The MMO world is a fierce battleground when it comes to maintaining a substantial player base. It needs a specific amount of players to financially afford and maintain the servers and hardware that keep the game worlds alive and functioning. Without people logging in to play, the MMO is doomed to fail and be forgotten about.
In the past, MMO game developers relied heavily on subscription based models to have a continual source of income to put into their game and staff. Subscriptions averaged 15 dollars a month and expansions to the game were anywhere from 15 to 50 bucks. Players were to expect regular content update and tweaks from the game developers in order to keep things fresh and exciting within the game world. Developers often claimed that the funds from the subscription were vital resources to creating new content that players deserved.
But then mobile gaming and F2P came along.
F2P games take on the same philosophy that casinos have with their returning players: Give them something for free in hopes that they spend more in the long run. Where a casino offers a free room or "free cash to play with", a game developer offers the entire game for free. The catch with the game is the "extras" or the "perks" that a player can buy are extremely desirable and considered cheap. Games like Farmville, and most recently Candy Crush, add in specific additions to the game that give the player an advantage. A farm that produces yield instantly or an extra 5 lives for a dollar instead of waiting for a half hour can get the player hooked to spending. But free is free.
MMO's started to adopt the philosophy of F2P early on but it has always been on shaky ground. Guild Wars was one of the more respectable titles but others have seemed to fall on the wayside. Many of the recent MMO's in the past decade have started out as subscription based games but have turned to the F2P model when they failed to maintain enough players under the P2P plan. Some game developers have embraced the free model by not sticking it to the players wallets, where others have unfortunately nickle and dimed a franchise.
Rift is the perfect example of how a developer can run its game with a F2P model and still be successful while producing quality content and keeping their players happy. The team over at Trion gave its whole game for free: Raids, instances, classes, characters, content, pvp...all of it. It was a bold, last ditch move that was used to save the game from being shut down when the subscriber base disappeared. The development team took a look at what they can put on their pay market without giving players an edge in the end game stage. What they found is that players just like fluff. Pretty mounts and armor, something that gave their characters distinctive and unique looks, was high on the desired list. Add in xp buffs to help level and they had themselves a competitive market place that didn't take away from the core of the game.
This philosophy of F2P game design is also something we will be seeing with Everquest Next. David Georgeson, the development director over at EQN, supports a F2P model in saying that if the developers aren't keeping a player entertained that they don't deserve to be paid. This is a bold and daring risk but the honesty is something to be commended. The entire future of this game is being placed on the fact that it's all free for the player to enjoy and spend their money where they see fit.
However, there are some developers that players feel the F2P model is being abused. Most recently, Star Wars the Old Republic, ran by a development team from Bioware, has fallen to the dark side. (Couldn't resist.) One of the most anticipated and hyped games of the MMO world that started out as a subscription based pay model went F2P in under a year due to loss of subscribers. Bioware instituted a F2P // P2P model that really pushed a player to subscribe with it's lack of "free" content. Players were forced to purchase skill bars, bank space, character slots, races, the ability to do operations (raids) and warzones separately... Bioware also seems to put more effort into the fluff of the "cartel market" which pushed players away from the game permanently. Though the cartel market wasn't something that gave players advantages in the game, players felt that the emphasis of the development team was going in the wrong direction. As the F2P model was put into place, more and more items were added into the Cartel Market while the core of the game was left essentially the same. Despite recent changes to SWTOR (with two expansions), and a generally more accepting player base, the F2P model has left a black mark on the franchise.*I will note though that the F2P model had saved SWTOR. Like it or not, the game went from a desolate graveyard of servers with miniscule populations, to full servers filled with players.*
In my opinion, many players are still scarred by past MMO's "free" to play models and are unable to accept games like Everquest Next's philosophy. They feel that the developers of EQ will fall into the money trap and focus too much on the players wallets and not the content that they are supposed to be providing. However, there are more and more players who want that F2P option to try out the game to see if the MMO is worth investing in. If the comments sections are any indication of the future, I feel that the MMO's that are being released this year (recently Elder Scrolls and Wildstar in June) will lose most of its subscribers within the first 6 months and be forced to re-think their philosophies on F2P.
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