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Forums - Gaming - Yerli: “We’ll figure out” how to make free-to-play AAA work

jlrx on 03 July 2012
wfz said:
Slimebeast said:

Three huge poblems with F2P:

1. Bad game design. Rather than making a good game on its own merits the game will instead be designed so that the player will spend more money while playing it.

2. Pay to win is never good. It makes the low spending players feel unfairly treated and it makes the high spending players feel like they cheat. And neither will feel satisfied.

3. F2P increases the risk that people with disposition for addiction will become addicted and spend insane amounts of their hard earned money (called "whales" in the world of F2P).

Cevat Yerli you lier, F2P is not better for the gamer, it's only better for the publisher.


You bring up some excellent points of how publishers take severe advantage of the F2P model, but none of those are inherint problems of the F2P model as your post would suggest.

I'd add another problem to F2P, lets say you are interested in a game, you enjoy it, you play it, you invest in it, a year later, as happens, maybe longer, but after some time the revenue for the game slows and drys up, the developers now shut the game down, you have nothing, you lost your invested money, and there is nothing left.  Take that same approach, you dropped your $50 or $60 on a game, but it sells poorly, or the developer goes out of business, you still have the game, its yours.



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happydolphin on 03 July 2012
jlrx said:

I'd add another problem to F2P, lets say you are interested in a game, you enjoy it, you play it, you invest in it, a year later, as happens, maybe longer, but after some time the revenue for the game slows and drys up, the developers now shut the game down, you have nothing, you lost your invested money, and there is nothing left.  Take that same approach, you dropped your $50 or $60 on a game, but it sells poorly, or the developer goes out of business, you still have the game, its yours.

It'll happen for games not F2P tho. WoW, Diablo, Runescape, all kinds of games where users sell items to each other regardless. And the same applies.

The same applies to a lot of things remarkably.



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

Three huge poblems with F2P:

1. Bad game design. Rather than making a good game on its own merits the game will instead be designed so that the player will spend more money while playing it.

2. Pay to win is never good. It makes the low spending players feel unfairly treated and it makes the high spending players feel like they cheat. And neither will feel satisfied.

3. F2P increases the risk that people with disposition for addiction will become addicted and spend insane amounts of their hard earned money (called "whales" in the world of F2P).

Cevat Yerli you lier, F2P is not better for the gamer, it's only better for the publisher.


You bring up some excellent points of how publishers take severe advantage of the F2P model, but none of those are inherint problems of the F2P model as your post would suggest.

I'd add another problem to F2P, lets say you are interested in a game, you enjoy it, you play it, you invest in it, a year later, as happens, maybe longer, but after some time the revenue for the game slows and drys up, the developers now shut the game down, you have nothing, you lost your invested money, and there is nothing left.  Take that same approach, you dropped your $50 or $60 on a game, but it sells poorly, or the developer goes out of business, you still have the game, its yours.


This is an inherint problem with multiplayer online games in general. I agree in the sense that it's unlikely the F2P business model will go into single-player games, it's not really a problem with F2P as it is with the entire style of online multiplayer gaming. So.. subscription games would fall into this issue as well.

 

Try again! I am having fun with this.. :P



thranx on 03 July 2012
Slimebeast said:

Three huge poblems with F2P:

1. Bad game design. Rather than making a good game on its own merits the game will instead be designed so that the player will spend more money while playing it.

2. Pay to win is never good. It makes the low spending players feel unfairly treated and it makes the high spending players feel like they cheat. And neither will feel satisfied.

3. F2P increases the risk that people with disposition for addiction will become addicted and spend insane amounts of their hard earned money (called "whales" in the world of F2P).

Cevat Yerli you lier, F2P is not better for the gamer, it's only better for the publisher.


That is with current methods of F2P. There are other options. What if they did some sort of commercial break during games. Like every 20 min you get a commercial or at the end of each level. It may kill immersion some but its an alternative.Seems like this guy wants to think outside of the box so i wonder what he will come up with.



Slimebeast on 03 July 2012
wfz said:
Slimebeast said:

Three huge poblems with F2P:

1. Bad game design. Rather than making a good game on its own merits the game will instead be designed so that the player will spend more money while playing it.

2. Pay to win is never good. It makes the low spending players feel unfairly treated and it makes the high spending players feel like they cheat. And neither will feel satisfied.

3. F2P increases the risk that people with disposition for addiction will become addicted and spend insane amounts of their hard earned money (called "whales" in the world of F2P).

Cevat Yerli you lier, F2P is not better for the gamer, it's only better for the publisher.


You bring up some excellent points of how publishers take severe advantage of the F2P model, but none of those are inherint problems of the F2P model as your post would suggest.

Perhaps in theory they're not inherent problems but theory is irrelevant in this context. In reality they are inherent problems to F2P since the temptation to make money is so too great for the publisher and therefore in almost all F2P games we see the same problems - game designed to make the player pay & stay, pay to win and victims of addiction.



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Slimebeast on 03 July 2012
thranx said:
Slimebeast said:

Three huge poblems with F2P:

1. Bad game design. Rather than making a good game on its own merits the game will instead be designed so that the player will spend more money while playing it.

2. Pay to win is never good. It makes the low spending players feel unfairly treated and it makes the high spending players feel like they cheat. And neither will feel satisfied.

3. F2P increases the risk that people with disposition for addiction will become addicted and spend insane amounts of their hard earned money (called "whales" in the world of F2P).

Cevat Yerli you lier, F2P is not better for the gamer, it's only better for the publisher.


That is with current methods of F2P. There are other options. What if they did some sort of commercial break during games. Like every 20 min you get a commercial or at the end of each level. It may kill immersion some but its an alternative.Seems like this guy wants to think outside of the box so i wonder what he will come up with.

No, that's not what he wants. In an interview Cevat Yerli told that he got the idea when he went to Korea about 5 years ago and saw how passionate people were about gaming and how different the financial model around games was. He saw the benefits of micro-transactions.

F2P is so simple and genious at the same time (from the publisher's perspective).

 You lure in an audience by being free, then you use all kinds of tricks to make them want to pay small but repeated sums and to stay in your game for as long as possible. It's also brilliant in that it allows differentiation - instead of everyone paying $60 you can take advantage of the guy who will only pay $10 (because he would never have bought that $60 game) as well as the whale who gets addicted and shells out thousands of Dollars on a single game, and everyone in between.



Slimebeast on 03 July 2012

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.



thranx on 03 July 2012
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.



Slimebeast on 03 July 2012
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.



wfz on 03 July 2012
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...