Free to Play VS Monthly Sub, which is better? - [MMOPINION]

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Free games sound great, but can they actually end up costing you a lot?
Monthly sub games may sometimes feel like an obligation or a chore you must play, but does the sub keep the quality higher?
Somes MMO games are free to play (which is also pay to win) and some are monthly sub. But which of these truly favours the player?
As usual, thanks to my Patreon supporters and Twitch subs for making my channel possible.

[@Beriorn]

"The best option is an intial cost to play, additional costs now and then to keep up to date, a monthly fee, a cash shop AND being able to buy gold in game." - Blizzard, probably.

[@Lord_Humungus]

and don't forget gambling mechanics

[@Melsharpe95]

You forgot yearly paid-for expansions too. Ones that negate the previous ones, making those zones and gear completely pointless.

[@Marcel-qb9ge]

"Imagine if your phone was usable only for a few hours a day and then you have to pay" Don't give Apple any ideas

[@oreofox]

This is how cell phones used to work. Calls and texts were free between 9pm and 9am. Any other time they cost however much a minute/per text. I think 10 cents.

[@mandisaw]

@@oreofox Yup - I remember. And you paid not only for x minutes+texts/month, but also how wide a region. So if you were just calling in your country/region, you paid less than for global access.

[@dragongoddragneel7106]

Mobile games already do that

[@NarattoRadians]

You mean pay phones? The only phone you could place a call on while out of the house before cell phones were invented.

[@lawrencelopez9839]

lol. like screentime only the company's managing the rules.

[@josephvilteski8707]

Josh: "when you look at monthly subscription games these problems go away" *everyone looks at warcraft*

[@galanie]

Actually, I'm playing BDO these days. While I curse their cash shop and can see how blatant and greedy they are, I'm not spending much over the 15 a month for a value pack because WoW has been a steaming pile of garbage for a couple years now (and cost just about that exact amount per month anyway). I just finally had enough about a year ago. I went back to play SL and nope.. no more WoW for me until they start making a quality game again. I find it hard to imagine that they could make a worse expansion than BFA but they nailed it.

[@albertgeorgy6827]

@@galanie i agree. KZbinrs and players are so desperate they call shadowlands a good expansion lol. It's such a dogshit. I played through bfa from start to end but i can't get into shadowlands

[@bxnaxmxxnaxx1914]

@@chewcab8008 spotted the "never played it"

[@Lalaboompoo]

You made a lot if good points about the greed of companies but don't provide evidence about how this is specific to f2p games, ALL mmos have things like this so blaming f2p only is just kind of wrong

[@naurbrannon]

well wait, wow has a cash shop for vanity items and the token, it is not purposely introducing bugs that are only fixed by some spending real money

[@Hafaechaes]

Blizzard Headquarters: "Alright, what monetisation strategy should we use? You there! Go, gimme something!" "Uuh... uuh... umm... all of... them?" "... Give this man a raise!"

[@gergokerekes4550]

and fire him, oh give him a giftcard as a bonus!

[@MrCaradras]

"Which type of monetization are we going to use in our MMO?" Blizzard: "Yes"

[@reddixen6667]

Bobby: "You get a promotion"

[@cyberbanshee]

You can pay monthly sub for a couple of month, and if you have a brains, you will figure out the methods of obtaining great amount of in-game gold to pay for subscription by tokens and playing for free. In my time I not only played wow for free, but manager to buy Destiny 2 with WoW gold (tokens). So, it’s only loosers bitching about wow cash shop.

[@alexreilly6121]

Fuck that they fired him for having his one good idea cos now they make his wage too :p

[@Lilitha11]

My biggest problem with the monthly subscription, is that it feels weird if you play very casually. Since you are paying every month for something you might not really be using that often. Like if you just buy a game, then take a break from it for three weeks and come back to it, it is no big deal. But do you want to be paying for the entire month in that case? So it kind of puts you in the mindset where you got to constantly keep playing the game all the time and it is maybe the only or major game you are playing, or it drives you to just cancel the sub and not play at all. I do admit though, that cash shops are ridiculous. So I am not saying don't go with subs, since it might be the best solution to the problem. It just bothers me some times.

[@mbhanson1986]

I've had that view too, but then I think about it. Let's say I only play...2 hours a week. So *maybe* hit 10 hours over the course of a month. I've would call that being pretty casual. The sub is $15, but if you break that down then I've only paid $1.50/hr for fun. Think about other activities, bowling, movie theater, mini golf, etc. etc. You are going to be paying a *lot* more for any of them for the same amount of fun time. Of course, you have to keep track of your subs, so you don't end up paying 200/month for a dozen different subscriptions to various games and streaming services and going broke, but, that's a different problem :-P .

[@Rewyn09]

Ragnarok Online actually had a solution to this I really liked. You could either pay a subscription for a timeframe, like a month, or you could pay for X hours of actual playtime. Sure, there's probably enough issues with it I can't think of right now, but I really wish other games would've at least tried to adopt this. Even if you don't just play it casually, a monthly subscriptions does somewhat lead to the thought of "I need to play as much as possible to get the most out of my money". It probably doesn't get there for most people as the cost isn't high enough, at least not consciously. But I've had times where my overall budget was low enough that I played more of a game than I actually enjoyed. I still enjoyed enough of it that I got my money worth out of it, but since I felt like I had to choose between this game and X others, so since I choose this one, I had to get "the most" out of it.

[@SeisoYabai]

@@phantasyreal That only makes any sense if you exclusively have the internet connection to play that single game

[@kamelkadri2843]

Exactly i like to play different games, u cant really do that with monthly games unless u have a lot of cash to waste, plus these monthly titles still requires u to buy expansions on top of it all

[@DarthRadical]

I really like the buy-once model - with the cash shop being mostly cosmetic and avoiding any pay2win. What's weird to me is that no MMO seems to have a demo system. Let you play up to level 10-20 for free (or the first couple zones) as a demo and then have it be a one-time $20-30 to unlock the game ESO style. (Except ESO lacks a demo.)

[@Solrac-Siul]

I will never forget SWTOR selling interface bars .... :P

[@RickRate]

LUL

[@looneychikun7242]

I was a SWTOR founder and came back to it years later when it went FTP, as I was setting up my interface I needed a side hotbar for travel and lesser used things... went to go add it and they wanted something like $2.99 or a sub lol, I was like wtf

[@FidasEternas]

One of the few MMOs i ever played, and the ONLY one i played for any significant amount of time. Yup, they screwed the pooch with a 3000rpm drill

[@borasraven7584]

Yeah I played this and was really well geared doing all the end game content having a great time then the cartel shop came out and it was a downhill slide till I chucked it 6 months later... lol

[@Magmagan]

I think Runescape 3 sold bars too at one point

[@surfeit5910]

80's and 90's arcade games were intentionally designed with the difficulty ramping up to unfair levels in order to get the players to keep popping in coins for the next lives. The consoles editions of those games had a noticeable difficulty scale and were much more engaging for long term playing. Three decades later and we're still seeing the same thing in the MMO world now.

[@alexreilly6121]

I tried sonic 2 again last year, which was the first game I played on my shiny new megadrive as a kid, and I noticed it outright cheating me, on 4 quickloads, by not jumping when I pressed the button as an enemy appears. And that was in level FOUR. Let's just say that got deleted fast.

[@SeisoYabai]

@@alexreilly6121 lol, bro you genuinely just fucked it up or your controller is scuffed.

[@ryanweible9090]

young people forget arcades, but yeah, they were designed to shake you off in about 2 minutes or they lost money, so they intentionally were designed to shake you down.

[@rhael42]

@@ryanweible9090 young people didn't "forget" arcades - they never experienced them in the first place hell, I'm not even necessarily 'young' and arcades were still before my time

[@DrDipsh1t]

@@ryanweible9090 maaaaan arcade shooters 😭house of the dead, crisis zone, area 51. Got me for everything I had

[@Fogmeister]

You cannot have fun wrong. Yes! I wish more people thought like this.

[@JuanWonOne]

Umm what about dalmer?

[@Fogmeister]

@@JuanWonOne wat?

[@JuanWonOne]

@@Fogmeister Jeffery Dalmer, the serial killer cannibal. He had fun the wrong way...

[@Fogmeister]

@@JuanWonOne LOL! Yeah, ok, I guess that should come with a caveat of `You cannot have fun wrong, within the bounds of the law." LOL!

[@Lashkor]

@@JuanWonOne *Dahmer

[@GeorgeNoX]

what is more despicable to be than ftp games who charge you on their various cash shops is the fact that some sub based games are nowdays implementing cash shops as well on top of a monthly sub so you can no longer earn everything by just playing the game, like money they get from subs each month and expansions is not enough anymore? They gotta milk players for even more? These big greedy corporations are ruining gaming for everyone...

[@mandisaw]

As both player & dev, I'm ok with the idea of a cash shop + monthly sub *IF* the shop is for additional, niche items/elements that only very few players will want. Like a licensed skin, or something that requires an extra subsystem. Rather than make everyone pay extra to include that in the game, I'm cool with just those folks who really want it paying for it. Even adding special events or sidequests with those niche items as rewards still sucks up a lot of general resources for something that only a small percentage of players are into, which isn't good business.

[@cadonuno]

@@mandisaw I see that the main issue with those games is within the community as it tends to create a divide between people who buy cosmetic overrides and people who hate people who buy them. Again, this is stupid, but players will be stupid a lot of the time :D By the way, I play Runescape (osrs right now but played RS3 until I maxed) and it has that

[@dragongoddragneel7106]

True. A monthly sub game should never have a cash shop.

[@dragongoddragneel7106]

@@mandisaw that is a slippery slope and it makes people discouraging to play when they see the store bought stuff.

[@seanwilliams7655]

@@mandisaw I think that if I'm paying a monthly sub that should be it. But I also have to acknowledge that what I want isn't what a AAA developer is going to provide in 2021, so I'll live with cosmetics if I must.

[@pixieskitty]

I really like Guild Wars 2 and LOTRO models, I call them "free to try", and yes, you have to spend some cash to unlock things. But as a disabled gamer in a budget, not having mandatory fees _(while living in South America)_, is a dev-sent

[@ADunleavy]

May I recommend you to Warframe? Warframe, definitely not easy getting into, its not hard or anything, just poorly explained. The game is completely F2P, no loot or weapons locked behind cash walls or content that is hidden. However, time gating is pretty common in the game.

[@Sucellusification]

@@ADunleavy Warframe os very good, and yes, completely free, because if you need real money you can get it just by farming relics. But in the long term, I find it a bit repetitive, maybe it's just not my playstyle

[@Copain88]

@@ADunleavy Warframe is awful if you’re 100% free. Locked slots unless you trade players for a bunch of the cash shop currency prevent you from having multiple weapons or frames (and it’s core to the game that you get a bunch). Without paying, crafting takes days (almost a week for frames) . The grinding is awful for some frames/weapons. You also can’t recolor your character much or get many cosmetic items without paying. Couple all of this with the insane grind for MR that basically forces you to constantly have a new weapon/frame or you’re basically punishing yourself, and it feels wonky. It’s not a bad game, I’ve played it for a decade and I’m a GM founder. But to say the game doesn’t ask you for your wallet is a joke at best. Edit: and I didn’t even mention that every single weapon and frame will be half power unless you pump a cash shop item into each and every item individually. Sure sometimes you can get them free; but you honestly won’t be getting enough free ones to do much.

[@Kreptic]

@@Copain88 Being a founder doesn't make you important.

[@khankhomrad8855]

@@Copain88 Hey, 100% free player here with MR 29 and about 1.5K hours. Locked slots are an absolute problem early on but are far from being the end of the world. As most everything aside from Warframes are only there for providing Mastery and being sold, the high number of stuff available is deceptive. You can easily live with only 30 or so weapon slots (you start with 3 and get 2 for 12p so it ain't that expensive), and Nightwave provides a couple of slots as you progress, with its progression being rather easy for all levels of play. Crafting time is far from an issue. Weapons and frame parts take 12 hours; a full frame takes 72 hours on top of the time it takes to craft each individual component. Slow? Yes. But it is far from being punishible like most craft-locked timers tend to be (there are many free city builders with timers counted on double digit days). The grind for some frames and weapons are horrendously bad, true. But you don't have to grind those, you know? You can always just trade prime parts for platinum and then either buy what you need from the market or just go for primes. Hell, all the terrible to farm warframes are available in their prime versions (which you can farm for free or buy parts from other players). Cosmetics being mostly special currency locked is a problem, yes. MR is semi-irrelevant. As long as you are MR 15, you can craft/buy everything. Yes, the higher your MR the more daily traes you have and the higher your standing limit is, but those hardly matter if you are simply playing the game to have fun. MR only truly matters if you want to push for efficient gameplay and efficient grind which, to Warframe's credit, has a much lower ceiling than most of its competitors and you can perfectly play it having weak loadouts. Heck, I know player that are between MR 10-14 and haven't leveled a new gun/frame for more than an year because they have found one or two frames and weapons that they have a blast playing and stick with them.

[@CommandoMaster]

Monthly sub games don't make all the problems go away if the company doesn't care about the customer (eg. WoW). Another problem with monthly sub games is it's harder to get newer players playing/paying. If the free trial doesn't attract them enough, they won't pay for the monthly sub. Also I agree that RNG upgrade mechanics like in BDO are really bad for the player and just make you frustrated and want to quit.

[@mattyone78]

This explains a lot of WoW's issues especially over recent years, it is a monthly sub, but are pushing toward more cash shop, and that is a shame really.

[@snopeydoog]

WoW has a cash shop, monthly sup, and pay to play for whatever dlc just came out. I will never be caught paying all of that to play a game.

[@ManioPlays]

@@snopeydoog The cash shop has literally nothing to make your game easier. It's just mounts and pets/toys, and none of them affect the gameplay. There is no DLCs etc. just Expansions every 2 years.

[@DanieliusGoriunovas]

Expansion are mandatory.

[@Draddar]

@@ManioPlays Character boosts, gold tokens? I wouldn't be so 100%. Yes everything is available without the extra purchases but you cannot say it doesn't make the game easier.

[@endivis2]

@@ManioPlays Nothing to make the game easier? Do you seriously play wow? Let's see... You start at lvl 1 and level to get to 50 (probably a week or two depending on game time) I buy a booster to get me to lvl 50 from day 1, in 1 minute. The amount of time you spend to get to 50 I get to 60. Then you must spend that amounted of time to get to 60 as well. Me? I buy some wow tokens, pay some arena boosters and in one week I get 226 gear while you might still be levelling to achieve 60. At the time you get to 60 and do your gear progression I am already full geared and ready to leave the game... so yeah WoW has nothing to make life easier...

[@philippklanschek1148]

I think you are missing something when you are saying monthly sub games the devs are free to make the game as fun as possible, while i dont play that many sub mmos anymore the reason i stoped playing wow shadowlands was because they made it not fun. The reason its not fun is because they timegated every single systhem in that expansion at the start so you would keep the sub longer. For example the main story on max lvl suddenly stopped and said get to higher renown lvl with no ingame lore behind it and renown is capped each week. Thats not something devs put in for player to have fun thats in there to keep you subbed longer

[@gergelyvarju6679]

They were free to use good content to keep you subscribed, but they have simply chosen not to offer good content. This isn't surprising from Blizzard at all. Even their best, legendary, games copied a lot of content, game mechanics, etc. from other games and tabletop games. But when their lore constrains them, and bad choices made earlier haunt them, and they have a limited amount of content they can copy from, things can go south for them. They have tried to make the best game, the best mechanics, etc. possible under given circumstances, with given talents. But when they had to please people who haven't played other MMOs, wanted internet subscription after seeing WoW commercials, who seen their legend... It was easy. Now people have internet even on their cellphones, see KZbin videos, often honest customer reviews, more knowledgeable about the genre, and much harder to please. Blizzard simply doesn't have a chance.

[@Swordart2022]

What kind of player stops playing becaue story progress is locked behind progression on weekly basis to limit power grind and probably keep you subbed. If you think it is to keep you subbed i believe you can say it to anything in mmorpg which requires doing something to getting something. You seem like someone who never played mmorpg. One could say story content is timegated behind patches and updates as well hmm i find it ironic.

[@anvos658]

Pretty much agree with this and is what made me quit WoW as well currently. Shadowlands just reeked of systems drawn out to last far longer than the content to try and keep you subbed. This is one of the reasons I say buy to play is the correct answer, since it motivates the company to produce quality on a reasonable time frame or accept their not getting cash until they deliver on the product.

[@cronchcrunch]

@@Swordart2022 Lmao stop simping for multibillion dollar corporations.

[@Swordart2022]

@@cronchcrunch stating truth and facts.

[@10Satoshi15]

"monthly sub games puts the player first" *looks at WoW "right..."

[@elsheik079]

exactly what I thought

[@stavrosdk6891]

Find please an other game like wow that has his lifetime and player base ..... the wow s problem is the core of players the most of them has not touch an other game like wow seriously but always criticise the game ....

[@timothypeterson4781]

You can not like it. But you can't say that people don't.

[@Arnstone88]

@@stavrosdk6891 WoW has the great benefit of being the "original" MMO. The one most players played 'way back when', who most players are emotionally invested in, has the most 'sunk cost fallacy' in, the most nostalgia for, and has most long term friends in... I loved WoW, but every single expansion is more player unfriendly, more soul sucking, and adds more way of stealing both your time and your money. Halfway through BFA, I had enough of all that crap, and just decided to never play that steaming pile of crap again. And I'm happy I did. I will miss the guild, I will miss the raids. I won't miss the game.

[@cole8834]

WoW's hardly a monthly sub game anymore. You can "pay" your sub with in-game gold to buy a "token." Thing is, somebody else payed real life $$$ to buy the in-game token. It's insane. Look at WoW Classic, which is just a sub and that's it; it has more than double the players that modern WoW has.

[@bahamutkaiser]

There's a lie in there, Subscription games deliberately draw out progress and grind in order to keep players preoccupied rather than deliver the most enjoyable experience so they will have a customer next month. It might seem head and shoulders over Free to Play, but there's also the landscape of competition and getting players to even adopt your game in the first place. Even a Retail MMO has the challenge of keeping their player base in order to maintain a community for the health of their game and the sell their next product, but that's a less corrupt incentive than protracting the progress because of a direct correlation between time delayed and time paid. In older MMOs this was directly apparent, and the grind was nothing like a consumer friendly quality of gameplay. Now days with the competition of more alternative games and monetization styles, many of the subscription models were forced to abandon this because it isn't actually what's best for their consumer. Retail and completely optional purchases of extra content tends to be superior to F2P or Subscription. But, with all models adopting cash shops with many of the toxic F2P options, they also adopt some of their unhealthy motivations, so while the exclusive models might sound good, in reality, most of them are contaminated. In the end these are all major cooperations that have executives and investors who are divorced from the games wellbeing, they will all abuse methods of income for their own greed rather than foster a superior product, even at the expense of their own success. One only has to look at a company like Square Enix to see how deluded and misguided cooperations can get with their MMOs, and game production as a whole.

[@ink4852]

Thank you! Subscription games are having their cake and eating it too. Double, triple, and even quadruple dipping in many cases. "In a subscription game the designers aren't thinking, 'How can we make this less than it could be to drive cash shop sales'" Yes, they absolutely are! Subscription games create problems and sell solutions too. It's like the question: "Would you pay $70 or $80 (American) for video games from now on if it meant no more microtransactions, battle passes, loot boxes, online subscriptions, or any of that other BS?" This question is naive as hell in presenting the idea that game publishers would actually stop implementing these predatory practices if people paid more upfront. They would still have all of that other bs ON TOP of charging you more upfront as well!

[@modkhi]

I have never had a stable income that could afford subs, so I personally prefer buy to play games as a happy medium. But f2p was really good for me as a kid when I had zero income, and it let me get into the genre. I'd love to try a sub game, but I do see that they seem to be oriented towards a gear treadmill to keep you hooked and grinding forever -- and that is also personally not my cup of tea. I like being able to hop in and out of a game, knowing my progress is "saved". Sub games do seem to have a bit of... you must play this as your main game to keep all your progress and get every penny out of your sub fee. A bit like you're trapped, almost. I'd love to see a video on buy to play games vs these two models. I love GW2 personally just for how insanely fair their monetisation model is ... but it is an unfortunate reality that it makes them so much less money as a result. I also play ESO once in a while just for something different, but its payment scheme needs a guide to navigate through 😂

[@rockyfalldownstairs]

My favorite model is the RuneScape/EVE Online model (they are super similar) where players can play free but what you can do is severely limited and you will eventually hit a wall where if you wanted to do something more then you will either have to earn enough in-game money to buy a bond or PLEX (they are functionally the same) to trade for membership, or simply get the subscription.

[@borisgrozni386]

"I'm not rich enough to play free MMO's " cosmic truth in my case

[@shadowolf3998]

Can you please add the name of the mmos you showcase on every clip? Because its hard to tell just by that sometimes, thanks.

[@enderblazex2718]

Second that.

[@spensermann2589]

Yea....those sub games have cash shops too

[@ZekethePhoenix]

Do any games not have cash shops anymore?

[@MasterLPG]

@@ZekethePhoenix Forgetting Josh Strife Haye's favourite MMORPG of all time, Old School Runescape? *...For now, anyways. ;)*

[@nVinter]

@@MasterLPG You mean the P2W Bond? Yeah, no, we know.

[@nils191]

Of course, but you're missing the point entirely. Those games don't have the incentive for force the shop unto you, they just exist to subsidize the current product; if they removed the subscription from their game, that cash shop would be forced down your throat and would become increasingly prevalent and necessary for your gameplay.

[@spensermann2589]

To clarify I was more talking about rs3 which started as just a pay to play but gradually turned to micro transactions and is slowly getting worse with more content designed around it. And osrs is only saved from this because rs3 is there. Even a strictly cosmetic cash shop can incentivize developers to reserve all the cool transmogs for it alone(this is also in the form of events you can speed up with money). At the end of the day jagex is after profit, and they have to be to survive(also look who owns them right now). Cash shops make too much to not use them. And you'd want to spend more developer time on things that make money right? Josh is probably right, right now(been a while since I saw video) and he definitely would be back in the golden age where games were owned by people who cared about players. But imo that's not the case anymore, and if it is I don't think it will last.

[@Agumon5]

Long story short, monthly sub is (usually) more transparent long-term, and often these games don't end up creating problems to sell you the solution.

[@dragohammer6937]

and then RS3 or wow token/boosts happen which shows that monthly sub games are not immune to the greed, just slightly more resistant to it

[@boitahaki]

Many F2P games started with subscription but had to go F2P to survive, even though its mostly pointless now.

[@TheYdyp]

Those sub based games don't create problems to sell you indeed, but most of them just take your monthly money without giving you anything in return in the form of content, as when new content arrives you still have to fork over money to get access to it aka expansions.

[@dragongoddragneel7106]

@@TheYdyp this and time gating

[@ultimatecalibur]

@@boitahaki Most of the sub to F2P game transitions are due to not maintaining a large enough player population to fund the game through subs so they go F2P to get the needed player numbers while funding through whale players.

[@BrutusAlbion]

Free to play is like going to your crack dealer who tells you it's free. Your first time is gonne be great but everytime after that you're gonna have to check in to the cash shop ... cause it was a one time only thing.

[@shadowgarra360]

cool profile pic

[@BrutusAlbion]

@@shadowgarra360 Thanks :D

[@MarkSetGO]

Warzone currently has a gun that is insanely unbalanced. In the shop there’s a huge disproportionate size of skins for this gun

[@JPG.01]

Given that I quit Wow before even reaching max level in BfA because I could just be asked to put the effort in because it just wasn't fun for me and recently quit playing Warframe a f2p game that I clocked 1k+ hours in. Well... I have come to a different conclusion. I can say one thing, it's not a question of monetisation. It's a question on how the devs and publishers view the players. Are the players customers that they want to come back frequently? Or are they just walking wallets to be sucked dry and abandoned? This is a question of company-philosophy not monetisation, as that just communicates the incentive structure. While blizzard has an ingame cash shop that is just shy of selling loot crates of items that actually increase player power, Warframe some time last year removed stuff from the cash shop because it did not work as intended. Mod packs, basically ingame items that directly translate to character power. You can get all of them through playing just as well. These things got removed because they were not just the fun waste of premium currency they were intended but worked as a trap for new players to waste their currency on because they did just not know any better. Which one of these is putting the player first?

[@josephvilteski8707]

you couldnt be asked to reach max? its ok just buy the levels from blizz

[@josephvilteski8707]

are you now worrying about being a max level with no mounts, pets or mogs? fret not for i have you covered! just buy them all from blizz, the new bear mount even has its own unique animation thats unattainable without using money!

[@Swordart2022]

@@josephvilteski8707 Your first post is false and second bear is from literally 30 years anniversay blizzcon which was made/had such things since Blizzcon existed. And actually you can buy it via gold which you can transfer to blizzard money in game so you can get that mount via in game gold without spending any irl money. When you try to say crap try to be even right about it.

[@hyriuh0689]

i just started playing warframe, so can you please tell me why you did quit ?

[@Nefats]

@@hyriuh0689 I have quit warframe after 200-250h because it's essentially a giant grind-fest. You grind to rank up your gear, next you grind to craft new weapons and warframes, then you grind to rank up those - in an endless loop. (And new gear is released faster than a f2p player is able to aquire) All just to keep up with other players - even tho it is not a competitive game, most missions are pretty much a race. Everyone is rushing through missions as fast as they can - and a f2p player will almost always fall behind, be it in dmg or speed. That being said, I played years ago (before there was any story and then again, when they added some story), so this might have changed a bit (but I doubt it). I would say there is a good amount of fun to have, but at a certain point you have to decide if you are fine to have basically no progression (compared to other players), pay money to keep up with the others or just quit and find a new game that is more fun.

[@Soulessblur]

As someone who grew up and currently live on a shoestring budget, I hate monthly subscriptions. I hate the idea that I can spend hundreds of hours and dollars on a game and then lose all access to it because the funds couldn't allow it one month. At least with a F2P game, I can pay on my own terms, and in the event I no longer have access to spare cash, I don't lose the game.

[@degenerate2281]

This has been my thoughts as well. Especially with time, as someone currently going through college. There's times where I don't have the time nor money to play that month and to have all that progress frozen or removed is enough to keep me on the f2p path.

[@chonahli3367]

I used to have this same problem and philosophy, but then eventually I figured out I spent just as much over time on f2p as with sub game, or in many cases much more. When friends eventually convinced me I ended up going with just paying sub for a month or two whenever new content hit, then unsubbed for until next content update, making me save money and the game feeling fresh and fun whenever I came back to it. Hell I even found cash to spare to buy single player games every now and then with this way, something I could never afford when I played mainly f2p games.

[@no.notfromRDR]

Can I also add that not everyone lives in a first world country? Just because sub is literally Pocket change somewhere doesn't mean everyone can pay the same price. Specially in countries like Brazil where the government is completely against video games.

[@djcgjhvicbimgvvn]

My question is, monthly subscription or one time purchase? Full ownership and the game getting an up front prospective budget vs a continuous budget for more likely updates at the cost of a neverending increase to the game's pricetag

[@alexreilly6121]

Yea to be honest all of my sense of good value gaming comes from console/pc games that were bought in a shop, played and enjoyed without me having to fork out more on them:) Sadly though it seems to be a thing of the past now...

[@ryanweible9090]

counter question. more content or just what you get in the box? because if you want more content, someone needs paid with something. when i bought "breath of the wild" its game type was an "in the box" so i had those expectations, paid my cash, beat the game, enjoyed it no more content is coming(it did have dlc, but thats a different discussion). mmo's are heavily based on the idea of continuous content. who makes it and with what cash, its that simple. also, as NCsoft happily reminded me, there is no ownership. they shut down the servers and your game is killed unless people are willing to go legally gray and put up private servers, its the nature of the beast, and one NCsoft was all too happy to reinforce repeatedly.

[@davidskidmore3442]

You don't own one time purchase games, either, especially those that require an online server. You're constantly just one publisher decision away from losing access to that game.

[@omega1231]

It entirely depends on what you get for the subscription - in some cases it's preferable if you actually get the whole game, besides expansions, in that subscription and in many cases that isn't the case, so I'd rather play a free to play game in an era where every game regardless of f2p or p2p, is ostensibly trying to fleece you.

[@purpledude5526]

Monthly Sub 100% There are games out there I love , but they have a cash shop that makes me pay double or more than a monthly sub. It then turns into a How much time Vs. How much cost. If it costs more and I wont put in the time, Ill move to a lower month sub because I know I wont have as much time

[@synth_pulse3098]

This! I see this all the time from people who prefer free to play. They detest the idea of a subscription but buy $20+ in cash shop items like skins or utility stuff just about every month.

[@arrclyde4325]

There is an survey on the net from 2017 i believe. In F2P games the publisher earns 2-3 per player per month. But it also says that most players (somewhere around 85%) don't pay at all. Those games live off those players that spend several hundred dollars a month. So while you might know someone who doesn't want to pay 15 bucks as monthly subscription fee, those players are clearly not the norm. I would say they are dumb, they make this decission cautiously: they spend money for something most players don't have.

[@SolidStructureWC]

FFXIV: Pay to play GW2: Buy to play Black Desert: Pay to Win WOW: Pay to lose OSRS: Pay to say RS3: Play to lose

[@SockLove]

We pay, We say

[@Darthvegeta8000]

Are there even any true f2p vs subscription situations left in the MMORPG? ...the waters have muddied everywhere given the cosmetics, expansions etc the subscription based mmorpgs have on offer. It's one of the reasons i rarely play mmorpgs. I played SWTOR recently a lot again but then stopped after finishing the main campaign. MMORPGs quickly feel like scams to me.

[@renemuller7383]

Thats actually a good point. This Vid had relevancy around 10 years ago.. but today the market has evolved. Most current MMO's i know of have a Cashshop. Josh mentioning the Bag-Space in that one F2P-Game and not metioning that FF14 is essentially doing the same with Retainers. Or how SWTOR is essentially F2P to hook you up on the Subscription later on ( and still has a cash-shop ).

[@Darthvegeta8000]

@@renemuller7383 agreed. And in the case of a lot of mmorpgs I just don't feel they offer value for money. They're more like a casino, a drug addiction or fast food.

[@10gamer64]

I now 2 mmorpgs that are what I call "donation-based" ie they run on donations, they are Meridian 59 and Underlight, they are both old and have a small playerbase, so yeah, not exactly the best gameplay.

[@renemuller7383]

@@Darthvegeta8000 : well... Value for Money is a complex topic anyway... not just in the MMO Genre but for games in general. some years back, when games, especially FPS-Shooter got shorter and shorter to the point of a 6 hour campaign for 60$, ppl started to associate value with gametime... and as a reaction the gaming-industry started to pad out their games as is evident in todays "open world"-genre. For Example.. even though i (currently ) only log in once a day to FF14 to do my daily-dungeon i value the game enough to keep it as a subscription. Because i know that they invest this money into high quality content and i still end up playing 10 hours each month just by doing that. Is that Value for you? Then we have WoW.. i haven't played it since the Tomb of Sargarass in Legion because i found the direction they took the game with their systems as revolting. But with the ammount of content they still give with a content patch i can see that ppl who like the current systems to see value in it. Then i look at STO.. i know there is still a "subscriptionoption" and a "live time subscription" would i find Value in that? No.. no i don't because i neither enjoy the "content" they put out nor do i see a certain amount of volume in the content they put out. Then we have SWTOR with their hybrid-model. Currently i am subscriped because you have to be a sub to be able go into Operations(Raids) which i do nearly daily with my Guild. But without that fact, neither the Quality nor the Quantity of the Content they put out would be worth it. So should does the Subscription has Value for me because it "enables" me to raid with some ppl each day? Time-Wise one would say.. yes but on principle one could say no because the value and the fun is mainly because of the ppl i play with and the "you are only able to do operations with a sub" is one of those "sell the solution" things. So in this case the Value of the SWToR sub is not as clear cut for me as in the other cases.

[@Darthvegeta8000]

@@renemuller7383 Your explanation actually shows why MMORPGs are a problematic genre. Especially in a landscape where you can wait for a finished product in most other cases and with steep discounts. MMORPGs for me have gotten the same stigma EA sports games have... Technically there are a lot of people willing to shell out tons of money for the product. But more due to the fact therer are few if any alternatives. Kinda like the ever increasing price point in the comics industry where qualiy declines, the reader base dwindles or moves to alternatives (European, Japanese or indie comics) but whaling continues. Because enough people remain willing to pay for all these systems, mechanisms and options. Value at the end of the day I agree is subjective. Heck i'm one of the few people that loved Anthem and picked it up on the cheap despite the bad reviews as it tickled a specific need i had. However catering to a dwindling pool of players and milking them usually via a combination of methods (sub + cash shop, free2play + a lot of cash shop and tons of other variants + possibly addons) it feels more like Star Citizen-like sunk cost phallacy. I invested time in X. So i'm sticking with it. Also FPS's get shorter. But if you're a bit patient you can get them dirtcheap. Not to mention a lot of them still tend to offer a very unique 'full' experience. When (and it's rarer and rarer) I pick up an FPS it tends to be just for a cinematic story experience unless it has good rpg mechanics integrated. But I wait for the price to drop. MMORPGs don't have that. Which is also one of the reasons that for fun grinds and rpg stuff I tend to opt for solo games as bang for my buck they tend to win and frequently are devoid of the atrocious stuff trying to milk me dry. (not always, far from as the live service, mmorpg and sportsgames systems, app addiction patterns etc have spilled over and been infecting everything else more and more as well) Heck as much as I love Paradox Interactive some of their games i'll never pick up just because the amount of dlc etc is insane by now. I may give New Worlds a try if reviews are good but even then i'm highly hesitant. MMORPGs like Sports games just send out too many alarm signals for me.

[@butIwantpewee]

This video is spot on, I play FF14 and for around a tenner a month I get a massive game with regular updates, it does have a cash shop for mounts etc.. but often they are old event items or glamour. Most people don't bother and I see it as a decent way to support the game for those that want to spend a bit more. £15 for a mount is too expensive imo, but I never feel like I need it so I just pass and there are plenty for me to earn in the game normally anyway, others want it so good for them. A friend of mine got into Magic Rush, a free to play mobile game and he ended up raiding and all that. He would spend between £200-£300 a month just to keep up with all the other whales. A guide online I looked at recommended dropping £1000 on it as soon as a new server opened to get to the top, then a few hundred quid a month to stay there. The irony is F2P are by far the most expensive games on the market, it's not even close.

[@Ashley-uz2gw]

I'm also a FFXIV player and I totally agree, their cash shop does have some pretty expensive items, but they're never *needed* and thats the difference. I've spent a bit on old glamours, fantasias, and some emotes, but I've never felt that if I didn't get these I'd be less than any other player. I just like the game and wanted some added extras to customise the character I love.

[@butIwantpewee]

@@Ashley-uz2gw Oh I'm a sucker for fantasia's, I should have bought shares in the damn things lol. Again they seem a little expensive but if it's worth it to the person paying then it's worth it. I used to play FFXI and there was an add-on to change race, I used it all the time, no such thing in FFXIV so fantasia's it is.

[@smward87]

@@Ashley-uz2gw The other thing to consider: the sub fee goes to Square Enix as a whole. Yoshi-P and his team only get a percentage. The cash shop however, 100% of the money it makes goes straight back to the XIV team.

[@aliciaseelentanz]

@@smward87 I know this is an old comment, but just to add onto that point, I saw recently some old clips of Yoshi-P mentioning that the cash shop more or less funded their European servers and that they put the cash shop money into a lot of the level 1 glamour items they put into game. I just thought its a nice extra bit of info that the people paying for extra cosmetics from mogstation are contributing to both the data centers themselves and also to fund the additional cosmetics added in game

[@Kreptic]

Spot on m8

[@DrDipsh1t]

This reminded me a bit of what we did in the jail I was in with books. Some people would sell you the full book outright for X amount of commissary. But the smart ones would give you the book with the last couple chapters missing and charge you for them.

[@lajenehuen260]

That's evil. Evilly smart.

[@Tentacl]

While I agree on the F2P part, WoW proved subscriptions are not that benign either. They just add ore and more time sink systems to keep people signed during true content droughts. The best system is the older: Buy to play, buy expansions (not DLCs, EXPANSIONS) each 6 months or one year.

[@d.ink3d]

real expansion cant release every 6 or 12months, you can see it at ESO they release xpacs every year which dont got to much content, the best system is a real xpac every 2-3 years and major patches every couple of months

[@MyLittlePonyTheater]

I find it sort of amazing when I see people complain about WoW content droughts. Since 2004, Blizzard has added so many different things to do, collect, kill, explore, etc. that it would take a solid 100,000+ hours of gameplay, with help, to 100% all possible in-game and personal achievements for all character classes on each faction. WoW has added so much grind to the game that retail is unapproachable for completionists. All of the complaints come from the people who just push through one or two systems of the game while ignoring everything else - mostly raiding and heroic dungeons. In truth, they're only playing maybe 1-2% of all the content WoW has to offer - then complaining that they don't get brand new end-game content released every month for the only two systems they care to pursue. Personally, I despise the way retail WoW is designed. In order to satiate these players, they hastily make raids, filling them with tons of bugs that are beta tested by "world first" raiding groups. Then, in order to populate the new raids with more players, they add power creep to the gear that drops, invalidating all older content with each new raid. Thus, 98% of their older raid and dungeon content simply isn't worth doing, except to level up, and even if it was, it wouldn't be fun because it was all rushed out to satisfy the bloodthirsty hardcore raiding base, making older content far lower quality than newer content, providing no updates to older raids and dungeons to compete with the fun and challenge of the newer ones. If Blizzard would have convinced their players early on that content droughts were normal for the sake of the quality of the game for all players, such as allowing time for bug fixing, testing, and redesigning older raids and dungeons to be viable for all players with a loot bonus for one-three specific raids/dungeons each week to funnel players in a certain direction, we wouldn't need to grind for infinite hours for garbage that'll be outdated next expansion like artifact weapon power. If players simply thought it was normal to have done everything the game had to offer, and to collect everything there was to collect, then they could enjoy continuing to play the game with their maxed out characters - either to PvP at their maximum possible power level or to perform at 100% efficiency when speed running raids. Then, after they spent time enjoying being maxed out, collecting gold and spending time with friends, they could make a new character to level up to max and 100%, until Blizzard comes out with a new, well-balanced, bug-fixed expansion that doesn't force you to collect artifact power, that's rendered useless the very next expansion, ad infinitum. I don't know why people think they need to grind numbers to infinity. It's fine to settle down and enjoy having everything for a while, and it's fine to take a break from a good game. Rushing the devs only leads to worse and worse content over the years, and it makes the game much worse and much smaller for all players. This is why vanilla WoW private servers were popular in the first place, and why Classic WoW even exists now - sometimes it's okay to play old content, and sometimes it's okay if nothing new is released for a while. Just let people enjoy the game without needing to work a full time job to make a number go up for once.

[@ryanweible9090]

i don't like wow at all, for aesthetic reasons, well before it became cool to dislike them. but its full history vindicates subs more than it contradicts them. name any f2p game that has as much substantive stuff added in. its quite simple, content needs made by people, who need to be paid to not work elsewhere. if you want more content you need more people, and they need paid, so either give them a steady income, or they are going to need a new form of revenue to pay those people, so you get 15 different currencies, and lots of f2p annoyances. and i dont blame them, because if you want content you are going to need to pay. wow has the added bonus of having a terrible corporate culture, but that was not something that we saw.

[@Tentacl]

@@ryanweible9090 I think the culture of always having infinite content and grindy systems to stop people from completing is unhealthy. I'm ok with montly fees in theory, but in reality that makes devs create those systems so people don't take breaks. I know how many years I missed good game releases and even RL stuff because I was working, not experiencing good content, in WoW. That was unhealthy and openly stimulated to keep me paying fees.

[@pedrobastos8132]

I find it weird that there are plenty of games such as Dota, Valorant, CSGO and others that are really free to play with optional, mostly cosmetics items on the cash shop that are making tons of money, yet F2P MMOs still rely on butchering the core experience.

[@matteoar]

thing is all the games you listed are based on pure skill and have an extremely heavy PvP concept. If they started selling power ups like an item that let you gain more gold from kills in Dota or a mod for a gun that lowered the recoil on CSGO people would loathe that and stop playing altogether. An MMO can have skill requirements, usually it's the mastering of one's class, but they also use gear that you obtain to power up your character. And that can be sold. Also most MMOs have leveling systems. There you go, level boosting is almost a must in the cash shops. Then mounts that go faster or give you extra boosts, that one weapon that would require hours to farm that you can get for just 5 bucks. MMOs have a natural affinity to items that are easily sellable for IRL money without necessarily breaking the game.

[@Kritya]

11:27 "these issues don't exist anymore" meanwhile WoW cash shop mount vs raid earnable moun... oh wait they didn't include a raid mount this time...

[@DrewPicklesTheDark]

I remember when the shop was added back in Wrath and telling people they were slowly going to add more things to it until it reached a point the things from the shop were better than the ones in game, and that eventually things that _would_ effect gameplay would be in it. I was laughed at and called a doomsayer and paranoid. What blows is it looks like they are conditioning people to do the same with classic as well. They could of at least had the curtesy to wait until Wrath classic. Such a shame.

[@Swordart2022]

Quite few interesting species in comment section you got was fun read , good video looking for something more intriguing this was made for newbies.

[@TheBlakamon15]

I agree with you are saying about both but at the same time. I prefer something in the middle. With some free to play I can chose not to pay and still be fine while with a sub only game if I do not pay my sub, I do not have access to the game anymore which means all of my stuff that I earned is locked behind a wall. Reason why I like ESO because it is in the middle. I can chose how I want to pay for it depending on my expenses and I never lose access to the game if I do not sub.

[@ChrisCatchTheHat]

I think a mix of both could be nice. let the players play the full game till a specific point and convince them in this time that your game is worth a subscription. I hate "free trials" like in wow.. the whole new player experience sucks when a player can't interact with the community around. in the end the sub-model favors the player the most, but they need a chance to get in touch with the game, before forced to pay a monthly sub or high entry costs

[@willprotector]

FFXIV does this really well.

[@ChrisCatchTheHat]

@@willprotector never got in touch with this game.. it is really story driven by all I heard about it so far, and I'm not quite in the mood to read through years of storylines. but, it's on my "wanna play sometimes"-List :)

[@joeysmit4644]

I would say sub all the way. Just noticed that games with subscriptions have more frequent content updates.

[@jrpm.4436]

And better server maintenance, and less buggy

[@joeysmit4644]

@Very Sad ah yea very good point. totally forgot about that. Glad that doesn't only hold up for sub based mmo's. Any mmo that is not entirely F2P, people will tend to be nicer since little kids cant affort a game that expensive, and people will be afraid to lose their stuff after putting in too much money.

[@Bryan777cosmicakasha]

josh your videos are curing my video game addiction. i can't thank you enough

[@geminibutts]

I gotta agree hardcore, this whole video summed my feelings on the subject perfectly. It took me to start playing ff14 a couple years back to realize this though!

[@geminibutts]

@@chewcab8008 I agree, the fact they don't give you the school girl outfit and fat cat mount as soon as you create your character is a crime against god and the angels because they're both required to play the game

[@Orinslayer]

@@geminibutts ESO is a tragedy IMO. The game is payed, has a sub, and has a cash shop that sells power. They sell xp and boosters and other resources that are pretty much required for efficient play that saves hundreds of hours of grinding.

[@testogel85]

This, 100%. Same as my experience has been.

[@westarrr]

Honestly my gripe with monthly sub games is, i feel obliged to play more of it because I bought a sub for it, and if I don't play enough of it I'm scamming myself. It's either very intimidating to me to get started, or gets me burnt out once started.

[@dupre7416]

Monthly sub all the way. I'm not sure if you mentioned this but, monthly sub games generally have a more dedicated and higher caliber player base.

[@AnDr3w066]

The sad part is even with the monthly sub they usually end up charging for expansions, cosmetics and sometimes even boosts

[@75yado]

Monthly subs from player perspective is the waste of either of your money or time... If you do not have time to play 24/7 you are wasting your money somehow. You create habit to play every day for at least some time even if you are not in the right mood - it's more like addiction than fun. Free to play - well you are right I had not seen any game where the f2p model was made correctly maybe EVE but I did not play that one as I actively avoid PvP games. Ok maybe warframe but that game is create around endless grind with no end game and no goals. Player must set those for himself. You described quality issues of both models perfectly.

[@willprotector]

However, tbf do you watch streaming every day for a couple of hours at a time? If you don't watch daily would that be a waste? The monthly sub is for convenience of getting on when you like. Why is a game only worth it if you can spend hours at a time? If that is true for the player--the MMORPG genre is not for them. Play a single player game or something.

[@HighPriestFuneral]

Now this lends itself to an interesting debate. Should there be an option for "Pay as you play"? That the more you play, the more money that is spent? So say you're a casual MMO player, but you want an actual good experience from the MMO you play. You put in maybe... 10-20 hours a month. Let's say every hour is 50 cents. That would be about 5-10 dollars. This would be optional and you could choose which ever model you think would best suit you. If you have a vacation coming up where you know you can relax, you might want to go for the flat rate that month.

[@75yado]

@@willprotector I know why they do it that way. FYI I do not watch streams every day and I do not play all games every day. I just learned playing SWTOR that it was more less waste of my money but that could be caused by SWTOR itself. It just made me never play subscription based games again. I prefer buy to play with some pure cosmetic items in the cash shop. Game itself must be fun with no rush to endgame.

[@75yado]

@@HighPriestFuneral I put even less than 10-20 hours per month - game must be really good for me to do it and my usual clan mates must want to play it too. But the model sounds reasonable. 50 cents per hour - credit based. When credit runs off - I refill.

[@JudgeFish]

"You cannot have fun wrong"...... I accept your challenge sir.

[@LikaLaruku]

My favorite gaming streamers are the ones who embrace the brokenness & buginess of a game for the lols & play the game unseriously in ways never intended.

[@lacey5183]

Great video once again , I don’t play or even like mmo games but your videos are such high quality and the topics are always intriguing

[@KatieGimple]

As someone who has only ever played f2p games, I can just about guarantee that subscription is better long term. So far I've just played for as long as I've enjoyed it for free and then moved on to something else, but once I get a more stable income source then I will probably choose something like FFXIV or ESO which will provide more entertainment in the long run.

[@goury]

It'll go f2p by that time. Also both ff and eso already have p2w cash shops integrated. So sub or not, it's all crap. Genre is dead, industry is dead, move on.

[@flame4864]

That was an interesting comment you made at the end, mentioning how you can tell based off of the news on their homepage. I don't know how you could reconcile a monthly sub game that also has a cash shop, but I did notice that all of World of Warcraft's retail news is just talking about buying the best expansion edition and purchasing a level 70 boost. The mounts, armor, and pets on the cash shop are also noticeably better than they are in the actual game. Which probably means they're far more profit-driven than they are on making the best possible game. It's probably a big reason that Classic is doing so well in comparison.

[@galloviking4766]

Free to play, expensive to win

[@benmcconnell6784]

I wouldn’t mind a system like Fortnite where the cash shop has zero to do with gameplay and the purchases are purely aesthetic

[@Momoka7]

This Video, basically also talks about all the Phone Games. When I tried out that Fire Emblem game on Phones/Tablets ... I always felt like without paying you won't have fun.

[@mandisaw]

Hmm, I quit FE Heroes after I felt myself getting sucked into the gacha and bored by the limited tactics. The character artwork - 2D especially - was so pretty!! For the first several months after launch it was a fun game to play during the commute or on weekends to scratch that tactical itch. Now I've started both Three Houses and Echoes/Shadows of Valentia, but with work+school have no time to play them :p

[@Momoka7]

@@mandisaw Limited Tactics ... yeah that hits it. While the normal titles have huge maps, and you control like 10+ Units ... that FE Heroes limits you to 5(I think?) and the maps are a little bit bigger then the Screen. Gatcha doesn't interest me ... RNG systems are not bad if you play something like lets say a Diablo game or an MMO and you kill the boss a million times over the course of the game. But in Strategy Game, which I prefer to be soloplayer btw, I not need RNG save for Hit and Dodge chances in the strategy.

[@mandisaw]

@@Momoka7 I don't think gacha stuff even qualifies as gameplay - it's more like a slot machine they just stick in the game as a trap. I had friends who tried to get me into Genshin Impact, but I could tell right away that it pushes those same "want cool costumes/characters" buttons in me as FE Heroes did. #JustSayNo 😆

[@mandisaw]

@@Momoka7 RNG does have a place, even in strategy/TRPGs. Besides making combats somewhat replayable, it reduces the likelihood/impact of "optimal" tactics. That's why IMO TRPGs do a better job of avoiding having meta ruin all the fun, compared to more "pure" strategy or 4X games.

[@Momoka7]

@@mandisaw You are right, Cacha, Loot Boxes do not qualify as gameplay. While it is nice to being able to get more Costumes for characters in games like Phantasy Star Online 2, Fire Emblem Heroes locks Characters behind that mechanic. Or another game I would love to play; War of the Visions Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, I love games like Shining Force, Tactics Ogre, Final Fantasy Tactics ... so naturally this would interest me. But gacha to get characters, gacha to get upgrade items for those characters ... and maps that are even smaller then the already small maps in Final Fantasy Tactics ... is a no go for me. Yeah RNG has to be used right. Used for what a Boss drops, or for a RPG chance to hit it is fine. I find all of those Loot Boxes, Gacha and similar mechanics are just there as a easy way to make allot money for the owner of the game. All they have to do, is make a uninspired low effort game, that has only two things good; nice graphics and the use of a old franchise and customers come flocking in, leaving enough money. They are ALL designed around the gambling weakness of humans. It is the same with Diablo 2, you think "just one more run, maybe a good item drops" ... or just one more Loot Box ... its the same. But the latter makes more money to the developer.

[@jukkininth4837]

I prefer Free-to-Play. Because, not everyone is a tryhard end goal seeker players. There are a lot of casual players just want to relax and enjoy. + everyone has life outside of gaming, mostly work 8 hours a day and just have 2,3 hour to play games . By going monthly subs, not only for the developer, but commitment for the players as well to spend time playing the game to make their money worth. Free to play, give options to players. yes some f2p is bad, but there are still few hidden gems like GW2 which really favor the F2P players really well. all the cosmetics are earnable thru gold exchange.

[@jonathansoko1085]

I play Allods Online. On the Smugglers Paradise Pay 2 Play server. I pay my sub fee and i can go out and earn ALL things in the game, im rewarded for my effort. No cash shop, no p2w at all. Also they release collectors Ed packs with important updates, which give us a cool mount, some skins, etc so i can support them continually and not be f*'d in the behind by a cash shop and systems made to make me want to spend there. I prefer this.

[@vegasbeebi]

Are there people playing or is it hard to find other players running around?

[@jonathansoko1085]

@@vegasbeebi It is a small game. If youre looking for a massive population this obviously isnt it. But join one of the large guilds and you always have people to play with. Also 12.0 big update and new area just came out so right now theres alot of people playing. I love it tho, and will always play it. The community is quite tight knit. And you can clear any and all content you want to do. Theres alot more people playing than on steam charts so you cant really go by that. Its got a similar population to runes of magic.

[@vegasbeebi]

@@jonathansoko1085 I used to play it on the free to play version like 8years or so ago.. I quite liked the game but stopped playing for some reason, don't even remember why..

[@jonathansoko1085]

@@vegasbeebi the Free version has one of the WORST p2w systems in all of gaming, i wouldnt advise it. The paid server functions most like classic wow does, its all up to you to get what you want. The cash shop is 100% disabled. Its not a game for everyone, i mainly got into it because its slavic warcraft lol being polish i was attracted to it. Its a good old school experience, but you gotta know what youre getting into.

[@vegasbeebi]

@@jonathansoko1085 I remember I got my mage to level 20 something when the level cap was 42. Got into an area where open world pvp was a thing. Levelled many alts also. I overall liked the world design and polish it had and to be fair - the artstyle was a rip off from wow so I got to play something like wow when it was at its peak.

[@thecarnivorept]

Judge: “JSH you are charged with DUI, how do you plead?” JSH: “you cannot have fun ‘wrong’”

[@SuryaKumaran11]

@Josh It's not like I don't want to pay a monthly sub. But 15 dollars is a very high amount of money in Indian currency when converted. It may be a pocket change for the American players. If the game company consider changing sub prices based on the country it would be better.

[@SuryaKumaran11]

BTW I don't like the heavy grind, rng and limited bag space at all. The game is not a bit immersive in gw2 its all about cosmetic. The shield and sword never feel like shield and sword it's all just some magic and no difference between the classes. But neverwinter does it better. It's very immersive combat and all classes feel like different gameplay. Can you please make a video on this. Even though action combat is way better why many game stick to the top down gameplay and not pure immersive combat. I got kicked out of the raid because I use the action camera in gw2 and not view top down. Is it really a sin in the mmo to enjoy the combat and just mindlessly do the rotation. It's so boring I quit the game after few raids.

[@renemuller7383]

Uff.... i see your point, but that would not work as intended within some MMO's like WoW where there is a Subscription-Token or MMO's that have their own premium-Currency like SWTOR. Some Publishers like Paradox Interactive have ( in part ) adopted the model to calculate the price according to the economic power of the region. But they also have a problem with Re/Keysellers and they got a big shitstorm a few years back when they tried to adjust the price to the allged increase of economic power in eastern european countrys. I am not saying that iam against it.. but i am saying that your idea, as easy and simple as it sounds comes with it's own can of worms.

[@purringc5552]

It would be nice if the subscription price went down as more players joined. I know that's just fantasy land thinking...but it would maybe encourage more and more people to actually play.

[@PaulHofreiter]

Spot on. F2p is the worst thing that players can deal with unless they want to whale and I’d rather that stay in gacha games than infest mmos like it has. I think FFXIV does this the best. They have a cash shop for those who want to spend impulsively but more then enough in the game that Norns players don’t feel like they are missing out, and they are not ever at a disadvantage to those that do spend in the shop. They have an absurdly long trial to hook players - anyone who makes it through all of that content will likely be subbing after that kind of time investment. Monthly subscriptions reward you with veteran rewards. The only issue is the social restrictions in the trial but currency sellers make it needed unfortunately. I think f2p mmos have ruined the genre in a lot of ways because companies don’t need to plan long term, they need something that will grab addicts and take their money ASAP and in large quantities over an extended period of time. Unless the company cares about making a good game and the player experience, it is hard to turn down that kind of money.

[@phoenix7289]

Seeing Rift just brings back so many fond memories from before it went f2p, I was a Vanilla player. Then it went f2p shortly into Stormwhatever. :(

[@imadeyoureadthis1]

Thrall thumbnail. Noice XD. hope he mentions the wow token. I haven't paid with real money this expansion. Just grinding gold.

[@JoshStrifeHayes]

Real money or grinding gold in games will be another video, this is just about the free vs paid design differences the video on 'make money in game vs buy it' is coming soon :D

[@ChaoticLegion01]

Careful, if everyone did this, the feature would be removed, or the game would have to close.

[@ChaoticLegion01]

@Quentin Styger I don't get it. Why are people buying tokens in the first place then? What benefits do they get for buying tokens?

[@dankuya]

@@ChaoticLegion01 the benefit is the gold from players

[@michaelmorrison5280]

@@ChaoticLegion01 If everyone did it then WoW tokens would adjust to a higher gold price as demand would outstrip supply. Then less people will be inclined to grind the gold as the time to grind would take significantly longer, and more people would be incentivized to buy and sell wow tokens as they get more gold for less dollar investment. It's simple supply and demand.

[@Stunex]

I think some of the assumptions here are a bit off (in my opinion anyway): - Pay2play games don't need you to stick around as long as possible, they just need you to come back next month or with the next expansion. So they don't need to make the best design choices, you should just stay interested in general. They don't need you to subscribe every single month, as long as you come back the next time they offer something new this is sufficient. Also: there's tedious grind and space limitations and stuff like that in games like WoW too, so where to draw the line between "intentionally put in to promote cash sales" and simply "design choice"? Maybe one could even argue that p2p games are made especially grindy on purpose and leaving out EP boosters is intentionally bad design to prevent you from skipping through the level phase, possibly leaving the game before you have to pay your next sub. - P2w or Pay4Convenience mechanics are pretty subjective imho, a ton of people call BDO p2w due to the inventory and weight expanders or pets and while it is sometimes kind of annoying, I have never bought any of them nor do I feel like I need them (and I have a couple thousand hours in BDO). And almost no feature by itself is intentionally good or bad. One example: limiting how often you can run dungeons. Huge p2w aspect in a lot of MMOs (or used to be at least) where you can run a dungeon for example 5 times a day if you pay whereas a freebie account can only run it once per day.. However the very same mechanic is also present in WoW or GW2. Where's the difference? Well, they don't monetize it and everybody has to wait for the weekly reset (I do realize that you can run it several times but the big loot is restricted so I think this still counts). Soooo.. is the design choice now inherently bad or has it a valid/good intent (hardcore players can't pull ahead and delaying player burnout so devs have more time working on more content etc) with some games exploiting it for monetization? Decide for yourself. And while I don't support p2w mechanics and also don't like them or even completely avoid games with them, I don't think people should look at a game, just see that there's a cash shop and assume that's p2w. For example GW2 also has a lot of boosters and stuff but they are as irrelevant as could be, nobody needs them + you could buy them in the cash shop for ingame gold as well if really necessary (which isn't that hard either tbh). - While it is true that most ingame skins don't look as good as shop skins in f2p games, it doesn't fix a problem which has been put in deliberately to prevent players from having maximum fun so I'd argue that this is a fair monetization strategy since they are not necessary and whether they look good or bad is also very subjective anyway. GW2 is for example mainly cosmetics and while there are quite a few very good QoL items in the shop A) you can buy them by converting ingame gold to gems and B) they are merely QoL (most of the time they actually end up even more expensive currency-wise than free alternatives, unless you use them excessively over several years to reach a break-even point). So what I'm trying to say is that the cash shop doesn't have to provide a solution for artificial problems, it again comes down to how the devs/publishers use it. I'd actually even argue that games like GW2 really want you to stick around all the time so you can buy the new skin set or whatever. Especially since you can't just buy it whenever you feel like or when you log in when the new expansion hits since skins will rotate in and out of the shop. Which also creates pressure to buy it "immediately" so this can be seen as a con but I still don't think this is also an inherently bad or an "evil" money making choice btw. Genshin Impact for example also has event stuff where you can heavily invest into before it runs out so you still get what you want. But on the other hand the very same mechanic was present in Monster Hunter World with absolutely no monetization whatsoever sooo.. it again really comes down to how the publishers/dev use the "feature". My opinion at least is that it's not as simple as saying "It has a cash shop therefore players get ripped off and a subscription plan would be more player friendly". - I would argue that a p2p game going f2p has already passed its prime time, otherwise people would still play and pay for it and it wouldn't be worth going f2p. Also I honestly don't think that most people are annoyed because of new/worse f2p mechanics but by the influx of kiddies and hackers that come naturally with going f2p as there is no paywall anymore and getting banned has absolutely no consequences, you can just create a new account at no cost. Going f2p is however also not necessarily a bad thing. TERA and ESO started as subscription games as well but didn't draw in enough people.. Even csgo went from b2p to f2p with pretty much no system change whatsoever. Skins, cases/lootboxes, etc were already established and didn't change a bit but people still complained - because of the kiddie/hacker influx. Same with GW2 btw (even tho I'm still considering GW2 a b2p game with an extensive trial.. you can't even use the trading post, world chat or play living story). Something always present in my mind regarding subscription based games is that I often take breaks from games and play something else or nothing at all.. I really don't want to stick with the same game for several months or even years in a row and when I think about coming back I'd log in and most of the time I don't really think it's worth starting again so I log out and wait a few more weeks/months and try again. I really can't do that with subscription games because having to pay for an entire month in order to try it again for a few hours is something I really don't want.. It just feels like I've wasted the money so unfortunately I will pretty much never start it up again. Probably a problem which doesn't apply to most people but some can probably relate. However aside from that I honestly also do think that monthly subs is the overall better monetization strategy. Not necessarily for the players but for the devs as well. Even games with a pure cosmetic cash shop face certain issues in the long run like oversaturating the player base with skins so the devs are pressured to always make the stuff shinier and more complex with cooler particle effects etc. which also impacts performance and stuff. Also the devs could potentially make a lot more content due to having more "reliable" funding + the devs don't need an entire team for cash shop stuff (which is probably still more profitable even if subtracting their salaries and stuff but still something to consider).

[@badass6300]

Pay to play sounds better to me. MMOs are expensive and require maintenance, so maybe they can cost 80-90$ once if their actual development cost and maintenance cost between the expansions justify it and that's it. But oh well. F2P makes it P2W usually and Subscriptions are quite expensive once you add them over the years.

[@willprotector]

You'd have to pay double that for the kind of MMORPG that today's market can produce--then you would have to pay double for an expansion. Most point to Guild Wars 2, but even it has cash shop (cosmetic or not). MMORPGs are expensive to maintain and because players naturally fluctuate in an out---they need a steady influx of money. Subs are the best way to do this without hijacking the gameplay to be unbearable.

[@periwinklekyukia1518]

Final Fantasy does the same thing with retainers in terms of inventory space. You can buy more than the first 2 they give you for extra money. They're not perm an you're paying for them monthly it's cheap yeah but, if it expires you can't get anything out from it until you rebuy it for a month.

[@InimicusSolitus]

I sub to FFXIV and also ESO, I like the game and just want the best gaming experience. I have played GW2 also, but it was buy to play when I started. I have played other games that converted from a sub to F2P, but I quit all those eventually, because they turn into hot garbage..

[@PhoeniXBG]

To be honest, you are right on many of the points you made. But there is a superior business design - Warframe. It is completely free, but progress requires you to play with as many frames/weapons as you can get your hands on... If you play enough and farm enough you can make the premium credits by playing alone, not spending a dime. The world is so vast there that it simply caters to your crave to have more, so if you want more and you want it fast - you pay, but there aren't any blockers present. So yea, pay to speed up is actually a great idea, I never got hooked to paying a monthly fee and I probably never will, but if I like the game I would make a payment to speed up my progress.

[@Tekay37]

I completely agree with you here. I see it even happening with games that are F2P and that try very hard to not be P2W ever (like Rocket League). The developers just spent most of their time implementing monetization methods for their customizations instead of implementing new features that players could enjoy. Since I've understood that I strongly prefer the more honest business model of a monthly subscription, understand that it will bring me more cool features for a game I love to play.

[@BryceMousseau]

Not to defend it, But with the Neverwinter Example, I do want to point out that Coal Ward (The item to guarantee and upgrade) can be obtained in game. They are still rare, but you can get them from any dungeon, a farmable recourse called Juma Bags, and the daily log on reward-like system of Invoking. Loved the video and content as always, just thought I would point this out

[@otorinthuzoth8624]

Been playing MMOs since 2003 and I learned pretty early on that anything with a "rng upgrade system" has an extremely high chance of being both trash, and garbage. Doubly so if it's a Free to Play.

[@vbnbdx]

Great video, Josh! Love the content, keep it up.

[@Frostgnaw]

Monthly subs barely even justify the price for content. WoW isn't worth $15/month. They don't output $180 worth of content each year + whatever the cost of tge expansion at that time is. The whole 6 month sub being slightly cheaper isn't worth it either. I've resorted to paying a flat $15 when I actually have the urge to play instead of freely giving away my money to Activision. Blizzard isn't even a company anymore. GMs don't exist, bots run rampant in both classic and retail, and the prep they put into each new release is never enough (i.e. classic wow's release). Hell, I've been playing AQ3D for a couple months now and even though it's still "in development", I gave them $20 for access to a permanent travel form and more QoL features. IMO, the $20 is worth it as throughout my whole leveling journey to 31, I didn't need any cash shop items. Daily chests constantly gave free travel form potions, so I was well supplied the entire game. As for WoW, there might be tons of content for new players to explore, but who actually does 100% of the provided content? WoW expansions should be $60 per expansion and that's it.

[@Swordart2022]

See people decide individually what is value for them ,there are things that have no value for you and have value for others. I actually have the urge to play? Do you have such urge for your internet payment so you are trying to be online 24/7? For your Netflix? etc and other services ? Dont you find it funny when you look at it now ?

[@powerbeard5653]

some of these things may seem obvious to long time MMO fans, but its important to spread the word to people who aren't as experienced with the genre. How many people have played a crappy, F2P MMO as their first foray(s) into the genre, had an awful experience and then written off the entire thing as being garbage? ...and who can blame them?

[@Remianen]

I can blame them. Did you marry your first girlfriend/boyfriend? Why not swear off dating just because you picked a stinker? The same can be said about everything in life. If your first experience with something was bad (or simply not the best), do you swear off that thing and call the whole sector 'garbage'? My first two cars were Fords (Mercury Topaz and Ford Mustang) and they had mechanical issues. Does that mean all motor vehicles are 'garbage'? Sure, people will do that but I don't think there's a need to pander to those people. Then again, I was playing MMOs when there were only 4 in existence in the West (M59, The Realm Online, Ultima Online, EverQuest) so maybe my perspective is wider.

[@powerbeard5653]

@@Remianen m8 that's a poor analogy at best. the mmo landscape is FULL of garbage games and/or games that have slowly become garbage. it's entirely possible for someone to have tried quite a few MMOs and they all did, in fact, suck. it's a bit unlike the auto industry which has been around for a century and has some standards. This is more akin to trying a certain TYPE of car, having a bad experience with it, and then writing it off to move on to a different kind. Or like deciding not to date people from a certain city because they all seem crazy. Must be the pollution.

[@Animaniac-vd5st]

Could you perhaps add the name of the game we're seeing in background collage footage like this? I would suggest a simple overlay in the top center.

[@derlekking]

I want to know what that first game was

[@aikafuwa3768]

@@derlekking i know that this is late , but if u have not found what the the first game is, it should be Defiance 2050. thats the shooter game that u see at the start of the video. he did a review about it here kzbin.info/www/bejne/fKOwoq2Gn5hkoNE

[@derlekking]

@@aikafuwa3768 Thank you for this reply!

[@aikafuwa3768]

@@derlekking you are welcome

[@alexreilly6121]

It could be there's a deliberate advertising issue that prevents it.

[@kiwi7289]

the phone example sounds pretty great tbh

[@MMM1MM]

The video fails to mention how subscription games still have cash shops. WoW, FFXIV, Runescape 3, they all have cash shops on top of subscriptions. You also claim that F2P games always end up costing the players more money than a subscription would. I disagree. Most of the F2P games that I've played have been completely free to play, never gating my progress. Maybe I'll buy a skin here and there, but I've never felt like I needed to pay for anything. I've spent more money on subscriptions in Runescape than I have in some F2P games that I played longer.

[@MMM1MM]

@Quentin Styger I was about to respond to you in the live stream, but it ended before I had the chance 😂 Like I said, subscription based MMOs still have cash shops, that's not exclusive to F2P games. And I've yet to play a F2P game that gates my progress with a pay wall. Josh brings up Maplestory in the video as an example. I've heard the game has problems with P2W in PvP, but I'm fairly sure you can play and beat all of the PvE content the game has to offer without paying money. F2P MMOs more often than not allow you to pay for cosmetics and level boosts, but that's a thing in subscription based games like WoW, too.

[@wisedoomy1584]

@@MMM1MM I think you miss the point though, the point is that free-to-play games will create a problem that can be solved with money. In the cases you mentioned where you can progress without paying, the grind is made far harder for those who want to go down that path, so as to push you as much as possible into paying up some money, yes it might be possible to achieve it for free, (I have played many games like this) but it will always be easier if you just pay with money. Now looking at Sub games that have cash shops, he did state he was looking purely at the Sub vs free-to-play design philosophy. But I will give my added note on that anyway: With WoW, yes they have a cash shop, not one they had from the beginning though, and not one in classic WoW if you play there. In fact the cash is purely cosmetic at the moment so there is no "Oh i'm struggling to upgrade my Tier piece from the raid, guess I'll pay 10$ to guarantee an upgrade" The whole point of the video is to outline the differences in designs and the incentives of developers across different types of games. So to sum up the video: If you make a free-to-play game, your only revenue is the cash shop, so you want people to go the cash shop as much as possible. If its Sub-based, you want people to play for as long as possible, so you make content that will keep people around.

[@MMM1MM]

@@wisedoomy1584 I understood his point entirely, but it's just not the case for a lot of F2P MMOs. They are not always incentivizing you to use the cash shop in order to progress through the game. They'll try to tempt you with cosmetics that aren't necessary, or pets that auto loot for you, which is a Quality of Life feature, sure. EXP boosts are made for players who wish to skip the grind entirely, because they want to start raiding and doing end game content straight away. But for a lot of people, myself included, grinding is part of the game and it's actually fun. I'd never pay for a level boost. I enjoy grinding in MMOs more so than raiding, believe it or not. Subscription based games still use cash shops, they still offer cosmetic items and EXP boosts. The notion that every F2P MMO makes the grind intolerable on purpose, or locks you out of using your inventory etc. is simply not the case. A few games might be utilizing such scummy practices, I'm not denying it. But not the majority, and I have played a ton of F2P MMOs growing up, as well as subscription based ones. The good thing about F2P MMOs is actually the ability to jump in and out of playing whenever you want, without having to pay for a certain time period. There's been times where I paid for a full year of Runescape subscription and quit 2 months later. Bad decision on my part of course, but if I wanted to go back I know that half of my inventory is locked away until I start paying the monthly fee again.

[@wisedoomy1584]

@@MMM1MM If that how you play then its fine, However as long as a game is free-to-play it has to make money somehow. Just cause you believe that you are not being pushed in any way to pay for something because you like the way the game is, doesn't mean its the same with everyone else. As long as the cash shop is the ONLY way for the game to make money, then it HAS TO incentivize players somehow to use it. Developers dont live off the feedback and smiles of players. And yes there are games that have mostly cosmetic shops, I too have played many free to play games, but they are fewer then I think you realize, the vast majority will in some way have cash shops designed to skip some part of the game or improve something that is frustrating. And now let me ask you, if the game was NOT free2play...did not have cash shops to skip certain content...Would developers make the grind just as hard/boring or would they be more incentivized to make it more enjoyable for everyone/most and not just the few people who dont mind really hard grinds. On another note there are not many Sub based games, most have gone the way of the Dodo bird, the few that are left have in some way changed their model and maybe added more stuff to pay for. The reasons being that free games are easier to get a large audience into while still managing to make just as much if not more profit then sub games through cash shops. Its why games like WoW have added a small Cash shop even if its only cosmetic because it will make more money. Now in other games, with BIGGER cash shops, they will bring in even more amounts of cash. Overall my point is, yes there are some games that have cosmetic only in free2play, and sure if you enjoy those kinds of games then all power to you. But unfortunately the majority of free2play games out there do try to push you toward the cash shop even if you don't personally feel that way, it will do so for a majority of the other players. Otherwise the game would not be making enough money to pay everyone that keeps the game running. The very small minority that you can count on one or two hands that are not like that ARE memorable, but still a drop in the bucket compared to the dozens upon dozens of games I have seen that simply try to milk using cash shops.

[@MMM1MM]

@@wisedoomy1584 I hear you and I understand where you're coming from. I never experienced any P2W in F2P MMOs, personally. Nor a big incentive to use their cash shops. Whenever I did spend money, it was because I wanted to have a cosmetic item. But it wasn't necessary in order to enjoy the gameplay and experience the content that those games had to offer. And I do think the majority of MMO players enjoy grinding levels. For those who don't, I'd say they should play a different genre. MOBAs became popular with PvP enthusiasts for that very reason, since their abillities and gear is ready from the get go. Like you said, another good thing about F2P MMOs is their ease of access and bigger playerbases. Only the few MMOs, such as WoW, Final Fantasy and Runescape are able to sustain the subscription model. And yet all of these games have cash shops regardless (with the exception of Oldschool Runescape, but RS3 does). It's no different from MTX in F2P MMOs. Using Maplestory as an example again. That game is all about grinding. Wait, it's all grind? Always has been.👨‍🚀👈👨‍🚀 People enjoy leveling up different classes and seeing their characters power spike. The same goes for a lot of anime MMORPGs, they're grindy by nature, and once you hit the end game it usually comes down to bossing for better gear and rare items (like cosmetic chairs in Maplestory). Another form of grind. I don't agree with the idea that these F2P MMOs are grindy on purpose to encourage the use of real money. Cosmetics are a huge money maker in Maplestory, a bigger source of income than EXP boosts, since cosmetics aren't permanent and need to be replaced continously. Kind of like an optional subscription in that sense. Meanwhile the F2P players can play whenever they want without paying a dime. It's the best of both worlds, in my opinion.

[@gergelyvarju6679]

I see the question a bit differently. There are 4 different monetization options (not only in MMO genre): 1. All users pay (pay to play) 2. Some users pay (free to play) 3. Ad-supported (including sponsor-supported) 4. Volunteer developers pay (Freely licensed open source, etc) As you go down on the list fewer and fewer people pay for the cost of the game, but people who finance the game tend to pay more and more. Sometimes they don't pay with money, but with very valuable work hours. An OpenTTD server with 255 players might have more players than many MMO worlds, with long-term gameplay focus, community, etc it works like many MMO shards, and there are many other freely licensed open source games that have some MMO like elements. Hey, I have seen open-source MMO projects and managed to play some. They have very different problems compared to the "some users pay" type free to play. But let's see only options 1, 2, and 4 for now. 1. If I want to play with my friends, and we play with a subscription-based MMO: Either everyone pays for his game, or you might pay for your friends only. 2. If it would be a free to play game, anyone who is willing to spend money to have fun instead of a chore would pay the costs for much more (potentially unknown and very unfriendly) players 4. There are tutorials, etc that shows you how to make a working MMO, but producing content for your friends would cost so much time and money (stock assets) and you would have to maintain the servers. Even if you would be very good at MMO design you would be too slow at producing content. If it is at least one player willing to pay for the fun you have it is always cheaper to go to a pay-to-play game and finance it for your friends than to go to a free-to-play game and try to buy your way to fun.

[@n0punint3nd3d]

You should add (imo) that FF XIV gives you access to ALL Jobs / Classes the game has to offer, even with only the cheapest subscription. Which is something I have never seen again in any other MMO (granted, I haven't played them all). Also that what you get heavily depends on the developer. After Blizzard changed its name to Activision Blizzard, you can see that A LOT of mounts in the cash shop are a lot more detailed and fun to use / look at than anything you can receive ingame. Same goes for FF XIV. As good as I (personally) think the "lower sub for less slots, without any sacrifice to content" is, Square still charges you (if you actually wish to use the service) monthly for Retainers (an increase in bank slots). So. F2P games just do it for more stuff and a lot more obvious. P2P games are no better. Just different. Maybe a little less impactful.

[@mcernigz]

I think Warframe is one of the only FTP games with a respectful payment model. And I think the design philosophy they have is this, instead of thinking “what can we do to force people to give us money” they think “what can we give people in the game that will make our fans want to support us” Anytime I have ever spent money in that game, it was never to solve a problem, it was literally because they had been so generous that I felt like it was my duty as a player to give them something just so as a way of saying thank you. It’s the only FTP game I’ve ever spent money in because it’s the only time I didn’t feel like I had to, I just wanted to. I want to support the team and their generosity and I think a couple bucks here and there for skins the frames I earned is so fair considering the thousands of hours of quality content they continue offering

[@jasonthaler7328]

just one "word": GW2

[@RyugaHidekiOrRyuzaki]

14:44 It's funny you're showing RIFT in the background at that point, because I was one of the people who had paid for a yearly sub only a few months before it went F2P. They had introduced a special promotion for the 1st expansion Storm Legion.

[@AdonanS]

I noticed a while ago that monthly sub games are usually higher quality, but I only now understand why.

[@yvesgingras1475]

It use to be. Nowday they use the same greedy tactic to get you on their microtransaction store... They are becoming ftp but with a sub fee...

[@fawazgerhard2742]

because it gives the most money for them. personally buy to play is better monetization because like imagine having a shirt but after a month you gotta pay again to use that shirt it doesn't make any sense does it. with buy to play with a single button press you already own a product that you bought. so if you stopped playing the game for months but you wanna play it again you can just download it instantly. thats why many games other than mmos uses only buy to play. mmo industry is different. mmo players usually only play 1 or 2 games but spend hundreds or even thousands of hours into a single game compared to people who actually play video games who only spend a few dozens of hours or even hundreds but have a lot of games owned in order to keep enjoying playing the game, they usually don't like playing the same again over and over again. in order to keep the players keep playing games that is an mmo. game companies needed to add more content into the game but since adding new content costs a lot of money they charge people a monthly fee.

[@fawazgerhard2742]

oh yeah almost forgot that most mmo players love to spend money a lot in a single game Even in wow a game that uses monthly fee also for some greedy reason still has a cash shop lmao wtf. you could argue there are also people who spend money on other games like csgo or tf2 in terms of skins but those skins can be used to earn money by gambling. i don't like gambling but gambling played a big part in a game like csgo. theres this one update where players were raging because the company valve makes it harder for gamblers to exchange in game products with real money or gambling sites. things went to flames.

[@yannickgullentops6857]

Its probably the reverse of what your thinking, mostly a subgame can only survive as a subgame when its popular enough. which is why their are a lot worse f2p games

[@BoomBanticSkull]

The reason some games fail (Wizard101) is because they try to combine both these things, subscription based for more bag space, more content, more everything, but also free to play for the most part but all the cosmetics and all the good weapons are locked behind another paywall, so it encourages you to pay for the subscription AND pay for the other things so you aren't trapped and unable to be stronger

[@varanu7090]

Gacha player be liike: HAHA MONE GOS BRRRRRRRR

[@arrclyde4325]

Sorry, if it wasn't for WOW i would agree with you. But actually the prettiest and mechanical cooler animatied mounts are in the cashshop. And the ingame stuff ist mostly a recolored Beast with a saddle. You could argue that you could get tokens for ingame gold and by them with that..... but than you argue to be able to buy everything on the cashshop from GW2 by converting ingame gold to gems. That takes about as long unless you treat that game as your job.

[@arrclyde4325]

Coming to the end of the video, i see you mix up cause and result when it comes to "subscription based games that turn free to play". They do not turn free to play because they switch from designing for players to designing for payers. Mostly its because "the suits" expect a certain number of playing (and monthly paying) customers when financing a game. Games (like wildstar, SWtOR or Startrek online to name a few) turn free to play because the paying playerbase is lacking far behind expectations. Best example is the Tombraider remake. A game with good critics, fans that love the overhaul. But the publisher (square enix?) Called it a failure, because they just sold (back then) 14 million coppies. So i don't see subbased systems as the best. Especially since the only one still left is WoW. And they are certainly not passionated about providing the best player experience. Its probably the only game with a big enough community to substain a P2P model due to the millions of created accounts. But its heavily timegated (like you mentioned in another viedo is bad, and i agree). And they have a cashshop that sells more than one mount.

[@DarkRyu777]

Sounds good, doesn't work. Just look at WoW. No, its not designed to be as fun as possible in order to retain players. Time gating, excessive loot rng, multiple grindy systems, etc ... Oh, and it still has a cash shop. And no, its not only cosmetic. You can buy gold with money, and with that gold buy BoE gear, pvp and pve boosts, which ARE legal, level boosts, etc etc ... FFXIV is the only game I would say is worth the monthly sub currently, and even that game has a bloody cash shop.

[@Solrac-Siul]

People have been buying gold for years in wow. wiht most of the time that gold coming from accounts there were hacked and stripped - normally because the owner was foolish enough to give his password away after getting a message that his account was abnormal from someone named blizzzardzs.. . The only thing the token does is that it stopped the WTS gold spam and provided a safe avenue to get something that can be converted in gold. Truth is those that purchase the token were already buying gold anyway ....As for the cash shop.. who honestly cares, ... it sells mounts and pets.. if people are after that in wow instead of gear they have a major problem in a game where your actual ability to take part in group content comes from stuff like raider.io , ahead of the curve achievements or pvp ratings - this as a result of the community itself . Having a nice mount will not get anyone anywhere.

[@ShadingNight]

The thing is though, FFXIV's cash shop has cosmetics and 1 form of boosting levels, and even then no one uses it.

[@tadaokou4919]

@@michaelbond4609 B.S.? Why? If you don't like it don't buy it. Game never forces you to look at it. I never knew it existed until someone told me. Just saying "It got a cash-shop so it's bad" is just the opinion of a child. If you don't like it don't pay for it. Easy as that.

[@Jinny-Wa]

@@tadaokou4919 Ignorant people. They have F2P cash shop mindset and think the game is sub + f2p cash shop

[@BroadwayRonMexico]

@@ShadingNight Some people do use it, but its mostly just hardcore glamour collectors and fantasia addicts. Aside from the costumes that belong to other canon characters and the fantasia potions, 90% of the shop is stuff from past seasonal events that most people got for free already.

[@lurchvater2387]

My favorite MMO Model? Play 100% of the well desigbed game for free but donate as much as you are willing or able to. Where do i find that model? Freeshards, Emulators and run by fans Games like SWG Emu, the Warhammer Thing, Legends, CoH....

[@earthwurmjimthefirst]

Are there any mmos with the worst of both worlds?

[@michaelmorrison5280]

World of Warcraft

[@boredfangerrude]

SWTOR.

[@willprotector]

SWOTOR punishes F2P hard, but it does let you keep unlocked content if you sub once. ESO forces you to either buy the content with crowns or pay an ESO plus sub to keep it open. They also make inventory management ridiculous by only allowing you to use the helpful crafting bag with an ESO plus subscription (though they will let you take out what you put in it).

[@KroyGamer79]

I love you man!! I wish TERA never change from monthly sub to F2P, that was the worst decision they made.

[@wolfflaarcen6476]

100% facts. The sub model was always the best deal for the consumer. As soon as players allowed themselves to be convinced that the F2P MTX business model was in their best interests, the MMORPG genre began its inevitable decline.

[@Jeff45910]

What if you had an f2p single player mode to let people play(try) the game and then a minimum monthly subscription for online play to cover server expenses and new content development.

[@Draconicrose]

One thing not mentioned is that sub games are incentivized to make you grind. They will find the balance between wasting your time and not making you quit. WoW is a master at this.

[@charlestrudel8308]

having a sub fee to make sure you play long and hard...

[@bookfish]

Free to play games are also gridy as fuck, to make you play more, so you spend more time in the game -> there's a bigger chance that you'll buy something from the cash shop (or you'll buy some kind of booster).

[@charlestrudel8308]

@@bookfish completely right, and all game with microtransactions are doing the same. including the ones with sub anyway so...

[@crodo123]

I personally only play pay-to-play games but, if I were going to make an MMO I would make it free to play because it just makes economic sense. The issue with f2p games right now is that developers are not creative at all when it comes to monetization, all they think about is how to create problems and sell the solution. However, all you have to do is look at Fortnite for a game making an absurd amount of money without making their game pay to win (at least I never heard anyone complain about that, I've never played Fortnite). When you say your cash shop is cosmetic only there are so many things you can do that in no way dabble in pay-to-win of any kind. Of f2p games, we know a lot sell costumes but how many sell premium skill animations (IE a new animation for an existing skill that doesn't change the skill in any way other than how it looks) how many sell premium character creation options (IE glowing eyes or body markings), how many sell premium housing (IE a bigger more luxurious house that only gives you space to move around and not inventory space or anything like that) How many charge you a little money for every transmog. You can have a F2P game that is completely ethical in its monetization and makes enough money for constant updates.

[@mandisaw]

Well, tbf Fortnite *is* pay-to-win, it's just that the "winning" is about the social aspect, not so much the gameplay. There are news stories & blog posts about kids getting legit bullied & feeling the same kind of peer pressure about Fortnite skins as about IRL school clothes/shoes/jewelry. All those free w/ premium-sub games are basically selling prestige - same as expensive fashion or first-class. It's the idea that you have something other folks don't - *and you can see them / they can see you*. Basically preying on social-class hangups.

[@FoxyNews89]

I still dont see any video on Silkroad Online by Joymax ! Dude you really need to get into that s**t ! YOU ARE NOT READY

[@mandisaw]

As someone developing a TRPG set in the Silk Road - I've been eagerly hoping to find info on how/why that game went under - would love if Josh covered it.

[@FoxyNews89]

@@mandisaw I have been playing it since launch , I played it for 9-10 years until it died, if you need any information I can provide you with anything you need to know

[@mandisaw]

@@FoxyNews89 Easiest question (that's not always easy) - was it fun? Why did you like it?

[@FoxyNews89]

@@mandisaw The Only Fun part about it was the competition i had with my Grp of freinds. Me and my IRL friends got hooked on this game since middle school, and since then we competed for getting the most gold and valuable in game items

[@daryslash]

You're right on paper, but on practice... subscription models also use every other monetization method and make the game not as fun as they could make it. You have cash shop for the best cosmetic items in all of them. You can't get the best skins by just paying the subscription and playing the game. How they manage to still get so many players to play their game is another story and I guess sometimes is only due to brand recognition.

[@WiredRabbit]

I agree that a subscription game would be better but I'd disagree that a pay to play game's main earning tactic is to "make the game as fun as possible". The biggest sub based games do have cash shops to some extent and a common tactic for sub based mmo's is to push gameplay so it takes as long as possible to complete by padding it through limiting content availability (dailies) or by tweaking the rate of progress to just be barely tolerable. I love mmo's regardless of payment model but a good company makes good mmo's. Not a good payment model. If I wanted to be a contrarian I'd even argue free to play has better potential because it statistically has one less method of charging its player base. Truthfully I believe buy to play is the ideal solution. Games lose incentive to trap there player base and are encouraged to attract future players instead.

[@jendubay3782]

There’s another funding method that hasn’t been tried that takes advantage of whales: buy *server* upgrades. The community votes on what upgrades and increases they want, then you put in money to make it happen. Any individual purchases such as costume etc, will be purchased as a group. You buy for yourself and your server. It gets named after your character.

[@nothinphasesme5573]

Hopefully more games do what RuneScape does and add system similar to bonds, where you can pay in-game currency to pay for membership, pretty much self sustaining membership

[@DrGhoztz]

I know its not strictly an MMO but I’d love to see you cover something like Warframe in the future

[@elifasmiguel5526]

For me, monthly subscription is a big reason for not being interested in a game. I don't like the idea of ​​having to pay monthly to continue my "adventure". I think monthly subs pushes people towards the "meta" because they want to try as much as possible before the month is over. And once money was invested, most people felt "obliged" to continue investing so as not to "lose" what has already been invested. I prefer to have the option to pay to improve my experience with the game (not to win) than having to pay to have some experience, but I am against limiting your game mechanics to be able to sell a "better experience". We can say that the sale of cosmetics in a cash shop is a form of limitation because you are limiting access to visuals in the game, but I think it is a relatively acceptable way of generating a financial return. While most games with a monthly subscription allow for some free experience, most do not allow a substantial part of the game, sufficient to create a firm opinion of the game, to be experienced for free. And the investment of the developers in the part of the game that can be tried for free is generally greater than in the other parts of the game and/or the free part is focused on making the non-free part of the game look much better than it really is, making the player have a "wrong" idea of ​​the game. Obviously, this makes total sense from a commercial point of view, every marketable product aims to generate profit and I am not naive to think that games should be different. Therefore, I prefer to pay once to be able to play "forever" (B2P) or to pay only for "extras" and not for the game itself (F2P with cash shop without "pay to win", at least, what I consider "pay to win"). I think it is possible to create a F2P game with a cash shop without "pay to win", profitable. And if we think about it, we all pay something to win, be it time and/or money.

[@ronb7189]

We all would prefer a quality F2P game without a cash shop that sells solutions to players, but that type of game is very, very, very hard to find, as these MMOs are incredibly expensive to make and Cosmetics alone wouldn't bring enough profit, hence, why we rarely see these type of F2P MMOs, the closest example I could think off is probably Path of Exile which still has some pay to get ahead features, but it is much more tame compare to the other F2P games out there. Also, paying with time to win in an MMO is exactly how it should be, in an ideal scenario, time is the only currency we should need in order to excel in the game, that is what everyone who isn't a Whale is looking for, we want to feel content for the time we invested playing the game.

[@elifasmiguel5526]

@@ronb7189 Well, as i wrote in the comment above, we all "pay" something to "win" in a game, be it time and/or money and, if we consider that we could be using that time to make money, we can say that we all pay with "money" to "win", and therefore all games are "pay to win". Also, usually and intentionally, the money you would make, if you used the time it took to get an item in the game, is very much higher than the money you would spend if you bought the item directly for money. So, in this case, theoretically, those who "pay" with time are paying more than those who pay directly with money. Don't get me wrong, I am not validating the idea of "winning" in a game through spending money, I am only making this parallel because I find it an interesting point for reflection. I also think that playing time should be valued more and I don't like to "lose" to a "Whale" despite having invested more time in the game than he/she. Therefore, I have a policy of spending on a game, at most, just what I get through the game (RMT) or a "small" amount, in case I don’t receive anything (beyond fun) through the game, but the game pleases me a lot. And I really think it is possible to create a profitable F2P or B2P (buy to play, with a low purchase value) game with a cash shop without what I consider "pay to win".

[@elifasmiguel5526]

@@ronb7189 Moreover, I believe that methods to pay money directly to "win" in games are implemented out of pure greed and not because the game was not generating profit. The cost of making (and maintaining, in the case of an MMO) a game does not justify the implementation of pay-to-win practices, in my opinion.

[@ronb7189]

@@elifasmiguel5526 MMOs are already much more expensive to make compare to a typical single player game, on top of that, it would need a huge staff for things such as maintaining its servers, security, customer support, programmers to fix bugs and continuously update the game to keep it fresh and so on. Not to mention, the market is already over saturated with MMOs so their is a ton of competition, simply put, making a high quality MMO that is F2P with no pay to win features will likely not even be profitable IMO, their is a reason why their is no examples of such games today and why most high quality MMOs are subscription base and/or sells game updates as expansion packs. F2P MMO is just something to avoid as its either terrible, P2W or both and that is just the nature of the MMO genre itself, its much harder to be that indie developer that makes impressive games when the start up and maintenance cost of quality MMOs (not dead or terrible ones) are pretty high.

[@elifasmiguel5526]

@@ronb7189 Well, then we agree to disagree, because, unless you consider selling cosmetic items in a game for real money as paying to "win", I do not agree that the expense of creating and maintaining a game justifies the inclusion of "pay to win" and much less that all f2p games are terrible, "pay to win" and/or need to be.

[@TearDownGenesis]

The Netflix example of 80% of every film is not far off from what Paramount is doing. They have series like The Office or Parks and Rec there to watch for free but only like the first half of the series (like first 3 seasons or something). I think Star Wars The Old Republic has done a good "Fremium" game. Its free to play but only 1 character, and minimal access to content. BUT. if you subscribe, even for 1 month, you gain access to all content released to that point (that expansion). That says even if you unsubscribe. It has a cash shop, is cosmetic only AND subbing gives you currency to use there. I think its a good option for a game that may not be able to survive as a monthly sub option only. Also, Tiers of Microtransaction sins: 1. Cosmetic Only 2. Time Savers 3. Power ups (strong items, etc.) 4. Anything Random (Gacha, lootboxes, etc.)

[@MrXhukari]

I know I definitely appreciate P2P more; I spend less per month, and enjoyed my time spent more (feels better to work for a cool unlock, than work for a meh unlock and buy the cool one). However, is there any REAL P2P-only games left? Even WoW isn't really. Their cash shop has a ton of cosmetics that look better than the in-game stuff, as well as pay 4 convenience like level level boosts. FF14 has weddings and other stuff, don't they? I know ESO you can buy mounts. GW2 has a lot of convenience and cosmetics. The nearest I know off the top of my head has to be OSRS... but for me at least, that game has some of the least interesting moment-to-moment gameplay. I click a rock. I click a rock. I click a rock.

[@deathminder9206]

I for one dont care about cosmetics, pets, or mounts being paid. I just dont want power or progression being paid for. Plus, while WoW does have cosmetic stuff in the shop they still have cool looking stuff in game. His examples were games where you literally look like shit unless you pay.

[@oliver_twistor]

I couldn't agree more. I like to pay up front for games, or monthly subscriptions (for MMO's). That way, I know exactly how much I'm spending, and I can make an informed decision whether I deem the value I get worth the price. The only free to play titles I play are small casual games, mainly Might & Magic Chess Royale and Dota Underlords. I'm not very invested in those titles as I were in WoW or EVE when I played those back in the day, therefore I don't mind the obvious nudges to pay microtransactions. There is a Swedish saying that I'm probably butchering now when I'm going for a literal translation: "Buying cheap, buying expensive". The meaning is that when being a skinflint, you often end up with a worse bargain than if you spent that little extra. For example if you forego service on your car until the whole thing collapses, and you have to buy a whole new car. I feel that this saying is proper in the context of MMO's. When opting for a free to play game, you're ending up with a worse experience (and probably also a more expensive one). With that said, free to play is a good alternative for those who cannot afford to shell out £15 per month for one game, if they can stay away from the cash shop that is.