I now have to wonder what an F2P MMO they made would be like.
not sure I want to know.... some thing in the back of my head thinks it'd have paid season updates.
Personally, I'd rather a subscription model. The quality and support of the games that still use it are head and shoulders above what the vast majority of F2P games offer, even AAA titles. IMO at least.
My guess is "hope" keeps people not playing but posting on the forums. For others, its a path of sad realization and closure. Grieving takes time. The worst "haters" here love the game, or did at some point.
^ Agreed. Although it's probably risky to be Sub-only unless you have a core following already (EVE Online). Recall, City of Heroes/Villains went to F2P because subs were dropping (at least that's what I recall), and ultimately they closed doors anyway.
Personally, I'd rather a subscription model. The quality and support of the games that still use it are head and shoulders above what the vast majority of F2P games offer, even AAA titles. IMO at least.
But unfortunately subscription games are now a thing of the past. I don't think many new mmos will go subscription when they can do the F2P.
^ Agreed. Although it's probably risky to be Sub-only unless you have a core following already (EVE Online). Recall, City of Heroes/Villains went to F2P because subs were dropping (at least that's what I recall), and ultimately they closed doors anyway.
Yeah sub model holds you to a REALLY high standard these days, despite the fact that F2P players seem to spend a lot more on their games than sub players do...multiple threads have cropped up in the last few days where people admit to having spent an average of $2000 in STO...that's 20 years of of the average yearly sub in subscription MMOs. Some have spent that in a 2 years or less in STO. For less content than some of the better long standing MMOs have in a single zone.
I would find if baffling if I hadn't got suckered in by my own fandom and tendencies at one point as well.
My guess is "hope" keeps people not playing but posting on the forums. For others, its a path of sad realization and closure. Grieving takes time. The worst "haters" here love the game, or did at some point.
But unfortunately subscription games are now a thing of the past. I don't think many new mmos will go subscription when they can do the F2P.
I think you will see it swing back the other way to be honest - the fact that some countries are now starting to regulate how game transactions are dealt with may start to make the F2P/freemium model just risky enough that you may see a shift.
I think the WoW/Anarchy Online model, with a fair bit of the game F2P (in AO's case, the entire original game) and just the expansion content locked behind a paywall is going to become common again - most of the industry just skipped that stage and moved to straight freemium as it is the absoloute most profitable model in the short term.
I think the days of freemium are numbered, because, as evidenced in the outcry surrounding DR, gamers aren't stupid, and it is possible to take it too far.
My guess is "hope" keeps people not playing but posting on the forums. For others, its a path of sad realization and closure. Grieving takes time. The worst "haters" here love the game, or did at some point.
^ THAT is an interesting observation. Frankly it's eye-opening to me. Then again, maybe because of the F2P model, people *have* to spend more money than on a sub. Also, without a sub model, the game company cannot easily forcast budgets to create content at a reliable pace or quality?
^ THAT is an interesting observation. Frankly it's eye-opening to me. Then again, maybe because of the F2P model, people *have* to spend more money than on a sub. Also, without a sub model, the game company cannot easily forcast budgets to create content at a reliable pace or quality?
I think that's part of it too - F2P content creation tends to operate in boom/bust modes, and a single failed boom can spell the doom of a game. Thing is, even if you kill the game with some bad decisions, you have made an enormous profit off of it already - there is really no motivation to keep the game longer than you absolutely have to - it's more expensive to fix a totally broken and depopularized game than it is to create a new one.
Back to my previous example - Anarchy Online has been running for 13 years. It was actually the first MMO to run a real F2P program. Sure, the subscriber base is maybe 1 or 2 thousand paying players right now, but it STILL turns a profit - it has tons upon tons of content, and zero timegating (except for one poorly thought out upgrade system, which is not critical anyway). Sure the updates are few and far between these days, and the new graphics engine has seen some serious delays, but it's STILL alive, and STILL on the sub model because they have a predictable revenue stream, and really do evolve the game to suit the players.
The long term strategy works, as long as you can cut costs when you need to, and keep the game fun enough to keep people coming back. I started playing AO 13 years ago - I have taken breaks, as long as a year at a time, but I still come back, like clockwork. I wish I could say I have the same feelings about STO - I really do - I want to love this game.
My guess is "hope" keeps people not playing but posting on the forums. For others, its a path of sad realization and closure. Grieving takes time. The worst "haters" here love the game, or did at some point.
The next Trek MMO is coming from NGames. They purchased a license back in June to do a new Trek MMO set in Fluidic Space. Their initial press release was Here.
There's the Starcraft clone called Star Trek: Alien Domain set in 25th century fluidic space.
I would be most excited about a Telltale Games Trek game. That was something I used to talk a lot about with Mark Valentine from Cryptic and Grand Nagus here.
I would be most excited about a Telltale Games Trek game. That was something I used to talk a lot about with Mark Valentine from Cryptic and Grand Nagus here.
Yeah, Telltale could do such a great job with the IP. Very much like the best of the old Dos Trek games - Final Unity was very much in the vein and was beautiful Trek.
My guess is "hope" keeps people not playing but posting on the forums. For others, its a path of sad realization and closure. Grieving takes time. The worst "haters" here love the game, or did at some point.
Yeah, Telltale could do such a great job with the IP. Very much like the best of the old Dos Trek games - Final Unity was very much in the vein and was beautiful Trek.
I used to talk about that with a few game developer folks (including Cryptic folks) actually (before Telltale took off) and they all said that they'd want to play a game like that and they'd make a game like that but that their metrics said a game like that wouldn't work and that they were bummed because the type of game they wanted to play and make wasn't commercially viable and never would be again based on the numbers.
For me, the success of Telltale suggests that vision and differentiation can trump metrics. And this has been affirmed by my (nearly complete) MBA studies. You have some very prominent business theorists who talk about this in a broad sense. A big one is Michael Porter, who teaches business at Harvard.
Basically, Porter says that businesses can engage in a price war and strive to continuously improve operational effectiveness based on metrics but that they don't end up capturing VALUE. The value goes to customers, suppliers/subcontractors, creditors, and/or shareholders past a certain point, particularly as you strive to drive price down and compete on price. I think F2P follows a variant of that and a part of why it's such an Asian strategy is that it aligns with Asian low-cost leader models. (Yes, F2P relies on whales too which is why it's a very modern Asian strategy but it minimizes spending/generosity in certain areas, can downplay quality, and even with whales the average cost per user is low because so many are free.) I think it plays well to the mentality businesses and business leaders have in a low-cost market. "We can make it and we can make it cheaper and leaner and we can charge less per buyer."
Porter argues against the low-cost leader model and says businesses should create value that justifies a higher price.
But the big thing Porter says is that if you make purely metric based decisions and ratchet up operations and efficiency, you end up doing the same thing as everyone else in your field. Because everyone is doing it. When everyone strives for improved operations and perfect metrics, the only differences between businesses in a field boil down to how good their metrics are and any successful strategy will be copied by competitors. You have nothing uniquely desirable about what you're producing at that point.
Porter says that when faced with a low-cost model among competitors, the best competitive move is to up value, not lower price. And to up product value in a unique way, in a way which has risks and tradeoffs that your competitors won't be willing to copy, which nobody but your business would be suited to doing. If you have a lot of cash like EA, maybe creating a $200 million, fully-voiced game is how you do that. There are barriers other companies can't cross to copy your product.
I think the only thing like that for Cryptic boils down to intellectual property, both licensed stuff they have a legal monopoly on (ie. Star Trek MMO, Neverwinter MMO) or their actual art assets and customization options. But their overall business model is copyable and cost minimizing. And seems to be following a milking strategy rather than a customer value approach. The milking approach really banks heavily on the IP or product loyalty of your customers.
And even if Cryptic/PWE has patents on some of their grind mechanisms, you can't really patent a Skinner box so it offers you minimal competitive edge or product differentiation because you'll be swamped with rivals who do the exact same Skinner box approach or better.
I think the main problem is that the questions they ask are the wrong questions, or at least they are leading to the wrong results.
Think about a doctor with a patient which has problems to breath.
PWE/Criptic asks for the Problem and there thoughts must be: The Patient has problems to breath because he is conscious...so they induce a coma...
This may help with the breathing issue....but well....let's just say it isn't the OPTIMAL solution...
In other words: they want us to play more....so they try to force us to do so....at any cost...
And none of them is even thinking about the cost: less fun for the Player -> No Fun -> nobody wants to play anymore.
Instead they sould ask themselfs:
Would I play my game?
And would I have fun doing so?
The players would automaticly spent more time in a game if it's fun....
But those questions are way too simply, in the modern world everything has to be over complicatet....
On an other note: Those 'We must get the player to spent more time ingame' would work way better if the players wouldn't know they are even asking this questions. The way the do it is so obvious....and thats a big part of the problem. No one wants to be manipulated...if you know there is someone trying to manipulate you, you won't react the way they want you to.... and all those fine metrics are useless....
My guess is "hope" keeps people not playing but posting on the forums. For others, its a path of sad realization and closure. Grieving takes time. The worst "haters" here love the game, or did at some point.
I used to talk about that with a few game developer folks (including Cryptic folks) actually (before Telltale took off) and they all said that they'd want to play a game like that and they'd make a game like that but that their metrics said a game like that wouldn't work and that they were bummed because the type of game they wanted to play and make wasn't commercially viable and never would be again based on the numbers.
....
I wont get as far as calling this completely wrong, but the sheer interesst in crowdfunding games shows that games CAN make profit, even if the metrics say otherwise.
Best example: Star Citizen
As far as i know (granted i may be wrong, i can't look everyting up at the moment) he only took the crowdfunding path because the metrics stated no one wants a 'Wing Comander'-like game anymore....
I wont get as far as calling this completely wrong, but the sheer interesst in crowdfunding games shows that games CAN make profit, even if the metrics say otherwise.
Best example: Star Citizen
As far as i know (granted i may be wrong, i can't look everyting up at the moment) he only took the crowdfunding path because the metrics stated no one wants a 'Wing Comander'-like game anymore....
You have to also keep in mind that crowdfunding doesn't always go very well, and it still is a relatively new thing - STO couldn't really be crowdfunded because when Perpetual first started it, there really wasn't such a thing.
And yeah, metrics are not the be-all and end-all determining factor of what will make money. That was the whole point.
My guess is "hope" keeps people not playing but posting on the forums. For others, its a path of sad realization and closure. Grieving takes time. The worst "haters" here love the game, or did at some point.
You can have me if you want. In a completely hetero way.
Seriously though, if my return to school for game design (no, not from an online college, a real one) pans out, I'm gonna find you and hire you.
Haha. Thanks.
The big thing and TLDR is this:
If you want to up profits in the longterm, you can't race the market in whatever direction the market is going. You have to buck market trends in a way that pleases customers more and in a way that none of your competitors could do as well as you could do. You can't say, "We're going to copy all the features that work."
People accuse WoW of doing that and, sure, they have elements of Pokemon, Galaxies, Everquest, Guild Wars, etc. But they also have unique features and their differentiator is probably polish and quality support in the form of customer phone support. They've pushed expansions back before.
I can remember a lot of good feedback for STO over the last 5 years where somebody suggested a feature that would be unique to STO and the Cryptic response was, "MMOs don't do that." And that's precisely why so many of those suggestions would have been good ideas. Because nobody else did them. It would have been a product differentiator. Conforming to or innovating in the direction of an existing successful model is a race to the bottom.
Again, maybe if you hadn't given them money for 2½ years of litterly deleting, nerfing and killing everything in the whole game, them words might carry weight.
Problem is they are making money - probably even more than before, upgrading just 1 ship costs more than 10 c-store ships, and don't tell me the whales, minus you and 1-2 other ones, aren't eating it up raw.
Well now you going to feel what it's been like being me ever since 7 trying to save people from themselves
In the end you have to laugh at it all though, like my favorte guy in the world always says, you can't fix stupid, you can't!
Again, maybe if you hadn't given them money for 2½ years of litterly deleting, nerfing and killing everything in the whole game, them words might carry weight.
Problem is they are making money - probably even more than before, upgrading just 1 ship costs more than 10 c-store ships, and don't tell me the whales, minus you and 1-2 other ones, aren't eating it up raw.
Well now you going to feel what it's been like being me ever since 7 trying to save people from themselves
In the end you have to laugh at it all though, like my favorte guy in the world always says, you can't fix stupid, you can't!
I stopped giving them money over a year ago when a) I realized how much I was really spending, and b) when the spiral into bad got really bad.
I am used to playing MMOs where player feedback is somewhat regarded by the teams, and there just isn't the cashgrab mentality - I have always felt that paying for a product gives you more of a voice in it's future. In Cryptic/PWEs case, that is wrong.
Yes, I should have stopped feeding them cash earlier. Some of us are more hopeful than others. You are right, a lot of us fed the machine. We have stopped now. Give it a rest.
My guess is "hope" keeps people not playing but posting on the forums. For others, its a path of sad realization and closure. Grieving takes time. The worst "haters" here love the game, or did at some point.
The epic painful grinding that is apparently the MMO norm is the reason no other MMO has ever had any of my money. STO was different when I started playing but it's choice to follow the MMO market may well mean it follows its peers down the toilet.
The epic painful grinding that is apparently the MMO norm is the reason no other MMO has ever had any of my money. STO was different when I started playing but it's choice to follow the MMO market may well mean it follows its peers down the toilet.
It didn't used to be the norm. UO, AC, AO, EQ, those weren't grinders. Those were sandboxes. Over time, the ones that remain have become a bit more grindy, but not to the extent of modern titles. It still depends tho - a few like The Secret World are still not true grinders, but sadly they are also not true successes.
My guess is "hope" keeps people not playing but posting on the forums. For others, its a path of sad realization and closure. Grieving takes time. The worst "haters" here love the game, or did at some point.
You have to also keep in mind that crowdfunding doesn't always go very well, and it still is a relatively new thing - STO couldn't really be crowdfunded because when Perpetual first started it, there really wasn't such a thing.
And yeah, metrics are not the be-all and end-all determining factor of what will make money. That was the whole point.
I only used the crowdfunding argument to state that those almighty metrics...well aren't almighty at all...
Even if a game is a product, it should be fun... if the players have fun, they will spend money.
I only used Star Citizen as a sample...because it fits perfectly, this game isn't even launched and the players throw more and more money towards it. Why? Because it seems to be what the players want (we will find out if it is once it is launched) regardless what the metrics said...
It didn't used to be the norm. UO, AC, AO, EQ, those weren't grinders. Those were sandboxes. Over time, the ones that remain have become a bit more grindy, but not to the extent of modern titles. It still depends tho - a few like The Secret World are still not true grinders, but sadly they are also not true successes.
The important question here is "Why did Game X die and Game Y prosper?" In some cases.... it seems that the game suffered from a lack of funding from it's players.
The important question here is "Why did Game X die and Game Y prosper?" In some cases.... it seems that the game suffered from a lack of funding from it's players.
Truly, if you look, the ones that were willing to evolve, especially when it comes to modernizing the game systems, are still around. The ones that died were the ones where development completely stopped and the game stagnated. Even negative changes can be beneficial when the developers react and create a positive response.
Actually, looking back, none of the MMOs I mentioned (Ultima Online, Asheron's Call (although AC2 died), Anarchy Online, and Everquest), which are the true granddaddys of the genre are gone. They have all continued to evolve, and none have devolved into complete P2W slapdash cashgrabs. All of them have a decade or more under their belts, and aren't looking like they are going to die anytime soon.
Those were the games that did sandbox adventure well, and still don't have full F2P models.
My guess is "hope" keeps people not playing but posting on the forums. For others, its a path of sad realization and closure. Grieving takes time. The worst "haters" here love the game, or did at some point.
I'm glad this thread was written, because I think I finally understand what the current anti-DR protest seems to be about. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but it sounds like what the naysayers are really against is MMOs in general, or at least what the MMO genre almost universally is these days. I've played MMORPGs since EQ, including, WoW, EvE, TSW, SWTOR, LoTRO, EQII, Pirates of the Burning Sea, COH, ESO (beta) and probably a couple others I can't recall. Frankly all of them suffer from the same thing you seem to be railing against.
Ultimately every MMO is a hamster wheels that depends on grinding. Different MMOs have different levels of story content that exist almost purely for narrative's sake, but by endgame they all devolve into grinds of various sorts. All a subscription model does is help diffuse the realization that eventually you are paying to repeat the same content over and over in the hope of getting that next McGuffin you "need" to make your character "better." STO is no different, in that regard, and asking Cyrptic to try to unilaterally change the genre, just isn't realistic.
But no one is "forcing you" to repeat the content, so long as you are willing to accept that you don't really need that next McGuffin. Is Mk XIV gear really that much better than Mk XIII? What is that extra 1.2% crit really going to get you that you don't already have? Rather then hate the grind, isn't the real problem that the content has run out and is no longer interesting?
I accept I could be oversimplifying or completely missing the argument/issue. But it seems that the real question some people are asking themselves is "do I want to play MMOs any more."
I'm glad this thread was written, because I think I finally understand what the current anti-DR protest seems to be about. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but it sounds like what the naysayers are really against is MMOs in general, or at least what the MMO genre almost universally is these days. I've played MMORPGs since EQ, including, WoW, EvE, TSW, SWTOR, LoTRO, EQII, Pirates of the Burning Sea, COH, ESO (beta) and probably a couple others I can't recall. Frankly all of them suffer from the same thing you seem to be railing against.
Ultimately every MMO is a hamster wheels that depends on grinding. Different MMOs have different levels of story content that exist almost purely for narrative's sake, but by endgame they all devolve into grinds of various sorts. All a subscription model does is help diffuse the realization that eventually you are paying to repeat the same content over and over in the hope of getting that next McGuffin you "need" to make your character "better." STO is no different, in that regard, and asking Cyrptic to try to unilaterally change the genre, just isn't realistic.
But no one is "forcing you" to repeat the content, so long as you are willing to accept that you don't really need that next McGuffin. Is Mk XIV gear really that much better than Mk XIII? What is that extra 1.2% crit really going to get you that you don't already have? Rather then hate the grind, isn't the real problem that the content has run out and is no longer interesting?
I accept I could be oversimplifying or completely missing the argument/issue. But it seems that the real question some people are asking themselves is "do I want to play MMOs any more."
This is where you are wrong - you aren't really missing the issue, but it's a difference of degrees. Many of the MMOs you list aren't grindfests in the same way, because the intent of the grind is different. In all of PWE's current games, the grind exists to push the monetization, and ONLY to push the monetization. Everything, and I mean literally everything in DR has one design philosophy behind it, and that is to increase impulse and incidental sale.
Not only that, but a fair amount of the games you mentioned still have a functional subscription model. That prioritizes content quality and player engagement over just selling shinies, or dilithium to buy shinies, in the shop.
There is a difference in the very core of PWE games.
With almost all of the other MMOs you mention, the grinds are extensions to the experience - there is, in almost all of them, at least a bit of open world, a bit of true sandbox where you legitimately don't need endgame gear to go around doing stuff with friends. This is true in EQ, WoW, TSW, and many more. There is nothing in STO, outside the story missions, that involves progression and is not merely a timegated grind. There just isn't.
The XP rewards, the Dilithium rewards, EC drops are very, very carefully balanced to ensure maximum impetus towards using the shop. The purchases don't enhance endgame content - to participate in elite queues, it is virtually necessary to purchase a ship, whether a Tier 6, or a T5, plus a fleet module, plus an upgrade.
The problem is that it is insulting, and maddening [edit: to myself and many others, I don't mean to imply that EVERYONE should feel insulted and angry, if you legitimately don't feel the difference between the STO grind and other MMO grinds, then more power to you - I've played all those games and more, and the PWE notion of player grind is very, very, very different on both the design level, and the subjective experience level]
It's not the artist's fault - looking at the story missions, there is real love for Trek in many of them. It's the beancounters that have tabulated the game for maximum impulse spending cash flow, and nothing else - not even long term stability.
My guess is "hope" keeps people not playing but posting on the forums. For others, its a path of sad realization and closure. Grieving takes time. The worst "haters" here love the game, or did at some point.
My guess is "hope" keeps people not playing but posting on the forums. For others, its a path of sad realization and closure. Grieving takes time. The worst "haters" here love the game, or did at some point.
With nine toons all with mixes and multiples of Mk XII Borg, Dyson, Nukara, Undine and Jem'Hadar equipment, to suggest that (in my case at least) I have a problem with grind simply doesn't stack up.
What I have a problem with is inconsistency and rapidfire change to shoehorn me into somewhere that I don't like playing.
Let's put this into a different context. Let's say that the devs decided that the "big thing" was R&D old-style, in Memory Alpha/First City. So they start by cajoling people, then they stop bothering with fixing other areas. Then they rejig points so the only thing really giving out much XP was R&D in those two areas. So there you are, wanting to play PvE, or patrols in Tau Dewa, or Delta Quadrant, or missions... but none of those give out much reward.
If this were what was happening, would people be still so quick to demand that "just play the game and enjoy it, don't worry about the rewards!"
If this were what was happening, would people be still so quick to demand that "just play the game and enjoy it, don't worry about the rewards!"
I doubt it.
You are correct, but the way it is now, there is a big picture involved, and a lot of people have trouble perceiving big pictures - if anything is to be learned from human history, that's it.
By the way, counting down the time until someone accuses you of simply using reductio ad absurdum to make your point. You know someone will take offense to that.
My guess is "hope" keeps people not playing but posting on the forums. For others, its a path of sad realization and closure. Grieving takes time. The worst "haters" here love the game, or did at some point.
Comments
Personally, I'd rather a subscription model. The quality and support of the games that still use it are head and shoulders above what the vast majority of F2P games offer, even AAA titles. IMO at least.
But unfortunately subscription games are now a thing of the past. I don't think many new mmos will go subscription when they can do the F2P.
Yeah sub model holds you to a REALLY high standard these days, despite the fact that F2P players seem to spend a lot more on their games than sub players do...multiple threads have cropped up in the last few days where people admit to having spent an average of $2000 in STO...that's 20 years of of the average yearly sub in subscription MMOs. Some have spent that in a 2 years or less in STO. For less content than some of the better long standing MMOs have in a single zone.
I would find if baffling if I hadn't got suckered in by my own fandom and tendencies at one point as well.
I think you will see it swing back the other way to be honest - the fact that some countries are now starting to regulate how game transactions are dealt with may start to make the F2P/freemium model just risky enough that you may see a shift.
I think the WoW/Anarchy Online model, with a fair bit of the game F2P (in AO's case, the entire original game) and just the expansion content locked behind a paywall is going to become common again - most of the industry just skipped that stage and moved to straight freemium as it is the absoloute most profitable model in the short term.
I think the days of freemium are numbered, because, as evidenced in the outcry surrounding DR, gamers aren't stupid, and it is possible to take it too far.
I think that's part of it too - F2P content creation tends to operate in boom/bust modes, and a single failed boom can spell the doom of a game. Thing is, even if you kill the game with some bad decisions, you have made an enormous profit off of it already - there is really no motivation to keep the game longer than you absolutely have to - it's more expensive to fix a totally broken and depopularized game than it is to create a new one.
Back to my previous example - Anarchy Online has been running for 13 years. It was actually the first MMO to run a real F2P program. Sure, the subscriber base is maybe 1 or 2 thousand paying players right now, but it STILL turns a profit - it has tons upon tons of content, and zero timegating (except for one poorly thought out upgrade system, which is not critical anyway). Sure the updates are few and far between these days, and the new graphics engine has seen some serious delays, but it's STILL alive, and STILL on the sub model because they have a predictable revenue stream, and really do evolve the game to suit the players.
The long term strategy works, as long as you can cut costs when you need to, and keep the game fun enough to keep people coming back. I started playing AO 13 years ago - I have taken breaks, as long as a year at a time, but I still come back, like clockwork. I wish I could say I have the same feelings about STO - I really do - I want to love this game.
There's the Starcraft clone called Star Trek: Alien Domain set in 25th century fluidic space.
I would be most excited about a Telltale Games Trek game. That was something I used to talk a lot about with Mark Valentine from Cryptic and Grand Nagus here.
Yeah, Telltale could do such a great job with the IP. Very much like the best of the old Dos Trek games - Final Unity was very much in the vein and was beautiful Trek.
I used to talk about that with a few game developer folks (including Cryptic folks) actually (before Telltale took off) and they all said that they'd want to play a game like that and they'd make a game like that but that their metrics said a game like that wouldn't work and that they were bummed because the type of game they wanted to play and make wasn't commercially viable and never would be again based on the numbers.
For me, the success of Telltale suggests that vision and differentiation can trump metrics. And this has been affirmed by my (nearly complete) MBA studies. You have some very prominent business theorists who talk about this in a broad sense. A big one is Michael Porter, who teaches business at Harvard.
Basically, Porter says that businesses can engage in a price war and strive to continuously improve operational effectiveness based on metrics but that they don't end up capturing VALUE. The value goes to customers, suppliers/subcontractors, creditors, and/or shareholders past a certain point, particularly as you strive to drive price down and compete on price. I think F2P follows a variant of that and a part of why it's such an Asian strategy is that it aligns with Asian low-cost leader models. (Yes, F2P relies on whales too which is why it's a very modern Asian strategy but it minimizes spending/generosity in certain areas, can downplay quality, and even with whales the average cost per user is low because so many are free.) I think it plays well to the mentality businesses and business leaders have in a low-cost market. "We can make it and we can make it cheaper and leaner and we can charge less per buyer."
Porter argues against the low-cost leader model and says businesses should create value that justifies a higher price.
But the big thing Porter says is that if you make purely metric based decisions and ratchet up operations and efficiency, you end up doing the same thing as everyone else in your field. Because everyone is doing it. When everyone strives for improved operations and perfect metrics, the only differences between businesses in a field boil down to how good their metrics are and any successful strategy will be copied by competitors. You have nothing uniquely desirable about what you're producing at that point.
Porter says that when faced with a low-cost model among competitors, the best competitive move is to up value, not lower price. And to up product value in a unique way, in a way which has risks and tradeoffs that your competitors won't be willing to copy, which nobody but your business would be suited to doing. If you have a lot of cash like EA, maybe creating a $200 million, fully-voiced game is how you do that. There are barriers other companies can't cross to copy your product.
I think the only thing like that for Cryptic boils down to intellectual property, both licensed stuff they have a legal monopoly on (ie. Star Trek MMO, Neverwinter MMO) or their actual art assets and customization options. But their overall business model is copyable and cost minimizing. And seems to be following a milking strategy rather than a customer value approach. The milking approach really banks heavily on the IP or product loyalty of your customers.
And even if Cryptic/PWE has patents on some of their grind mechanisms, you can't really patent a Skinner box so it offers you minimal competitive edge or product differentiation because you'll be swamped with rivals who do the exact same Skinner box approach or better.
Think about a doctor with a patient which has problems to breath.
PWE/Criptic asks for the Problem and there thoughts must be: The Patient has problems to breath because he is conscious...so they induce a coma...
This may help with the breathing issue....but well....let's just say it isn't the OPTIMAL solution...
In other words: they want us to play more....so they try to force us to do so....at any cost...
And none of them is even thinking about the cost: less fun for the Player -> No Fun -> nobody wants to play anymore.
Instead they sould ask themselfs:
Would I play my game?
And would I have fun doing so?
The players would automaticly spent more time in a game if it's fun....
But those questions are way too simply, in the modern world everything has to be over complicatet....
On an other note: Those 'We must get the player to spent more time ingame' would work way better if the players wouldn't know they are even asking this questions. The way the do it is so obvious....and thats a big part of the problem. No one wants to be manipulated...if you know there is someone trying to manipulate you, you won't react the way they want you to.... and all those fine metrics are useless....
You can have me if you want. In a completely hetero way.
Seriously though, if my return to school for game design (no, not from an online college, a real one) pans out, I'm gonna find you and hire you.
I wont get as far as calling this completely wrong, but the sheer interesst in crowdfunding games shows that games CAN make profit, even if the metrics say otherwise.
Best example: Star Citizen
As far as i know (granted i may be wrong, i can't look everyting up at the moment) he only took the crowdfunding path because the metrics stated no one wants a 'Wing Comander'-like game anymore....
You have to also keep in mind that crowdfunding doesn't always go very well, and it still is a relatively new thing - STO couldn't really be crowdfunded because when Perpetual first started it, there really wasn't such a thing.
And yeah, metrics are not the be-all and end-all determining factor of what will make money. That was the whole point.
Haha. Thanks.
The big thing and TLDR is this:
If you want to up profits in the longterm, you can't race the market in whatever direction the market is going. You have to buck market trends in a way that pleases customers more and in a way that none of your competitors could do as well as you could do. You can't say, "We're going to copy all the features that work."
People accuse WoW of doing that and, sure, they have elements of Pokemon, Galaxies, Everquest, Guild Wars, etc. But they also have unique features and their differentiator is probably polish and quality support in the form of customer phone support. They've pushed expansions back before.
I can remember a lot of good feedback for STO over the last 5 years where somebody suggested a feature that would be unique to STO and the Cryptic response was, "MMOs don't do that." And that's precisely why so many of those suggestions would have been good ideas. Because nobody else did them. It would have been a product differentiator. Conforming to or innovating in the direction of an existing successful model is a race to the bottom.
Problem is they are making money - probably even more than before, upgrading just 1 ship costs more than 10 c-store ships, and don't tell me the whales, minus you and 1-2 other ones, aren't eating it up raw.
Well now you going to feel what it's been like being me ever since 7 trying to save people from themselves
In the end you have to laugh at it all though, like my favorte guy in the world always says, you can't fix stupid, you can't!
I stopped giving them money over a year ago when a) I realized how much I was really spending, and b) when the spiral into bad got really bad.
I am used to playing MMOs where player feedback is somewhat regarded by the teams, and there just isn't the cashgrab mentality - I have always felt that paying for a product gives you more of a voice in it's future. In Cryptic/PWEs case, that is wrong.
Yes, I should have stopped feeding them cash earlier. Some of us are more hopeful than others. You are right, a lot of us fed the machine. We have stopped now. Give it a rest.
Free Tibet!
It didn't used to be the norm. UO, AC, AO, EQ, those weren't grinders. Those were sandboxes. Over time, the ones that remain have become a bit more grindy, but not to the extent of modern titles. It still depends tho - a few like The Secret World are still not true grinders, but sadly they are also not true successes.
I only used the crowdfunding argument to state that those almighty metrics...well aren't almighty at all...
Even if a game is a product, it should be fun... if the players have fun, they will spend money.
I only used Star Citizen as a sample...because it fits perfectly, this game isn't even launched and the players throw more and more money towards it. Why? Because it seems to be what the players want (we will find out if it is once it is launched) regardless what the metrics said...
My character Tsin'xing
Truly, if you look, the ones that were willing to evolve, especially when it comes to modernizing the game systems, are still around. The ones that died were the ones where development completely stopped and the game stagnated. Even negative changes can be beneficial when the developers react and create a positive response.
Actually, looking back, none of the MMOs I mentioned (Ultima Online, Asheron's Call (although AC2 died), Anarchy Online, and Everquest), which are the true granddaddys of the genre are gone. They have all continued to evolve, and none have devolved into complete P2W slapdash cashgrabs. All of them have a decade or more under their belts, and aren't looking like they are going to die anytime soon.
Those were the games that did sandbox adventure well, and still don't have full F2P models.
Ultimately every MMO is a hamster wheels that depends on grinding. Different MMOs have different levels of story content that exist almost purely for narrative's sake, but by endgame they all devolve into grinds of various sorts. All a subscription model does is help diffuse the realization that eventually you are paying to repeat the same content over and over in the hope of getting that next McGuffin you "need" to make your character "better." STO is no different, in that regard, and asking Cyrptic to try to unilaterally change the genre, just isn't realistic.
But no one is "forcing you" to repeat the content, so long as you are willing to accept that you don't really need that next McGuffin. Is Mk XIV gear really that much better than Mk XIII? What is that extra 1.2% crit really going to get you that you don't already have? Rather then hate the grind, isn't the real problem that the content has run out and is no longer interesting?
I accept I could be oversimplifying or completely missing the argument/issue. But it seems that the real question some people are asking themselves is "do I want to play MMOs any more."
This is where you are wrong - you aren't really missing the issue, but it's a difference of degrees. Many of the MMOs you list aren't grindfests in the same way, because the intent of the grind is different. In all of PWE's current games, the grind exists to push the monetization, and ONLY to push the monetization. Everything, and I mean literally everything in DR has one design philosophy behind it, and that is to increase impulse and incidental sale.
Not only that, but a fair amount of the games you mentioned still have a functional subscription model. That prioritizes content quality and player engagement over just selling shinies, or dilithium to buy shinies, in the shop.
There is a difference in the very core of PWE games.
With almost all of the other MMOs you mention, the grinds are extensions to the experience - there is, in almost all of them, at least a bit of open world, a bit of true sandbox where you legitimately don't need endgame gear to go around doing stuff with friends. This is true in EQ, WoW, TSW, and many more. There is nothing in STO, outside the story missions, that involves progression and is not merely a timegated grind. There just isn't.
The XP rewards, the Dilithium rewards, EC drops are very, very carefully balanced to ensure maximum impetus towards using the shop. The purchases don't enhance endgame content - to participate in elite queues, it is virtually necessary to purchase a ship, whether a Tier 6, or a T5, plus a fleet module, plus an upgrade.
The problem is that it is insulting, and maddening [edit: to myself and many others, I don't mean to imply that EVERYONE should feel insulted and angry, if you legitimately don't feel the difference between the STO grind and other MMO grinds, then more power to you - I've played all those games and more, and the PWE notion of player grind is very, very, very different on both the design level, and the subjective experience level]
It's not the artist's fault - looking at the story missions, there is real love for Trek in many of them. It's the beancounters that have tabulated the game for maximum impulse spending cash flow, and nothing else - not even long term stability.
edit #2: This has been posted before, but it very clearly highlights the differences. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mhz9OXy86a0
Also, the Southpark episode concerning the Freemium model does a very good job of breaking down the monetization model that PWE uses.
Yup. You've nailed it in a far more colorful way than I did. Thanks, I thought I was way off base to be honest.
With nine toons all with mixes and multiples of Mk XII Borg, Dyson, Nukara, Undine and Jem'Hadar equipment, to suggest that (in my case at least) I have a problem with grind simply doesn't stack up.
What I have a problem with is inconsistency and rapidfire change to shoehorn me into somewhere that I don't like playing.
Let's put this into a different context. Let's say that the devs decided that the "big thing" was R&D old-style, in Memory Alpha/First City. So they start by cajoling people, then they stop bothering with fixing other areas. Then they rejig points so the only thing really giving out much XP was R&D in those two areas. So there you are, wanting to play PvE, or patrols in Tau Dewa, or Delta Quadrant, or missions... but none of those give out much reward.
If this were what was happening, would people be still so quick to demand that "just play the game and enjoy it, don't worry about the rewards!"
I doubt it.
You are correct, but the way it is now, there is a big picture involved, and a lot of people have trouble perceiving big pictures - if anything is to be learned from human history, that's it.
By the way, counting down the time until someone accuses you of simply using reductio ad absurdum to make your point. You know someone will take offense to that.