The Trend Towards Microtransactions and F2P games

[synaesthetic]

I don't think the subscription model is dead, just that nobody has made a game worth subscribing to in a long time.

When the industry is largely dominated by me-too WoW clones and F2P crapware, who the heck wants to pay a sub for a watered-down WoW when you can get the real thing for the same price?

[Ithekro]

Even with only 4 million sub, at $15 a month, that is over $7 billion dollars a year just from that.

[ArchmageXin]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

Even with only 4 million sub, at $15 a month, that is over $7 billion dollars a year just from that.

That is revenue, top of the line.

To support that revenue you would need a ton of stuff. The utilities alone would runs into hundred of thousands a month....

actually, just reading the financials, last year, before this whole 1.4 million user lost, blizzard was making 4 billion a year (before expenses), so your 7 billion is impossible.

After expenses blizzard only made 1 billion. It is damn good for any company, but clearly WoW is not that big of a money generator.

[Westlo]

lol @ the "WoW is doomed" crowd, even ignoring the China/Asia subs (which is where the majority of this 1.3 million reduction is from) it still has more subs than all the other English MMOs combined.

The game needed 500k subs to make a profit when it launched, yet it's dying when English subs are at around 3-4 million and all it's competitors flop on their faces. Oh wow grats TOR finally makes money, after bleeding how much? Oh wow GW2 sold so many copies, pity it's not sub based so we could see the same dropoff TOR had.

[Xacual]

Originally Posted by Westlo

The game needed 500k subs to make a profit when it launched, yet it's dying when English subs are at around 3-4 million and all it's competitors flop on their faces. Oh wow grats TOR finally makes money, after bleeding how much? Oh wow GW2 sold so many copies, pity it's not sub based so we could see the same dropoff TOR had.

I have never heard the 500k subs thing in connection with WoW, just with TOR. What I do recall is Blizzard being astounded by the sales and subs back at release. Hell there was only 20 servers initially and 200k people hit those so hard, Blizz had to double the servers as soon as possible so I really doubt 500k was the needed number.

[Mr Hat and Clogs]

The majority of those 1.3 million subs were in china, where they barely pay anything compared to the west. Even so, the game still has 8 million or so, if you believe Blizzard - that still beats its nearest competitor into the dirt by a long way.

Also, if Blizzard ever did make WoW F2P, with a cash shop, which they have somewhat toyed with (see the mounts and pets which rake them in truckloads) and I hope they don't fuck it up if they do, like EA did with TOR, than I think you'd find a lot of people go back to WoW that migrated to F2P games.

GW2 did have a mass drop in its player base, according to an article I read a while back (on the Escapist? I can't remember).

[lightbringer]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

Even with only 4 million sub, at $15 a month, that is over $7 billion dollars a year just from that.

4m * $15 * 12 months = $720m. You're only off by one zero but it's a pretty big zero

[Kyero Fox]

Once ESO, WildStar and FFXIV2.0 come out, It will lose more. Much more...

[ArchmageXin]

Originally Posted by Mr Hat and Clogs

The majority of those 1.3 million subs were in china, where they barely pay anything compared to the west. Even so, the game still has 8 million or so, if you believe Blizzard - that still beats its nearest competitor into the dirt by a long way.

Also, if Blizzard ever did make WoW F2P, with a cash shop, which they have somewhat toyed with (see the mounts and pets which rake them in truckloads) and I hope they don't fuck it up if they do, like EA did with TOR, than I think you'd find a lot of people go back to WoW that migrated to F2P games.

GW2 did have a mass drop in its player base, according to an article I read a while back (on the Escapist? I can't remember).

People need to understand finance. Some MMOs can live with 500,000 subs if they are on 3 servers. Some MMOs can lose money if they put 10,000,000 people on 2,000 servers. If Blizzard built their servers to support 12 million players and suddenly it went down to 8 million, it need to to cut 20-33% of its support to match.

If not, they start losing money.

[Kyero Fox]

Servers cost some mula, If they don't make that mula they are gonna close servers or do mergers, and when that happens they will be gettin desperate. Not to mention they got a big company to pay, they aren't gonna work for free. Your 15 bucks a month pays each of their customers hourly income.

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by Xion Valkyrie

The numbers are actually a lot worse than they're letting on. About 60% of their numbers come from the Chinese servers, but they don't have a subscription for WoW in China. Instead people pay by the hour/minute. This means that they really only have a rough estimate of how many 'subs' they have in the Chinese servers and they're definitely not getting $15 per user per month from them, especially since it's a Chinese company handling the Chinese.

So in reality, the actual subs are more like 3-4 mil.

Got a source for that claim? I see numbers like these thrown around all the time, but most of the times it's just hearsay. Few can actually point me to a source.

[ArchmageXin]

Originally Posted by Keroko

Got a source for that claim? I see numbers like these thrown around all the time, but most of the times it's just hearsay. Few can actually point me to a source.

4 million is probably a bit on the low side. Because they are quoted the 8 million number @ a client conference call, so we have to assume it is true.

Falsifying material data in front of the SEC and Wall Street is a bad idea. Blizz is making a billion a year here, losing it all to shareholder lawsuit is stupid.

[Hooves]

I think Free To Play is becoming the new trend for games since I'm seeing soooo much more than usual. But getting very tempting items/models/etc from donation like what Riot does.

[Daniel E.]

Posts merged from the World of Warcraft lose 1.3 Million players Q1 2013 thread. People are already discussing F2P and I rather have this discussion here instead of the WoW topic.

[Vexx]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

I don't think the subscription model is dead, just that nobody has made a game worth subscribing to in a long time.

When the industry is largely dominated by me-too WoW clones and F2P crapware, who the heck wants to pay a sub for a watered-down WoW when you can get the real thing for the same price?

This. It doesn't help either that the occasional attempt to veer out of the clone box or provide significant content is punished because it is "too hard for the casual crowd". I guess we need more "boutique" games that aren't *trying* to be the next WoW. Ones that serve an interest niche very well. Eve Online seems to be one example of that sort of thing.

[kyp275]

Originally Posted by Flying Dagger

people are bored of the whole subs base mmo model or just the same in general.

Not sure how people can get bored of a payment system, or for that matter, getting excited about one to begin with.

Originally Posted by Hooves

I think Free To Play is becoming the new trend for games since I'm seeing soooo much more than usual.

Because it's cheap and easy - just pop your nth wow clone in, mix in a F2P cash shop with the inevitable suckers, easy profit for minimal effort, rinse and repeat.

Originally Posted by Vexx

This. It doesn't help either that the occasional attempt to veer out of the clone box or provide significant content is punished because it is "too hard for the casual crowd". I guess we need more "boutique" games that aren't *trying* to be the next WoW. Ones that serve an interest niche very well. Eve Online seems to be one example of that sort of thing.

Aye, you'd think the devs would've learned by now that you can't out-WoW WoW. Us eve players just celebrated Eve's 10 yr anniversary, and things are still looking up.

[synaesthetic]

FFXIV will probably also do well now that the game is actually playable and a pretty decent MMO. It has enough loyal fans to keep it profitable so long as Squeenix keeps it up to date and doesn't try to get too ambitious.

[kyp275]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

FFXIV will probably also do well now that the game is actually playable and a pretty decent MMO. It has enough loyal fans to keep it profitable so long as Squeenix keeps it up to date and doesn't try to get too ambitious.

not if you read the beta forum! (hint: it's full of whiners and crybabies )

[Vexx]

Beta forums are honeypot traps for whiners and crybabies. That's where I got the idea that the ultimate game for these twits would be one screen with a large "red button". Click it and you win. Your inventory fills with "god" gear and you have infinite quatloos.

Then, of course, they'd whine about the 'blue button" expansion. When I play a beta, I'm usually there actually looking for bugs and checking the dev notes.

[synaesthetic]

The last beta I participated in was actually TERA, and I submitted so many bug reports I broke their bug reporting tool.

This was probably a sign I should have heeded, now that I think about it.