REAL reason game is going Free 2 Play...

Except that has to be weighed against the % of existing subscribers who elect to drop to premium status.

True.

Only the few that never make another purchase. This is a simple case of penny wise dollar foolish. The Prems almost always end up spending more than they did with their subs.

The players that actually save money are the subs because they are now getting all the free perks for subbing that wasn't available on the old business model.

You may end up being right about that. But I'm assuming, perhaps incorrectly, that subbers who go premium do so because they don't want to spend any more money on the game, period. They don't intend to "make another purchase", content with what remains accessible to them as a preemie.

Oh there will be some people with the willpower to do that but most will see something and start making rationalizations. It will start out with, just this once, I can use the money from the sub on stuff in the store, or even it's only $5-$10 dollars more than what the sub used to be.

Thousands? I remember an article about a guy that dropped three hundred grand to buy a player owned space station in one F2P game.

1. I don't know how you think that wasn't a rant.
2. I'm really tired of this section being a dumping ground for rants. I really wish the moderators would do more about it. I mean, at least some ranting posters bother to frame their rants as questions. Not that I really want those either, but you could at least fake asking a question. Why do people post this crap here?
3. It's going F2P because... what?

• Making the leap of logic to link the topic of your post to the body, it's apparently because the game is down so much lately. Of course, it's down so much lately largely because of infrastructure changes to support new F2P players.
• Strictly according to the body of your post (which doesn't actually provide the "REAL reason why the game is going F2P" at all... I'm not even sure. Apparently it's going F2P because you really, really want it to now, because of all the downtime it going F2P has caused. I think I need to lie down...

As rants go, yours was fairly polite, and I do appreciate that. I don't expect you to like lots of down time. I don't like it either. I have long railed at what I consider shoddy QC by this game's makers.* But for goodness sake, just say that, and not come up with weird theories about why you think that's going on, or wild-*** predictions of d00m™ it will result in

* I happily admit that the quality of releases around here has generally improved over the years, even while the complexity of what is released has gone up. We still see things that bug me a lot, though.

Wasn't that a player to player transaction though? Don't think the company made money off of that.

The article I read only said it was up for sale on a public auction. It didn't say if the seller was the company or another private party.

So... this section is labeled "Player QuestionsGot a Question? Get an answer! Players helping players find information related to CoH/CoV" and it seemed more appropriate than the section labeled "City Life - CoH & CoV General DiscussionsThis forum is for City of Heroes and City of Villains game-related discussions"? Really? *boggles*

So it's going free to play so that they can make lots of code changes and upgrades so that it can go free to play? Circular logic is circular.

So fatsos actually get out of their car and walk around while the fit ones sit on their ***** and use drive thru? Uh... okay.
MacDonalds closing their drive thrus would not affect me at all since i eat that junk maybe two or three times a year, and only if it's the only quick option during long road trips. Come to think of it i never use the drive thru anyway because walking inside is a good excuse to get out of the car and stretch my legs. Even then i can't stand most of the cheap garbage they pass off as food.

Also, that game company you worked for, and we both know which one you mean, is known for 8-12 hour downtimes every time there's a patch and regular multi-hour maintenance sessions. i can only presume the reason you didn't notice that is that being an employee you were working whenever the game was down, and that's the only reason you make assertions that most actual players of the game know are false. (In my case i'm aware of this because i live with two players of that other game.)

OP grade: C-, would not recommend.

Not here.

Its interesting to me how obvious the reason for going hybrid is everything except what Paragon actually stated the reason to be, which was to grow the playerbase and provide options for people to buy the game in increments, some of which would pay less but continue to play at a lower level, and some of which would continue to subscribe and pay more than they did originally for more game enhancements than could originally be supported.

I say its interesting because that would seem to be the only sane reason to switch models to me, and yet that plain, bland, simple reason just doesn't seem to have enough cloak and dagger for many people who think there just has to be a more interesting insider reason.

They were looking for ways to monetize the game, and the hybrid model offered them one. They then set about to create one that would allow them to do the two things all game developers want to do: make more money, and make more game for their players. It is, after all, their job to make game bits. Anything which would allow them to make more game and make more money and give the players better overall value would be a win/win/win.


This general dismissal and disbelief in the statements of the devs when they are blatantly obvious is odd to me. Even if you assume that the people making the decisions like Brian Clayton and Matt Miller and Second Measure are acting 100% in self-interest, they don't make a percentage of the grosses like Steven Spielberg. There are only two ways for them to improve their own causes: keep the game profitable so they will still have jobs next year, and make the best game possible so that when the day comes to move on their resume will look good. But they get no additional benefit from the game making more profit than necessary to keep it alive, so its actually in their best interests to spend as much money as possible making as much game as possible, because in the long run they will not be getting jobs because of NCSoft's profit margin. They will be getting jobs based on the work they did. The more of it, and the better it was, the better for them.

Why would they do less than they could? Why would they specifically try to make more money than necessary for NCSoft when every dollar they spend on us - provided the game remains profitable in general - helps us and helps them, and every dollar they save helps NCSoft and no one else. No one is going to hire Positron because of his ability to squeeze money out of our pockets. That's not his job. They are going to hire him to make games, and every day of City of Heroes' existence has been a job audition for him. This is the body of work he'll one day be judged upon. Not whether he engineered a way for me to buy more costume sets.

I'm sure NCSoft has some sort of profitability target for Paragon Studios, and its their job to try to hit it. But why should anyone think for even two seconds that anyone at Paragon Studios wants to do anything but spend as much money as possible making games, and in the process making stuff for us. Everything they make for us is good for them. Every missed opportunity to make a better game for us hurts them *personally* in the long run.

I'm not so naive to think that my interests and their interests always coincide. But they generally do when it comes to trying to make a quality game, because I want one and they have to be able to claim to have made one. We may disagree about the details, but not the general motivation. So when they say, yes, we want to make more money but we want to do it by making more game and selling it to a larger audience, why that seems to be a cover story of some kind to so many people is really bizarre to me.

No he wanted the notice of down time personally hand delivered to him by Matt Miller.

What's interesting to me is that this is pretty much what I said. Anyone who has observed the previous subcription-to-hybrid conversions amongst MMOs is aware of the general numbers, which say that there is more money on the subscriber side of the ledger.

Large numbers of players will come to try out CoH, but very few of them will pay anything at all. On the other side, subscribers are willing to put down far more than $15/month, and this is what drives the majority of increased revenues from the hybrid model.

If you think there is only one sane reason to switch models, then you're right. But it's not the one we've been given. The only sane reason to switch models is because Paragon/NCSoft believe that this will give them better financial returns in the long run (or at least as long a run as they are contemplating.) This ought to be so obvious that it should not need stating.

Note that this doesn't have to have anything to do with "growing the base", "providing an incremental model" or anything of that sort. It simply has to do with the best way to sell their product, and past conversions have shown that there is more money to be made amongst your existing subscribers then there is to be gleaned from large numbers of free accounts.

Now I don't doubt that Paragon (like every other studio after Turbine) believes that they can buck the trend, and convert large numbers of free players into high value accounts. But if they actually dared to make financial projections on that wishful hope, they're being fiscally irresponsible.

Making more money is a win for the developers. Making more game bits is (usually) a win for the developers. Saying that those two together amount to a win for the players is execrably sloppy logic. Unless those game bits are provided to the players free of cost (an idea voided by the first premise), there's a value proposition in play which determines whether this is a win for the players or not.

I'm not sure whether this is naivete or not. Based on this logic, no one who is not stockholder or involved in profit-sharing has any motivation to work at their job harder than the monetary break-even point, except such that it makes them look better in their next job search.

You completely ignore the fact that at the decision making level, the impact on profits of your decisions is the critical factor in how good your next job is. If you're actually of a level to make decisions like the implementation of the hybrid model, no one will care how good your game is if it doesn't make any money.

There are two possibilities. Either Positron has no real input into the actual decisions regarding the implementation of the hybrid model, the store, etc... In that case, you are absolutely corrent.

On the other hand, if Positron does have some say in these decisions, then you're dead wrong. If he has the authority, then he also bears the responsibility, and whether his decisions lead to success or failure are going to be a huge part of any job interview on his part.

Once again, you're completely wrong. NCSoft wants to do two things:

1. Make the best games possible
2. Sell them in the best possible way

Focusing all your efforts on making the game and ignoring the marketing/sales side of the equation would be folly. I find it amazing you don't recognize that. Or, for that matter, to recognize that Paragon has spent a huge amount of time building the store and the infrastructure, which has nothing to do with making the game better, but was instead all about finding better ways to sell it.

It's not a cover story. But it is a partial story which elides the fact that the majority of the increased revenue will be made from existing subscribers. It's true that they want to make more money. It's true that they want to addresss a larger audience. It's true that they want to make more game. It's true, but not explicitly stated, that much of the 'more game' they make they expect to be bought by the subscribers.

For my part, I don't think Paragon/NCSoft are being sinister. The facts of the situation and the underlying numbers are pretty obvious to anyone who has watched the previous conversions. Paragon wants to make more game and get paid for it. Each of us will have to make an individual decision as to how much we want to buy. There's nothing unfair about that, and anyone who expects corporate decision makers to tell us the complete and total truth along with the underlying reasoning is a fool.

At the same time, they aren't saints. They aren't just in business to make great games. Making great games gets you nowhere unless you can sell them properly. And no, selling them properly doesn't mean squeezing every last cent out of a customer (which is remarkably hard to do on a mass basis anyway.) Paragon and NCSoft have spent a great deal of time and capital on Freedom. They didn't do it out of the goodness of their hearts, they did it because they believed they could make more money by making the game better and selling the game better.

Final Score
Four out of ten. That's the best I can give you.

Scoring
You failed to give "the REAL reason game is going Free 2 Play" (sic). You did, however, hold yourself up as personally victimized by the unfortunate juxtaposition of much-needed maintenance and your work schedule, which earned you one point. You received one point for the near-mandatory dubious claim that when you worked in the industry this sort of thing Just Wasn't Done. Finally, you received one point for your liberal use of caps. I also awarded you one bonus point (total) for for admitting to having problems with emotion regulation ("rage issues"), and for your ridiculous fast food analogy that wouldn't even make sense after abusing inhalants.

Suggestions for Future Rants

• Ensure that your title matches the content of your rant. When presented with this rant for scoring, I expected to read a variation on "the game is dying" or "devs want all our dollars to buy dalmatian puppies to skin alive and wear as frock coats". Needless to say, I was disappointed.
• Consider demanding some compensation from the devs, either free subscription time, or perhaps some poorly-calculated cash value. Something along the lines of "I can only play for five hours a month, and there was ten hours of maintenance, so they should pay me thirty dollars because they ate two months of my playtime!" would serve well here.
• Try to find a way to insult those who don't agree with you. Suggestions include calling those with a more reasonable or balanced point of view "fanbois" or "brown nosers", or perhaps claiming that they have no lives.

Please don't be discouraged. I'm looking forward to your next rant; I expect it will be greatly improved.

And I award you 50 internets. This made me lol.

agreed..... also some ppl were over the top rude in this thread........

You really don't have to wonder at all.

Of course they will.

Originally Posted by Dechs Kaison See, it's gems like these that make me check Claws' post history every once in a while to make sure I haven't missed anything good lately.

Yeah but it won't be here. So we won't have to put up with them.

Well, actually, Premiums players can post here, so yeah, we will have to put up with them.

Yes it does, more players means more money.