UrQuan wrote: »

Ackwalan wrote: »

If f2p brought in less revenue then a monthly sub, marketing would get rid of f2p.

I don't disagree with the rest of you post, but as far as the part I've quoted above goes, it's not as simple as that. If the monthly sub costs $15, and the average person without a sub spends only $5 per month on the game, it's still worth having F2P if those non-subscribers are people who wouldn't be customers at all if the game was subscriber-only. At least, that's the case if the people who were previously subscribing continue to subscribe, or if the influx of people spending only $5 per month is more than enough to offset the income lost from people who cancel subscriptions.

This is true. I am having a hard time find the article, but it was an interview with some developers who had an MMO that went from subscription to F2P. They stated that about 75% of the paying consumers were spending $5 to $7 a month, about 20% spending $10 to $15, and the other 5% spending more than $15 a month. They stated that many people will spend a whole lot of money all at once, and then not spend any more after that for a long time. So someone might drop $60 at once, but not spend money again for another 12 months.
Anyways, they stated that even though they are making less money per person playing the game, they are making more because of volume.

UrQuan wrote: »

knightblaster wrote: »

Zershar_Vemod wrote: »

Stay a sub if you want to spend less.

Depends on how they price the DLC. If they price it such that it equals the cost of a month's worth of sub per each elapsed month since the last DLC, then it's a wash. If it's cheaper than that, then if you're the kind of player, like the OP, who doesn't want the shop stuff at all, you'll be saving money with no sub and just buying the DLCs.

The other factor is CP accrual, which is likely impacted by the bonuses, but 10% bonus is expensive for $15 I think.

You've hit the nail on the head here. The key factors really are how they price the DLC in combination with the frequency of the DLC.

both won´t be that high as the console crowd would abuse the zos employees quite drastically... expect 3-4 DLcs per year at <20$ and equivilants in other currencys. wich means play it truly B2P is cheaper from the beginning...

someuser wrote: »

When SWTOR first pulled this BS, they did the EXACT same thing Zen is doing now. Cash shop is just a bonus, the core game will be fully unlocked, there will be no reason other then vanity and convenience to spend real money... And slowly but surely, over months, the cash shop becomes a focal point when it comes to new content and "convenience" is stretched to include the ability to unlock UI functionality ect...

Right -- that's the issue. It's always introduced in a relatively benign form. Then the F2Pers come along and play, and comprise a large part of the community. And then gradually the store changes to include other things that F2Pers want and the system is described as being "dynamic" and "evolving to respond to the players" and so on.

It's never about how it works initially. It's all about how it will work 6, 12, 18 months from now. And if we look at other games, it isn't pretty.

[/quote]

Oh definitely But with my SWTOR account at some point I was able to calculate how much I was spending in subs VS how much I could just unlock. After making some choices to unlock content rather than pay to rent content now I can virtually play 100% of that game for free. It was a big upfront investment for me, which they loved I'm sure. But slowly and surely it payed for itself. because I no longer needed to pay $15 every month to access my content. I only had to pay for what I wanted when I wanted it.

Basically the $15 sub will look good when compared to the $40 to access all the current content, then the $35 every 3 months to get the 4 DLCs But really it's the same price if you play for a full year. But what's more, is that if you chose to stop paying for either of those options, one player definitely will have gotten more bang for their buck. [/quote]

ok heres my problem with SWTOR ... the thing is you can buy all the unlocks accout wide, and yes come out pretty nice and paying somewhat less, but the this such as you having a credit cap with which only way to gain access is you get tokens from cartel market which allow you to access certain amounts of credits in or escrow account (which is once you toon reaches max credits you accrue a sorta bank or savings account which you must buy in 25k -150k tokens from the cartel store, and min you your escrow is per toon not account.so as a free player your having to constantly put money to gain access to your accrued money. another thing is swtor makes it so you can only benefit from their version of a dungeon (flashpoint) and pvp a certain amount of times per day or week, unless again you buy tokens of sorts to be allowed more runs per day or week. then theres the limit to crafting, mail, access to the exchange, and a few or a lot of other things its better off to pay a sub over a f2p or to be a preferred account (their version of a sub who chose to go f2p). also would like to mention you cannot get any bug, or customer support unless you are a sub, cant do tickets, report someone, none of those things if your not subscribing.
but over all it is a great game, with many features and story choices, and its fun all around .. but for them your better off paying the sub fees and taking breaks her and there if you get bored and or burnt out like myself.

by no means am I saying a game company does things strictly for the customer, but in reality thats true to a point they want to mak money, but they still at the end of the day have to appease the customer and compromise on the whole of things. I wish it were that game companies would do things solely for the customer, but if the did that you'd be giving in and adding things that make no since , point for example for eso doing Halloween or Easter or any other type of holiday event from the real world (doesn't matter where or what.) those type of events would make no since to ES franchise. now I wouldn't mind say a few holidays events to kind of make the hum drum or questing, crafting, pvp or raiding a break and relax, and hopefully if we do its makes since for the ES world and not thrown in to appease some bodies whiny posts.

It depends on what they consider DLC. Back when DDO flipped the f2p switch players were told that all adventure packs (equivalent to wrothgar or imperial city) would be included in a sub which made the sub seem attractive.

Later on, they released "expansions" which everyone had to pay for, whether you had a sub or not and this made the sub less attractive as the type of content that was included with your sub suddenly wasn't included anymore.

So I guess what I'm saying is, if ZoS is planning a content release that isn't included in the sub such as an "expansion" (or whatever they want to call it to feel better for charging subscribers for it) it would be nice to know ahead of time as it really factors into which payment method is better value for any given customer.

F2P models are designed to bleed you dry! Just subscribe, you spend a lot less in the long run.

Its not going f2p it will be b2p, quite a big difference. In GW2 which is the only other b2p mmo I have played I have hardly spent anything after buying the game, so it should be much cheaper to just buy expansions when they come out.

It will only become a potential problem if they try and release expansions every few months, but I doubt they could pump out content of any quality or depth that fast.