Interesting read here
#5 Free to Play is the Future
Let?s face it ? free to play is the future of MMOGs. New free to play MMOs and MMORPGs are launching each and every month, with many of them being extremely high quality games. On top of this, more and more pay to play MMORPGs are dropping their subscription fees. Sony Online Entertainment already released a free to play version of EverQuest 2 while Pirates of the Burning Sea and Champions Online announced that they would be going free to play in early 2011. North America has always been the biggest market for subscription based games, but with so many of these games in dropping their subscription fees, it will be difficult for Final Fantasy 14 to justify its fee.
Its a list of reasons final fantasy 14 would go free to play. But ive been seein this for myself for the past few months, its incredible practically 3-5 new free mmo betas are out every week.
For the full review you can see it here:
http://mmohut.com/editorials/final-fantasy-14-will-go-free-to-play
Hmm. The main problem of free-to-play games particularly from Japanese or Korean companies are that they usually have some kind of item mall or "cash shop" where you can buy items with RL cash
It wouldn't be a problem if it was just aesthetics and cosmetic equipment or items which you can wear over your normal equipment, but a disturbing trend is that many of such games put powerful equipment and bonuses such as 2x EXP into such cash shops or item malls. The player base will end up paying MORE $$ to keep up and be competitive, compared to if they had paid a fixed subscription fee. It does not help that usually better items will be released to keep the money rolling in from the existing playerbase, constantly adding better equipment necessitates the spending of more $$ to be pumped in to keep your character at the top, sometimes, even vital skill for new classes will have to be bought with real life $$.
In such MMOs, who are the best players is not dependent on skill anymore, it depends on who has the most real life $$ which should have NOTHING, and I mean NOTHING to do with game balance.
Imagine WoW with epics far better than the current raiding tier available, but it is only accessible with real $$, then when the next raiding tier is released, a new tier of $$ items are released as well, making those who bought the original cash items obsolete, and they have to spend $$ on the new items. Or perhaps some imba skill for your class that can only be unlocked with real $$, suddenly, you are no longer accepted to raids, not because you are unskilled, quite the contrary, but rather, you lack the real life $$ to buy the powerful items or skills and do, what would be then, competitive dps.
Why do I believe that would be the fate of pay to play MMOs if they were to go free? Think about it in Economic terms (Or from what I understand as a JC1 Economics student.).
If Blizzard were to make WoW free, they have to somehow introduce another means of making $$ from it. It does not make economic sense for any company to make their MMORPGs free and have no other way to make $$ implemented in the game. The revenue increases seem suspicious to me, if you make something free, how does Total Revenue increase? Especially when Price = 0? Unless they introduce an item mall, their TR = 0, but due to the total cost of running the servers, maintaining them, making patches, paying worker wages etc., TC>0. so when TC>TR, they make an overall Profit of <0, or a LOSS, and when firms make LOSSES, it makes no economical sense to keep that game running, so a rational firm will no longer service the good, in this case, the free MMO.
Thus, free MMOs usually answer the Revenue question with item malls, funds from which would then service the aforementioned costs of running the MMO.
But gameplay wise, IMO, it is a very bad design, game balance and who does the best should not be based on who can pay more $$, but rather solely on the player skill and who knows his class best. Real life money should never, ever affect gameplay or game balance. In the end, the gamer who spends hundreds of dollars on the various items in the item malls will pay more than what they would have paid with a fixed subscription fee.
Don't let that article paint too rosy a picture for you, this is the shit that is usually behind free MMOs, most of them that I have played have some item mall or micro-transactions in them, and when you HAVE to spend real life $$ to be competitive, it gets old really quickly if you are the "purist" who would not spend $$. It gets glaring when you do less damage or take more damage compared to that joker who has too much $$ on his hands, for one simple opportunity or mistake, he would benefit so much more or take so much less punishment. Never ever makes sense to have a good or service that is completely free, they will have to make $$ somehow from it.
So examples you say?
DnD model - DnDO has a DDO VIP paid service where the VIP gets more feature compared to free players, examples are access to the full map, instant access to more content, and more gold/bank/chat/mail capacity, access to all classes, all races, and a constant influx of turbine points (which free players haveto buy with $$). Imagine in WoW you can only access the Death Knight class, Outland, Icecrown Citadel, get the bank space/gold capacity/mail space/chatting freedom you have now, and get cash for items if you were to pay a certain amount of $$ a month or spend $$ for each and every feature you want (and thats not getting the full map), oh wait, that is what you are doing now (paid subscription fee)! So whats the diff.?
MapleStory Model - Randomised free items through "lucky-dip" type tickets, 2x Exp coupons, 2x DROP rate coupons, SKILL BOOKS and aesthetic items for real $$. So now, you can randomly get EPICS with $$, get more exp than others on that leveling grind to 85, possibly jumping more hardworking players for their server first, and access the majority of your skills only if you are rich with real life cash! What a fun WoW then!
Rakion/Other free MMO models - POWERFUL EQUIPMENT WITH REAL LIFE CASH OLOLOLOLOL. Imagine you have item level 500 equipment buyable with cash in ICC. Amazing! To do top damage and be the best you have to pay $$! Not to mention getting FAR BETTER EPICS even if you have NEVER stepped inside the raid instance since the $$ buys you BETTER equipment than what DROPS FROM BOSSES! That is what is happening in such MMOs now, and I would imagine it would be a WoW you would all like to play in? Obviously not.
Runescape model - Free to play, but your can pay a subscription to get MORE professions, MORE content, and a 500% increase in map space to explore! Imagine WoW where you can only access about 70% of the trade skills available with $$, those that are free, their high level recipes are ONLY available to those who pay $$, you can only access the starting zones and quests only up to level 30 zones if you are free, to go on you pay $$, in fact, to access all content you have to pay $$, oh wait, HOW IS THAT DIFFERENT FROM NOW?
Reconsider, think critically, don't take it at face value. Frankly, free MMOs are either money drains or subscription MMOs MASQUERADING as free.