The old ways of Pay to Play is over, discussion.

In my opinion, i think that the days where MMOs charge monthly for games is over, back in the day it was used for server costs, however now a days its very easy to get servers and they are quite cheap. Eventually they will die out and P2P will become B2P from now on. Opinions?

hopefully it will, i have never payed or wanted to pay a monthly fee that i already own, i know it's cool but i just feel it's not worth it.

It usually isnt, especially if they charge you for expansions. Id rather pay 60 bucks every 4-5months for a new expansion than do the normal P2P method.

naw, itll change from pay to play, to pay to win...its pretty evident already.

Guild wars 2, has shown initiative in changing that, you will pay for expansions, and gems, gems = cosmetic items or crafting materials. That is all, everything else is fair game.

Zakkia wrote:gems = cosmetic items or crafting materials.

See that sounds like to me, "Build better s#!& with crafting materials" i havent played GW2, so im not sure if this is the case or not, but even so, 1 game doesnt really raise my hopes.

Well, the only game i can think of that requires monthly that has a decent amount of followers is WoW, and the crafting mats are just more "common" with random boxes you buy with gems. All crafting mats are achievable in game without spending a dime. Overall it is very very good process, and i love the game for striving to change that. Which i hope to follow in other games to come. Since the fee is no longer required to run servers.

It's not 'over' but it's certainly harder to pull off. WOW, Final Fantasy XI, EVE, Rift etc are still P2P and are doing really well, it's all upon the amount of content and how well it runs on launch month. If all goes well it flourishes. Guild Wars is a very unique example, there are very few B2P games so has no real competition in that area, however I see F2P seeping out of the realms of failed MMO's and into other genre's which is unfortunate.

Onion Knight wrote:It's not 'over' but it's certainly harder to pull off. WOW, Final Fantasy XI, EVE, Rift etc are still P2P and are doing really well,

some of those i wouldnt consider doing "really well" , EVE has dropped in players a ton lately, Rift is doing decent, Final fantasy i absolutely wouldnt consider really well at all compared to other games.

FF XI has 500,000 subscribers, has released 3 expansion packs with a fourth on the way and has been out 10 years I'd say that was doing well. Remember the Western market is not the world market, P2P games are still doing well in Japan, China, Australasia and Korea.

For an MMO id consider 500k+ is decent. Not "the best thing out there" Im primarily focused on the games that become the best, i am sure there are some games out there that do decent, but will realistically never rise past the decent factor. Again just my opinion

Hopefully B2P will be the next step. But we have to be careful with the evil Pay to Win.

We can discuss figures all you want, all the games I listed and more are making healthy turnover for the developers and are still P2P.
In the end it's the content and how good the game is, these are all classic MMO's that are great at what they do.
I based my argument on sales figures and yet you come out with the classic 'It's not good enough to be the best' It's not about the best, the question is whether this format is over and clearly it isn't. If you have an aversion to P2P then that's your view and that's fine, but all these subscription models are still successful if the content and community is in place at launch.
My conclusion is that it's not dying but developers have become lazy, bullied around too much by Publishers and/or detached from the consumer. If you look at recent failed MMO's such as TOR, Warhammer, Conan,DCUO and FF XIV and check those sales figures at launch, they sold well but the games were either broken/incomplete/lacked content or were just plain bad at launch. Hence failing and turning into F2P or getting remade like in FF XIV's case.

If I hit a nerve i apologize,you are correct that it is not dead.However, whoever next becomes the top hit in the payment methods will ripple. So, if all entrepreneurs were seeing results of B2P working better and having more consumers, they will produce games in that format. I prob wasnt clear and that is my fault. I just believe in the ripple effect of the most successful games.

im ok with paying monthly as long as i don't have to pay 100+ upfront as well, thats just a rip off

i actually REALLY like Eve's payment method. if youre really good at it, you can pay for one month alone and pay for your game time with the money you can make in-game, i think that's kind of an ingenious way of going about things

You didn't hit a nerve it was just the way you dismissed my argument with that line. The discussion was about is P2P dying not is P2P making millions and millions a year.
I am a fan of Guild Wars and it's a great series, however P2P offers a trickle profit over a number of years, decades even, which makes more money for the developers in the long run, B2P does not offer this to the same extent.
For me it's not about the model of payment but what the game itself offers to me as the player.
One thing for sure is that F2P rarely offers me anything beneficial, and I continue to avoid it like the plague.

Which is why i mean B2P not F2P, a much bigger difference, in B2p an expansion is supposed to come out 4-5 months, which is around $60 in monthly fees, to me that is more moral and what consumers are looking for rather than paying them onthly fee as well as the expansion cost.

P2P offers incentive for the developers to make sure the game is going well and keep people interested in it. For MMOs I honestly think its the best method. F2P has the problem of pay to win coming up which is always annoying, especially in games with pvp.

Onion Knight wrote:
I am a fan of Guild Wars and it's a great series, however P2P offers a trickle profit over a number of years, decades even, which makes more money for the developers in the long run, B2P does not offer this to the same extent.

Did you read my post? I stated Guild Wars and B2P in the same paragraph!
I put F2P in it's own paragraph since it's unrelated to Guild Wars ..
I've already put my case forward, continue to avoid it and continue the denial of statistics if you must, however I'm moving on to let the discussion carry on as it wills.

The original point of P2P with a monthly fee, was due to the fact of server costs, but servers are so cheap now a days they are not needed, but companies see it as an opportunity to still charge 15 dollars a month. However, consumers are realizing more and more how unnecessary it is and are therefore changing. Which i think is quite fair. Because if i love a game, i will gladly pay the 60 dollar expansion. However if an expansion doesent come out in 4-5 months it infuriates me because i feel taken advantage of by the company. Which i have noticed is a common trend recently. As MMOs have recently been unpopular until of late. Also would like to point out, as it seems B2P reaches out to a wider audience, people around me i have noticed would never pay monthly for a game, so obviously they havent played an MMO, but when Gw2 (only major example i can use) came out, i noticed 6/10 people bought it who never played MMos before. which i think is a justification of the change.

Onion Knight wrote:

Onion Knight wrote:
I am a fan of Guild Wars and it's a great series, however P2P offers a trickle profit over a number of years, decades even, which makes more money for the developers in the long run, B2P does not offer this to the same extent.

Did you read my post? I stated Guild Wars and B2P in the same paragraph!
I put F2P in it's own paragraph since it's unrelated to Guild Wars ..
I've already put my case forward, continue to avoid it and continue the denial of statistics if you must, however I'm moving on to let the discussion carry on as it wills.

Your trying to justify that it is not dying, which i disagree i think it is slowly becoming less popular, therefore will slowly die, it may never 100% die out, agree to disagree as it seems.

Who says popularity equals a good game? Look I put the statistics forward and you're going round in circles to say how evil P2P is. The discussion is on is it dying. Not do you like it.
I'm done.

Onion Knight wrote:Who says popularity equals a good game? Look I put the statistics forward and you're going round in circles to say how evil P2P is. The discussion is on is it dying. Not do you like it.
I'm done.

Understood that you are done. However, whatever is the most popular payment method means that it is dying. So, if the next 5 games came out with B2P methods, then that means the P2P method is dying. Same vice versa. Had nothing to do with game quality.

well that hasnt really happened yet then has it?

all that has happened really is a slight blurring of pay structures. P2P will still very much be a thing, and i don't expect it to go anywhere, lets take COD as an example. IT MAY NOT BE A P2P BUT, they release the same game every year at 60 bucks a piece averaging to about 5 bucks a month. now add the 4 or 5 dlcs released during the year at 10 a piece, or whatever that stupid COD elite subscription is...Whatever! the point is... you wont be playing with the community unless you keep up to date and youll be paying nearly 15 a month to play it. Cod is one, if not the most popular fps game on the market but it follows a thinly veiled pay to play method... (EDIT) and people continue to eat it up so its still obviously popular as a payment method