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[zehive]

You're paying around 33 cents a day to play FE WHEN IT COMES OUT, which is a tiny bit far in the future. Dig in the couch cushions every afternoon and grab some change and you'll probably have enough to account for that days subscription. If he was money hungry it would be 15 dollars a month, but its only 10. I spend more than that at the store buying snacks I don't fucking need that'll last me a few days, much more taking my girlfriend to dinner or to go to the movies, to watch Hockey at a sports bar. 10 dollars a month is nothing, unless you already earn nothing to begin with.

And he's an indie dev without even a fraction of the support Toady has..

He's an indie dev working on a very ambitious project. And many people don't want to waste 10 dollars on an indie P2P game, if the game is good then he wouldn't need subscriptions in the first place.

Well he can't live off of butterfly kisses and fairy dreams. Who is going to donate if they wouldn't even be willing to 'waste' 10 dollars. I guess no popular games need subscriptions because they're already good and have a community so willing to donate. Theres only so much he can do alone, and he's going to try and improve and develop an MMORPG. I don't think he's going to have anyone paying until its going live or theres already something worth paying for.

[Man of Paper]

You're paying around 33 cents a day to play FE WHEN IT COMES OUT, which is a tiny bit far in the future. Dig in the couch cushions every afternoon and grab some change and you'll probably have enough to account for that days subscription. If he was money hungry it would be 15 dollars a month, but its only 10. I spend more than that at the store buying snacks I don't fucking need that'll last me a few days, much more taking my girlfriend to dinner or to go to the movies, to watch Hockey at a sports bar. 10 dollars a month is nothing, unless you already earn nothing to begin with.

And he's an indie dev without even a fraction of the support Toady has..

He's an indie dev working on a very ambitious project. And many people don't want to waste 10 dollars on an indie P2P game, if the game is good then he wouldn't need subscriptions in the first place.

Well he can't live off of butterfly kisses and fairy dreams. Who is going to donate if they wouldn't even be willing to 'waste' 10 dollars. I guess no popular games need subscriptions because they're already good and have a community so willing to donate. Theres only so much he can do alone, and he's going to try and improve and develop an MMORPG. I don't think he's going to have anyone paying until its going live or theres already something worth paying for.

Thing is, a lot of people can't spare ten dollars a month indefinitely for as long as you want to play. If it was a one-time charge it wouldn't be too bad even if it got slightly pricey, because you only have to pay once. I've never been a fan of the monthly game subscription. And you have to take into account the people like me. I've donated a good bit of money to the games I play for free. I've poured a good $150 into Kingdom of Loathing, and if I had any money to spare you can guarantee that Toady would be bathing in it by the end of the day.

And as stated multiple times already, he's an indie developer trying to shove his fist into the face of P2P gaming. Ambitious and admirable, but I'm not going to throw down all sorts of cash at the turn of every month on a game that is, at the moment, a glorified large scale Farmville from what I've gathered. Not worth it in my book.

Have fun, though, whoever decides to subscribe.

[Sirian]

Whoa, so many bad feelings in this thread...

If you don't want to risk losing your money on a potentially bad game, just wait after other people have played and reviewed it, or get in the beta when it's out and make your own, free, opinion.

And if you don't like "glorified large scale Farmvilles" (which imo is a really uneducated and dismissive term to use on this family of games), then don't play them, and while you're at it, don't bother pouring your hate in threads about those games.

Just because the industry realized that they could milk more money from F2Ps+cash shops than from P2Ps, doesnt mean that every game can or should be made in that format.

And hey, maybe it won't work for this game, but that's what life is for, trying things, making mistakes, learning from them. But stop shooting the idea before it's even given form.

[Tilla]

Just because the industry realized that they could milk more money from F2Ps+cash shops than from P2Ps, doesnt mean that every game can or should be made in that format.

Here's the thing: that's not what they learned. They learned that nobody wanted to pay subscriptions for more than one game anymore, and that only the top games on the market made ANY money on the subscription model.

[Dariush]

Who is going to donate if they wouldn't even be willing to 'waste' 10 dollars.

There are different categories of people. Some are too poor, live in too poor countries or are too greedy to either buy or donate while others are sufficiently rich to donate far more than the game costs, and there's only a small percentage of those who would buy the game but not donate. If the game is P2P, the first category won't play it, but the second category won't feel any need to donate to a developer of an already P2P game, and that loss won't be balanced by the third category. So in the long run, P2P is a loss.

They learned that nobody wanted to pay subscriptions for more than one game anymore, and that only the top games on the market made ANY money on the subscription model.

Isn't that pretty much correct?

[Svarte Troner]

Here's hoping he changes his mind

[Drago55577]

A P2P is better, at least for me. There is no shop that needs real money, all players get everything. No temp power ups or anything. I'm getting it if it stays P2P

[Fikes]

They learned that nobody wanted to pay subscriptions for more than one game anymore, and that only the top games on the market made ANY money on the subscription model.

Isn't that pretty much correct?

No. That isn't pretty much correct. The top five games can only make money? What games are those? What about the other monthly charge games like Wurm or Gemstome IV or Vanguard? Those don't make any money? How do they stay online then?

Some games that are less popular can make more money by nickle and diming their devout fans, this is true, but it doesn't mean a flat monthly charge is unworkable.

I think a free trial is a must, but to throw a fit because you have to pay for something is just silly. One time fee would be better? Then pay for two months. Most $20 games don't last that long anyways.

[Tilla]

They learned that nobody wanted to pay subscriptions for more than one game anymore, and that only the top games on the market made ANY money on the subscription model.

Isn't that pretty much correct?

No. That isn't pretty much correct. The top five games can only make money? What games are those? What about the other monthly charge games like Wurm or Gemstome IV or Vanguard? Those don't make any money? How do they stay online then?

Some games that are less popular can make more money by nickle and diming their devout fans, this is true, but it doesn't mean a flat monthly charge is unworkable.

I think a free trial is a must, but to throw a fit because you have to pay for something is just silly. One time fee would be better? Then pay for two months. Most $20 games don't last that long anyways.

Never heard of  Gemstone so that's saying something. Vanguard is now going F2P (just announced yesterday) and hadn't had a major update in years, because there weren't enough people paying money (again, that is my main premise!) to fund a full dev team. Wurm /is/ f2p with a subscription tier. Most f2p games DO have subscribing as an option, after all.

[zehive]

They learned that nobody wanted to pay subscriptions for more than one game anymore, and that only the top games on the market made ANY money on the subscription model.

Isn't that pretty much correct?

No. That isn't pretty much correct. The top five games can only make money? What games are those? What about the other monthly charge games like Wurm or Gemstome IV or Vanguard? Those don't make any money? How do they stay online then?

Some games that are less popular can make more money by nickle and diming their devout fans, this is true, but it doesn't mean a flat monthly charge is unworkable.

I think a free trial is a must, but to throw a fit because you have to pay for something is just silly. One time fee would be better? Then pay for two months. Most $20 games don't last that long anyways.

Never heard of  Gemstone so that's saying something. Vanguard is now going F2P (just announced yesterday) and hadn't had a major update in years, because there weren't enough people paying money (again, that is my main premise!) to fund a full dev team. Wurm /is/ f2p with a subscription tier. Most f2p games DO have subscribing as an option, after all.

f2p for what is basically a demo..

[Fikes]

What is "never hearing of Gemstone" saying? I think the fact that you never heard of it proves my point. It is a subscription based game, has been since like 1995.

Obviously Vanguard made enough to keep the lights on even with a shitty small community. If you want to talk about funding continued development, very few "pay once" games have support a year after release.

TLDR: Small MMOs can make money and do interesting things with a P2P model.

[Sirian]

There's also "A Tale in the Desert" which is a crafting sandbox game set in ancient egypt, and has a subscription ($13.95 per month) and a free trial. It's been working for them i guess since they are still alive and running the 6th iteration of the game (the server is reset and new things added to the game when the players reach all the endgame goals, which usually takes around 2 years i think).

I think it works because those games appeal to a different demographic than the mainstream MMOs, so people interested in them will rarely have other subscriptions active, and they'll be ok with paying for a different experience.

As far as F2P+cash shop goes, i'm only ok with them if the CS players get no substancial advantage over the rest of the players (cosmetic options for instance), else i might play them for up to a month (more often it will be a week), and never come back.

[DJ]

How do people feel about a "DLC" revenue model? Ie you pay RL cash once to unlock certain skills and crafts, but you still have to actually get all the materials through playing to use these blueprints you just bought. The devs can then just keep pushing out new content for people to buy. As much as I despise DLC in normal games, I think it's the way to go for indie MMOs because it provides a low entry barrier without allowing one to just throw more cash at the game to get better.

[Tilla]

There's also "A Tale in the Desert" which is a crafting sandbox game set in ancient egypt, and has a subscription ($13.95 per month) and a free trial. It's been working for them i guess since they are still alive and running the 6th iteration of the game (the server is reset and new things added to the game when the players reach all the endgame goals, which usually takes around 2 years i think).

ATITD has been in a weird sort of Purgatory for a while really. They've needed major engine overhauls but their playerbase has been shrinking quite a bit and being split up with their alternate server initiatives - making the world feel more empty and stale. There's  only one real dev anymore and the rest are volunteers from the community, and not much gets done anymore. Hardly successful - Teppy rarely shows his face as he's busy trying to make a shitty buttcoin casino game or something

[Sirian]

How do people feel about a "DLC" revenue model? Ie you pay RL cash once to unlock certain skills and crafts, but you still have to actually get all the materials through playing to use these blueprints you just bought. The devs can then just keep pushing out new content for people to buy. As much as I despise DLC in normal games, I think it's the way to go for indie MMOs because it provides a low entry barrier without allowing one to just throw more cash at the game to get better.

Err in my opinion, it sucks.

If a game dev wants to create and sell add-ons months after the game is out, to expand the original gameplay, sure, why not, but unlocking game content with money is a big no-no for me.

For instance, when i played dragon age and met this NPC in my camp who told me that i could pay real money to unlock his quest it was a BIG turn off. In MMOs, this would be the same as a cash shop. The fact that you'd still have to get materials or whatever to use your items doesnt adress the issue.

Don't make a "poor people's edition" and a "i'm rich so the game is more interesting and/or easy edition". Oh and, i know that many people would still play such games, it's just that i don't think it's a healthy practice.