Free to play model - your opinions

(SockDog) #101

[QUOTE=rookie1;410420]I’m a retail box or Digital full game type guy .But I was reading an article in the latest (Jan 2013) PC Gamer Magazine
“…The $60 you’d spend on Assasin’s Creed 111 will go a long way in existing free-to-play games like World of Tanks.
If the latest wave of free releases can maintain that level of value,it will become increasing difficult to justify laying big bucks for big release.”
Just tought interesting to mention.
and buy PC Gamer magazine for full article and more ;)[/QUOTE]

But single player games aren’t going to convert to F2P and honestly most MP in games is an afterthought, niche thing, included because it’s expected and gets played for a few months until the next game comes out. I don’t think $60 retail is going anywhere.

I’m quite happy to spend $60 to avoid all the messing around. They can keep cosmetic items separate and continue to charge for them but game related items I’d like be purchasable in a complete bundle and for the life of the game. Making that happen at a traditional retail price point just makes it seem like you buying into a complete game rather than getting the shell for free and then adding bits here and there over the course of time.

Revenue from server rental and lets say PRO clan features (as I think it would be a mistake to totally lock out clan stuff at the entry level) could be made by allowing user cosmetic mods and taking a cut.

Maps and most modes I would say should be free updates. It makes the F2P product more rounded, attractive and most importantly complete. Other modes like challenges or single player content that can be used to grind coins etc could be charged for as it would be optional and not impact the wider community.

Hopefully we see something new from SD. To have the infrastructure there with the three SD companies it would be a shame if they went with some vanilla system,

(tokamak) #102

Free maps and modes is tantamount in F2P. The F2P community relies on free players to make up the numbers for the paying customer to play with. This splitting the community risk is already present in retail games but will be even more pronounced in F2P.

Dawn of War btw solved this brilliantly. The addons mainly meant new campaigns and new races. The new races were only playable by the ones who bought the expansions but those without them could still play against them on new expansion maps. That’s the way you keep a community together and at the same time show off the new wares to the people who haven’t yet paid.

(rookie1) #103

also the article in PC gamer was saying F2P is good against illegal games downloaded specialy from russia.
So now im for F2P if its help Devs to receive their $ for what they done.
So ill be happy ,If I download a F2P basic game than If I pay a certain amount I have the full game complete with all the stuff ,That would equal a full game download or a retail box buy

That would be just another way to have the full game through F2P.
What i wonder its say in obejective maps i cant see a team with some of our guys not having the full load guns because they didnt pay for it .So you end with a team with weaker players in you team.
Thats why i would like everybody at same level ingame.Maybe with a reset thing i was talking earlier .
It could be that ALL players has the full game for say 1 month trial (like that we can see whats the game really is ) than after that if you
dont buy the game you stay basic game.
Also having option to buy full game + options
Full game =all gameplay essential but no cosmestic
options= cosmectic

(zenstar) #104

With the various permutations of classes (engie, engie 2) and the statement (some other thread) that you will be choosing 1 variation per class for a game, I speculate that at least one of the payments will be buying different versions of each class.
Eg: shotgun engie / machinegun engie / dual pistols engie / rubber chicken engie / plunger engie / etc…

Or maybe not :slight_smile:

(SinDonor) #105

Here’s my take on F2P

  1. Allow players to buy single pieces of anything. Guns, attachments, armor, hats, tattoos, etc. Set low low prices on single items. $1 here, $0.25 there, etc. If a player likes the game and only has $20 to spend, you might as well give them the opportunity to spend their entire $20 and let them have a good time. If the game is going to mimic Counterstrike more than Brink/CoD/etc, then obviously the guns/attachments can’t be for sale. It’ll have to totally be based around player customization. On that note, then make lots of kick ass unique gear for players.

  2. Offer a “buy it all” full-game price. $40-$60 is what I would consider a good “you get everything currently available” deal, which saves the player 25-50% if they went out and bought every single thing separately. Maybe a 2nd option that bumps it up to $80-$100 to promise that “not only do you get everything NOW, but you get everything we release later as well”. I’m the kind of person that if I like the game, you can have all my money.

  3. Whatever the default weapons and equipment are available for free, you have to make sure it’s balanced enough that players can still have fun. If the free stuff TOTALLY sucks, you’ll scare away new players.

  4. Every few weeks, or month or etc, offer some new stuff. Sell it piece by piece or in a DLC pack for $5-$20. If people are still playing the game, they’ll appreciate the updated content and will probably part with $10 (around the same price for a super-sized value meal at McD’s).

  5. Ad space in game. If we’re fighting on the streets here in planet earth, then there should be billboards and ads everywhere. Sell that space. I could care less if I see ads of Coke, the Gap, Ford, etc. As long as the ads are many and varied, it’ll look great. If every frakking ad is a Coke ad, then it’ll ruin the experience.

(murka) #106

An interesting idea i saw flying around on irc was the ability to rent a server for a short period(day, couple of days, week etc). Usually servers get set up for a tourney and after that it will be empty for months.

(DarkangelUK) #107

I like that idea, though I remember back in the RtCW days we used to lend our server to fellow clans to have matches/scrims on, but a reasonable price could be very enticing.

(zenstar) #108

[QUOTE=SinDonor;411104]Here’s my take on F2P

  1. Allow players to buy single pieces of anything. Guns, attachments, armor, hats, tattoos, etc. Set low low prices on single items. $1 here, $0.25 there, etc. If a player likes the game and only has $20 to spend, you might as well give them the opportunity to spend their entire $20 and let them have a good time. If the game is going to mimic Counterstrike more than Brink/CoD/etc, then obviously the guns/attachments can’t be for sale. It’ll have to totally be based around player customization. On that note, then make lots of kick ass unique gear for players.
    [/QUOTE]
    Can always sell gun skins (and maybe even player skins) for small amounts. Shouldn’t change balance at all.
  1. Offer a “buy it all” full-game price. $40-$60 is what I would consider a good “you get everything currently available” deal, which saves the player 25-50% if they went out and bought every single thing separately. Maybe a 2nd option that bumps it up to $80-$100 to promise that “not only do you get everything NOW, but you get everything we release later as well”. I’m the kind of person that if I like the game, you can have all my money.

I like the idea, but the pricing needs tweaking.

  1. Whatever the default weapons and equipment are available for free, you have to make sure it’s balanced enough that players can still have fun. If the free stuff TOTALLY sucks, you’ll scare away new players.

As long as all weapons are balanced and there is no ultimate weapon behind a pay wall then this should be fine. You could even start everyone off with 2 basic weapons and have them earn the rest (or make a small payment to skip the time involved in unlocking).
Think TF2: you can craft all weapons but you start with super basic ones, but even then they all balance.

  1. Every few weeks, or month or etc, offer some new stuff. Sell it piece by piece or in a DLC pack for $5-$20. If people are still playing the game, they’ll appreciate the updated content and will probably part with $10 (around the same price for a super-sized value meal at McD’s).

Careful here. New maps should enter rotation as a free update. You do not want to split the community behind mappacks.
But I agree: constant updates will need to happen as long as there’s still a community paying enough for them to happen. Timing will depend on the amount of content released but I think people would be fine with every 3 or 4 months as long as the core game is good.

  1. Ad space in game. If we’re fighting on the streets here in planet earth, then there should be billboards and ads everywhere. Sell that space. I could care less if I see ads of Coke, the Gap, Ford, etc. As long as the ads are many and varied, it’ll look great. If every frakking ad is a Coke ad, then it’ll ruin the experience.

I like this idea. More revenue sources for SD is always good. As long as it’s not an advert that you need to watch before you can play (those really annoy me). There was some game (i don’t remember which now… a racer… ridge racer??? I dunno) that actually lengthened the loading time so that it could fit an advert in. The game would finish loading and then wait while the advert finished playing.
In short: In-game billboards: good immersion and revenue stream. Loading adverts: not good.

(Runeforce) #109

[QUOTE=zenstar;411144]
I like this idea. More revenue sources for SD is always good. As long as it’s not an advert that you need to watch before you can play (those really annoy me). There was some game (i don’t remember which now… a racer… ridge racer??? I dunno) that actually lengthened the loading time so that it could fit an advert in. The game would finish loading and then wait while the advert finished playing.
In short: In-game billboards: good immersion and revenue stream. Loading adverts: not good.[/QUOTE]

Maybe it’s just because I come from a country where ads on tv is not the norm, but I absolutely hate this idea. Personally I do everything I can to avoid ads (and I go a very long way for it!) In Denmark (and simmilar in the other Scandinavian countries) all citizens (of legal age) are required to pay an annual media license fee of aprox. $500 (You can always discuss whether the flat fee model is social imbalanced, but that’s another issue. And personally I would prefer if this fee was paid through the taxes, instead of a seperate fee.) For that we get 9 ad-free (and a couple of them in HD) public service tv-station and 20 something ad-free radio-stations, all on the public air-waves + all of it served on-demand for “free” and ad-free on the internet (without requiring any kind of “log-in.”) And the quality of its content is drasticly higher then any stations that have to cater to commercial interrests (because its “business” model is including, instead of excluding. In other words, the program content is not dependant on the advertisers target-audience, but what is in the publics interrest. And as long as “the public” is a functional democracy, its content will always be of superior quality to that dictated by the market. (You can conclude this from the emperical evidence.)) Do you prefer some ad infested tv-show on nbc, fox etc. or a quality ad-free show on HBO? But I’m getting slightly off-topic here.
As I hinted before, if the game exposes me to ads (and leaves me no choice about it,) I won’t play it. Period!

(zenstar) #110

[QUOTE=lakersforce;411169]Maybe it’s just because I come from a country where ads on tv is not the norm, but I absolutely hate this idea. In-game advertisement would make me drop this game, I can’t stand it! In Denmark (and simmilar in the other Scandinavian countries) all citizens (of legal age) are required to pay an annual media license fee of aprox. $500 (You can always discuss whether the flat fee model is social imbalanced, but that’s another issue.) For that we get 9 ad-free (and a couple of them in HD) public service tv-station and 20 something radio-stations, all on the public air-waves + all of it served on-demand for “free” and ad-free on the internet. And the quality of its content is drasticly higher then any stations that have to cater to commercial interrests (because its “business” model is including, instead of excluding.) Personally I do everything I can to avoid ads (and I go a very long way for it!)
As I said before, if the game exposes me to ads, I won’t play it. Period![/QUOTE]

Would you be willing to pay to make it ad free?

A once off fee that replaces all billboards in game with fake adverts (just like they’d be if they weren’t selling in game advertising space?) or maybe just an empty billboard texture?

That could be a revenue source.

Although in game billboards are completely different to television ads. I don’t think many people would react that strongly to a coke advert on a billboard in the game (as long as it was appropriate to the art style).
I can see people dropping the game if they need to watch video adverts though.

And be happy with your television channels. In South Africa you pay a TV license AND they advertise on TV. At least here in the UK the BBC channels don’t have adverts, but I’d rather see adverts and not have to pay the TV license personally.

(tokamak) #111

It’s set in London, advertising would only add to the game. The only condition is that it needs to be coherent with the rest of the art-direction.

The main reason this is met with resistance is that it makes the customer feel he’s being billed twice for the same thing.

(SockDog) #112

Advertising is a very polarising subject, I’d be shocked if SD hasn’t already made their minds up on it.

Personally it’s never bothered me and I’ve had a hard time really feeling any empathy towards those who are dead against it.

I think the thing here is whether they can actually make money from it. I thought the market had totally failed in that regard.

What about SD oriented Ads in game? How do you feel if they’re advertising their own games or even items for DB using in world ad boards?

(tokamak) #113

They can be used to make or break immersion. Advertising Die Hard 4.0 on a billboard on a deserted island is just bull****. Seeing advertising in London only makes sense, seeing SD advertise their own stuff however, breaks it again.

(Runeforce) #114

It would add absolutely nothing to the game, on the contrary it only subtracts immersion.

No it doesn’t. Seing a (real) London with ads prohibited in the public sphere, now that would make sense.

I am okay with self-promotion. I don’t really like the idea about items for sale being promoted (because it would still subtract immersion,) but it would make sense and I think I could accept it, because at least it would not be out-of-context (nor any third parties pushing their products on me. Except if the TF2 vanity model is used: I am okay with “third parties” being individuals, but not corporate entities. So Average Joe Sixpack that owns a small business, that made an in-game hat for sale for the price of £0.25 and advertises it in-game: I can accept that. Ads from the Coca-Cola company or Sony etc. (or anything out-of-context): not acceptable.)

(tokamak) #115

Trucks, the train station, buses, there’s enough advertising in London.

(mitsuhiko) #116

I hear advertisements in sealed off and radioactive London are a steal.

(Runeforce) #117

You are right about that. I would even add “more than enough.” Next comes the post where you will argue how the advertisements add positively to your experience of the public sphere in London… :wink:

(tokamak) #118

I’m arguing that it’s the most appropriate way to use advertising. Next to that there’s all kinds of reasons not to do it.

(Runeforce) #119

NooooooOOOOoooOOOOooooo!!!

At least let there be a way for the user to turn of the advertisements (f. ex. via a subscription fee.)

(Dragonji) #120

Launcher is a good place for ads as well.