BTW, what is a "normal" player??? Regardless, still plenty of subscribers to this game, so I think you need a reality check, and also need to do some research on how freemium games are dominating the consumer market base (due to consumer demand) and that MMO freemium games in particular see 2X+ active players and much more revenue then when they were subscription only. There is a reason the model is becoming dominant in the marketplace.

Yeah, its dominating the market place because its the only way they can generate any kind of funds. I wouldnt exactly call Lotro and DDO dominating. What farmvilled does is no indication on what an MMO will do. Totally different markets. Those games do well because they are super casual and quick bursts of fun. Thats something MMOs arent really going to provide.

So to compare, you would have to compare to other MMOs. You can bring up Lotro all you want and say... it doubled its profit since F2P. What you wont acknowledge is that game had a lot of lifetime subs. At the time it went F2P, most of the players left were lifetime sub members. Its not hard to double your profit when it wasnt that big to begin with. Lifetime subs = zero profit at the time they went F2P.

not revamp, but:

 

1. when almost all players click on the enter button, they get in the game.

 

2. when almost all players are in the game they STAY in the game and don't visit a never ending load screen, or their windows screen.

 

3. when most players are in the game it appears smooth and their actions seem to work right(no stuttering anyone?, no delays on the action bars anyone?, no stuck on your ship forever?)

 

You get NO MONEY from micro-transactions when the players quit out, due to poor game play/game engine/game systems. FTP will take them down the same path as ptp, unless they fix the bloody game, so it is playable by a whole bunch of peeps, unlike for all the ones that quit.(of course if they could fix it we'd still have north of 1million playing and no need for ftp)

yup , that too,,in pre launch i almost never had a bug

now i can barely log in, and max 5 mins before game crashes or freezes

and all other games run far better,,just this one is bugging

The bottom line is that the game lost massive numbers of subscribers, meaning it failed to achieve MMORPG "escape velocity." But most games don't. Some, like LOTRO, may not blow away estimates, but do very well. Indeed, I'm not sure any has ever actually hit the massive numbers it took WoW years to accumulate. So maybe the entire idea that this genre can actually blaze to several million subscribing players, right after launch, is a mistake.

The entire industry is missing the mark with these games. To many companies think it is about making the game bigger, fancier, with absurd tons of over-the-top hype. More need to focus on starting small, polishing, planning, and realizing that people want "living" games, not one-offs like Madden.

Hard to sell that to money focused CEOs though. Not that they aren't supposed to make profits, but rather they see everything at EA in terms of business school "widgets" to be made faster, cheaper. They think marketing hype is all that is required to overcome piss-poor games, such as with Warcraft.

I think the state of genre is in flux. Maybe in danger. Technology is advancing. No signs of any game or company knowing how to navigate mobile, tablet, and non-traditional PC players. Kickstater games are drawing millions in funding by the month.

These current games are all fixed too tightly in place, with not enough means to evolve technically. That is a problem. It may not be only subscriptions, but also the entire game type we need to worry about.

TERA is way more beautiful and functional than this game

 

and the gameplay mechanichs are similar

 

and yet TERA is also struggling, while pandalands easy gameplay is still unchallenged in sub numbers

 

perhaps theres a connection?

Several points here.

First, TERA does is not completely functional. PvP and nexus are pretty much the worst you have seen in this game on Illum all the time. Beautiful is always nice, but superfulous when you start wasting away your hard earned gold in the enchanting system and get nothing at all when it fails. It is VERY expensive. Its no childs play. The game itself also has a very steep learning curve at high level.

Thats what drove people away. Korean grinding mentality doesnt work for westerns.

Pandaria just launched, Its the worst selling expansion of WoW and blizzard hurried to present numbers to aprehensive investors. I'm pretty sure those numbers will resume their desceding tendency next month, after people realise how dumbed down the game was.

My connection is this: Both WoW and GW2 devs are making games for people who dont like games. It is a mistake and its gonna cost them alot pretty soon. Those are not the kinds of players that will stick to the same game, but fluctuate on whatever is popular at any given moment.

You want a real MMO? You stick to SWTOR. It will soon be painfully obvious wich games bore you and wich ones present you with fun.

There is the confirmation of a new planet on the way with higher player caps

The higher player cap is pretty much the only thing that has a chance to get alot of old players back.

Then, they need to hold those players with more end-game content for casual players. OPs don't do that. You get only hard-core players with OPs, but there aren't alot of those around.

50 million players by next year sounds perfectly reasonable.

AHAHAHAHAHAHA I read that and was thinking the same thing. ROFL

I nearly peed myself reading your reaction too hahaha.

Pandaria just launched, Its the worst selling expansion of WoW and blizzard hurried to present numbers to aprehensive investors.

The expansion sold 2,7m copies before October 4th, that is more than SWTOR sold in a year.

They also announced that the “global player base passed 10 million subscribers, with growth across all major regions.”.

So, some perspective is in order...

The higher player cap is pretty much the only thing that has a chance to get alot of old players back.

 

Then, they need to hold those players with more end-game content for casual players. OPs don't do that. You get only hard-core players with OPs, but there aren't alot of those around.

Well yeah, but I think OPS is easier than hard FP such as HM LI.

Blizzard's work is simple, nerf the old raid instance when the new one came out, TOR can do it as well, also add more easy world bosses.

TERA is way more beautiful and functional than this game

 

and the gameplay mechanichs are similar

 

and yet TERA is also struggling, while pandalands easy gameplay is still unchallenged in sub numbers

 

perhaps theres a connection?

Pandaria just came out, this argument is invalid. The subs were dropping before it did, and many analysts are saying that the game won't save WoW's decline. I tend to agree as it's become way too easy and the game is showing it's age.

The expansion sold 2,7m copies before October 4th, that is more than SWTOR sold in a year.

 

They also announced that the “global player base passed 10 million subscribers, with growth across all major regions.”.

 

So, some perspective is in order...

All those chineese prisoners farming gold have to buy a copy to keep from getting killed.

Pandaria just came out, this argument is invalid. The subs were dropping before it did, and many analysts are saying that the game won't save WoW's decline. I tend to agree as it's become way too easy and the game is showing it's age.

yes wow is an old game , and the fact , that all the contenders, have bled white before it is proof of its success

that was the formula to use for a big MMO,,,there may be others, but this is the one, that has proven to work

no other MMOs killed wow,,blizzard did

 

BTW, what is a "normal" player??? Regardless, still plenty of subscribers to this game, so I think you need a reality check, and also need to do some research on how freemium games are dominating the consumer market base (due to consumer demand) and that MMO freemium games in particular see 2X+ active players and much more revenue then when they were subscription only. There is a reason the model is becoming dominant in the marketplace.

Yup, WoW and the fact that noboby can innovate past it.

Otherwise F2P is a panic state, even the supposed holy grail of F2P, DDO and LOTRO don't do that well.

DDO does ok, but basically had 3 players (literally - it never had more than 60,000 accounts before it went F2P) before it went F2P (it's also amazingly well designed for the cashshop with it's modular format), LOTRO got a decent boost of players (almost doubling it's account number), however within 24 months it was back to it's old level of accounts. And remember F2P active accounts are less profitable than subscription accounts.

So again there is no evolved choice by the consumer to move to F2P, it's just the technology is there now for MMO companies to do it (which there wasn't 7+ years ago).

Nor do F2P games make as much revenue or profit as subscription games of the same number of active accounts.

F2P is very good a saving dying subscription games though and keeping them ticking over and making some money.

yea 50 mio could be done if it was EPIC STAR WARS MMO

but it isnt, so it wont happen,,that "analyst" is as useful, as rolling a dice for decisions

F2Pers are actually harder to please , than subbed players,,why?

because they havent invested anything in the game, they are simply here for a cheap thrill

any game, that desnt deliver at once will get flamed, before they leave it,

and they WILL spread the word of that games failure to please them

the subbed player know , that we have to compromise, so the game , that we love can grow big and strong

Looking forward to having all those players to team up with and battle against in warzones, BRING IT ON......oh come on time will tell.............if its free, everyone will want a bite no? What would they have to lose?

It's not free - in your example they'd have to pay to gain anything but very limited access to warzones.