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Subscription based gaming on it's way out?


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Enter Guild Wars

Always online Diablo 3 but one price

Now the new Blizzard Titan, which I heard is not going to be subscription based as apparently the new thing is free gaming with different other ways to collect money.

I didn't play online LOTR, but I heard it was free to play and tons of fun.

We played a horror mmo here with some of the community for a while before Sacred 2 came out, and it was fun as hell...

 

Is subscription model dead?

:blink:

 

gogo

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As far as I can see, there are only 5 ways to actually launch an on line game and have it work. Three of them involve making money..

 

1.) Pay for the game, Pay to be online (WoW)

2.) Free game, Pay to Play

3.) Free game, Pay to Win (Wartune)

4.) Pay for game, Free to Play (Sacred 2 like game)

5.) Completely Free game (PoE)

 

I'm thinking in this day and age, 1 is dead, 2 may be on its way out, 3 is the current trend and 4... Well, We know what happened to Ascaron.

 

5 is the one that mystifies me as to how they can make money. About the only way I think the devs can make any is to pass the hat periodically requesting donations.

 

Btw... This Blizzard game - Titan - it doesn't seem to be on their current roadmap. The only games listed there are Heartstone - which appears to be a Yugioh clone - a card game based on WoW characters. This Titan project is listed on Wikipedia as being "reassessed as to which direction it's going to go" which likely means "we didn't like where the project was going and it was costing far too much money, so we've moved everyone off the project and put it on the shelf." Or... "It's been cancelled."

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Subscription model is dead? No way, no how. Final Fantasy XIV, WildStar, and now Titan are all current games that are making big bucks off the sub model. It's like paying for a phone service. They have to have revenue to keep up servers, and I'm more than happy to give companies my money so I can enjoy playing their game, which is being offered as a service to me. I know many others who share the same sentiment, and I don't think we will see the sub model go out any time soon.

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I think this is source re model for Titen as being changed by Blizzard:

Now, Blizzard Entertainment president Mike Morhaime has some new information about the game which he relayed during a recent investor call. He said that unlike Blizzard tentpole World of Warcraft, Titan is “unlikely to be a subscription-based MMO.”

From Forbes

Blizzard's Titan 'Unlikely' To Be A Subscription-Based MMO

 

Apparently, other game makers are taking this into consideration?

I'm surprised by this as well

:)

 

gogo

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Was thinking about this for a while as well. Apparently, subscription revenue to Blizzard is shrinking...and I keep seeing more and more, actually tons of offers for free online browser games.

Blizzard was first, and made a whole lotta coin out of us, but, as with everything, competition makes everything so much harder to maintain as a monopoly?

If the info on Titan is true, I'm just curious as to how they work out the money grubbing for the title? Wolfie's last choice POE ...how do they do this?

And Online lotr...how did they bring in money for that HUGE online game... did they make us buy fancy saddles for the Riders of Rohan?

 

:)

 

gogo

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Elder Scrolls Online plans to go with number 1. They have announced $15.00 per month for the subscription and have not announced the base game price yet.

I'm skeptical as to whether it will work yet, but as some of my friends have stated online, that is less than a bottle of wine, or a movie + popcorn and pop.

They have had more than 3,000,000 million people apply to participate in their ongoing betas, so there is interest in it.

Edited by Ysne58
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I hope it works. For myself, having a sub, would kind of be a subtle pressure on me that I'd have to play or I'd "waste" my money?

and... good ole cuz, who's a sick player of online games has also told me he's super intersted in WildStar which ll cool topified. Here's the link to

Wild Star Business Model

 

They basically have two options (interesting!)

1- Subscriptions

2- Creds ... a kind of in-game stock market?

 

:)

 

gogo

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Subscription model is dead? No way, no how. Final Fantasy XIV, WildStar, and now Titan are all current games that are making big bucks off the sub model. It's like paying for a phone service. They have to have revenue to keep up servers, and I'm more than happy to give companies my money so I can enjoy playing their game, which is being offered as a service to me. I know many others who share the same sentiment, and I don't think we will see the sub model go out any time soon.

 

Ok.. It's not completely dead. Neither is landline phone service. But it's fading fast. Let's be honest, times are tough. People have fewer dollars to spend. Sure... There are still some out there who have more $$ than sense. But I think those are fewer and further between.

 

I think this is source re model for Titen as being changed by Blizzard:

 

Now, Blizzard Entertainment president Mike Morhaime has some new information about the game which he relayed during a recent investor call. He said that unlike Blizzard tentpole World of Warcraft, Titan is “unlikely to be a subscription-based MMO.”

From Forbes

Blizzard's Titan 'Unlikely' To Be A Subscription-Based MMO

 

Apparently, other game makers are taking this into consideration?

I'm surprised by this as well

:)

 

gogo

 

Maybe so. I got my info from Wikipedia. They might have gotten it from the same source.

 

I think the subscription model is a lot like MS Windows. They both used to be untouchable. Times have changed. They are still dominant but not where they used to be.

 

I wouldn't say Windows is in any danger of becoming extinct just yet. Yes, there are new fangled devices - Android, iOS and so forth - but none of them are capable of running a full blown game like Sacred 2. Certainly NOT at the level of detail you would find on the desktop.

 

That means if you're a gamer, you NEED Windows. Sure, you can MAYBE get a game to work under Linux using WINE, but that, more often than not is a major ordeal unto itself. Few, if any developers are doing much with the OS given it really has very few in the way of mainstream users compared to Windows and OSX... And speaking of OSX - there aren't many game ports that will work on that OS either. The market for that is also fairly small.

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That means if you're a gamer, you NEED Windows. Sure, you can MAYBE get a game to work under Linux using WINE, but that, more often than not is a major ordeal unto itself. Few, if any developers are doing much with the OS given it really has very few in the way of mainstream users compared to Windows and OSX... And speaking of OSX - there aren't many game ports that will work on that OS either. The market for that is also fairly small.

The new Steam OS based off of Linux will be a heavy contender for Windows in the upcoming months. We should see a developer shift in focus going into 2014.

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Was thinking about this for a while as well. Apparently, subscription revenue to Blizzard is shrinking...and I keep seeing more and more, actually tons of offers for free online browser games.

Blizzard was first, and made a whole lotta coin out of us, but, as with everything, competition makes everything so much harder to maintain as a monopoly?

If the info on Titan is true, I'm just curious as to how they work out the money grubbing for the title? Wolfie's last choice POE ...how do they do this?

And Online lotr...how did they bring in money for that HUGE online game... did they make us buy fancy saddles for the Riders of Rohan?

 

:)

 

gogo

Subscription revenue is shrinking because WoW is old and the new content they are adding is not enough to keep peoples interest. PoE works off of company sponsorship's, like the recent "advertising" in a competition that gave the winners free stuff from that company, player donations(even post beta I can see them having new packs to allow people to continue to donate) and an in game store with a focus on cosmetics and no pay2win items (like addition bank space and a fluffy hat).

I think many people feel like there is a commitment to play when they are paying monthly. I don't know if I've spent more in the PoE model than the WoW one, I'd certain say so if I continue to play PoE for as long as WoW. On reflection I should be more in favor of the subscription model knowing that I'd probably end up not spending as much money in the long run but the additional freedom the PoE model gives me allows for me to pay for things when and if I want and that's why it will always be preferable and why more and more companies are switching to varying F2P modals.

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The new Steam OS based off of Linux will be a heavy contender for Windows in the upcoming months. We should see a developer shift in focus going into 2014.

I don't see the SteamOS having any more or less of an impact on Windows than any console. You will still have a lot of developers coding in windows for Steam games. My understanding of the SteamOS is that you would be able to play all of the currently owned PC titles on it? Unless I've got that bit wrong? But even if you don't developers will still develop on their platform of choice and simply run SteamOS in parallel, like they do now for other platforms.

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The new Steam OS based off of Linux will be a heavy contender for Windows in the upcoming months. We should see a developer shift in focus going into 2014.

I don't see the SteamOS having any more or less of an impact on Windows than any console. You will still have a lot of developers coding in windows for Steam games. My understanding of the SteamOS is that you would be able to play all of the currently owned PC titles on it? Unless I've got that bit wrong? But even if you don't developers will still develop on their platform of choice and simply run SteamOS in parallel, like they do now for other platforms.

Nope, you're entirely right. However, SteamOS is offering many more optimization benefits for gaming, so I suspect people will be running SteamOS more than Windows if they are into getting the best performance out of their games.

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