Well, they didn’t TECHNICALLY go Free-to-Play, so I can’t say I told you so. It looks more like they are going with the Guild Wars model. I can’t say I’m a fan yet – from what I’ve heard the game would sincerely benefit from the massive influx of population that would happen if they ditched all barriers to entry — but I guess I can see the merit in getting what you can from what is hopefully a reasonably large console launch. Console gamers still need to be taught how free-to-play works, so this is arguably a necessary hedge.
I still bet the entry price falls to below $10 by the end of the year.
The GW2 model works. It is a future we can believe in.
Does it though?
What the GW2 model appears to show is that over time B2P becomes F2P as the price point on the box buy-in drops. Player complaints are pretty common in GW2 now that “Anet puts all the good stuff in the store”.
I don’t know as much about TSW, but again I can remember complaints that they split the Tokyo zone into two DLC’s (one the zone, one the actual quests in the zone). At the time it sound more like unethical F2P than ethical B2P.
Just call me skeptical that B2P can work with a full-featured MMORPG. (It worked with GW1, but that was essentially a lobbied co-op game).
Let them complain, so long as they buy.
You can buy Gems directly out of game, then exchange them directly for Gold in game.
Now, that system was in place for GW2 at launch. I wonder whether it’s easier to go from a trad monthly-fee MMO model like ESO at launch to GW2’s model, or to a freemium model like SWTOR’s. Can’t do either without a lot of effort.
Hell is frezzing I agree with you.
You, everyobdy and their dogs called this one, so don’t get too proud 🙂
I find it interesting how everyone compares this to the Guild Wars 2 model, despite the actual blueprint for this transformation being what ‘The Secret World’ did. The comparisons don’t end there either.
A degree of infamy I guess.
I never went near ESO, just didn’t appeal to my single player predilections set up by the previous Elder Scrolls games . Also, only have time for one MMO in my life and that’s still SWTOR.
That said I’m still from the generation that doesn’t mind to pay an up front box price if I feel a game is going to give me 20+ hours of entertainment. Less than that and I start to get a little quarrelsome, the only reason I don’t feel ripped off by the 7 hours romp through the single player campaign of Battlefield 3 was the hilarious results of trying to fly the helicopter in the co-op mission with a friend. I didn’t know you could park an Apache upside down :O
I can understand the argument for free access as it increases the initial footfall, but I also feel there is a sentiment of ‘You get what you pay for’ and if a product is free it’s not worth much. It would be interesting to know how significant that actually is in real world metrics. Do people persevere longer with a game they have paid money for upfront or are they just as likely to quit and move on to a new product?
Aside from SWTOR I’ve been putting some time into Elite: Dangerous. Missed the Kickstarter but managed to get into the premium Beta with expansion pass (all future core expansions free). It has that upfront box price to access and additional revenue from the cash shop which only sells paint jobs for the vessels at the moment (given an earlier statement I suspect some limited vessels will also be introduced to the shop) and in the future as expansions are developed they will cost for the newcomers. Without the subscription cost I don’t feel any compulsion to play and just potter around in my Sidewinder as I feel like it. Then again it is a sandbox game with a very broad ‘win’ scenario as I’m never going to reach ‘Elite’ status in combat, trading or exploration.
Bit of a ramble… ESO dropping to no subscription was the original point. Probably a no brainer with the introduction of consoles but I can’t help but feel a little empathy for the PC gamers who appear to have been beta testing a product for the console market.
To answer your question, yes, people do significantly give games they pay hard money for a longer chance – the investment is just much more powerful. Free to play games need to work extra hard in order to get players to fall in love with them quickly.
I would imagine this ‘honeymoon period’ also extends to the learning curve that a player can be expected to deal with.
I remember ‘Falcon 4.0’ and the hours spent just trying to take off, fly a circuit and land. Not to mention the instruction manual that came with it, I thought it was in a dozen languages but no, all English! :O
Having progressed a little way through ‘Candy Crush’ it’s interesting to see the complexity the new candies introduce over time. When I first started I felt it was a rather simple mechanic, by the time you have progressed through the 10 levels or so that make the most of those new candies, board effects or completion conditions I am eager to find out what the next zone will throw up 🙂
Although it also meant I almost never progressed past the first couple of zones because it was too easy.
If we’re going to throw around the word “technically,” then it isn’t really the GuildWars 2 model, since there will still be a subscription available which, if you do not avail yourself of, you will be required to purchase future DLC individually. This is more akin to what Funcom did with The Secret World than GuildWars 2. Technicalities FTW!
As for entry price, I quickly found physical copies of the game for $15, though if you want to buy the digital version it is still $59.99. Logic need not apply.
I’ve noticed that when games go FTP, there ends up being all these indirect and hidden penalties to said consumers who aren’t premium.
It’s understandable that they have to make money, but its a matter of time before all the “good items” are in some kind of store and all the drops and finds are decent at best.
The Elder Scrolls is my favorite series of all time, but I just worry that ESO won’t replicate the experience that Morrowind provided us as far back as 03.
Currently, this is probably their best option though. If ESO population is down, you will continue to lose “subscribers” because there isn’t enough of them, missions, activity, ect. It’s essentially a vicious cycle. I am curious to see what this anticipated influx of players will do for them.
Clearly, there’s a lot of ways to fuck up F2P, and a lot of people proceed to do exactly that. When I did SWTOR, my goal was to make it so that our current subscribers would convert over to premium users, and have exactly the same gameplay experience that they had before + some virtual currency to spend in a monthly allowance, so they’d see the conversion as all upside.
The F2P users had a worse experience, but then if you don’t make it so that the Premium package is a worthy purchase, the Premium package will fail. In our case, we were overaggressive — the fact that we limited free players to only 2 action bars is one of the stupidest design decisions of my career. In truth, the convenience and acceleration features (earlier mounts, faster XP, etc) were more than enough. We made a good faith effort to not require F2P users to spend cash to be competitive, and for the most part we were successful.
One of the hallmarks of SWTOR’s success was that we allowed anyone to buy something on the store for cash, and then put it on the auction house for credits. A lot of players still do that service as a quick way to ‘buy credits’. But the important thing is that it means that players who are not interested in spending real cash can always play the auction house game and compete on the market for any and all of the unlocks they wanted.
SWTOR (and I believe, Turbine’s titles) succeeded in their conversions because designers took the reins and protected the users from unscrupulous money assholes. I’m hoping that TESO was smart enough to take notes.
‘One of the hallmarks of SWTOR’s success was that we allowed anyone to buy something on the store for cash, and then put it on the auction house for credits. ‘
As a subscriber this was the most important aspect of the transition from subscriber-only to the hybrid model – having access to the CM content through in-game activity (I suspect like many I would much rather such rewards came from unique activities but I’m willing to compromise on this one 🙂 ) The complementary cartel coins sweetened the deal and made it easy to gain access to other cartel market additions like the new species when the Cathar were introduced.
Yes it means that I need to run content to accumulate the credits, and yes I can grumble at how much other players list cartel market items for, but the net result is I have access to everything and haven’t paid more than my subscription.
It’s unfortunate there’s been a slight hiccup over the introduction of the Contraband Slot Machine, I’m hoping that will sort itself out over the next week or two. The initial release was far too generous in its rewards the subsequent fix has taken it too far the other way.
One unfortunate aspect that is difficult to counter is the vast amount of time certain players will pour into an activity. A feature that works well for a casual player with an hour to play most days is quickly abused that play for 16 hour stretches.
And Damien is rigth I would prefer something like the gw2 cash shop but the cartel market has its perks like the Collections bar. love that. But you are corect Damion this way the cartel market is in direct competion to credit;
/gold sellers.
Im a big fan of the Elder Scrolls series and bougth the game but nothing in made well and above what was done before .
And it had a dowrigth extorsion of pre launch model, a lot people pointed that out. And grindfest 101 is a bit overused.
GW2 models of BTP is the best currently in existence.
i am a fan of Elder Scrolls but what was the problem behind ditching a model !