CEO Cevat Yerli:
I kinda have a problem with something: "If you look at what kind of games are done in the packaged goods market, with DLCs and premium services and whatnot, it's literally milking the customers to death," I agree with this to an extent, but no one forces me to buy new map packs for BF3, or get the premium service(which I hear is cheaper than buying them all individually?). I do feel as if BF3 should have launched with a few more maps, but that is besides the point. I'd rather pay $50 once for a game and have complete access to everything, with maybe one expansion, then need to shell out money in a F2P game to be competitive. I think this is an inherent design in most F2P games, either the rate at which you earn the currency is very slow, or there are advantages to people who pay. Of course, there a few exceptions, but we're talking about 1 for every 100 F2P games.
I'll illustrate that point by bringing up Crytek's first F2P game, Warface. I got into the Russian beta, seemed fine at first, until I got out of the newb server and faced people who had logged more than a day and had payed for guns or spent several months playing and unlocked the best. The way it works is the free guns can be unlocked by playing, and each unlock is better than the last, and I'm not talking about slightly better, the final unlock in the AR category does twice as much damage as your starting weapon while firing faster, with better accuracy, and longer range, and a faster firing rate (recoil barely exists and isn't a displayed stat). Compared to the best weapon you can buy for cash (at any rank) it wins in one or maybe two categories and loses in the others. Its still close enough that it isn't a big difference in most of the 5 classes, I think the medic has an OP one hit kill automatic shotgun with like 20 rounds though. Now these paid for weapons are bought for durations, 90 days at most, now I've seen a few people spend several hundred dollars to fully gear out, (don't know for how many classes) now what's a poor fella like me to do? My rank 10 account can't compete, people are either too high ranked or have spent some money. I had about a 1.5 KDR, pulling 1.0 now. I could either get my butt handed to me for a half a year, at least, or get "milked" so I can compete. Once you hit rank 10 in two weeks or so you're facing people all the way up to the max rank, not fun, and its been stated by players many times.
Now the free guns (except the default) have an issue than has generated massive complaining, they have to be repaired after each match. I don't know if they use time played or rounds fired or what to calculate it, but it takes about 1/3 of my earnings each game to repair it. Obviously this was implemented in order to slow down the rate at which I can get gear, to try and get me to buy stuff. You can also pay for an XP and currency boost. This just decreases the number of people that are at my gear level, and deceases the time they spend with my gear. Making it harder for me to compete unless I pay. Right now its about $5 a month for a boost. But a brand new retail copy of MW3 when it came out was the equivalent of $20 over there, all games over there are at very cheap; so I expect about $10 or $15 a month for the boost in the US.
Now, there isn't a permanent disadvantage, just one that lasts until I can rank up all the way, which isn't exactly fun when I'm being slaughtered.
And the US (Trion) and European (don't remember) publishers may not go the same route as the Russia publisher has (mail.ru?), they may not try and bleed every penny they can out of the play base, who knows. I believe that Crytek just designs the game, but the publishers decide on the store system.
Combat Arms might be the 3rd or 4th biggest F2P FPS game (10,000,000 million users registered), and we're talking about $25 for a permanent AR, or 30 for an SR. Can't get guns permanently for the in-game currency, makes it hard for the casual player. Nexon games are probably the absolute worst of the F2P genre, just a horrible company that does everything it can to get money.
I just find that the F2P model really seems designed to milk more out of the player base; subscription based games are switching to it for a reason, it generates more revenue (LOTRO and TOR). I'd seriously just rather spend the $50, or wait for a nice sale at $30 and not be disadvantaged, or have to spend a year or two grinding just to be competitive. What are your thoughts?
Made a few searches but didn't find anything on the topic.Gamespot said:
I kinda have a problem with something: "If you look at what kind of games are done in the packaged goods market, with DLCs and premium services and whatnot, it's literally milking the customers to death," I agree with this to an extent, but no one forces me to buy new map packs for BF3, or get the premium service(which I hear is cheaper than buying them all individually?). I do feel as if BF3 should have launched with a few more maps, but that is besides the point. I'd rather pay $50 once for a game and have complete access to everything, with maybe one expansion, then need to shell out money in a F2P game to be competitive. I think this is an inherent design in most F2P games, either the rate at which you earn the currency is very slow, or there are advantages to people who pay. Of course, there a few exceptions, but we're talking about 1 for every 100 F2P games.
I'll illustrate that point by bringing up Crytek's first F2P game, Warface. I got into the Russian beta, seemed fine at first, until I got out of the newb server and faced people who had logged more than a day and had payed for guns or spent several months playing and unlocked the best. The way it works is the free guns can be unlocked by playing, and each unlock is better than the last, and I'm not talking about slightly better, the final unlock in the AR category does twice as much damage as your starting weapon while firing faster, with better accuracy, and longer range, and a faster firing rate (recoil barely exists and isn't a displayed stat). Compared to the best weapon you can buy for cash (at any rank) it wins in one or maybe two categories and loses in the others. Its still close enough that it isn't a big difference in most of the 5 classes, I think the medic has an OP one hit kill automatic shotgun with like 20 rounds though. Now these paid for weapons are bought for durations, 90 days at most, now I've seen a few people spend several hundred dollars to fully gear out, (don't know for how many classes) now what's a poor fella like me to do? My rank 10 account can't compete, people are either too high ranked or have spent some money. I had about a 1.5 KDR, pulling 1.0 now. I could either get my butt handed to me for a half a year, at least, or get "milked" so I can compete. Once you hit rank 10 in two weeks or so you're facing people all the way up to the max rank, not fun, and its been stated by players many times.
Now the free guns (except the default) have an issue than has generated massive complaining, they have to be repaired after each match. I don't know if they use time played or rounds fired or what to calculate it, but it takes about 1/3 of my earnings each game to repair it. Obviously this was implemented in order to slow down the rate at which I can get gear, to try and get me to buy stuff. You can also pay for an XP and currency boost. This just decreases the number of people that are at my gear level, and deceases the time they spend with my gear. Making it harder for me to compete unless I pay. Right now its about $5 a month for a boost. But a brand new retail copy of MW3 when it came out was the equivalent of $20 over there, all games over there are at very cheap; so I expect about $10 or $15 a month for the boost in the US.
Now, there isn't a permanent disadvantage, just one that lasts until I can rank up all the way, which isn't exactly fun when I'm being slaughtered.
And the US (Trion) and European (don't remember) publishers may not go the same route as the Russia publisher has (mail.ru?), they may not try and bleed every penny they can out of the play base, who knows. I believe that Crytek just designs the game, but the publishers decide on the store system.
Combat Arms might be the 3rd or 4th biggest F2P FPS game (10,000,000 million users registered), and we're talking about $25 for a permanent AR, or 30 for an SR. Can't get guns permanently for the in-game currency, makes it hard for the casual player. Nexon games are probably the absolute worst of the F2P genre, just a horrible company that does everything it can to get money.
I just find that the F2P model really seems designed to milk more out of the player base; subscription based games are switching to it for a reason, it generates more revenue (LOTRO and TOR). I'd seriously just rather spend the $50, or wait for a nice sale at $30 and not be disadvantaged, or have to spend a year or two grinding just to be competitive. What are your thoughts?
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