Free2Play: Gaming Boon or Bane?

[TriniXaeno]

Free2Play has been the modus for MOBAs (Dota 2, LoL etc..), Flash Games and struggling MMOs for years.

Now we are seeing this model crop up in unusual places.

Fighting Games:Killer Instinct Free2Play, Tekken Revolution Free2Play



FPS /Third Person shooters (Team Fortress 2, BlackLight Retribution, Hawken, Battlefield Play4Free which SUCKS! Tribes Ascend, Planet Side 2, Warframe )

RTS  Games (Command and Conquer Generals 2, Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, Air Mech)



Note, these aren't crappy half rated titles. Some top of the line IPs are heading to the Free2Play block.

It is especially interesting in the fighter genre.

Gone are the days of slaving over the single player story line to "unlock" a character....they give you one to start and charge say US$5.00 for each additional.

I'm a little stoked.

I can literally pay nothing for Tekken, cept maybe $10 to get Bruce and Devil Jin (my two main character) so that is a serious savings over the regular $59.99 price tag.

However, for gamers who play the full gamut of characters available, they will be staring down the barrel of a $250 expenditure to unlock all.

That said, I'm certain they will offer a bundle package where you can unlock the full cast for a special price...something close to the original $59.99

Which would be a best of the both worlds proposition.

Thoughts? Step in the right direction?

Or is Free2Play going to just be a corporate ploy to suck even more dollars out of our wallets.

As it stands right now, in 2013 you literally don't have to pay a red cent to have your fill of a pretty top notch gaming experience.

[woodyear99]

It depends, if implemented right then it is win win for both consumer and publisher. However what hasn't been mentioned is free to play on mobile games.....in app purchases are really annoying, with some games hardly qualifying as "free"

[Arcmanov]

Don't forget the stellar mech-shooter Hawken.

Free-to-play can  be a great thing if done right.





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[MessiaaH]

My take on it is, its brilliant.

If done wrong, it can be the worse thing for consumers, but from what I hearing that wont be the case.
On the killer instinct page I make, I posted an interview with one of the guys from the killer team, and he was asked about the freetoplay model.

Apparently fans was ah bit concerned with the fact that they only getting 1 player for free and they going to get milk to get rest. The guy said they wont have you paying hudnreads of dollors (as wyatt suggest) for the full game. He also confirmed there will be different packages. You can buy the entire game for a flat rate if u want, (im guessing usualy 60$ pricetag) but he said that flat rate is what you'd expect it to be.

He said treat the free game like a demo, so u get the game free, with 1 character, and demo it, with story mode intact, so u can do full story, and go online with 1 character to demo the game. If you like the game, you can then choose to purchase it outright, or just get the characters you want. Or buy different character packs.

Having the option to purchase however you like is brilliant, and I think more games should go that route.
The one thing I think all games should have is demos. The lack of demos leads to the reliance on reviews and piracy to see if you like the game or not. In the case of SP games, most ppl once pirated, tell theyself what's the point, just finish beat it. But providing a demo gives the consumer the chance to see if they want it, then buy d full thing after.

So the Killer Instinct freetoplay model is like an advanced demo system with a lot more content than a typical demo, with the flexibility to purchase outright , in parts, or bits.

So consumers win, publishers win, developers win. Then they can always have character packs later on, like DLC type content, but not having to pay for a whole dlc, if u just want 1 of the new specific characters for instance. Save paying for a 20$ dlc, yuh pay ah 2$ for just the bits you want. Genius.

Once consumers understand the model, and once prices per character is fair as the Killer Team say sit will be, then everybody Wins.

[MessiaaH]

For Reference:

[woodyear99]

That is a great model indeed. Though on mobile it is literally pay to play in many instances, with developers milking people with iaps. Glad to see how these fighter games doing it

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[Arcmanov]

...which is what Capcom should have been doing YEARS ago, but because of TriniWyatt, we had to endure endless 'new' iterations and asinine DLC.

I hope they taking notes.





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[TriniXaeno]

The killer instinct implementation is ABSOLUTELY brilliant.

I'll echo what Woody said. On the mobile platform....free2play is very annoying.

You'd be smart to pay for a "full version" just to avoid the "in your face" marketing schemes to get you paying to play.

A lot of pay to win crap as well. If you don't buy the powerups for real money, you're pretty much dead meat.

Some games strike a perfect balance (like Temple Run) but let us hope this sort of model delivered by the console makers filters its way down to the mobile world.

Especially as the next generation of mobile devices will be able to deliver a stronger gaming experience thanks to Tegra 4, 5 and 6

Note, Tegra 6 (due in 2015) is going to be 100 times faster than Tegra 2. Take that Moore's law! lol

[TriniXaeno]

Well I got some hands on with Tekken Revolution.....which is free2play as mentioned above.

Turns out, they opted for a weird facebook type f2p model.

You know those games that give you a certain amount of "energy" for the day and once it is gone.....you have to wait a certain amount of time for it to replenish? Yeah. Like that.

You can't pay to unlock characters....instead....they are randomly unlocked as you acquire more gift points.

What you can pay for, is more "energy" to continue playing arcade mode and online play.

Really odd.

Early days still....so I'll keep playing and see if they change it based on feedback from the fighting community.

The Killer Instinct model makes a helluva lot more sense. Dunno wtf Namco was thinking.

[MessiaaH]

Agreed, KI model makes much more sense.
Btw, I heard the Tekken  is a....wait for it....always online game? No offline play? On a ....sony system? Say it aint so.

[TriniXaeno]

Well it has an arcade mode which I suspect you can play offline. (didn't try to myself as yet but I can't imagine the game just shutting down if I unplugged my network cable)

Not a big deal, since it is a digital download only. To get the game you'd have to be online to download it from PSN in the first place. lol

Offline gamers need not apply.




Here is a little more of a write up on the F2P model  from the creators.....makes a little more sense.....but I still prefer Killer Instincts approach.

Series director and producer Katsuhiro Harada likens it to a “virtual arcade.” Players use digital coins to play matches, and everyone gets an allotment of free coins that replenish over time (Namco Bandai did not say how long it would take for these Arcade Coins to refill). Versus Coins are for player or ranked matches, and these refill for free every 30 minutes.
You can also buy premium coins, and you can use these like real-life quarters in an arcade machine. If you win a match against an opponent, you get to keep your coin. Harada stressed that the premium coins are optional — anyone who wants to play for free can simply wait for their coins to refill.

Read more at http://venturebeat.com/2013/06/11/namco-bandai-launches-free-to-play-fighting-game-tekken-revolution-for-playstation-network/#9w9s01bdrwxpljgV.99

And some more details here, with pricing

Coins, tickets and premium coins

• New coins appear after a certain amount of time — regardless if you're online or offline, so you can shut down your PS3 without worry and come back to a fresh amount of coins to use.

• Arcade Coins allow you to play arcade mode, you can have a max of 2 at one time, and a new coin comes up every 60 minutes.

• Battle Coins allow you to play the online ranked and player match modes. You can have a max of 5, and a new one comes up automatically every 30 minutes.

• Premium Tickets are awarded to you by accomplishing various feats, like beating arcade mode and such. You can use a premium ticket to play arcade or ranked mode if you're out of coins.

• You can hold a max of 999 Premium Tickets, and if you use one to play an online match, and you win that match, you'll earn another Premium Ticket as a prize. If you lose that online match, you'll gain more XP than you otherwise would have.

• Premium Coins work the same way as Premium Tickets, except you have to purchase these. Here's the pricing structure, all in USD.
- 4 for 99 cents.
- 10 for $1.99.
- 30 for $4.99.