Right now youre hopeful things will work out. Youre hopeful people will take to the Crown Points and the Cash Shop. And with the influx of gamers that will be looking to experience the game day to day for free. This will definitely happen. Before you know it youll be swimming in Crown Points like Scrooge McDuck. And I cant fault you for that. By far the B2P Model will benefit your company much more then the Sub Model. But these sorts of models, if not carefully done, will come back to bite you in the *** in just a few short years.

Look at any MMO out there currently and youll notice the majority of them made the mistake of crossing that fine line of Vanity-Pay 2 Win. And while those choices boosted the companies short term earnings. It later sent those same 'whales' and Cash Shop purchasers running for other games. Im currently one of them.

Let me tell you a little story about another game that started out as a Sub and two years in had to transition to F2P. They had a large fandom they could have leaned on had they done things properly. But they decided to launch after two measely years of development. And even 5 years in currently they are one of the most content empty MMOs out there. But even with all of that many of their subscribers and even F2P gamers stuck with them. Because of the IP they worked under. This game? Star Trek Online.

Star Trek Online: Delta Rising turned numerous mechanics in the game into grindy nonsense where your only hope was their Cash Shop. Sure their store started out innocently enough. You bought bridge skins and ship skins for your ships. But eventually they went down the wrong path. And its quite evident where they went wrong and why.

Players, subscribers and the F2Pers alike, began asking for more then skins. They wanted new ships, abilities and consoles (gear). And Cryptic answered with ships and consoles (gear) that slowly and inevitably lead to a power creep. Their lockbox gambling mechanics added fuel to this fire and before long the game was essentially a P2W mess. If you werent DPS you werent wanted. If you didnt have the latest Cash Shop/LockBox Ship and Console you were laughed out of their endgame quests and dying PvP maps.

Delta Rising, their second expansion since going F2P, was a huge flop. They added all sorts of things to the game meant to pressure and milk their playerbase. Not two weeks into its Launch they began running events back to back to keep people logging in. Even their long time 'whales' began shutting their wallets and looking to other games. I wouldnt consider myself a whale but in that game Ive got quite a few purchases in their Cash Shop including Ship Packs which arent cheap. So Im saying this as someone that will more then likely participate in the Crown Shop.

Not everything the subscribers and B2Pers will ask for needs to go into that shop. Be weary of what it does for the player and how it effects the game. Even those who willingly and sometimes enthusiastically participate in these Cash Shops and spend large amounts of money outside of a sub have a limit. And if you **** off those throwing that much money at you. You can be sure your long term financial goals will be hard to meet.