Is "free" a good or a bad thing?

Well that's true. Most of these games claim to be free, but what they mean is pay to win.

It's sad really. That's not a way to run a business, and sure it might give them short time profits but for sure they won't last long.

 

Most of the F2F MMO’s I have played sucked either you hear people complain about being hacked or scammed, and majority of them the currency is so messed up you have to pay for the cash shop if you want to be a decent player.

 

Personally, i'd never pay for one! I find the free ones are fine quality if you're looking at the right ones.

 

I enjoy some free MMORPG games. Honestly, it depends on what type of games you're into. I like free playable ones that also offer upgrades or certain items/perks through purchase. I feel like it gives you the option to better choose what you want to buy. Paying a monthly fee for something I don't even use or take advantage of, seems like a waste to me. On the other hand, I'm not as picky as other people.

 

Most hardcore gamers do not like the idea of a free MMO because this usually involves micro-transactions aka pay to win. Paying money to get the best gears beats the purpose of playing an MMO which is to level up and unlock new gears. To me, micro transactions is no different than entering a code and cheat but that's just me.

 

If you mind being weaker then most I would say they are fine every F2P MMO is always P2W and it's a fact that a lot of F2P games make a ton more in cash shop items.

 

I think it is a personal opinion on if playing a game for free is a bad thing. I personally think it is good because I don't like spending money on PC games, I am more of a console player myself. But I played Rift a couple day's ago and that is a great game that is free. I do not know a lot about MMORPG but I had fun playing that game.

 

Lately I've tried a couple of free games since I love the idea of playing for free. But most of them are ruined by in game purchases... I wonder when developing games turned from being a passion into being a way to make money?

Anyone remember the good old days when game developers were developing games because they liked it?

 

That was a long time ago, the same can be said for just about every other profession, athletes, artists, etc

What F2P games did you try? Some restrict the purchases to cosmetic item as I don't mind those at all.

 

The notion that free to play means either bad games not worth playing or pay to win is now outdated, and a lot of game companies and franchises seem to be jumping on the free to play model, yet they still make a ton of money. Look at LoL and Dota 2 for example. A well made game that is free and popular has the potential to target a very big demographic of people who don't like paying for games, as well as a lot of pirates who would rather pirate single-player games then pay for subscription fees. The truth is, even though it's nice to have developers who develop games because they like it and would like to share it with community, that doesn't make a game good or successful.

 

It depends entirely on the game as there are good reasons to go F2P but good reasons not to also.

Reasons to use F2P:

• More players/available to more players since more people are willing to try a game that is free.
• Not as much to lose if the game sucks.
• Allows the developers to make a lot more money over time than they would with retail sales if the game succeeds, which is good for the game.
• Allows developers to make the game they want instead of being forced by the publisher to simply make a game that will sell a ton of copies on launch.

Reasons not to use F2P:

• The danger of pay-to-win crippling the gameplay and making the real game not truly free.
• Many F2P games just feel like uninspired money farms that give you the bare minimum they can. (APB Reloaded or Farmville)
• Newly added cash shop weapons start out overpowered to encourage sales.
• F2P allows annoying 12 year olds with no money to access the game, thus ruining an otherwise good community of players.

 

Increasingly, free is becoming a good thing. Since LotRO went F2P, the number of high-quality titles that you can play for free has increased dramatically. Think about it: you get a $15 subscription fee from your hardcore fans every month, plus a few dollars here and there from a large pool of casual free players. It's a good business strategy. Of course, there's good and bad ways of making a game F2P. I like Guild Wars 2's model, which has you buy the client, but having the game free forever, with a cash shop for cosmetic items and XP boosts. SWTOR has a bad model, which feels like it's punishing players for not subscribing, by lowering their XP gains and placing a whole range of restrictions on them.

 

I agree. It all depends on what model they are using. I'm totally for buying the game, but not having to pay subscription fee and having cosmetics, xp, pet, mounts and other similar things. I however don't like it when I have to buy bag spaces, character slots and other things like that.
One other thing I'd like to see in subscription based games is that since you are paying subsciption fee they can at least give you the game for free... Seriously for WoW up untill recently you had to buy battlechest+Cataclysm+Mists of Pandaria, now they added the Cataclysm to the battlechest, but you still have to buy battlechest + Mists of Pandaria and when the new expansion comes out Warlords of Draenor, that as well... It's too much and I have a lot of friends who at one time had thoughts of playing the game, but didn't want to spend so much money on expansions...

 

Actually they need the revenue to maintain and support the servers and game. Without a source of revenue, publishers will not support the game and developers will be unable to release patches and updates. Not many companies will want to make a loss by giving free games without some kind of income source. Making games is still a business.

 

That type of thinking is going to be off the past soon. The f2p model is becoming more prevalent every year, look at league of legends, a f2p game that happens to be the most played worldwide, by a large margin. In terms of how lucrative their business is... one can only imagine. A few years ago I would of agreed from a quality aspect but as I've said that's all changing. You can find many f2p games that match if not even exceed the quality of p2p games.

 

I feel like most of these new "free" games don't usually have a great model. For more hardcore gamers like myself, it would probably be cheaper to buy a subscription for a lot of these games. Some games like DC universe online, Guild Wars 2, and The Secret World do it pretty well. Overall, I'd rather have a subscription and scrap the cash shop.

 

I think one of the only games I've played that did F2P well was Tribes: Ascend. Everything AND I MEAN EVERYTHING could be earned fairly quickly and not needing any gold. I haven't play in quite awhile since they stopped updating the game altogether and nobody I know plays but it's a fantastic game and really there is no such thing as Pay2Win in that game. It's all up to how much you either want to pay or play.

 

It all depends on how it is implemented. See: Valve's F2P titles. Both TF2 and Dota2 are highly acclaimed and do not suffer from any "freemium" components.

 

League of Legends is a brilliant exampe of a free to play game where you can literally get everything without having to paid real money. They are even adding name change with IP.
However we should have in mind that LoL is a MOBA and unlike MMORPGs doesn't require as much work. In my opinion I think major MMORPGs should be subscription-based because it's hard to be balanced otherwise. Most of the games that are supposely F2P actually cost you quite a bit of cash if you want to be on equal footing with your guildies for example.
The new one sub for all that SOE are adopting is exactly what the gaming industry needs. Hopefully it will work out and more companies will follow.

 

Depends on the game we're talking about. For example, League of legends is a great example, that's exactly how f2p should be, the only thing you can buy with money is skins or rune pages which have absolutely on influence on the gameplay, so not providing any type of advantage.