I’m really hoping that more games start doing the F2P, but I am more than willing to pay a sub fee if it provides me with dynamic end game content.

In my opinion there is no singular reason into a failure of a subscription game, sure you could turn around and say ‘ because the game sucked ass fuzz’ but that wont really be telling the full story. Each game recently which has moved from sub to F2P will have there own factors on why they failed but I thought it would be interesting to list what I think are the main reasons:

- Target audience: Game developers need to be clearer and realistic on who exactly are their target audience, and how best they can serve that player base and how to develop a game for that specific audience. There is no point in creating a game and half assing parts of the game just to try and broaden the scope of player base. If one part of the game is below par then it impacts on the enjoyment of the game as a whole and creates a bad vibe amongst the player base which can spread fast.

- Budget Perhaps devs/companies need to lower their expectations and aim lower. Why not create a solid base of a game on a shoe string and strengthen as you move forward? What we are currently seeing is massive budgets being blown then investors becoming impatient when subs drop thus almost forcing the push of the panic button and the transition to F2P for a money grab. I don’t buy this ‘opening up the game’ for other players nonsense when making the switch to F2P, if that was the case then the game would have launched as F2P and designed as such.

- Same old, same old If you are going to clone World of Warcraft then at least make some decent additions. Lets face it once the first month of ‘new shiny’ has worn off is there any reason to stay with a game which plays exactly like the one you left? Probably not, especially since you may have a history and several high level toons in the original game. Rift just about got the balance right here.

- Lack of content updates & vision for the future Bar Rift I cannot think of another MMO which has been well planned and releases content regularly. For me it looks like Rift actually held off release until they had also a couple of patches worth of content ready to ship. The fact so many MMOs try and include every feature into their game it sometimes has a detrimental effect on it and on the odd occasion genuinely feels like the devs do not know what direction the game will go to in the future….. which is in my opinion exactly what happened with SWTOR.

- Generic pricing system Box and sub model have stayed the same price for years now, why not release a game with a lower sub fee or low entrance cost? Test the water a bit. Or of course do a GW 2 and just release with a B2P and cash shop model off the bat. It shows you are confident in your game and gives the players a chance to reward the devs by spending some money. I for one will be buying Gems regularly in GW 2, not because I particularly like anything that is in the shop but because I want to reward them for making a bloody good game and being honest with the player base.

Soz for the wall of text

Rift is bucking the trend of sub games transitioning to free to play because Trion have set a new standard for rapid content rollout. Compare that to Tera, which has had very little content since launch and arguably launched with very little content and you see the opposite story (there’s a long thread about this on the Tera forums at the moment).

It seems for the last few years, most dev studios have not seriously planned for new content releases *in decent quantities* after launch. I was disappointed at how little actual new content SWTOR has had since launch so I’m unsubbing next week. I have zero interest in end-game raiding, so far there’s been little new story added except through large group activities. If Bioware had taken a lesson from Trion on frequent in-game events and a steady trickle of new quality storylines I think things would be very different for them.

in any case, conquering your own share in a limited market that is at the brink of complete saturation as we know it, is a very hard undertaking for latecomers; as Stabs said, some big spots are taken already – WoW and Rift both deliver the polished and classic promise, EvE is a space opera, LotrO got the lore and fantasy geeks and now TSW is appealing to horror fans. there’s limited space and timing is a big part of it, too. so unless you’re not incredibly new, innovative and refreshing while ALSO managing to deliver a polished product, it isn’t very wise to launch an MMO that comes both with account and sub costs…..

I was baffled Bioware even attempted this – just as I am baffled at TSW; I will count the days until they go subfree, probably as soon as both GW2 and MoP have launched. right now Funcom benefits from the summer hole and players waiting for the big hits later this year, being curious. but TSW appeals to a small niche and I don’t see them pulling the sub off longterm. there’s also the mistake (imo) they made combat wise; they probably could’ve gotten more shooter and zombie-killer fans on board had they not made it an incredibly boring MMO-style auto-attack and auto-aim deal. Big mistake.

so, do these games suck? no, but the developers are rather late to notice what’s going on right now and think they can pull off stunts that maybe would’ve worked 7 years ago. in Funcom’s case this is particularly surprising (thinking AoC here). but maybe they just wanted to try.

That said, I completely refute the Tobold hypothesis. WoW categorically does not set the bar for anything other than popularity. To benchmark against WoW for quality is a s ludicrous as benchmarking against The Osmonds for musical quality in the early 1970s. Popular never has and never will equate to quality.

I waited more than five years to play WoW and when I did I found it moderately entertaining. It’s a classic three-month MMO, which is exactly how long it took me to lose interest in it. Naturally, had it been my first MMO, as it was for more people than had played all previous MMOs put together, it would operate as a different benchmark, that of “first MMO”. My first MMO was Everquest and I still judge all new MMOs by that standard and probably always will.

This leads me to also refute the Rossignol hypothesis. He might have a short attention span and be easily bored but that doesn’t apply to all of us.Taking EQ2 as an example, I’ve played it pretty heavily since it launched in 2004 and the novelty hasn’t worn off yet. I know people who are still playing Everquest regularly after more than a decade and I myself still often revisit it and have a great time.

Some people need constant novelty to be entertained and others don’t. I’m in the latter camp. If I like something, I like it. The like doesn’t wear out easily, especially when, as in the case of MMOs, nothing is static.

On the substantive issue of F2p vs subscription I think it’s the wrong argument. It comes down to the quality, or more particularly the addictiveness of the game. Put simply, if the game is good enough, the payment model is largely irrelevant, at least from the player’s point of view. Really, the least interesting thing about any MMO is how you pay for it.

People may hate the grindy games of old but cost wise were probably a lot cheaper to make. If you can persuade people to stick the grind, there’s less chance of people running out of content as you can stretch the grind out indefinitely. Which is pretty much what ffxi has done to keep itself going.