imo some cosmetic shop or cosmetic additions you can buy should be considered as it may help with income.

 

Let's face it (again I'm no expert but that's how I see it): We as end users or consumers ideally favor free to play but I think this comes at a price somewhere. All the free access isn't good if it can't sustain the company and thus the game, and in my book it's not good either if the cuts resulted in this are too heavy. I'd rather pay a small reasonable fee per month to play than ... not be able to play eventually. If the game is really good then I think a small fee is warranted and okay.

 

Some kind of item shop or so (cosmetic items and stuff) as additional income or counterbalance to a f2p model would also be okay if basically enough people buy items from there to keep the game and company afloat.

 

So basically I see no real possibility for F2P yet (no offense there isn't some major studio behind this here too that could 'afford' it).

 

I think F2P with item shop (ideally mostly cosmetic, no P2W) or P2P are more reasonable and to be expected.

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I'm in favor of the subscription model myself, but I definitely wouldn't mind a decrease from the normal $15. If it was more along the lines of $5 or even $10, I think you would see less complaints about it. While that may sound like it shouldn't be such a big deal, it honestly can be for those who struggle to have a steady income or have a very tight budget. I definitely do not want to see this game as F2P though, as most F2P game communities are a lot more... caustic.

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I'm in favor of the subscription model myself, but I definitely wouldn't mind a decrease from the normal $15. If it was more along the lines of $5 or even $10, I think you would see less complaints about it. While that may sound like it shouldn't be such a big deal, it honestly can be for those who struggle to have a steady income or have a very tight budget. I definitely do not want to see this game as F2P though, as most F2P game communities are a lot more... caustic.

PErhaps a gradual system of subscription, with different bonuses for each.

 

    5$ : Gives you access to the game and some cosmetic dyes.

    10$ : Access to a library of cosmetics for your character.

    15$ : Final tier of cosmetics. Gold chains and shit. >_>

 

 

It's a rough example, I know, but still quite possible.

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PErhaps a gradual system of subscription, with different bonuses for each.

 

    5$ : Gives you access to the game and some cosmetic dyes.

    10$ : Access to a library of cosmetics for your character.

    15$ : Final tier of cosmetics. Gold chains and shit. >_>

 

 

It's a rough example, I know, but still quite possible.

 

I appreciate the thought put into the example... but it also leans way too much towards a cash shop example. Cash shop is absolutely not the way I hope this game goes.

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Now I'm genuinely curious (No sarcasm here).  I need to check out the game the started F2P and went P2P. 

you find me the game that went from f2p to p2p then. I was saying that iv never seen it. Unless you consider Runescape such a game. but runescape is a breed all its own that had a free version and a paid members version

 

 

 

 

edit: on second read this may come off as me being a dick but I assure you It wasn't my intent lol

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I appreciate the thought put into the example... but it also leans way too much towards a cash shop example. Cash shop is absolutely not the way I hope this game goes.

Cash shop for COSMETIC items only? I mean, if a guy wants to paint his ship to the colors of the rainbow, he should be able to buy such a fashion. The unicorn colors won't make him magically better at pvp. It's a win win idea.

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Not that I'm an expert nor "guru" on these models and what is good and bad and blahblahblah.

 

But I would not mind paying a monthly small fee. Perhaps it doesn't have to be your average monthly MMO fee and a bit less but I would not mind. Then again more people would play this if it was more ... accessible in financial terms by having less or no initial cost, or perhaps only an initial cost but no sub fees or similar.

 

So I roughly wonder in general and specifically over time here:

 

Free to play (with initial fee)? Can that work, will it sustain the company over a long time, what options are there to generate income?

Pay to play? A more stable income but somewhat ... "outdated" for some

 

In addition you can ask whether some kind of "shop" makes sense to generate income. Of course the biggest controversy is created by anything going into the "Pay 2 Win" direction where people can spend cash and obtain hard ingame advantages. The softest variant of items or ingame stuff sold with hard currency would be mostly cosmetic items or minor boosts for XP for example. That seems okay. Imo some cosmetic shop or cosmetic additions you can buy should be considered as it may help with income.

 

Let's face it (again I'm no expert but that's how I see it): We as end users or consumers ideally favor free to play but I think this comes at a price somewhere. All the free access isn't good if it can't sustain the company and thus the game, and in my book it's not good either if the cuts resulted in this are too heavy. I'd rather pay a small reasonable fee per month to play than ... not be able to play eventually. If the game is really good then I think a small fee is warranted and okay.

 

Some kind of item shop or so (cosmetic items and stuff) as additional income or counterbalance to a f2p model would also be okay if basically enough people buy items from there to keep the game and company afloat.

 

So basically I see no real possibility for F2P yet (no offense there isn't some major studio behind this here too that could 'afford' it).

 

I think F2P with item shop (ideally mostly cosmetic, no P2W) or P2P are more reasonable and to be expected.

what iv noticed with a lot of f2p games with convience stores or "pay to win" model of business is that people have zero issue throwing literal 1000s at a game just to stroke their ego for a few months. but cant pay for a game which at most would cost you over the period of every 4 months the same as a brand new AAA title.

 

 

my question is which is more preferable in these scenario:

pay 60 dollars then spend 100s of dollars on cosmetic items or

pay 15 a month and have unlimited access to all cosmetics.

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I'm personally very anti-cash shop, even if the cash shop isn't selling anything pay to win. The problem is, I've seen, eventually the business side of the game company takes over and the priority becomes less about making a better game and more about making the next shiny to put on the store.

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@gingerdeadman6


F2P is asking for level 1 trolls to log in loaded with cheats. I stopped playing Planetside 2 due to that, as well as other F2P shit on the market. This game is going to be MASSIVE. F2P means SHIT these days. You get F2P , you get Endless upon ENDLESS farm so the item shop will seem nice to you, with whatever prices are in there. I would prefer a P2P game, knowing that I support the game as much as everyone, rather than play a F2P game, where the guy who paid will always win. The problem here is, that most people, especially teenagers these days, have been raised up in the age of youtube and torrents. Well, guess what, you got to pay for things you like in life. I totally support Novaquark on a subscription model and I believe they should not budge on the subject, cause I personally, as well as many others, are tired of playing F2P games where they eventually head over down the Pay-2-Win route.

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The problem here is, that most people, especially teenagers these days, have been raised up in the age of youtube and torrents. Well, guess what, you got to pay for things you like in life. I totally support Novaquark on a subscription model and I believe they should not budge on the subject, cause I personally, as well as many others, are tired of playing F2P games where they eventually head over down the Pay-2-Win route.

 

AMEN

 

P2P aka subscription fees guarantee a stable income and allow the devs to plan more easily opposed to perhaps random dynamic income from shops or whatever while serving as a minor anti-toxic barrier (those purely out to cause chaos on a general level have it easy if access is free).

 

As for those saving money due to getting software or stuff elsewhere for free: You save a notable amount of money if you get something like that on occasion, so chances are you can afford one subscription fee for an MMO.

 

Again, I know some really have to watch the money they spend but I could afford an MMO when I still went to school with pocket money. If you have a PC, internet and can get new games on occasion, then you surely have the few bucks per month to spend on a game like this I'd assume.

 

E: If we leave a trial aside for a moment I also realize that free to play may encourage more players to check out the game - but if it's really good even a fee won't keep those who're interested away.

 

In short: I don't want to save money short-term only to possibly have the game crash. I'd rather invest a bit into it and be able to play it longer so to speak. But that's just me. Others will prefer other models. I personally hope they settle for something that keeps them afloat, and I assume subscription fees may be the most stable income.

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@gingerdeadman6

 

 

F2P is asking for level 1 trolls to log in loaded with cheats. I stopped playing Planetside 2 due to that, as well as other F2P shit on the market. This game is going to be MASSIVE. F2P means SHIT these days. You get F2P , you get Endless upon ENDLESS farm so the item shop will seem nice to you, with whatever prices are in there. I would prefer a P2P game, knowing that I support the game as much as everyone, rather than play a F2P game, where the guy who paid will always win. The problem here is, that most people, especially teenagers these days, have been raised up in the age of youtube and torrents. Well, guess what, you got to pay for things you like in life. I totally support Novaquark on a subscription model and I believe they should not budge on the subject, cause I personally, as well as many others, are tired of playing F2P games where they eventually head over down the Pay-2-Win route.

i dont know why you @'ed me lol cause im against f2p unless im missing the point of the post

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I'm personally very anti-cash shop, even if the cash shop isn't selling anything pay to win. The problem is, I've seen, eventually the business side of the game company takes over and the priority becomes less about making a better game and more about making the next shiny to put on the store.

 

 

This! In every occasion I have seen with a company that relies on the cash shop for revenue, the future development is more about superficial fluff in the cash shop than actual development making the game better, or more content.

 

Content and fun game play always take a back seat to the cash shop in games that use it heavily. Blizzard's WOW is the only cash shop that has ever made sense to me. It's extremely light in it's offerings and has little impact on future development.

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Lineage 2, Guild Wars, Guild Wars 2, Aion, Tera.  Though the player base for Lineage 2 and Aion are almost entirely in Asia now.

 

Forgot ESO.

Touche. Guild Wars 2 is pretty decent.

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Most game subscriptions are the price of a single lunch if you get something descent, 2 lunches if you get nasty food. $15.00 bucks a month for something you might possibly spend over 100 hours in is DIRT cheap for entertainment. If you can't afford the 15 bucks, cancel netflix and skip 1 lunch a month, just 1.

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CaptainTwerkmotor you seem to play the Devil's Advocate card in all your posts.  A hard but necessary viewpoint in any big discussion.  However, I sometimes wonder if you're trying to provoke thoughtful banter or just being a troll.  Inquiring minds want to know. :huh:

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Putting that to scale, WOW charges $15 a month. WOW also happens to be the most successful MMORPG in the entire world. So for DU to charge $15 straight up would be a little too much in my opinion. Something like $7-10 bucks, to begin with, would be more appropriate. 

EDIT: Something I forgot to add. WOW's been around for almost as long as I have, and it's over 30GB in content. 

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I can come up with legit reasons for monthly fee (or at least, a buy-to-play model)

 

1) No  hackounts.

 

See Planetside 2 and its glorious level 1 wall-walkers and fully unlocked account cheaters.

 

2) No pay-to-win.

 

You make a game free-to-play, you need to make money anyway. Would you like to lose PvP wars, because the other side can fight with the most powerful weapon of all, The Majestic Walletron, Carrier of Credit Cards? It's either subscription and no pay-to-win / pay-to-play-the-next-planet.

 

This game aims for SERIOUSLY enormous proportions. Imagine all WoW servers ON THE SAME SERVER. You know, servers don't run on wishes. I tried ;'( I know. And servers need money, in other words, revenue, which needs to come from some other place than optional things like skins. Paying real cash, for spaceships, would be game-breaking, as the rich would simply roll out starships in PvP like no biggy. Now, I would like for the game to be pay-to-play, but no-sub. I don't like commitments - hat's how my goldfish died - but on the other hand, I don't want for people to log in loaded on cheats and just teleporting around the game. A paid-entry keeps away the cheaters, as these lesser form of humans, tend to be cheap as mothertruckers when it comes to paying for trolling. Perhaps having semi-rare minerals for sale on the market, you know, not REALLY rare, to the point of them being pay-to-obtain being pay-to-win, but rare enough for them to warrent their buying price. In any case, the devs will probably figure out how to monetise the game, AFTER they figured out the gameplay itself. We argueing over the chicken sink while the foundation is being set in here.

I agree with your logic and my make a wish server never worked out for me either.

A game of this almost infinite size and scope would require a LOT of money just to keep it operating and the single shard server running at peak performance. I would much rather pay a smaller monthly or even bi-annual fee to play rather than watch the server slowly die. (from my experience this tends to happen)

 

Last but not least lets look at two of the most succesful MMOs to stand the tests of time...

WoW -  paid subscription, massive improvements and little to no server issues over the past decade+

EvE Online - A game in this genre (i use that loosely) but again massive improvements over the years mainly funded by players subscriptions who are dedicated to the game.

If either of these games had been pay for your copy and your done, i think they both would have died out a long time ago.

 

Other games are following a loose version of this as well, look at Elite Dangerous, the model they use asks you to buy the game for essentially one year of coninued support and updates, after that year they come out with a new and improved version that if you buy you get essentially another year of continued updates.

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Has anyone ever heard of DragonRealms?

 

It's a MUD (a text based multiplayer game) and they charge between 15 to 50 dollars a month to play, depending on the perks you want. The 50 dollar level gets you access to a private server composed of nothing but other people paying 50 dollars to play.

 

I have no idea how, but somehow they're still making enough money to have conventions every year (or every other year), and employ a full time staff.

 

For a MUD....

 

 

I think people generally be okay with paying 8-15 dollars a month for Dual Universe, regardless of how niche it becomes. 

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Has anyone ever heard of DragonRealms?

 

It's a MUD (a text based multiplayer game) and they charge between 15 to 50 dollars a month to play, depending on the perks you want. The 50 dollar level gets you access to a private server composed of nothing but other people paying 50 dollars to play.

 

I have no idea how, but somehow they're still making enough money to have conventions every year (or every other year), and employ a full time staff.

 

For a MUD....

 

 

I think people generally be okay with paying 8-15 dollars a month for Dual Universe, regardless of how niche it becomes. 

I have never heard of DragonRealms though I shied away from MUDs that charged money when I did play them.  

Many years ago I used to run one for my friends and I.  It was based on the old Temple of Apshai game I had for AppleII.  Even back then I had more server space and bandwidth than I knew what to do with.  Nowadays you could run a 1000+ players with virtually no overhead.  So yeah, I could see how they make enough money to do that.  Wish I had thought to pull that off.  

 

Hmmm.  I'm going to pull that out of storage now.  The algorithm I used procedurally created the rooms.  Maybe I still CAN pull that off! :D

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