Starbreeze is "never going to do free-to-play"

Personally, I prefer the pay-to-play model, providing that it doesn't exceed the $15/month mark. That puts everyone on an even playing field.

However, the MMO space is moving into a F2P model as a whole, and I think it is naive and premature for him to say that they will "never" go F2P. Numerous large MMO's that had dwindling subscription numbers have moved and are moving into the F2P space and are subsequently seeing renewed interest. Many spring to mind, such as Dungeons & Dragons Online, Everquest II, Star Trek Online and more recently Vanguard: Saga of Heroes (which I will definitely be picking up now!). If it's so expensive to move to F2P, why are so many MMO's doing it?
 
Lydon said:
Personally, I think it is naive and premature for him to say that they will "never" go F2P
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I completely agree. Never say never (not a justin beiber reference). Especially if you are representing an entire company.
To answer your question: it's expensive because you don't see any money during the development or on release of the title.
You can't make people pre-order because it's going to be free anyway and you loose a lot of the initial income, the money only comes in a bit later
when people get into the game and want to experience more. In the long run F2P could be a good move for your game but you don't get that initial income needed to support your development costs. I think that's what he means with it's expensive.
 
Weeman360 said:
I completely agree. Never say never (not a justin beiber reference). Especially if you are representing an entire company.
To answer your question: it's expensive because you don't see any money during the development or on release of the title.
You can't make people pre-order because it's going to be free anyway and you loose a lot of the initial income, the money only comes in a bit later
when people get into the game and want to experience more. In the long run F2P could be a good move for your game but you don't get that initial income needed to support your development costs. I think that's what he means with it's expensive.
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That makes sense, but at the same time many companies started out with pay to play models, which provided them with initial income, but were forced to move over to F2P once subscriptions started dwindling.

Perhaps companies need to rethink the manner in which they fund development in order to keep up with the times instead.
 
Lydon said:
That makes sense, but at the same time many companies started out with pay to play models, which provided them with initial income, but were forced to move over to F2P once subscriptions started dwindling.
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The key word there is subscriptions. People don't want to keep paying for a game, with f2p when you pay you get new things, things you want. I believe that's the main reason these MMO's are switching over
 
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