Free to play vs Pay to play.

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Free to play or Pay to play?

  • Free to play

  • Pay to play


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Zenoth

Diamond Member
Jan 29, 2005
5,197
200
106
I do prefer free-to-play over subscription-based, but sometimes the decisions taken by the developer/publisher in terms of what ends up being micro-transaction'ed in the game's cash shop is rather ridiculous. That or they make sure to remove something in the game's content, which was previously accessible to everyone, just to make sure that a "replacement" of what was removed found in the cash shop will then be targeted by the players.

A recent example, in TERA Rising (which I play regularly). Before the latest major patch the players could dye their gear as it had always been since the beta days (we still can, but keep reading if it interests you). There were dyes that could last 7 real-time days on your gear (once the gear was dyed of course). Additionally, gathering plants granted materials to craft dyes for new colors and tones, and one specific crafted dye called the "Premium Munsell" was the most popular (of the crafted ones). That specific crafted dye had Red-Green-Blue sliders with values of 25 (minimum) to 255 (maximum) for each sliders (including a "brightness" slider to adjust the vibrancy I believe).

That dye like any other dyes would only cost in-game Gold and usually sold at the Trade Brokers or of course could be traded between players as well, and not a single crafted dye was sold at the cash shop. There is a dye, however, in the cash shop called the Apothecary dye which itself cannot be crafted nor "found" in the game whatsoever, it is exclusive to the cash shop and costs basically $1.65, and if you find them at the Trade Broker (and there are) then it merely means some people bought it at the shop to sale them for in-game Gold at the broker. That dye, has the exact same RGB sliders as the Premium Munsell dye with the single difference being that the dye lasts forever, instead of a maximum of 7 days for the Munsell dye, that was it and the price difference between the two wasn't all that bad either. The Munsell dye was a good alternative for 7 days and didn't cost thousands of Gold, and the Apothecary dye was mostly used to dye gear to black forever (it has always been popular for that single purpose, although some people of course vary from others and don't care about black at all and go for other colors).

Now, what happened?

Well, first of all it was a "ninja" change and even the publisher for the NA version of the game (En Masse) wasn't aware of it and of course didn't include the change in the patch notes, most likely because Blue Hole Studios (the devs) never mentioned it in the first place. Secondly, the change in question was that they completely removed the Munsell dye from the game and cannot be crafted at all anymore (of course making the materials from plants gathering needed to dye it useless by now), and the other "regular" dyes sold at the in-game vendor NPCs now only last 1 HOUR, and there is no way to change that. Each piece of gear, once dyed, will have their original color come back on your face after one hour, at which point of course you have to buy the dye(s) again to dye your gear with an annoying GUI to do so on top of that (but that's another story).

Now here's the thing, they of course expect the community to just go numb and make their way to the cash shop blindly to just buy Apothecary dyes because Munsell dyes are a thing of the past. But the timing of it all (the removal of the Munsell dye, and the one-hour duration change for the other dyes) happens to "coincide" (except it's not a coincidence) with the arrival of the new sets of 2013 Swimsuits, some of which are dye-able and of course lots of people jumped on the sales (which of course had to end after some time probably because of some sort of a virtual "limited quantity", gosh those guys aren't subtle) hoping to get a dye-able version of the suit(s) they bought (the dye-able versions are random, in RNG boxes, so they're worth a lot in-game). But of course no one bothers to dye their gear for just one hour now so what do you think the devs hope to achieve by doing all that with a 2013 Swimsuits sales along with the removal of the Munsell dye alternative?

That's the kind of stuff I really despise in free-to-play games, it's when the micro-transaction business comes along and farts in your face expecting you to just smile at it and throw money at the screen. But other than that I still do prefer F2P games, there's one reason for that and it's simply because at the very least I have the choice to ignore it even if it frustrates me and not spend a dime when I feel disappointed by a decision from the devs, rather than feeling "obliged" to keep "investing" every month hoping that "something changes in the next update". With TERA I just frankly let things go and if the game sinks to the bottom of the ocean at least I won't be on that boat when it happens.

And, besides, what P2P games haven't gone F2P at some point anyway? It looks like only World of WarCraft can afford to stay P2P due to the mere players base it has, because otherwise I'm pretty sure that one too would go on the F2P wagon.
 
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BrightCandle

Diamond Member
Mar 15, 2007
4,762
0
76
I don't really have an issue with either mechanism of renumeration but there are some worrying trends. With Payment up front games are largely aiming to pull you through them at a decent pace, to get you to see all the bits they are most proud of and to potentially create a game with lots of little side exploration to do if you so choose. F2P seems to be largely about extending the content, putting it behind payment walls and making the pace of progress as slow as possible to ensure the players stick around.

Games like planetside 2 have ridiculous prices for guns and the grind to get them was even more ridiculous. But you couldn't be competitive without them so you really didn't have much choice, you had to buy them or die more. While technically it wasn't pay 2 win because you could get it within the game in practice it was pay 2 win as the grind was so insanely long. Star trek online has high end ships at around $30, but the very best ships in the game are 100's of dollars. Sure you can play without buying them but you are about 15% down on shields, hull and don't have the same special abilities. Again its a game with thousands of pounds of items.

So while I don't have an issue with either payment mechanism it concerns me that F2P games are so much more expensive than just paying up front. But more worrying to me is when the renumeration mechanism impacts on the core gameplay and its pace and speed and the game is artificially slowed to a grinding crawl just to keep you around longer in case you buy something, but it also means almost all of the F2P games feel very much the same - slow and plodding and boring.
 

cmdrdredd

Lifer
Dec 12, 2001
27,052
357
126
I prefer to just pay for the game up front. No monthly fees. Expansions and DLC would also be paid for. Free games with cash shops and monthly subscription based games often end up costing you a lot more in the long run.

I don't mind cash shops with the cosmetic crap that people always buy if it helps keep the servers running and online but I dislike pay to win games with huge advantages for those willing to pay for the premium stuff.

Yes some pay models allow someone to pay real money to level and obtain gear that imbalances the game. When you obtain a certain piece of gear, you are generally expected to have a certain amount of time invested in the game. When you just buy it, you have players with low skill running around with the better gear.
 

blackened23

Diamond Member
Jul 26, 2011
8,548
2
0
I prefer to just pay for the game up front. No monthly fees. Expansions and DLC would also be paid for. Free games with cash shops and monthly subscription based games often end up costing you a lot more in the long run.

I don't mind cash shops with the cosmetic crap that people always buy if it helps keep the servers running and online but I dislike pay to win games with huge advantages for those willing to pay for the premium stuff.

I like this model as well -- Guild Wars 2 has done exceptionally well with it. I don't mind paying 50$ upfront, but i'm not going to pay 150$ over the course of a year. I also don't want a F2P game that is unplayable without paying tons of cash.
 

Subyman

Moderator <br> VC&G Forum
Mar 18, 2005
7,876
32
86
Long term, I like pay to play. It really depends on the game. Most of the time I'd rather pay a flat price and get everything the game has to offer instead of constantly having to spend. The endless spending makes it seem like a money pit to me. I hate being bothered by fiscal decisions when I just want to play.
 

cyclohexane

Platinum Member
Feb 12, 2005
2,837
19
81
what kind of dumbass question is this? Who the hell would vote for pay, when there is an option for FREE?
 

cmdrdredd

Lifer
Dec 12, 2001
27,052
357
126
what kind of dumbass question is this? Who the hell would vote for pay, when there is an option for FREE?

We gave tons of examples of why. Try reading the thread. Free isn't always good. Sometimes if your offering it for free it is lacking quality.
 

Pogolauncher

Member
Aug 21, 2013
29
0
0
What I have found at times is when you do a f2p game and meet good people, they have nothing holding them there. What I mean is one day they can quit out of the blue because they didn't pay anything for it and take no loss if they just stop. I've had this happen before.

That could, in theory be a good part of the F2P aspect, you can randomly quit if you feel that the game is boring or for other reasons and not actually lose anything.

But yeah, losing a friend on a game could be annoying because their is nothing holding them there, if they were good friends to play with, i would have added them on Steam or Skype etc.
 

blackened23

Diamond Member
Jul 26, 2011
8,548
2
0
what kind of dumbass question is this? Who the hell would vote for pay, when there is an option for FREE?

If you think F2P games are truly free, then you're in for a surprise. Can you play them free? Sure. Can you play effectively and competitively? Nope.

As mentioned earlier I like Guild Wars 2 model of full price up front, and free thereafter. I really have no issue with paying for a game up front, I really don't know why F2P is a "thing" now. F2P isn't free. Why bother, I hate everything about the philosophy behind "F2P" games.

Heck, Guild Wars 2 doesn't have a sub fee and has substantial content updates. So I don't buy into the fact that other MMOs like WoW state that the sub fee is for regular updates - you can update a game without charging 150$ / month. This is on top of the fact that Blizzard sells tons of cosmetic items for 15-50$ per, it really is quite hilarious.
 
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zlejedi

Senior member
Mar 23, 2009
303
0
0
Only F2P for me.
If i paid for a month of gaming i'd feel bad when i'm playing diffrent game.
 

nageov3t

Lifer
Feb 18, 2004
42,808
83
91
I've seen F2P done really well (RIFT, where I only felt like microtransactions were required when I felt like being lazy) and I've seen it done really badly (SWTOR, where you had to pay for even basic functionality like actionbars)

at this state in my life, I'd rather go FTP or just buying a game upfront.

when I was 20 and single and didn't have much of a life, I could easily justify the $15/month for WoW because I played it so much; at the time, I was burning through 1-2 $50 console games every month... now that I'm 30, involved, and have a social life, it's hard to justify for the 1 (maybe 2) days/week I'm actually available to play.
 

Midwayman

Diamond Member
Jan 28, 2000
5,723
325
126
One of the biggest problems for f2p games is that the core mechanics of the games have to be designed around monetization. That tends to make sense with limited types of game play, and usually induces and artificial amount of grind.

Subscription games aren't immune to the grind fest of f2p, but they can feature a wider range of mechanics.

I'd much rather buy games as a single purchase. That way the game can just be focused on fun and what makes sense for the game rather than retaining customers and squeezing them for money.
 

SunnyD

Belgian Waffler
Jan 2, 2001
32,674
146
106
www.neftastic.com
Biggest problem I run into with subscription based games is content.

For upfront cost (usually ~$50-60) + $15 monthly fee, they better be ramming content down my throat like <insert hooker joke here>. Instead, what you usually end up with is a game with about 30-40 hours of content, TOPS, that's supposed to last you until the next actual content update comes out which ends up usually being a good 9-12 months later.

Do the math. $50 flat fee which gets you on average of 20-30 hours for most standalone games anyway, plus 9 to 12 months of $15/month subscriptions before you even see a real content update? You just paid a minimum $185 for 30 hours of content. Not only that, more legitimate subscription games won't even give you that content for free, so you'll be paying usually $20-25 for an expansion pack for what amounts to usually 20 hours or so of additional content.

And, "PvP" is not content.
Nor is repetitively raiding the same handful of "endgame" areas in order to gear your character.
Nor is playing a different class through the game again.

I would much rather take a base game in and pay a small price for small, iterative content additions as the game grows. Pay for what I consume (or want to consume), rather than pay a dubious subscription that nets me zero benefits.
 

darkewaffle

Diamond Member
Oct 7, 2005
8,152
1
81
P2P does a decent job at keeping the worst parts of internet culture at bay.

Most F2P games end up feeling really shallow to me too.
 

zinfamous

No Lifer
Jul 12, 2006
111,165
30,117
146
Neither: Pay to own and play--like Guild Wars.

of course, you're left with the gem store mechanic and endless events that pretty much do nothing but encourage the purchase of gems, but whatever. All of it can still be bought with in-game currency.

and they are already 5 months into a supposed permanent cycle of large content/event updates every two weeks. You don't see this in any other game, subscription or not.

That kind of success and amount of content trashes any argument for the subscription model if you ask me.
 
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greenhawk

Platinum Member
Feb 23, 2011
2,007
0
71
I don't mind F2P when it is done right. Sadly there are few examples of it done right that I rather just pay to play.

+1

I prefer some kind of entrance fee, keeps the riff raff out. Personally all F2P games lack any soul. They're games designed by accountant to squeeze money out of you.

+1

The other thing is that can make or break either of them is no care from the developers when people abuse the system or the developers develop in a direction which makes the entry harder for new people after the game has been around for a while.

One example is Team Fortress 2. It was good I thought when released, it developed in to a questionable direction but people cared about doing right to others as the game had that required buy in level. Going F2P just meant a lot of people who did not care if they got banded as they just opened another account and would be back in 5 minutes.

Diablo and WoW are two games which developed into directions which left a bad taste in my mouth . Mainly the "tweeking" which sped up the earlier levels so people could play late game faster.

Currently playing a beta (to be f2p) game. I was enjoying it a bit to start with as it was rather good with the buy in needed to get access to beta, but every release log / bug fix reads like "we made it too hard, so are dumbing it down for the masses". If it keeps going like this then I will be stopping before release.

Another game which I bought into beta (mechwarrior online) was going well, but it seems the developers are more interested in more content that people buy than actually getting out of beta / fixing game bugs.
 

greenhawk

Platinum Member
Feb 23, 2011
2,007
0
71
I keep seeing this argument.

The idea I find is good, the down side is that the people I would perfer not to play with have access to the parents credit card. Removing any advantage of having that barrier.
 

Saylick

Diamond Member
Sep 10, 2012
3,532
7,859
136
The other thing is that can make or break either of them is no care from the developers when people abuse the system or the developers develop in a direction which makes the entry harder for new people after the game has been around for a while.

One example is Team Fortress 2. It was good I thought when released, it developed in to a questionable direction but people cared about doing right to others as the game had that required buy in level. Going F2P just meant a lot of people who did not care if they got banded as they just opened another account and would be back in 5 minutes.

Diablo and WoW are two games which developed into directions which left a bad taste in my mouth . Mainly the "tweeking" which sped up the earlier levels so people could play late game faster.

Currently playing a beta (to be f2p) game. I was enjoying it a bit to start with as it was rather good with the buy in needed to get access to beta, but every release log / bug fix reads like "we made it too hard, so are dumbing it down for the masses". If it keeps going like this then I will be stopping before release.

Another game which I bought into beta (mechwarrior online) was going well, but it seems the developers are more interested in more content that people buy than actually getting out of beta / fixing game bugs.

The funny thing is that I've played TF2, WoW, and MWO as well and I have to agree with you on the points you bring up. TF2 was great in the beginning before F2P, WoW was great before they dumbed it down, and MWO is seriously lacking game refinement imo. Needless to say, I've stopped playing all 3.
 

greenhawk

Platinum Member
Feb 23, 2011
2,007
0
71
I'd much rather buy games as a single purchase. That way the game can just be focused on fun and what makes sense for the game rather than retaining customers and squeezing them for money.

+1

definitly my overall preference.

It gets old fast having to wait for a "build timer" to count down as I do not want to spend money on getting extra builders or pay money to instantly complete a single building. The f2p beta I was playing is at the point where they want about $10 to complete one building. And I have about a dozen to upgrade. to play this game fast would cost more than I make in a week if I was only playing for an hour. So playing it by logging in once every 1-2 days for 2 mins. (takes longer to log in than click the "upgrade building" button).

That just makes me even more likly to walk away from the game as I just forget about it
 

greenhawk

Platinum Member
Feb 23, 2011
2,007
0
71
I would much rather take a base game in and pay a small price for small, iterative content additions as the game grows. Pay for what I consume (or want to consume), rather than pay a dubious subscription that nets me zero benefits.

Unfortunitly that sort of gaming is dieing out as developers are going the DLC path for those games now.

While a separate topic, zero day DLC turns me off some games, and then some other games appear written to push DLC to the point you feel half the game is missing from the initla release as everywhere you turn the game is telling you "you need <x> DLC to continue".
 

DigDog

Lifer
Jun 3, 2011
13,782
2,284
126
F2P will get me playing easily; but the model itself has nothing to do wether i prefer a game over another. If the game itself has what i want, then pay now or pay later is irrelevant.
(also, newsflash: free to play games aren't free)
 

cmdrdredd

Lifer
Dec 12, 2001
27,052
357
126
What I don't mind is when a game is free to play forever but limited and to get the rest of the content you pay a set price. Later they release more content for a small price. Like how they are doing Killer Instinct on the Xbox one. You get one character for free and can play online unlimited, against anyone, even ranked for free. Then for $20 you can get the rest of the finished characters or buy one or two at $5 each, your choice.. They expect to have more characters available for about the same price in a year. However, you never have to buy those characters. You are able to play online against people using those characters without buying them yourself forever. Even if you just use the free character.

Then with the ps4 and PSN+ you get drive club. It is the full game minus a few vehicles and tracks. You can play unlimited for no extra cost. If you want the other tracks etc you can upgrade to the full game. With this title you can just buy the whole thing outright.

These models allow you to try the whole experience and then dive in at your own pace. I think this isn't a bad model, it isn't pay to win and isnt filled with micro transactions. It is more of a developer and publisher trying to establish a following and building it from there.
 

SunnyD

Belgian Waffler
Jan 2, 2001
32,674
146
106
www.neftastic.com
The idea I find is good, the down side is that the people I would perfer not to play with have access to the parents credit card. Removing any advantage of having that barrier.

I agree. I've see more trolling, griefing, entitlement and asshattery in subscription games than in any of the F2P titles I've enjoyed.
 

Red Storm

Lifer
Oct 2, 2005
14,233
234
106
I wish free to play was around when I was a teenage gamer. I had all the time in the world to offset the additional grinding that you have to do with freemium games, but I would have loved it because free games! Money was tight back then, not time. Today it's my time that is limited, not money, so I prefer the traditional pay to play model.
 

blackwhiskers

Member
Jan 6, 2013
72
0
0
tribes:ascend ;_;

f2p and developer's inability to even grasp how to properly go about it essentially killed that game. f2p also brings the necessity of cosmetic items, if you want to do it properly, and there's a risk of them ruining the feeling of the game at some point. see tf2.

so pay 2 play, custom servers, mods etc. all day every day.