saw this blog, thought it was interesting...

"In a recent interview by Forbes, the author attempts to make the claim that Pay to Play MMO's are dead, and that Free to Play MMO's with a vast micro-transaction cash shop are the wave of the future, using this to directly assault the upcoming MMO from Zenimax Online "ESO". Personally, I call [censored], and I'll tell you why.

The author of the article uses the theory that P2P MMO's are old. From EQ to World of Warcraft, it's an old, archaic system that helped out developers get content out when there wasn't such a direct outlet of marketing, so the monthy sub revenue was necessary. He goes on to say that since this is no longer the case, and everyone and their mother knows about ESO and other MMO's, a subscription fee is not necessary, and that micro transaction cash shops should be drawing in the millions of dollars needed to maintain servers and to update content. That's so very, very wrong, for more than one reason.

First off, this mindset denotes greed. Here, you have an MMO company, who makes a game, and then produces more content than what is available at launch, at launch. It's pretty much saying, "Hey, here's the game! But..the other half of the game..is locked behind a micro-transaction wall, and you have to break down that wall with your dollar dollar bills, ya'll." This is the epitome of greed. How can people not see this? It's the same thing as same day as launch DLC for console/PC gaming. If it was ready at launch, it needs to be in the launch, not behind a cash shop. That's absurdity. It proves the fact that developers don't care about their playerbase, just the cash brought in from them.

Secondly, it denotes laziness. The developers are free to wait as long as they want/can for more money from the cash shop to trickle in until they start an effort on their next probably cash shop blocked content update. It's so disgustingly greedy.

The author of the Forbes article goes on to say that his proof is the fact that all the latest MMO's have started off P2P, yet ended in F2P within months, usually less than a years time. Uh, no offense, but if a game cannot maintain subs with a P2P model, the game svcks. Period. The reason it went F2P isn't because the model svcks, it's because your video game svcks. End of story. Point in case: World of Warcraft. The highest grossing video game of all time, as well as the longest running P2P model in history, with 9 years going on 10 under Blizzard Entertainments belt proves this point. And the entire run has been P2P. At WoW's peak, they had over 12 million active subscribers. 12 million. That number is mind boggling. It has since dwindled down to 7.8 million, still leading the market by a huge number. Still sub based, still netting new players, and still updating content almost weekly by patches, game fixes, and tweeks. Blizzard reported 2 months ago that they had a 200 thousand increase in subs, for the first time since it's fall in the Wrath of the Lich King Expansion. This pretty much proves that good games maintain subs. If it svcked, it wouldn't have 12 million subscribers. Get real, and be honest with yourself. They must be doing something right. Blizzard even has their own con (Blizzcon) once a year for crying out loud. They are doing SOMETHING right.

So there you have it. ESO will maintain subs if it's a good game, and it will go F2P if it's a bad game. End of story. But the model isn't what's important, it's how Zenimax handles content updates and how it USES that revenue gotten from subscriptions to update the game and interact with their fans.

Shady Cat out."

I agree, I really despise the F2P scheme and what it entails. The horrible communities, the in your face cash shops, the locked content, the low amount of updates that always require a fee, overpowered items bought from shops and generally a much worse gaming experience.

Interesting. You have a link to the source of that?

Personally, I agree with the author, but nonetheless it's merely another opinion. Doesn't prove a thing, hence I think the thread title containing the word "falsehood" is overstating the case I was hoping to find some empirical evidence for the claim, but sadly it's pretty much entirely lacking.

if f2p is the wave of the future I hope eso is amish.

You are quoting forbes. What the hell would a financial market speculator know about video games. Nothing. They are corrupt narrow minded accountants. Forbes == big bankers market manipulation propaganda tool. All 'journalists' who write for it are the tools of the evil in wall street. Kinda the last place on earth to tell you how successfull a game is, unless of course they've done their job you believe it.

The f2p mmo's I have played are not good Neverwinter being really low. I don't like the pay2win idea. However, GW2 is supposed to be good. Now the game was not for me, but I could not comment on the f2p part of it.

I don't personally agree with people saying that f2p brings a worse community, having played wow, which was good and so, so bad alike.

I have no problem with cash shops so long as people can not buy an advantage. With the one exception of mounts. I'm OK with them selling mounts.

So I am not against the idea of a free to play model. I think the idea behind swtor is pretty good. They have all three options, sub, f2p and cash shops with subs getting a fair amount to spend in, said cash shop. For myself I want a sub based model.

You can't expect anything other than purely profit driven sentiments from a publication like Forbes. You are not their target audience. Investors, economists, business leaders and millionaires are their target. They will feed them the content they want in order to keep subscriptions to their highly overrated publication. When Forbes looks at a company or a product, they are not concerned with the product's quality or how the company rewards its customer loyalty. They focus on how the company separates you from your dollar in the most efficient way. Also Steve Forbes is a [censored].

No, s/he is quoting a blog that is quoting a Forbes blog post and DISAGREEING with it.

I was pretty appalled by that Forbes when it came out several months ago, not because of any opinion about Forbes specifically, but because Forbes is supposed to represent the standards of print journalism. Which would include editing and fact checking. :/ Journalism is dead, but I wish the article in the OP was any better on those counts than what they were critiquing.

f2p is the bane of good mmo development.

the trick is that the devs have to proove themselves first to the players.

If you make a fine game...you'll be rewarded.