115520-say-no-to-f2p-page-5

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Well, unless your cousin avoids all other gaming discussion on the Internet, he wasn't going to avoid this one. Anywhere that Wildstar is still being discussed at all (which, sadly, isn't very many places) this issue is the foremost topic. Silencing the debate here would only make matters worse elsewhere, as it did when the mods deleted the first F2P discussion thread. The discussions are happening because of the game's issues. Refusing to allow discussion of them won't make them go away. What's kind of a let down for me is all the control-freakism running around -- players thinking they can control NCSoft, that they can control what other players are willing to pay for and how, that they can control what other players want to talk about....? I mean, what's up with that? :blink:


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I don't actually think I'm presenting F2P as the only alternative to anything, actually. I'm presenting it as NCSoft's most likely course of action, based on their past performance. Businesses are inherently conservative and much more likely to try something they tried before than to strike out into new territory where there are a lot more unknowns. My real point is that whatever happens to Wildstar's business model won't be in the hands of the players and won't be for the players' benefit, except in the sense that Wildstar might get to continue to exist. Lowering the box price and continuing to charge subs is an interesting idea -- I would like to see an MMO launch from the get-go on a model of "We'll give you the game to install, and if you like it you can start paying a sub after the first month"  because I would like to see what would happen, as this is the model freeware/shareware usually uses in the greater software world  -- but NCSoft has no experience with it. Charging more than $15/month for a sub? Unlikely to fly -- charging more than WoW for less of a game than WoW doesn't strike me as a winning plan. (Like it or not, WoW sets the standards of expected prices in this subfield of the game industry at the moment.) The issue with CREDD is that getting access to CREDD still requires getting over a pretty steep wall -- the initial purchase of the game, plus the time it takes you to get a character leveled to where you can comfortably farm plat for CREDD. A lot of potential players of the game simply won't climb that wall or they'd be in the game already. I agree that folks who think CREDD is somehow not a variant on "pay cash to win" are kind of fooling themselves in some ways (having ready access to as much plat as other players are willing to fork over for a month's sub definitely gives you game advantages, particularly with crafting being the source of much of the best gear at present, because crafting can get very expensive) but in terms of improving Wildstar's revenue, I don't see how NCSoft is going to get any more money out of the CREDD market than they are already getting, and what we're discussing here is a potential need for increased revenues. In any case I'm neither pro-F2P (of any kind) nor anti-F2P -- I just want players to be aware that a possible unwanted side of effect of insisting loudly that you won't stay with the game if it goes F2P will be an increased likelihood of the game shutting down entirely if the revenues are simply not what NCSoft wants. Whether or not NCSoft would actually look at the game forums and use a thread like this as a reason for why the game should be shuttered rather than attempting a conversion is not something I can know. My gut feeling is that if the game's revenues are deemed insufficient, it will definitely get an F2P conversion of some sort before NCSoft gives up and just closes it, on the grounds that the game was too expensive to develop to just shut it down totally without trying to wring every last cent of cash from it, and whether or not the player base is screaming about it will be a very minor consideration either way. Central point:  A conversion to any kind of F2P (or B2P, or hybrid, or installing a cash shop on top of subs, or whatever might be tried) will only happen if it needs to happen to keep the game up and running  -- if the subs aren't cutting it. And if it needs to happen, screaming about it isn't going to change that simple fact. But there is a chance, however small, that trying to draw lines in the sand for NCSoft to cross will tilt the balance toward a shutdown instead of a conversion.


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