Pay to play or free to fail?
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Krugar
Banned
Re: Pay to play or free to fail?
For a kindergarten company. Not for a real company. That is not how a business is ran.
Fox VII
Diabloii.Net Member
Re: Pay to play or free to fail?
Although DIII could be marketed as P2P and make a lot of cash, if that cash is coming from people they already have hooked on another p2p, what gain have they made?
Why risk pulling them (aka WOW fans) into a new game that they might not like. During that time they could forget about their old crack addiction :crazyeyes: and soon go belly up on the new game. Is it worth the gamble? Even if those fans are happy with their transition to DIII, will the game have enough content to hold their attention? Would you have played DII as long as you did, if it was p2p?
In my opinion, Blizzard should diversify and have more hooks in the water, so that they're picking up new sales from new customers, while also retaining the old. Later, they'll try to capitalize on that brand and group of customers, by pulling them into the high dollar monthly fees with the game that have enough content to snag several years of a paying customer's life.
Yes you are correct, a much smaller amount of p2p players would be needed to generate X dollars, but can you really measure the value of that 70% and your companies reputation on profits alone?
Although DIII could be marketed as P2P and make a lot of cash, if that cash is coming from people they already have hooked on another p2p, what gain have they made?
Why risk pulling them (aka WOW fans) into a new game that they might not like. During that time they could forget about their old crack addiction :crazyeyes: and soon go belly up on the new game. Is it worth the gamble? Even if those fans are happy with their transition to DIII, will the game have enough content to hold their attention? Would you have played DII as long as you did, if it was p2p?
In my opinion, Blizzard should diversify and have more hooks in the water, so that they're picking up new sales from new customers, while also retaining the old. Later, they'll try to capitalize on that brand and group of customers, by pulling them into the high dollar monthly fees with the game that have enough content to snag several years of a paying customer's life.
GoldenBird
Diabloii.Net Member
Re: Pay to play or free to fail?
Even if it was true, it's not completely about the money. What about reputation? They could get some real bashing by people if they made this, which isn't even a mmorpg, p2p.
Krugar
Banned
Re: Pay to play or free to fail?
Indeed. By diversifying both in types of games as in how these games are provided (free or p2p) a company expands their business horizontally and capitalizes from a wider and more satisfied fan base, while increasing their odds of drawing new customers.
Meanwhile a free online experience doesn't mean the game came at cost 0 to the customer. They had to pay for it. And they'll most probably pay also for the much easier to develop expansion pack(s). Games like Diablo and Starcraft set Blizzard to gianthood and payed for the development of games like WoW. There's no loss in revenue from a f2p game, neither this method means the company is losing money -- Quite on the contrary. The gaming industry is the fist or second most profitable industry in the world with most of its revenue deriving from f2p titles. One most only look at these companies annual results.
Digging deeper into the supposed formula above, some problems with it are:
- There's no indication of the increased costs (high increase of costs, I must add) a p2p title forces a company into.
- There's also too many assumptions about the player base. Is it really 12 months the average player life in WoW? Where does this information come from?
- It is assumed both games stand on equal grounds in terms of their ability to draw and motivate players. It is simply not true and can only be measured a posteriori.
Indeed. By diversifying both in types of games as in how these games are provided (free or p2p) a company expands their business horizontally and capitalizes from a wider and more satisfied fan base, while increasing their odds of drawing new customers.
Meanwhile a free online experience doesn't mean the game came at cost 0 to the customer. They had to pay for it. And they'll most probably pay also for the much easier to develop expansion pack(s). Games like Diablo and Starcraft set Blizzard to gianthood and payed for the development of games like WoW. There's no loss in revenue from a f2p game, neither this method means the company is losing money -- Quite on the contrary. The gaming industry is the fist or second most profitable industry in the world with most of its revenue deriving from f2p titles. One most only look at these companies annual results.
Digging deeper into the supposed formula above, some problems with it are:
- There's no indication of the increased costs (high increase of costs, I must add) a p2p title forces a company into.
- There's also too many assumptions about the player base. Is it really 12 months the average player life in WoW? Where does this information come from?
- It is assumed both games stand on equal grounds in terms of their ability to draw and motivate players. It is simply not true and can only be measured a posteriori.
Re: Pay to play or free to fail?
Here's another point:
Monthly fees are a reasonable return on your investment IF you only play one subscription-based game, and play that one for many hours per month.
But I think most people, like me, won't pay more than one subscription. Any time you're playing game 1 and not game 2, you're losing money on game 2, and vice versa. Seems like a bad deal.
Blizzard, as you may have noticed, runs an MMO and has another in the works. If D3 is fee-based, then it's in direct competition for that monthly fee with WoW and unnamed MMO2.
Whereas if D3 is free, all those millions of WoW players can play it on the side without qualms.
Speaking purely for myself now, I no longer play WoW or any other MMO, and I would consider paying to play D3 IF that subscription brought regular, high-quality new content. No reason a Diablo-style game can't do that btw; most (free) D2 patches had a little or a lot of new content as well. A new dungeon, a new questline, new items, all could easily be folded in so long as everybody has the same version.
I wouldn't pay to play D3 JUST for anti-hacking, anti-duping BNet measures. My solution to those problems is to stay away from multiplayer and BNet
Here's another point:
Monthly fees are a reasonable return on your investment IF you only play one subscription-based game, and play that one for many hours per month.
But I think most people, like me, won't pay more than one subscription. Any time you're playing game 1 and not game 2, you're losing money on game 2, and vice versa. Seems like a bad deal.
Blizzard, as you may have noticed, runs an MMO and has another in the works. If D3 is fee-based, then it's in direct competition for that monthly fee with WoW and unnamed MMO2.
Whereas if D3 is free, all those millions of WoW players can play it on the side without qualms.
Speaking purely for myself now, I no longer play WoW or any other MMO, and I would consider paying to play D3 IF that subscription brought regular, high-quality new content. No reason a Diablo-style game can't do that btw; most (free) D2 patches had a little or a lot of new content as well. A new dungeon, a new questline, new items, all could easily be folded in so long as everybody has the same version.
I wouldn't pay to play D3 JUST for anti-hacking, anti-duping BNet measures. My solution to those problems is to stay away from multiplayer and BNet
ThulRasha
Diablo: IncGamers Member
Re: Pay to play or free to fail?
D3 completely free, or only 1 fee for a battlenet account.
I already pay a fee for WoW. If I have to pay an additional fee for D3, I will indeed consider one of these games instead of both.
For people who don't pay a fee for WoW, I really hope D3 will be completely free. If thats not feasible anymore then I hope for a very small battlenet account fee. (less than $5)
D3 completely free, or only 1 fee for a battlenet account.
I already pay a fee for WoW. If I have to pay an additional fee for D3, I will indeed consider one of these games instead of both.
For people who don't pay a fee for WoW, I really hope D3 will be completely free. If thats not feasible anymore then I hope for a very small battlenet account fee. (less than $5)
visom
Diabloii.Net Member
Re: Pay to play or free to fail?
Not everyone can play D3 on a regular basis so I wouldn't like the P2P. Unless its $5 every month then that's ok. I'm only willing to pay to keep battlenet's security up against hackers.
I don't know much about the cost of server maintenance or battlenet, but I have strong confidence that 100,000 players each paying $15 ($1,500,000) would be more than enough to cover that cost. 100,000 players is just a small estimate for how many people that plays D2, I'm guessing between 500,000-1,000,000 people so quintruple or ten'uple that $1.5million. Not to mention that blizzard will also have support from WoW and SC2 to help pay for Bnet.
If $15 monthly is "profitable" for WoW then $5-10 would be "enough" for D3.
I made up the word(?) ten'uple so calm down vocab freaks.
Not everyone can play D3 on a regular basis so I wouldn't like the P2P. Unless its $5 every month then that's ok. I'm only willing to pay to keep battlenet's security up against hackers.
I don't know much about the cost of server maintenance or battlenet, but I have strong confidence that 100,000 players each paying $15 ($1,500,000) would be more than enough to cover that cost. 100,000 players is just a small estimate for how many people that plays D2, I'm guessing between 500,000-1,000,000 people so quintruple or ten'uple that $1.5million. Not to mention that blizzard will also have support from WoW and SC2 to help pay for Bnet.
If $15 monthly is "profitable" for WoW then $5-10 would be "enough" for D3.
I made up the word(?) ten'uple so calm down vocab freaks.
Akse
Banned
Re: Pay to play or free to fail?
So I wouldn't mind if we lost some players due to the pay to play.
Nice calculations. Dunno might be around 70% of the bnet population that are complete idiots(nowadays at least)
So I wouldn't mind if we lost some players due to the pay to play. 
Scudstorm
Diabloii.Net Member
Re: Pay to play or free to fail?
You'd think courses like Macroeconomics and Microeconomics should only last 20 minutes total if that's how the world works...
MYK
Diablo: IncGamers Member
Re: Pay to play or free to fail?
Oh wait! Hahaha...
A : Diablo II was hacked
B : WoW was less hackable
Therefore: Make Diablo III like WoW and things will be better.
Therefore: Make everyone pay monthly, because it somehow fends off the haxxorz. Hahahah...
Obviously, the reason of the hack problem isn't anywhere near the p2p issue, but the design itself. If a game lends itself to letting players see and play around with the GUI and things like that, there's way less to hack. There's no map to hack if you were to give someone the option of seeing it anyways. Right?
That's the only real difference that I can see between the two, in this case.
...Because idiots wouldn't pay?Nice calculations. Dunno might be around 70% of the bnet population that are complete idiots(nowadays at least)
Oh wait! Hahaha...
A : Diablo II was hacked
B : WoW was less hackable
Therefore: Make Diablo III like WoW and things will be better.
Therefore: Make everyone pay monthly, because it somehow fends off the haxxorz.
Hahahah...Obviously, the reason of the hack problem isn't anywhere near the p2p issue, but the design itself. If a game lends itself to letting players see and play around with the GUI and things like that, there's way less to hack. There's no map to hack if you were to give someone the option of seeing it anyways. Right?
That's the only real difference that I can see between the two, in this case.
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JonathanNathan
Diabloii.Net Member
Re: Pay to play or free to fail?
Simple.
Why do people always get so ****ty about Diablo hacks? It's part of the fun of the game. I never bothered with it myself, at least not on the BNet (because I was under the impression that I'd get ****ed for doing that), but I've always loved the moddable, hackable aspect of the game. It makes the game a LOT more fun. And if you don't want to get screwed by that sort of thing, just back up your char files (so what if it isn't legit?) or only play with friends.A : Diablo II was hacked
B : WoW was less hackable
Therefore: Make Diablo III like WoW and things will be better.
Therefore: Make everyone pay monthly, because it somehow fends off the haxxorz.
Obviously, the reason of the hack problem isn't anywhere near the p2p issue, but the design itself. If a game lends itself to letting players see and play around with the GUI and things like that, there's way less to hack. There's no map to hack if you were to give someone the option of seeing it anyways. Right?
That's the only real difference that I can see between the two, in this case.
Simple.
Krugar
Banned
Re: Pay to play or free to fail?
Wait!... You go on a crusade against the inventory system in Diablo 3 being a one-slot system (which was actually asked by maybe millions of players) because it looks much like WoW, whatever that means. But you do not care if a game is hacked up the wazoo on battle.net because these things happen?
Your priorities are all messed up.
Wait!... You go on a crusade against the inventory system in Diablo 3 being a one-slot system (which was actually asked by maybe millions of players) because it looks much like WoW, whatever that means. But you do not care if a game is hacked up the wazoo on battle.net because these things happen?
Your priorities are all messed up.
Funkopotamus
Diabloii.Net Member
Re: Pay to play or free to fail?
I have a feeling this user is funnin' with us.
I have a feeling this user is funnin' with us.
MYK
Diablo: IncGamers Member
Re: Pay to play or free to fail?
If there was one thing in this thread that makes any sense at all, it's this post.
^
If there was one thing in this thread that makes any sense at all, it's this post.
Daedrith
Diabloii.Net Member
Re: Pay to play or free to fail?
I definitely would not even buy D3 if it was pay to play. Id much rather they release new content expansions if they do so. I wasted enough money on WoW and now regret it, I'm not paying a fee like that again. ;-)
As for hacks, whatever. Find a group of friends who play with or without them so you can enjoy the game as you like.
I definitely would not even buy D3 if it was pay to play. Id much rather they release new content expansions if they do so. I wasted enough money on WoW and now regret it, I'm not paying a fee like that again. ;-)
As for hacks, whatever. Find a group of friends who play with or without them so you can enjoy the game as you like.
Re: Pay to play or free to fail?
If you can't afford to pay a measly $15 dollars a month to play a game then you shouldn't be playing games or on this forum in the first place. Priorities people. If you don't have time to dedicate enough time to make the $15 dollars worthwhile what makes you believe you have say in what the game should be, especially when there are those who can invest time into the game and contribute much more to the overall userbase.
If you can't afford to pay a measly $15 dollars a month to play a game then you shouldn't be playing games or on this forum in the first place. Priorities people. If you don't have time to dedicate enough time to make the $15 dollars worthwhile what makes you believe you have say in what the game should be, especially when there are those who can invest time into the game and contribute much more to the overall userbase.
