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Slimebeast on 03 July 2012
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wfz said:
Slimebeast said:
thranx said:
Slimebeast said:

Commercials can be used in F2P games to some extent but it will be the exception rather than the norm and overall it will not be a big revenue bringer. Or else we would have seen it already.

The reason is that people hate commercials. There's only so much revenue you can take in through commercials.


Hulu seems to make it work. as well as broad cast television. I hate commercials too but i still see plenty of them. I would rather see commercials than pay 60 bucks for a game. It may not be the answer, but the current F2P model isnt the only one.

Okay, let's say there are alternative revenue routes to the F2P model. But which sort of F2P are we talking about? We aren't talking about a theoretical altruistic future possible model that benefits gamers. Instead we should ask, why would publishers go away from a successful model?

F2P today works in only one way (the one I described) and is hugely successful for publishers. Chinese and Korean publishers make crazy revenue through F2P MMOs. Zynga and the other Facebook game makers too make crazy money.

Not every F2P game relies around those concepts you keep hammering. Team Fortress, League of Legends, and DotA 2, for starters, would like to have a word with you...

Those games employ a very fair F2P model and are hugely successful games and will continue to be. Gamers love these types of fair F2P models, flock to these games, and spend more on them. Other F2P publishers will either follow this money down the road or be condemned to their current market state.

 

Meanwhile League of Legends will be raking in millions upon millions for years...

I don't know the details of the models for those games but the thing is that if the paying part only is about superficial stuff like hats and costumes, then that will not bring signifcant revenue to the publishers. Team Fortress 2, Dota and League of Legends were relatively cheap mods or multiplayer extensions that didn't cost $60 to begin with.

Yes, we will see a few decent indie games try the F2P model and in these games when you pay for some useless item it basically works as a form of "thank you" from the player to the developer (kinda like all that PC software was free back in the 90's and then a few moral individuals actually paid for it, I don't remember the name used for it) and that's great. I don't have any problems with that.

But that form of F2P is not what we are talking about. We are talking about AAA games, games with big budgets. To get those big budgets you need revenue flows and gamers will only pay for features in the game that benefit the gameplay.

The inherent problem to F2P is that the publishers must make money through some method and the temptation is big to make as much as possible. That is achieved by giving the player incentives and that's where pay to win comes in. Players don't spend big bucks on hats and costumes, they spend big bucks to win. The vast majority of F2P games have that problem.