Ostensibly, “F2P” is an acronym for “Free to Play”.
In practice, the term can cover a couple of different types of MMOs that don’t monetize via subscriptions.
On one hand are the Item Shop games, say, Runes of Magic, Allods Online or Puzzle Pirates. RoM and AO are post-WoW DIKUMMOs (PWDMMORPGs?), but Puzzle Pirates is an entirely different animal that uses a microtransaction dual currency system. RoM and AO have taken heat for goofy pricing and design that spurs purchases, some of it rightly so, some of it ill-informed and incompetently reasoned. Noting that Puzzle Pirates functions quite nicely as an Item Shop game, might I take another moment to note that while business and game design are inextricably linked, incompetence in one need not mean the other is equally busted?
On the other hand, there are Subscriptionless games that monetize by selling content and convenience. Look to Guild Wars, DDO and Wizard 101 for this sort of game design. Content is sold with perpetual access, and players need not continue to pay a subscription. These games tend to be constructed differently from the Item Shop games, earning money most like offline games of yore, by providing a valuable experience out of the box.
Also of note are the hybrid games.
Wizard 101 allows for subscriptions, content purchases and item shop purchases. It monetizes all sorts of demand and lets all sorts of players play together, hopping servers willy-nilly almost at will. It’s a beautiful game that plays extremely well, carving out its own identity with unique game mechanics and quirky writing. The Harry Potterish feel is almost certainly part of the appeal, but it really is a solid game under the hood.
Puzzle Pirates has microtransaction servers and subscription servers. Players cannot change server, and their economies are largely unique. Doubloons (the microtransaction currency in their brilliant dual currency system) are tied to the account, not a server, and so may be spent on any “green” (microtransaction) server, but “blue” (sub) and “green” servers are isolated. Still, players can play on any server, and can find one to suit their finances.
I think there is a critical distinction to be drawn between Item Shop games and Subscriptionless games. I’ve argued for selling content instead of time for a while now, and I firmly come down in the Subscriptionless camp. Whether this is sold in large bites like Guild Wars or smaller bites like Wizard 101 or DDO, it doesn’t matter much, but there is a clear difference between this model and the Item Shop model. RoM and AO and their kind walk a line between selling stuff that’s useful and selling stuff that breaks the game, between impulse purchases and wallet-busting stupidity.
Both games can rightfully be presented as “Free to Play”, inasmuch as the acronym itself really only suggests that there is no subscription. (Though it is a curious thing when a product is defined by what it lacks rather than what it has or is…) We really have misnomers on top of misnomers abound in the MMO market, so this is no surprise, but it isn’t useful to take something like Allods Online’s messed up Item Shop (or your favorite game used as an example of the apocalypse) and paint an entire swath of games with a disdainful “F2P” epithet. Games need to be taken on their own merits, balanced against their monetary and time costs, and evaluated for fun. Blind prejudice against games roughly defined by a marketing acronym that doesn’t have consistent meaning doesn’t really help anything.
Tish Tosh Tesh 
Personally I see now prejudices towards business models, and even would not draw a line between the different Free to play games.
Subscription based games are about offering a service of supply contract, the game is the service (not the logistics around it) offered for money.
Free to play games are build around the concept of creating an urge to spend money on that game. How that urge is created or enforced and to which extend it does develop inside the customer is another topic. But the principle stays the same.
You play a lot of games occasionally, so you clearly favor subscription less games, reducing your monthly costs on games.
I just focus on one game, using it in every aspect, so I don’t bother a lot trying different games, therefore I am happy with a subscription, evolving the game further.
From the financial side, Free to play is more beneficial.
“Free to play games are build around the concept of creating an urge to spend money on that game.”
That’s the point, though. Subscriptionless games like Guild Wars don’t need to create an urge to keep spending, they have your money from the single purchase.
…and if you think that subscription games *aren’t* built around the concept of creating an urge to keep playing (keep spending sub money), you’re kidding yourself.
Exactly, which is why subscription games have such huge grinds for everything — it keeps you playing, and therefore paying.
I’ve also mentioned numerous times that MMO subscriptions have maintained their $15/month USD while every other service imaginable since the time EQ/UO launched has increased their fees. [I’ll not touch whether all those increases were keeping with normal inflation or greed.] The cost of making MMO’s has increased. I’ll go out on a limb and assume the average salaries for developers has increased in the past decade. Basic mathematics tells me these studios are now effectively getting less income since they’re still charging the same price set a decade ago. Then we have the nerve to wonder why they charge for server transfers, extra character slots, etc.?
I’m currently playing Runes of Magic as my “main” F2P (in addition to two subscription games) and *so far* I’m very happy with the way it’s set up. There is no real *need* to spend money until end-game, though there are certainly conveniences to doing so. The difference for me is I’m no longer some punk kid who thinks he’s entitled to everything in life for free. If I like a game enough, I have no problem giving the developers some money for it. I’ve already spent $20 on Diamonds in RoM — though they have sales all the time so if you’re patient like I was you can get more bang for your buck. In my case they had a +100% sale so my $20 got me $40 worth of Diamonds to spend in their Item Shop.
If you’re not an end-game player, then it may be possible to skip the need for spending money on the fusion stones, etc. that are used to enhance your gear. I do know it’s possible to spend your time rather than money to get fusion stones through turning in the daily quest tokens, I’ve talked to several players who do that on a regular basis. In an EVE-lite fashion, RoM also lets players trade Diamonds and gold in the auction house, and many players who prefer to play the game and earn gold can buy Diamonds from other players legally then spend them in the Item Shop. So in that sense, RoM gives you the choice of spending either time or money and to which degree you spend each.
I’m only in my low 20’s though, so I can’t speak what the actual costs would be to an end-game player. It’s something I’m curious about. I did read an old forum thread where I think it was around $160 (or maybe it was more than that, it’s been awhile) to spend cash-only (no tokens) to enhance your gear up to end-game status but that was before the Chapter 2 expansion so I don’t know what it is now or if it’s any different. The Chapter 3 expansion launches next month so it’ll be that end-game I see, if I get that far at all.
Terminology is something that can be argued endlessly. Personally, I’d see Puzzle Pirates closer to the subscriptionless side of things, especially given that the alternative to the doubloon system is a subscription option on other servers. I’d definitely see DDO as more on the “item shop” model, as you define it.
I would probably divide these games into four general categories:
Subscriptionless – Like Guild Wars. No other costs associated.
Dual Currency – There’s an in-game currency and a purchased currency. Players can trade one currency for another between players. (Similar to how Scott talks about Runes of Magic above.) May also include an item shop.
Item Shop, Gameplay – Like Allods Online, where the item shop mostly focuses on gameplay items.
Item Shop, Content – like DDO or W101, where the item shop also (primarily) carries content (primarily areas) that you can buy.
To me, this is a more useful distinction when considering the design implications. But, ultimately, if the developer doesn’t get paid then bad things happen.
Scott wrote:
The cost of making MMO’s has increased. I’ll go out on a limb and assume the average salaries for developers has increased in the past decade. Basic mathematics tells me these studios are now effectively getting less income since they’re still charging the same price set a decade ago.
But, consider this: we’ve had a lot more high profile “failures” in MMOs than we have since the UO/EQ era. No, this isn’t another episode of “blame WoW”, but rather the number of subscribers needed to get sufficient profits has gone up. While Mythic was wildly profitable even though they had only about half the subscribers of the top game, maxing out at about 250k subscribers. Now a game that has more players than that is considered a failure.
Which is a shame, because it just encourages conservatism in game design, something we already have enough of.
Brian, that’s a good breakdown. I’m not really trying to define the acronym so much as point out that it doesn’t have a solid definition, and lumping thing together that function differently can be a troublesome thing.
I’m definitely a fan of the dual currency system (yay PP!) and the pure subscriptionless system. I actually argued in a few places when RoM came out that it should make its dual currency tradeable like PP’s system. Diamonds started out like W101’s Crowns, something you can only buy and spend from account to provider. Making them tradeable between players (especially via a blind currency exchange auction like in PP) changes the dual currency model significantly, for the better, I think. In fact, I still think that W101 should make Crowns tradeable like PP, even if it’s exclusively through a currency exchange system without direct trading.
I’m also decidedly a fan of paying devs for good work. I just prefer to do so on my terms, rather than bellying up to the buffet.
What’s scary is when the item shop starts offering lotteries as a means of gaining in-game advantages.
Need a +666 sword of demonslaying? Play our lottery and *maybe* get a charm that will make sure your sword won’t break if you fail to upgrade it from +665 to +666.
As you’ll note, it cleverly doesn’t give players the +1 right off the bat, it gives them access to yet another slightly rigged lottery that helps them preserve their shiny sword of leetness.
So it satisfies the ‘wah you can’t just buy power!’ thing, while also, really, making more money.
Now, apply that principle to every single item in the game that isn’t cosmetic…
..and you have Perfect World Entertainment. ^_^
They’re very good at what they do. But what they do isn’t very nice. *runs away waving claws made of batter and giggling*
I think your actually running up against alot of peoples urge to feel as if they know what something exactly is straight away, and then they decide based on that.
People want to feel as if they know what everything is, straight away. It’s part of a fear of the unknown.
So the phrase ‘free to play’ gets tared INSTANTLY so no one has to feel as if they don’t know what it refers to with a particular game. Even for a second.
Honestly? I’d just give up trying to swim against that rip tide of knee jerk labeling.
Better to rebrand with some new name, even if it’s stupid sounding, and try and describe the rebrand before you even say it’s name, so when they insta label it, they are likely to use the label you chose.
“…and if you think that subscription games *aren’t* built around the concept of creating an urge to keep playing (keep spending sub money), you’re kidding yourself.”
Forbear with somebody outside his native tongue, but obviously I did not made myself clear.
Online Games in general are designed around keeping the audience attracted, that’s a point of sale, not payment model.
The payment models however have different approaches.
The urge to spend money on a free to play game, calls for attraction, otherwise the urge could not be created.
The grind in a subscription based model requires an attractive game, otherwise the customer would turn away.
However the grind as such is not designed to keep the player paying subscriptions, that’s what content is for. It’s just a reagent in adding content.
In production cycles, we differentiate reagents from products by the Question if it would stand on it’s own.
Could grind alone keep a customer in he game? -Probably not.
Does content keep a customer in game? – Yes.
Pay-per Content Models, do calculate with keeping the customer playing as well. Otherwise they would not produce new content.
So keeping the customer playing is common ground on all models, paying for played time is inherent in subscription models and pay per content models. While Free to play games use our urges to their advantage.
Forgive me if this sounds like splitting hair, but it’s the way financial concepts are considered.
Pay per content is ideal to get investments paid back directly. Investors first choice.
Subscription is similar to accumulation unit, so could be first choice from the developers view.
Free to play is rather flexible in finance, since the determination of expectation and demand is up to you. Thus reducing the preparatory effort (who usually results in higher interests rates).
I don’t have any prejudice towards F2P or subscription models. The only thing I don’t really like is when people argue that one is absolutely better than the other.
The problem is that both methods have flaws and can be exploited. We’ve seen it with Allods Online (a ‘F2P’ game) and now we’re seeing it with WoW (a subscription game). At the end of the day, the games companies are always going to be trying to make us pay one way or another and it boils down to which model is better for the player and which game they prefer to play.
“The problem is that both methods have flaws and can be exploited.”
Exactly.
Usiel, I maintain there’s a huge difference between charging for access and charging for content. Yes, the content will have to generate interest in whatever model, but the ways it does so and the way that it maintains interest can vary wildly.
Have you read Brian’s (Psychochild) most recent article on the morality of game designers? There are some very real questions out there, recently spurred by Zynga’s shady dealings. Perhaps the nuts and bolts of the financial side can ignore some of those concerns (markets and morality don’t always mix), but there are clear differences between games and monetization models.
Gaming seems to become more expensive, regardless of the business model or payment schemes.
The new western take on item shops is to sell vanity items only. Effectively annihilating the cry that item shop stuff gives buyers advantages.
I wonder how many things will in future be optional – the prettiest stuff will probably be saved more and more for the item stores. Guild Wars is taking this route, I wonder how much they will do this in Guild Wars 2. Players justify buying costumes for the shop this way: They support the development of GW2 this way! Oh yeah… So far there is no costume for the costume slot you can get in game, they all have to be bought over the shop.
The freaks that paid 25 bucks for a pixel pony are giving other companies an incentive to try similar stunts. And apparently the point where customers say “NO” has not been reached, quite the opposite.
Right now companies re-discover the item shop. This is better than alchemy. Turning pixels into money is much more profitable than lead into gold.
I am afraid we will not see a game that is about as fair and straightforward as Guild Wars 1 within the next years. The trend, Guild Wars included, is to make more and more things optional and sell them for money. And Blizzard of course shows how it is done, box+sub+item shop.
I am afraid in future players cannot play more than one MMO, not because they simply do not have time for many, but because they cannot pay so much “optionally” for more than one? :>
Right now we do not “pay for content” – we pay more for less than ever before.
Agreed, Longasc. It’s no wonder that I’ve been playing more offline games lately. They provide *far* better value for me. The $14 I spent on Blue Dragon will go a LOT farther than one month’s sub in WoW.
Tesh, just to get it right.
I think we usually run into misunderstandings because of our different experiences with financial sectors.
There is no difference on our view that content e.g. the work of developers needs compensation, ideally through the whole sales-process. If you have designed a game, that’s getting subscriptions for four years, you should be compensated four years. Not just until your contract expires.
Besides your working process feels unnatural for me. You are hired to invent a game, after you have invented the toolbox, they fire you and hire a cheaper live team, that arranges a game out of the toolbox you invented.
To my understanding this is not a healthy working condition, because it takes you away from your product.
Yes I did read Brian’s article and I understand now, how your working field is influenced by the capital behind you.
But let me say, it’s not fair, just because “good” capital hasn’t found a way to you jet.
Look at Brian’s conclusion regards the misconception between Developers morality and shareholder value.
That’s true for Angle-Saxon Investors, my evil competitors from Berkshire & Hathaway and Hedge Funds, but not for the rest.
If you do not intend to develop around profit, than don’t sell yourself to profit-oriented companies.
There are plenty of non-profit oriented capital givers and companies out there.
Sure, it is way easier to get a Publisher involved, but than don’t complain if they ask for returns while waving with a concrete bucket.
I consider you as artists, and as such I would rather like you to see, founding a company that creates and sells it’s own product and reinvests it’s return into the company.
To make it clearer, I am not here to judge on your profitability. I’m here to be your advocate on creating something that you and your audience loves and keeps you paid, rather than some shareholders.
So are we please friends again?
*chuckle*
Usiel, no worries. I’ve certainly never been personally bothered by your comments. 🙂 What counterarguments I may offer here and there are made for clarification, nothing more.
You’re absolutely right, the way businesses work change things. Venture capitalists and publishers cause a lot of structural choices to be made that might be made differently elsewhere. I, for one, really don’t like a lot of the sacrifices that come with a company that has a relentless pursuit of profit as its prime motivator, or that has to bow to investors. Growth for growth’s sake, the mantra of Wall Street and nearly all of our financial advisors, is merely cancer, and is flatly unsustainable.
I’m all for more sustainable, low key business. I still have a family to feed, but I don’t need a multimillion dollar house or other status symbols. It’s funny, if I never needed money, I’d still be creating art, books and games. I’m just wired that way, apparently.
I’m certainly not opposed to success or even profit in itself. I firmly believe hard work should be rewarded. Sometimes, though, businesses manipulate customers and engage in shady moral practices, and financial factors on the back end can exert unfortunate influences.