Why are people still so hostile towards Free-To-Play games?

Why do people still have this mentality they must be looking at the wrong games

It confuses me how they're willing to pay $15 per a month, rather than have a model like LoL, Tribes Ascend or TF2 where they can just play the game for free and either buy in game stuff such as cosmetics and etc with real money or ingame currency.

If a person where to sub a game for $15 a year they would be paying about $180 and they wouldn't be getting their full money's worth since their will be days when they're not playing the game.

Considering free to play you can pay for what you want with real money or ingame currency. $180 should be more than enough for games like TF2 and Tribes Ascend and even LoL if you're not a skin freak.

It also confuses me how they're willing to fork out $60 for a mega shooter multiplayer shooter like BF3 or MW3 than pay $15 more a map pack when Free to play games give out stuff like that for free.

sometimes it's pay2 winJigglyWiggly_

This.

Not all f2p games are p2w but most are and that sours everyone on that model.

[QUOTE="JigglyWiggly_"]sometimes it's pay2 winGummiRaccoon

This.

Not all f2p games are p2w but most are and that sours everyone on that model.

Yep but why do they treat EVERY free to play game like that when the developers even state they're not going to pull that crap.

Developers are starting to move away from the Pay-to-win model and ridiculously high prices for real money only items. The company I think of that does this is Nexon with Combat Arms. Where you have to pay $30 real money for a gun. I games like Tribes Ascend $30 will get you way more then that. Hi rez has even done some price dropping.

Because until recently all f2p games were terrible. It started to change with DDO and these days we are finally seeing quality f2p titles, but peoples bias towards them wont change over night.

For me F2P still has problems. One of them is the fact that the game can run away from its original vision. It's one thing to add a few cosmetic items or weapons. It's another thing to entirely change the feel of the game with stupid costumes, devices or gimmicks for people to buy.. In essence the job of designers is to constantly come up with more crap to buy and eventually that leads to game deterioration. The other issue is high ceiling. Where the cost to buy everything just goes so high that the average is to spend $100+ on the game. Then again with more and more F2P games, they will each be competing for your time and value which may collectively lower prices.

One reason I don't like Pay 2 Play is that you can't just revisit the game for a few hours off and on over the years, you'll have to pay for that privilege. Then you figure you are paying for content, are you really getting enough?

In my view there is problems with every payment model. Of late the standard $60 flat fee has the problem of leaving things out of the game, and charging you for small DLC packs that then fracture the community. I'm warming to the F2P mechanic, 1 year ago I would have written off F2P as shovelware and insanely priced. Now I see it as one of the ways I'll be playing games in the future. The immediate advantage of F2P games is that it kinda makes piracy irrelevant.

Some games do the P2W model, others do a decent F2P model. TF2, Quake Live, Tribes Ascend (from what I've heard), and LoL do F2P models quite well. Tribes Next and Fortress Forever are 100% free to play, so can't get any better than that. Granted, they are older games, but still... awesomesauce. :D

Team Fortress 2 (TF2) is an awesome Free to play- look up a server and start mowing down the other team :twisted:

Some games do the P2W model, others do a decent F2P model. TF2, Quake Live, Tribes Ascend (from what I've heard), and LoL do F2P models quite well. Tribes Next and Fortress Forever are 100% free to play, so can't get any better than that. Granted, they are older games, but still... awesomesauce. :D

CaptainAhab13

Since I started playing online MMO type games about 9yrs ago. The vast majority of my favorite games have been P2P. The only exception possibly being LoL and a few older games. F2P hasnt reached its perfection just quite yet. Until it does I am more than willing to stay with monthly subs. IxX3xil3d0n3XxI

What about Phantasy Star Universe Japan, there's f2p and p2w der, i'm not sure but i think there's loads of f2p's der(im one though)

Obviously, EVERY good thing is for money. Isn't it better to just pay one time and get EVERYTHING. What would happen if you spent some money on a gun and turns out that gun was lame as hell. Like Farmville (I don't play that), anything that's worth getting is for real cash. I don't think F2P will ever succeed.

Obviously, EVERY good thing is for money. Isn't it better to just pay one time and get EVERYTHING. What would happen if you spent some money on a gun and turns out that gun was lame as hell. Like Farmville (I don't play that), anything that's worth getting is for real cash. I don't think F2P will ever succeed.

MegamanExecute

do you really trust devs?JigglyWiggly_

Why people are hostile towards free to play is because its absoluttly horrible way to get a game and play it.

It would be like buying a car and then only getting the chassis and then you have to pay for everything else, so in the end you pay almost twice or trible the normal cost.

[QUOTE="IxX3xil3d0n3XxI"]Since I started playing online MMO type games about 9yrs ago. The vast majority of my favorite games have been P2P. The only exception possibly being LoL and a few older games. F2P hasnt reached its perfection just quite yet. Until it does I am more than willing to stay with monthly subs. 167835

I don't think F2P will ever succeed.

MegamanExecute

[QUOTE="IxX3xil3d0n3XxI"]Since I started playing online MMO type games about 9yrs ago. The vast majority of my favorite games have been P2P. The only exception possibly being LoL and a few older games. F2P hasnt reached its perfection just quite yet. Until it does I am more than willing to stay with monthly subs. 167835

[QUOTE="CaptainAhab13"]

Some games do the P2W model, others do a decent F2P model. TF2, Quake Live, Tribes Ascend (from what I've heard), and LoL do F2P models quite well. Tribes Next and Fortress Forever are 100% free to play, so can't get any better than that. Granted, they are older games, but still... awesomesauce. :D

slvrraven9

Because the business-model is abused, and 90% of it sucks.

Duh.

Because the business-model is abused, and 90% of it sucks.

Duh.

Am_Confucius

because p2p content in f2p games are ridicously overpriced and it end costing more than buying p2p games for a few items

Most of the time quality suffers when games go F2P, and they are often very grind oriented with $$ options to relieve the stress of the grind. Even Tribes Ascend which is one of the better F2P games out there still has a grind, and uses what is imo a lame incentive of daily bonus xp in order to keep people playing for those unlocks. The best games all cost money, and are alot more fun even if they do have a grind aspect (I enjoyed progressing through unlocks in bfbc2 because they felt more like accomplishments) and they don't tend to use copout incentives to keep their playerbase active.

mm yea i find this strange.. i have just reciently been playing startrek online and aion.. and they seem like good fun games to me..

Altho i didnt like lord of the rings but thats just a prefrence..

Because they don't hold up when compared to regular games. F2P games don't need to actually be good, they just need to hook the player into buying tons of virtual sh!t. Even if it isn't pay-to-win, they just turn that moneysink into a timesink, there's no real strategy. All the content that you'd get in a normal game gets sliced up into dozens of little pieces that cost 10x the actual price of a retail game. Sure, some games are good under all that, but the F2P model tends to just make the whole thing worse than it would be as a normal game.

And before anyone says "Oh, but TF2...", TF2 started out as a standard retail game and then went F2P. All the extra content updates are nice, but TF2 was a paragon of game balance and visual style before it started merchandising everything. Nowadays it's mainly poorly balanced weapons or cosmetic hats that cost too much, most of which are created by the community.

Because sooner or later the devs can't help but go to the pay to win model. It happens too often for people not to be wary.

The problem is, most times f2p turns into a pay to play/win model. You shouldn't call it play for free, if you can't stand a chance in mp without paying.

The only model that has worked well is tf2, and even that has soon problems. Without making the items somewhat easy to get for free. The system quickly turns into a pay to win. You have to have a very fine balance from getting people to buy items vs making them pointless.

But then from what i have heard it has worked decently in other mmo games.

Because they don't hold up when compared to regular games. F2P games don't need to actually be good, they just need to hook the player into buying tons of virtual sh!t. Even if it isn't pay-to-win, they just turn that moneysink into a timesink, there's no real strategy. All the content that you'd get in a normal game gets sliced up into dozens of little pieces that cost 10x the actual price of a retail game. Sure, some games are good under all that, but the F2P model tends to just make the whole thing worse than it would be as a normal game.

And before anyone says "Oh, but TF2...", TF2 started out as a standard retail game and then went F2P. All the extra content updates are nice, but TF2 was a paragon of game balance and visual style before it started merchandising everything. Nowadays it's mainly poorly balanced weapons or cosmetic hats that cost too much, most of which are created by the community.

metroidfood

This is the best summary and explanation of this topic.

Because they don't hold up when compared to regular games. F2P games don't need to actually be good, they just need to hook the player into buying tons of virtual sh!t. Even if it isn't pay-to-win, they just turn that moneysink into a timesink, there's no real strategy. All the content that you'd get in a normal game gets sliced up into dozens of little pieces that cost 10x the actual price of a retail game. Sure, some games are good under all that, but the F2P model tends to just make the whole thing worse than it would be as a normal game.

And before anyone says "Oh, but TF2...", TF2 started out as a standard retail game and then went F2P. All the extra content updates are nice, but TF2 was a paragon of game balance and visual style before it started merchandising everything. Nowadays it's mainly poorly balanced weapons or cosmetic hats that cost too much, most of which are created by the community.

metroidfood

[QUOTE="metroidfood"]

Because they don't hold up when compared to regular games. F2P games don't need to actually be good, they just need to hook the player into buying tons of virtual sh!t. Even if it isn't pay-to-win, they just turn that moneysink into a timesink, there's no real strategy. All the content that you'd get in a normal game gets sliced up into dozens of little pieces that cost 10x the actual price of a retail game. Sure, some games are good under all that, but the F2P model tends to just make the whole thing worse than it would be as a normal game.

And before anyone says "Oh, but TF2...", TF2 started out as a standard retail game and then went F2P. All the extra content updates are nice, but TF2 was a paragon of game balance and visual style before it started merchandising everything. Nowadays it's mainly poorly balanced weapons or cosmetic hats that cost too much, most of which are created by the community.

Am_Confucius

I must agree, valve has done a very good job keeping the game balanced so you can still do well with the stock weapons

[QUOTE="Am_Confucius"][QUOTE="metroidfood"]

Because they don't hold up when compared to regular games. F2P games don't need to actually be good, they just need to hook the player into buying tons of virtual sh!t. Even if it isn't pay-to-win, they just turn that moneysink into a timesink, there's no real strategy. All the content that you'd get in a normal game gets sliced up into dozens of little pieces that cost 10x the actual price of a retail game. Sure, some games are good under all that, but the F2P model tends to just make the whole thing worse than it would be as a normal game.

And before anyone says "Oh, but TF2...", TF2 started out as a standard retail game and then went F2P. All the extra content updates are nice, but TF2 was a paragon of game balance and visual style before it started merchandising everything. Nowadays it's mainly poorly balanced weapons or cosmetic hats that cost too much, most of which are created by the community.

James161324

I must agree, valve has done a very good job keeping the game balanced so you can still do well with the stock weapons

there are actually only a few good f2p games out there...so many of them have the cash shop=god mode mentality and it just ruins the game play

ive played a few f2p games like that and i shouldnt have to suffer from playing f2p just because they offer items that are horridly overpowered in the cash shop in comparision to what everyone else can get

that being said...not all games like that...but the majority are...and its rathe hard to find the good ones...off the top of my head

lol, quake live, tf2, world of tanks, tribes

there are actually only a few good f2p games out there...so many of them have the cash shop=god mode mentality and it just ruins the game play

ive played a few f2p games like that and i shouldnt have to suffer from playing f2p just because they offer items that are horridly overpowered in the cash shop in comparision to what everyone else can get

that being said...not all games like that...but the majority are...and its rathe hard to find the good ones...off the top of my head

lol, quake live, tf2, world of tanks, tribes

lpjazzman220

Personally I'll give a F2P game a chance since it doesn't cost me anything. A Pay to Play game has to really bring the goods to get me to fork out my cash just to give it a try. F2P is the way most games are going to go, right now a lot of the F2P games are still trying to work out the balance of not making it Pay to Win. Some are like that but a lot aren't. The number one thing that has kept me from trying most games that don't even have a demo is that I have to pay full price just to check them out. At least with a console game I can rent it first.

I've been playing World of Tanks for about a 6 months now and I think it has a good F2P model. You don't have to spend money to enjoy the game. Yes, a premium account gives you access to some premium tanks but those tanks can't be upgraded like the free ones, you do get 1.5x xp per match but that's not so much to make it unbalanced, and premium ammo is expensive and useless if you can't shoot straight in the first place:lol:. I have to most fun upgrading my free tanks until they achieve elite status and then wreaking havoc.

[QUOTE="Am_Confucius"]I wouldn't call the weapons unbalanced.James161324

I must agree, valve has done a very good job keeping the game balanced so you can still do well with the stock weapons

Eh, most are not completely game breaking. But the recent weapons have been either terrible (Manmelter, Phlog) or terrible and fvck over certain parts of the game (Pomson and medics/spies, Eureka Effect and Arena Mode). The most usable alt. weapons are still the older ones (Dead Ringer, Kritzkrieg, Jarate, Ambassador, etc...).

Plus they've continued to ignore other obvious problems like the Enforcer still being obviously overpowered, the Pomson cloak draining glitch, and the constant Replay crashes. It's not like they've done all bad, but ever since the game went F2P it seems they've gotten sloppy and all they seem to care about are the kids buying hats.