73 replies to this topic

[MadLibrarian]

Anybody catch the new episode, "Freemium isn't free"? While it seems to be more about addiction in general, the basic information about freemium games seems pretty accurate.

The games end up lower quality, and are based on the gamer vs developer (f2p) model that has created a schism in the gaming world. Making good games that would sell based on quality is not really the goal with the f2p model. Its really just advanced level marketing designed to fleece as many people as possible, in a game made as cheaply as possible, with branded content they already liked. That doesn't mean the people making f2p games are evil sub-humans though. Some developers use flexible models for monetization.

The Satan monologue is a great paraphrasing of the reality of addiction. Science ftw!

What say you?

[Modo44]

Freemium games from Canada. Where have I heard that before...

[knight-of-ni]

Posted for your entertainment.

https://games.yahoo....-145002211.html

[mogs01gt]

It was an amazing episode! I immediately thought of PGI but MWO doesnt really do small transactions.

Edited by mogs01gt, 19 December 2014 - 07:46 AM.

[_Comrade_]

And PGI is Canadian too!

LOLOLOLO

[StompingOnTanks]

This perfectly explains why the huge explosion in free-to-play games SCARES me.

Every single one is an MMO of some sort. If the big game devs switch over all of their games to the F2P model (which they very well could once the industry cash cows (CoD, Madden) die off) single player games will become a very narrow niche as they won't be considered profitable anymore.

Maybe I'm just paranoid and narcissistic when it comes to the gaming industry... But every year it seems more and more like Hollywood. And we all know what Hollywood did to truly great films.

[Heffay]

F2P allows games to exist that ordinarily wouldn't. It allows us to have more games to choose from. This isn't a zero sum scenario.

[Goosfraba]

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Edited by Goosfraba, 06 November 2014 - 07:45 PM.

[MadLibrarian]

Heffay, on 06 November 2014 - 05:59 PM, said:

F2P allows games to exist that ordinarily wouldn't. It allows us to have more games to choose from. This isn't a zero sum scenario.

Sure some good is done by the f2p model, the church of satan is charitable too. It is publishers that love f2p, because it's a money maker. The fact that it's a money maker that doesn't require better games might also be why gamers and purist developers dislike it so vehemently.

We used to be able to make strong arguments that games were a true art form. Now the bad examples outweigh the good and it's much more difficult to make the case. It is a product of the industry, it's not just evil and greedy people. All we can do is shrug and do it better when we have the chance.


I think all options should be on the table for online games. Flexible models seem to have the most longevity, as f2p can be antagonistic toward players in it's own right. There's probably a reason this game has an inordinate amount of rabid uninstall jockeys.

Success with online games is people persistently playing for as long as possible while being sustainably profitable. Aim for that and you can avoid most of the negatives of creating f2p content constantly. Better to make the games into something game-like.

If you asked me Solaris Arena's would have been a great place to start with MW:O. Prize fights carry their own meaning in their rewards, and ranking people publicly in a pvp only game is pretty much it's own reward also. People would be fighting for something and it would 'simulate' being a pilot to some degree, instead of simulating a simulator.

MWO is fun to play, but you're playing just to play a little differently later. Like many, I have high hopes for CW, but I think the general meaninglessness of the past few years' gameplay has fueled the fire of disappointment and sets the bar pretty high for CW.

/me keeps fingers crossed anyway

Edited by MadLibrarian, 06 November 2014 - 08:53 PM.

[Heffay]

F2P also gives people a chance to legitimately test out a game before throwing money at it. Try playing a $60 box game for a few weeks then ask for your money back.

I got to test out a bunch of games I wouldn't ordinarily get to play because of this. Some (WoT) kept me playing for thousands of matches. Others like LoL lost me after a few handful. It allows you to distill your feelings of whether you are actually having fun without having to overcome that "oh man, I paid $60 for this shot, I better get my money's worth!"

It avoids pitfalls like Alpha Protocol, where you hate playing the game so much that you have to grit your teeth and slog through the story to see how it ends. Spoiler: you "win".

[Lily from animove]

Well I think MWo does fine. It treats newbies rather harsh, that may not be that convinient, but its needed for them to improve.
Further the game is not p2w or truly money grabbing. Other games where you have that stupid and idiotic p2w 40$ items that are obsolete in 3 month with another update, that is ripoff from people.

here you kinda have some pay 2 early access, which bears the chance of getting some op toy for a while before its nerfed (I smell some tumberwuff here) or you have some horribly broken uselss mech that may get a buff in some time. So kinda p2betatestlive.

Heffay, on 07 November 2014 - 07:04 AM, said:

F2P also gives people a chance to legitimately test out a game before throwing money at it. Try playing a $60 box game for a few weeks then ask for your money back.

I got to test out a bunch of games I wouldn't ordinarily get to play because of this. Some (WoT) kept me playing for thousands of matches. Others like LoL lost me after a few handful. It allows you to distill your feelings of whether you are actually having fun without having to overcome that "oh man, I paid $60 for this shot, I better get my money's worth!"

It avoids pitfalls like Alpha Protocol, where you hate playing the game so much that you have to grit your teeth and slog through the story to see how it ends. Spoiler: you "win".

the issue is, most p2w games true coregameplay reveals AFTER you put money into. At the beginnign they do hook you with many nice small cool awesome success, you get attached, you want to proceed, and then the p2w wall in in front of you. This forcs many people to put money into the game to not "lose their progress and effort". Thats the true eveil trap in those games.

In MWO, you get bashed as a piece of fresh trashy noob. The way to the fun is not that easy. But as someone who was grown up with games, challange was the entire thing computer games were ever about. Now all those games pefer stroking some customers egos no matter how stupied they are or what they do in the game. Good for financial targets, bad for creating a good game. I prefer good games with solid gameplay even if getting behind it isn't easy.

Ah I remember back in the days of the realms of arkania and Baldurs gate, where knowing how to create a character correctly was already defining if you had a chance or if the smallest goblin bashed you already to grinded meat. Good rewarding times, but hard times. I am now a very good pilot, but the way to my 1.0k/d is still not done, a few hundred horrible noobish attemps in my CTF's and the DDC I lerned the game with are still a noob legacy I have to carry. Yet i feel like i achieved soemthign in this game and not the: "HEY dude youre awesome" slogans other games throw at you for the simpelst things you have done.
I lost WAR becuse it was not catering the noobs and casuals. But yet to world of noobcraft, I will never return. I feel like half of my brain goes afk, when I just see what my girfriend does in this game and gets "great success".

I like MWO, and it has some valid reasons to charge a good amount of bucks for some stuff. Because you need to pay servers and employees. And as long as they keep the non p2w a feature I stay here and enjoy it.

[Majorfatboy]

Nikolai Lubkiewicz, on 06 November 2014 - 03:12 PM, said:

As someone who once, like many other video game professionals, made minimum wage on testing and supporting the kinds of mobile games the episode is truly targeting...

Yeah, now You're bilking larger sums of cash out of working adults by dangling something based off of an ip They grew up with, getting them to pay in "to help development", and intentionally giving them a "minimally viable product", while laughing all the way to the bank.
You're really moving up in the world, aren't You?

Nikolai Lubkiewicz, on 06 November 2014 - 03:12 PM, said:

For starters, our game is a bit more complex than simply tapping on the screen to receive coins.

LOLOLOLOLOLOL. A poorly written, convoluted, pointless pile of amateur code is not the same thing as complexity. if waddling Your 100 ton backside to the center of a tiny arena and clamping down on the alpha strike key is Your idea of complex, then You're in the wrong line of work.

Nikolai Lubkiewicz, on 06 November 2014 - 03:12 PM, said:

I'm open to hear out any concerns or questions you all might have stemming from this episode though.

Here's one: How about I get that full refund I emailed You lot about? Considering that You con men have single sale items costing five hundred dollars, I think You can cough up the measly three hundred You got out of Me.

Oh, and quit ******* with the cosmetics on pre existing items for no other reason then to get players to shell out for paint / cammo so they won't look like complete ass.

Really, what is the official excuse for changing the Centurion's default paint pattern? I want to hear it.

Without warning or reason, We went from badass to god awful. And only on this one mech. What horrors do You grifters have in mind for the other chassis out there? Chassis that people have bought paint for, with real money, based on the default pattern?

[InspectorG]

Nikolai Lubkiewicz, on 06 November 2014 - 03:12 PM, said:

I'm open to hear out any concerns or questions you all might have stemming from this episode though.

Good work on MWO, its getting even more fun!

I dont know PGI's resources but i think you guys can make more money via micro if you drop the price of cosmetics in this game and insert more to choose from.
Gamers who may not buy a Hero may buy several custom paints/camos if they were priced better.

Plus when CW drops, people will want group identity. Think Gang Colors. You guys arent really hitting the player/TEAM/ identity aspect.

Drop the price of paint/camo, add more choices. Make them MC cheap but Cbill steep.
Phantasy Star Online 2 (also referred to as Fashion Star...) Makes good use of this with seasonal costumes for characters.
Some are rare/exclusive. Special mech skins with palette swaps for variety/etc. Maybe the rare mech variant for serious events.

You could also reward tournament winners/challenge winners with unique cosmetics. Instead of a badge in the forum, give the mech they won with a sticker they can slap on.

Stuff like that.

Worth hiring another designer and such? I dunno. But it seems untapped.

Again, keep up the good work!

[LordKnightFandragon]

StompingOnTanks, on 06 November 2014 - 04:27 PM, said:

This perfectly explains why the huge explosion in free-to-play games SCARES me.

Every single one is an MMO of some sort. If the big game devs switch over all of their games to the F2P model (which they very well could once the industry cash cows (CoD, Madden) die off) single player games will become a very narrow niche as they won't be considered profitable anymore.

Maybe I'm just paranoid and narcissistic when it comes to the gaming industry... But every year it seems more and more like Hollywood. And we all know what Hollywood did to truly great films.

Yeah, its why all modern games are pretty the same thing...

WoT, WT, MWO, Hawken, Heroes and Generals, PS2...they are all F2P shootem up TDMs.......no real depth, no real point, they start off ok, then turn into utter boring **** after about a year....Some more so then others....MWO started off being advertised as an fairly indepth, Coop online campaign with your buddies, but like all other games, it turned into CoD TDM with mechs.

And heck, Titanfall is pretty much the same thing as all these other F2P games, except there you pay $40 to buy it up front....

Its why I pretty much play other older SP games....Shogun 2, Men of war, Napoleon Total War, Mechcommander......they are more fun lol.....Planetside 2 was a fair bit of fun a year ago, but performance is now borderline unplayable, where you magazines of Ebullets into people and dont kill em, or you do.....its more a random chance thing now....mostly cuz Soe has destroyed their hit detect. And QQ has turned the game into an Infantry zerging TDM...../yawn....BOOOORING!!!

[Punkass]

Here's the thing about the freemium model. Sure, it allows developers to bring you a game that normally wouldn't have seen the light of day. However, I hardly believe that the game that they put out is the one that they intended to develop in the first place. Any game developer isn't going to make a game where the game play is intentionally unbearable. The reason why the game play is unbearable is to entice people into spending money in order to make it slightly more bearable. But either way, whether you end up playing for free or you consistently shell out money, you still end up with barriers that can only be reasonably bypassed with money, and that's not a fun experience, at least in my book.

I think the biggest problem with freemium is that is proliferates low quality games. It's not just indie developers that use freemium to get a game out there, you have big name publishers that put this stuff out too. Age of Empires Online (Microsoft), Dungeon Keeper (EA), Battefield: Heroes (EA), Battlefield: Play4Free (EA), Hearthstone (Blizzard Activision), Planetside 2 (SoE). They put it out because they know the cost is low, and they can get a fair amount of return in a short period of time. It doesn't matter if the game stays profitable in the long term, they can get short term profits off of a low quality game. And if the game shuts down or goes into maintenance mode, you can easily fund a new title to take it's place.

And this leads to another problem. Why is it that all freemium games feel the same? Because you're actually playing the same game. Maybe you have big stompy robots from the future, swords and armor from a fantasy setting, or you're building a farm. You end up with the same annoying barriers to advancement or pay for convenience features or pay to win features that end up in every one of these games. It's because it's not a part of the pay model anymore, it's a part of the game. When the game becomes how much money you can spend on a game, you end up with a whole host of unfair advantages that players who spend a lot of money have over people who play for free or don't spend a lot of money. You end up with a game that caters to 1% of it's players and the other 99% become content for the 1%.

Perhaps the biggest problem with freemium gaming is this: the only way to win, is to not play them. Freemium makes people want to stop playing video games. It drives people away from this activity because they realize they are being exploited for money, or they realize they are being exploited for the entertainment of people who throw boat loads of money at a game. At the end of the day, I think freemium is really bad for the industry. It puts out low quality games in turn for short term profits at the expense of the health of the entire market.

[MadLibrarian]

Majorfatboy, on 07 November 2014 - 11:14 AM, said:

Spoiler

Yeah, now You're bilking larger sums of cash out of working adults by dangling something based off of an ip They grew up with, getting them to pay in "to help development", and intentionally giving them a "minimally viable product", while laughing all the way to the bank.
You're really moving up in the world, aren't You?
LOLOLOLOLOLOL. A poorly written, convoluted, pointless pile of amateur code is not the same thing as complexity. if waddling Your 100 ton backside to the center of a tiny arena and clamping down on the alpha strike key is Your idea of complex, then You're in the wrong line of work.
Here's one: How about I get that full refund I emailed You lot about? Considering that You con men have single sale items costing five hundred dollars, I think You can cough up the measly three hundred You got out of Me.
Oh, and quit ******* with the cosmetics on pre existing items for no other reason then to get players to shell out for paint / cammo so they won't look like complete ass.
Really, what is the official excuse for changing the Centurion's default paint pattern? I want to hear it.
Without warning or reason, We went from badass to god awful. And only on this one mech. What horrors do You grifters have in mind for the other chassis out there? Chassis that people have bought paint for, with real money, based on the default pattern?

I understand your frustrations, but this is not exactly the best place for that discussion. Do you post similar things in every thread Nikolai comments in?

``Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.``

PGI had a difficult task and probably could have done some things better, but it's not a crime, a sin, nor truly important. Relax buddy, stress kills. They could have done a lot worse, like folding up and heading to the caymans. They're now trying an even more difficult task by going without a publisher. Really, they've done a lot of things well, but those aren't itemized in a list and posted on the forums every day like their faults are. I've certainly posted some of those myself.

The price of releasing the game while it is still being developed is still being paid, but it's not the end of the world.

Let's just be glad that the Mechwarrior franchise is still alive and hope it continues to get better.

[CompproB237]

Nikolai Lubkiewicz, on 07 November 2014 - 01:30 PM, said:

Your account has a total of $XXX.XX in purchases on record, the last of which was made over a year ago.

Isn't that private, proprietary information? I thought that wasn't supposed to made public unless given permission.

[Bilbo]

CompproB237, on 07 November 2014 - 01:49 PM, said:

Isn't that private, proprietary information? I thought that wasn't supposed to made public unless given permission.

Unless you volunteer false information I imagine you are right.

[DragonsFire]

CompproB237, on 07 November 2014 - 01:49 PM, said:

Isn't that private, proprietary information? I thought that wasn't supposed to made public unless given permission.

I would wager that in this case, considering he already mentioned a figure that he had spent of his own volition, the information would no longer be considered private.

[CompproB237]

Nikolai Lubkiewicz, on 07 November 2014 - 02:03 PM, said:

Good concern, in this case overridden as the player had provided information of amount paid of their own accord. Otherwise, rest assured, myself or any other member of our team would not give out info which puts your personal safety or privacy at harm. We otherwise generally recommend taking Billing concerns to Support to avoid opening the possibility where you could provide information which puts you at risk.

Fair enough, but I still find it concerning that the information was so freely given after the customer 'forfeit' their privacy by providing an imprecise number.

I'll make sure to never mention how much I've spent, even vaguely. Wait, my badge gives it away a bit... I'll have to remove that then.