Making CoH/V Free* To Play

Originally Posted by reiella Until I see something that states to the contrary, going to assume VK is right .

Sam and I rarely see eye to eye on anything... but here... we do.

The simple fact is that the conversion of an existing subscription game to a free-to-play model has only been "profitable" for one developer, and "semi-profitable" for another.

The first game in question is Lord of the Rings Online. LoTRO started as a subscription based game, and failed miserably. While it was a high quality MMO-RPG it was also entering into a saturated market. The LoTRO developers, Turbine, burned through their cash reserves, wound up shutting down an entire studio, laid off large numbers of employees, then sold themselves to Warner Brothers, THEN considered a Free-to-play model. The F2P model for Turbine, while profitable, is only profitable due to the companies diminished size.

While Time Warner does not break down the exact details of Warner Brother's Home Entertainment division, and subsequently the details of subsidiaries such as Turbine, it can be gathered that LoTRO is not a significant money maker for the company: http://ir.timewarner.com/phoenix.zht...972&p=irol-sec

The second game in question is Global Agenda. Global Agenda also launched with a subscription plan. However, Hi-Rez studios was quick enough to realize that their game was entering into a saturated market with little to separate itself from free-to-play competitors. Hi-Rez studios quickly switched to a Guild-Wars like business model, charging for the game but not charging for the online play: http://kotaku.com/#!5574443/the-fast...istory-of-mmos

Only recently Global Agenda took the game one step further and made the base client available under Global Agenda: Free Agent: http://store.steampowered.com/video/17020/80771

Unlike Turbine, Hi-Rez studios saw no major damages as they were able to change their business model in time. Actually, Hi-Rez saw growth as they secured the Tribes license and now have two Tribes games under development.

Given the lack of subscription games that have made successful free-to-play conversions, and given the conditions in which successful conversions have achieved their success's, there is no definable financial precedent to suggest that a conversion to a free-to-play model would, in any way, benefit City of Heroes.

To try and frame just the scale of the problem, consider the saturation factor. LoTRO faced competition from World of Warcraft, Everquest, Final Fantasy, WarHammer, and like it or not the still on-going Ultima Online. Global Agenda faced off against pretty much every other first-person / third-person shooter on the market.

For LoTRO a free-to-play mode was pretty much all it had to offer.

For Global Agenda a free-to-play mode was de rigueur.

City of Heroes has no competitors. There is no saturation in the market for somebody wanting to play City of Heroes. Ergo, there is no market competition forcing CoH to lower its prices or even look at a new business model.

Now, if Champions Online was more than a foot-note in the history of MMO games, and if DCUO wasn't a mish-mash of "what was SOE thinking?... then... yeah, the argument could be made that it was time for Paragon Studios and NCSoft to think about additional methods of enabling CoH access. The reality is both CO and DCUO were dismal failures. CO will likely never post a profit for Infogrames... and unfortunately for SOE, DCUO isn't looking to hot for the profit-minded either.

As such, there is no reason to look at either game for inspiration on what this game, City of Heroes, should do.

Or people are fully aware of what is being suggested and still dislike the idea. Posting a one-sided dib at unspecified people helps no-one in this situation.

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

I am neither, nor do I have any trouble understanding what F2P is and/or means. I would very much appreciate it if you didn't post broad assumptions about others.

I am still against the game going F2P.

LOL! The asterisk at the end of the word FREE wasn't enough

Anyways though, people have brought up good reasons on why a trial account isn't the way to introduce ...or more accurately, to get new people to enjoy their first time experience here. I do remember the RMT spams, and as mentioned many times before, is why we can't have nice things.

I've supported that idea in the past. In fact lets make the F2P servers PvP servers as well.

Also:

It worked for EverQuest 2 after all. Oh wait...

From what I've seen NCSoft is more likely to shut the game down rather than go F2P. Every F2P game they've had has tanked and games they could have transfered over to F2P they simply shut down.