Boring Bob
Member
- Joined
- Oct 21, 2011
- Messages
- 230
- Reaction score
- 142
- Location
- Chicago Suburb
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Independent
The reason F2P is on the rise has more to do with games lacking anything worth paying for rather than consumer frustration with the payment model. People payed subscriptions for games before because they spent enough time in those games to warrant it. MMO subscriptions are actually quite cheap compared to mostly every other form of entertainment as long as you play the game enough.
If MMOs were only about where your friends are, then games wouldn't lose subscribers. Games lose subscribers because people get bored with them, and when they leave, their friends leave, yes, but the initial reason for the subscriber decline is lack of enjoyable gameplay.
Just look at Eve Online. It has substantially less subscribers than WoW, but is growing rather than shrinking because it offers something A) unique, and B) designed for a target audience. The people who play Eve love Eve and so they keep paying to play it. Subscriptions aren't hurting its growth. WoW isn't shrinking because the subscribers want a F2P model, it's shrinking because the game isn't any damn fun anymore. The draw of the in-game social circle isn't great enough to counter the declining interest in the game itself. That said, it still has a massive subscriber base and is far from dead enough to need a F2P model.
If a developers could make game worlds that people wanted to spend a good portion of their free time in before, nothing is stopping them from doing so again. SW:TOR just happened to be a failure in that aspect and that is why it is going F2P.
If MMOs were only about where your friends are, then games wouldn't lose subscribers. Games lose subscribers because people get bored with them, and when they leave, their friends leave, yes, but the initial reason for the subscriber decline is lack of enjoyable gameplay.
Just look at Eve Online. It has substantially less subscribers than WoW, but is growing rather than shrinking because it offers something A) unique, and B) designed for a target audience. The people who play Eve love Eve and so they keep paying to play it. Subscriptions aren't hurting its growth. WoW isn't shrinking because the subscribers want a F2P model, it's shrinking because the game isn't any damn fun anymore. The draw of the in-game social circle isn't great enough to counter the declining interest in the game itself. That said, it still has a massive subscriber base and is far from dead enough to need a F2P model.
If a developers could make game worlds that people wanted to spend a good portion of their free time in before, nothing is stopping them from doing so again. SW:TOR just happened to be a failure in that aspect and that is why it is going F2P.