Silent Hunter Online

[drEaPer]

Originally Posted by Nippelspanner

Those games force you indirectly. If you dont pay and upgrade your stuff, you wont have much fun with this game, nor success.

Some points to think about for F2P games:

-Fun is subject to perception. One finds grinding for the paycontent fun, others dont.

-F2P states that you can play the free content. It does not state that you can play the pay content.

-Not spending money on a F2P game means no commitment and no involvement (except your time) thus there is no justification for demands. Its an offer you simply can reject. As soon as you spend money, you also value the work of the creators.

-F2P was generally accepted by gamers before it was called F2P, it was called "demo". The purpose of a demo was to get an impression and to decide if you want to buy the game. Of course Demos featured the more attractive stuff, and were visually appealing to lure you to buy the main game. F2P does the same. As long as the required total investment into the game (excluding bonus stuff that is not mandatory, which equals classic DLC or addons) does not exceed the amount of money a comparable game bought in retail store costs, there is no difference except in the way the content is brougth to you / unlocked.

-A true F2P without payment is only possible, if someone donates the required funds for development. Example: "Crowd Funding"

[W_clear]

Originally Posted by sober

Hello W_clear

Hi

[P_Funk]

Originally Posted by drEaPer

-Fun is subject to perception. One finds grinding for the paycontent fun, others dont.

Grinding is one thing, but they scale the unlock scale usually to a ridiculous level. Take the new Tribles: Ascend game that just came out in a F2P format. Its pretty good on that level in that you can only buy unlocks of things you can grind for. Nothing is technically barred from free to players. However with 10 classes and single weapon unlocks being 100 000k experience and with an average F2P player gaining something in the range of 500 to 1000 experience per round if he isn't totally dominating anybody (like the guys who've unlocked stuff for real money) it will take a LOOOOONG time to unlock even a weapon and in that game there are multi stage unlocks for everything so basically you can either play one class and get all the stuff for it OR buy it.

Its not that rosey. Long term if you find yourself actually grinding for these weapons you might as well buy the freaking thing, but you can't buy the game, you can only pay to unlock stuff and as they add more stuff.... well. Overtime you may end up spending more than on a standard FPS.

Fact is that they turn the grind into such a hopeless endeavor that its designed to make you pay once you start to care. You try to get it, you can't get it without burning another 30 hours or something of play at least and if you make 8 bucks an hour at least well... not a very good waste of your time is it?

The grind in F2P is not about fun. Grinds are only subjectively fun in set subscription MMOs since they are the bulk of content. F2P turns the grind into the incentive to buy since the grind is basically hopeless, but serves only to create an attachment to the objective.

[drEaPer]

Thats the challenge of adressing the target audience in the right manner.
Just compare asian games with western games. Thats why this does not make F2P a bad concept by itself just for being F2P.

Something that comes to my mind: When I played Dungeons & Dragons Online, it had a fine approach that seemed fair and worked well.

-Some of the dungeons you could enter with your group were free. Alot others were paycontent. Once payed, you could play them as much as you wanted.

-The difficulty of the dungeons was perfectly fine for a standard party. It was a bit of a challenge, yet very do-able.

-If you screwed up, you could instantly buy health potions of mana potions in the shop, to get you out of hopeless situations.

-> Some content is buyable that is unlocked permanently and can be enjoyed just like a standard game. Some content is convinience only, that I only needed if I was actually failing the game. Without those added "pay consumables" I would have had to restart the dungeon.

For me, it was a fair and well thought out approach of making money, instead of charging subscription fees (online server based games always have running costs). I actually stopped my subscription, switched the game to the F2P mode, payed like 50 bucks for all the dungeons and basically owned the content for the lifetime of the game.
If I had kept the subscription based access, my costs for playing the game would have exceeded that sum by far until now.


If there is no incentive to spend money, the game would not be available to you at all, since there would be no return of investment or money to cover the costs for server, traffic, live/support teams etc.

Its a thin line where one thinks it starts being a "rip off" or a "fair approach". Though its not F2P by itself that is the problem.

[Gandalfi2005]

Maybe something for the office, when im bored like today

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by drEaPer

Thats the challenge of adressing the target audience in the right manner.

So the bottom line seems to be that if you want to play the game it's free. If, on the other hand, you want to play it properly and enjoy it to the fullest, you'll have to pay. The idea seems to be that you get people to play by offering the incomplete, unfinishable game to the public in the sure knowledge that a certain number will become addicted and pay the price just so they can keep playing.

Sounds like a scam to me. No, more like a drug dealer.

A long time ago there was a cartoon strip called The Wizard Of Id. One of the characters once paraphrased Abraham Lincoln, saying "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and that's enough for a good lawyer to make a living."

[Julhelm]

Originally Posted by Hinrich Schwab

So to you, any form of customer complaint over a business model of dubious integrity is ridiculous. We already had a similar discussion in the other thread. I won't argue this further as it is obvious from the other conversation that you adamantly believe that the businesses are "right" and the consumers are "wrong". We are going to have to agree to disagree and leave it at that.

No I don't believe that at all, but you're arguing from an emotionally reactionary position where you assume you as a customer have all these rights and ignore the fact that you sign away all that once you accept the EULA. Notice how they all state "You as the end user accept this software as-is"? Legally the publisher has no obligation whatsoever to support the product unless there is some incentive for them to do so, such as maintaining a faithful community. But SH5 flopped so they pulled the plug since it wasn't successful. You're fighting windmills here by stating these ridiculous ultimatums that UBI fix SH5 for free etc etc. If there was actually any legal ground for your argument, we would have seen a lot more lawsuits from customers against publishers over broken games that were sold and never fixed.

F2P is actually a less dubious business model since at least you don't have to pay just to find out the product is broken. And even if you don't pay, enough people will to give the publisher an incentive to fix the product. And if you don't like it, you won't have lost anything other than time.

As for complaining about grinding:

Subscription-based games do the exact same thing, unsurprisingly, since they rely on keeping players occupied for substantial periods to generate income. The only real difference is that F2P in its proper form has microtransactions instead of subscription. Sure, they are set up so as to get users to either pay a subscription or purchase items, but comparing this to dealing drugs is ridiculous: Of course the games will be set up to turn a profit - why else would they be made in the first place?

Now, if we're talking pay to win, that's a different kettle of fish, but free to play doesn't necessarily have to be pay to win.

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by Julhelm

Legally the publisher has no obligation whatsoever to support the product unless there is some incentive for them to do so, such as maintaining a faithful community. But SH5 flopped so they pulled the plug since it wasn't successful.

Chicken and egg argument. Arguably, if Ubi had put out a more polished product, it would have been more successful. Instead, we're left with both sides pointing the finger at each other.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Gandalfi2005

Maybe something for the office, when im bored like today

At best.....I suspect

[Julhelm]

Originally Posted by mookiemookie

Chicken and egg argument. Arguably, if Ubi had put out a more polished product, it would have been more successful. Instead, we're left with both sides pointing the finger at each other.

Sure, but they own the franchise so that makes them the chicken. The most important thing is getting the game out on a deadline that has been decided 2 years in advance. Delaying the game to polish it only works if you are Valve.

[Hinrich Schwab]

Originally Posted by Julhelm

No I don't believe that at all, but you're arguing from an emotionally reactionary position where you assume you as a customer have all these rights and ignore the fact that you sign away all that once you accept the EULA. Notice how they all state "You as the end user accept this software as-is"? Legally the publisher has no obligation whatsoever to support the product unless there is some incentive for them to do so, such as maintaining a faithful community. But SH5 flopped so they pulled the plug since it wasn't successful.
You're fighting windmills here by stating these ridiculous ultimatums that UBI fix SH5 for free etc etc. If there was actually any legal ground for your argument, we would have seen a lot more lawsuits from customers against publishers over broken games that were sold and never fixed.

Exactly where did I start discussing ultimatums? Please find the quote where I said this, otherwise stop putting words into my mouth. The issue is integrity, which is rapidly disappearing from the gaming industry. Gamers expect the gaming companies to try and produce the best possible product while listening and conforming with its needs and wants. When a noticeably bad product is released, the negative reaction is forthcoming.

To also counter your argument that negative criticism does not invoke change, look at the incident regarding Mass Effect 3's ending. The consumers reacted very negatively, the producers relented.

F2P is actually a less dubious business model since at least you don't have to pay just to find out the product is broken. And even if you don't pay, enough people will to give the publisher an incentive to fix the product. And if you don't like it, you won't have lost anything other than time.

As for complaining about grinding:

Subscription-based games do the exact same thing, unsurprisingly, since they rely on keeping players occupied for substantial periods to generate income. The only real difference is that F2P in its proper form has microtransactions instead of subscription. Sure, they are set up so as to get users to either pay a subscription or purchase items, but comparing this to dealing drugs is ridiculous: Of course the games will be set up to turn a profit - why else would they be made in the first place?

Now, if we're talking pay to win, that's a different kettle of fish, but free to play doesn't necessarily have to be pay to win.

Other than what I have clarified, I see no other reason to continue my direct debate with you. Your stance is just an apologia for the lack of integrity of the gaming companies' in the production of games. Any further discussion is moot.

[kiwi_2005]

have beta keys been sent out yet?

[Julhelm]

Originally Posted by Hinrich Schwab

Exactly where did I start discussing ultimatums? Please find the quote where I said this, otherwise stop putting words into my mouth. The issue is integrity, which is rapidly disappearing from the gaming industry. Gamers expect the gaming companies to try and produce the best possible product while listening and conforming with its needs and wants. When a noticeably bad product is released, the negative reaction is forthcoming.

An ultimatum is the implication of your argument, ie: "Make the game the way we want or we the consumers are going to throw up enough of a ****storm that it fails". Now if that's not what you mean then I will apologize. But it comes across like that.

To also counter your argument that negative criticism does not invoke change, look at the incident regarding Mass Effect 3's ending. The consumers reacted very negatively, the producers relented.

Get real. Mass Effect is also a sci-fi institution whose audience is pretty much that of COD. It's not a niche game that sells a few hundred thousand copies. Of course EA is going to listen when tens of millions of customers all over the internet react negatively. Of course UBI is not going to break a sweat when a few thousand people on a single forum are complaining.

Other than what I have clarified, I see no other reason to continue my direct debate with you. Your stance is just an apologia for the lack of integrity of the gaming companies' in the production of games. Any further discussion is moot.

So in other words, you can't beat my argument so you just accuse me of being an industry apologist instead.

Classy.

[Herr-Berbunch]

Originally Posted by Julhelm

Of course EA is going to listen when tens of millions of customers all over the internet react negatively.

Forgive me for not reading every post on this thread, are you referring to ME3 with that tens of millions?

If you are then up to three weeks ago sales sat like:

Xbox 950,000
PS3 250,000
PC 100,000

I've rounded up/down a bit, but the total still the industry reported 1.3m copies. I sincerely doubt that over ten times that has been sold since.

[Hinrich Schwab]

Originally Posted by Julhelm

So in other words, you can't beat my argument so you just accuse me of being an industry apologist instead.

Classy.

Your argument is constantly weasel-worded to ensure no one can argue with you. Anyone can do that. I am not the only one here who has found your stance less than spectacular. Given your attitude, consumers should not have complained over the problems surrounding Ford Pintos either.

If you think that means I "can't" beat your argument, so be it. You are locked in your own views and no one can convince you otherwise.