F2P Games and their revenue

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kasub написал:

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Is it p2w, even if the cards can be earned through grinding, and if the game is winnable even without collecting all the cards?

It is pay to win seeing how you can get the same cards as someone who has grinded for 500 hours in 5 mins but it's acceptable in that genre.

Hearthstone has a good model in my opinion. You can reach the highest ranks with a cheap deck and are capable of getting all cards but it's silly not to call it pay to win.

What if the card collection worked like a stash, and rather than pay for booster packs of cards, you simply pay to have enough space to keep them all. You have the option of getting rid of the cards you don't want if you don't buy the extra space, and the default amount of space is still enough to house a playable collection. Would that be an acceptable "card collecting" equivalent of ARPG stash space?

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MonstaMunch написал:

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kasub написал:

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Is it p2w, even if the cards can be earned through grinding, and if the game is winnable even without collecting all the cards?

It is pay to win seeing how you can get the same cards as someone who has grinded for 500 hours in 5 mins but it's acceptable in that genre.

Hearthstone has a good model in my opinion. You can reach the highest ranks with a cheap deck and are capable of getting all cards but it's silly not to call it pay to win.

What if the card collection worked like a stash, and rather than pay for booster packs of cards, you simply pay to have enough space to keep them all. You have the option of getting rid of the cards you don't want if you don't buy the extra space, and the default amount of space is still enough to house a playable collection. Would that be an acceptable "card collecting" equivalent of ARPG stash space?

Not really. At the moment someone can pay nothing and have the full benefits of the game(Eventually). Your example is more restricting.

You have already jumped the gun and figured out GGG next option, should this not work out. They could probably come up with a tower defense game in like 2 months with a POE theme (Defenders of the Clast) and make a load of $$. It's not that hard to copy the model as a few experts will be happy to sell you.

You start with Shadow. Average in everything but stealth and subterfuge. You can grind to unlock the Witch, who has some benefits, or pay up to get her after a few thousand coins earned. Is this p2w or just pay to play faster and get more addicted? I don't think it really fits their current model but I think they could spin something off to do so as they have the in house design and programming already there.

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MonstaMunch написал:

Sorry for slightly off topic, but how do people feel about "booster packs" of cards in card collection games? Is it p2w, even if the cards can be earned through grinding, and if the game is winnable even without collecting all the cards?

Edit: I'm not expressing an opinion on it one way or another, just interested to know how others feel about it.

This is one of those nitty gritty "what is pay to win"

Some people argue no it isn't, because people have gone compeltely free to play, not spent a cent, and gone to legendary rank (highest rank).

But other say it is, because you can spend money to get cards that would take a long time to reach otherwise.

its a super huge stupid debate on the hearthstone forums actually, sort of like those repetitive ones we see here.

The issue comes down to is pay to win something that means paying money means gaining a potential advantage, or does paying money mean gaining a substantial definite advantage. Having a card someone else does not have vs having a card someone else can not have.

Personally I say p2w means that paying gives you an advantage you would not have had without it, which includes time reduction (less hassle for getting stash tabs than muling for example), but that p2w doesn't necessarily mean bad, its when its pay to proceed that things are broken, when you can't play the game because you have to pay to have the good things

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kasub написал:

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Is it p2w, even if the cards can be earned through grinding, and if the game is winnable even without collecting all the cards?

It is pay to win seeing how you can get the same cards as someone who has grinded for 500 hours in 5 mins but it's acceptable in that genre.

Hearthstone has a good model in my opinion. You can reach the highest ranks with a cheap deck and are capable of getting all cards but it's silly not to call it pay to win.

HS also has Arena, which is a level playing ground (all decks are made with RNG and the player knowing value and synergy etc). The Arena in HS can be seen as quite similar to PoE races in that regard, apart from the way that Arena is gated by 'Gold' or money, even if you can do unlimited Arena runs by winning lots.

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The issue comes down to is pay to win something that means paying money means gaining a potential advantage, or does paying money mean gaining a substantial definite advantage. Having a card someone else does not have vs having a card someone else can not have.

Well it is a substantial definite advantage to pay in hearthstone. I've been playing it casually for a few months and let me tell you that getting packs is no easy task.

In those casual few months I still struggle to make basic decks although I do have the ability to reach legendary if I grinded.. it doesn't really negate the advantage paying players get.

You can pay and get all cards right away. If you're a great player you can skyrocket to legendary in a few days while someone playing for many months still doesn't have the ability to make such solid decks.

It's a good model for a CCG but no where close to the fairness of PoE/Dota2/TF2.


@Maffa Arena is the main way of getting packs/profiting so of course I know of it.

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Real_Wolf написал:

But other say it is, because you can spend money to get cards that would take a long time to reach otherwise.

its a super huge stupid debate on the hearthstone forums actually, sort of like those repetitive ones we see here.

Just to clarify a couple of things:

- I'm not talking specifically about Hearthstone, and as it happens I can't even play it because my battle.net acct got nuked anyway.

- In the example I gave, lets say that the cards you acquire through grinding are random. Yes, it would take a long time to get all the cards, but it's not like some cards are only attainable after a billion years. You have just as much chance of getting it after your first game as you do after your hundredth.

Hi op and thx for the share. I tried to explain a few times about this subject on some posts the last month.
As a worker in Game Industry and more especially in mobile games, I am kinda aware about this semantic of "whales" and my job is to design specific gameplay for them in the games I am working on.

POE has target a little different that mobile games.

(Attention: I will speak about and describe general comportments)

People who are playing in this game are alot more "hardcore". I mean by hardcore people who can spend a lot of time on this game everyday, who are aware of difficult game mechanics based on skills and used at since many years (an average of 15 years of gaming experience).
They are looking for challenge and have pleasure to grind monsters to find treasures. They are enjoying the game for his difficulty because even bis stuff, you can die in some circumstances if they dont pay attention. And they like to play on PC with a mouse and a keyboard.

And this game main difference with mobile games is that you dont have a time limit experience. You can play when you want the time you want, You dont have a system where for example you have to wait 1h after each death to continue to play (or pay to avoid this time) as EVERY (99%) mobile/Fb game system.

So yeah, the gaming mobile industry benefits are based for 80% on whales, people who will spend money in your game a lot (by a lot, I mean that he can reach in some case more than 10k$). You will ask me why are people who are paying so much in that kind of game?

It is simple, we design specifics mechanics for this to catch the money of those people. You have to design 3 layers of gameplay, one short and addictive, one for mid game where people will start to spend their money and one for end game where people can spend the majority of their money (I mean most of them think with: Shit I spend a bit, I cant stop now).
Add a competitive ladder/system and a lot of gambling to your mechanics and it's done, you have hits like Candy Crush Saga or Puzzle&Dragons.

Whine about RMT:


But the thing which is fantastic about this game is the high percentage of what we can call a whale. I mean, how many of us has spend money on it? Just for the stash tabs? For a supporter pack? And I dont speak about 5$ or 10$ for a small purchase but directly 30$, 50$ even 1500$! To design an item, because you though the game is worth it. I dont know exactly about myself but I think I am around 200$ spend on it, the same amount I have spend on WoW in half of the time! (And I speak here only of legal money, not RMT shit where some people spend more on it)

But the problem developers meet is when the whale stop to play because they have the feeling that the game is not worth it anymore, they loose their motivation, interest on it. To fight it, a simple answer is to add new contents as much as you can (it remembers me a politic about a company with 3 letters in their name starting by G).

More links about whales:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/211764/Why_freemium_mobile_developers_cant_succeed_without_whales.php
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/211392/Video_Where_the_Whales_Live_The_Pyramid_Model_of_F2P_Design.php
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/MikeLu/20140110/208428/Lessons_on_Mobile_Gaming_from_a_Whale.php
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/195806/
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/198971/The_biggest_spenders_on_mobile_Men_who_like_console_games.php
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/192899/Heres_how_much_whales_spent_so_far_this_year.php

Ps: Dont have that much time at work to explain my opinion on the subject more, read the link if you are interested

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Akaihana написал:

It is simple, we design specifics mechanics for this to catch the money of those people. You have to design 3 layers of gameplay, one short and addictive, one for mid game where people will start to spend their money and one for end game where people can spend the majority of their money (I mean most of them think with: Shit I spend a bit, I cant stop now).
Add a competitive ladder/system and a lot of gambling to your mechanics and it's done, you have hits like Candy Crush Saga or Puzzle&Dragons.

This is like my experience with the two F2P MMORPGs I've played. In Runes of Magic you got showered with quests and rewards in the first hours of playing, with little difficulty spikes strewn in-between. Then the instances started to become more challenging, still makeable without itemshop-boosted gear but only in a good group. After that, regular play was still quite easy, but forget about instances, world-bosses or events and the like: no damage, no survivability.

In Allods Online early gameplay was challenging and satisfying, nice progression, meaningful level-ups, great game. But then came the first PvP zone - and what did you suffer -, and along with that your XP were barely enough to carry you over to the next zone. And in the zone after that you could forget it. Grind, grind, grind with pitiful damage and lose every pvp encounter. Solution: xp-potions and damage-boosters from the itemshop.

And in both games, the more you progressed the more options you had to spend some serious amounts of money, often connected with a gamble: "Want to have the super-duper one-of-a-kind [more ot less] mount? Buy the Amazing Chest of Awesomeness with lots of shit in it and a 0.1% [actually undisclosed] chance to get the Flaming Tiger of Cataclysmic Noobdestruction! For only 75.00 dollars!"

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CharanJaydemyr написал:

Allods. Perfume. Runes. Airships.

Asee Teph. Sorting the men from the rich men.

By level 30, runes weren't pay to win, they were pay to not to suck.

Evil fucking game.

Yes, sadly. Best MMO ever completely ruined by a greedy and moronic publisher. One server left for the whole of Europe and it's not even half-full. One or two servers for the USA, and 4 for Russia where it was developed, and where the prices are supposedly much cheaper.