How do you feel about paid subscriptions?

[gbullock32]

So there are many games with online play, and to cover server costs they either have a monthly/yearly subscription or offer an in-game shop which you can buy items or boosts for money. Both have ups and downs; the monthly subscription (usually) means that there is no real pay to win elements and the company does not have to keep pushing the pay content. Cash shops mean you can play for free if you choose, even if it is detrimental to progress, and if you choose to support the game you can and be rewarded for it.

Personally I prefer a monthly or flat rate pay option that means there is no shop; I'd rather pay a set amount and have the game be equal for all who play. Too many times games start with small things in the shops, skins, pets, or other cosmetic things but soon enough you can buy experience boosts, items that give you a huge step over normal players, in game money, inventory space.... things that actually give those who drop more cash a benefit. That's fair enough in terms of they are paying more for the service, but it leads to some scummy cash grabs by many developers.

So what are your thoughts and preferences between the two? Assuming for the sake of this that one is needed to keep a game online.

[Frostweaver]

Most of them do both options... since greed.

Look at wow.

[Astraea]

If the game itself is free, i'm fine with a subscription each month. But if you paid for the game and then you have to also pay a subscription fee each month like in ESO or FF XIV, that's just too much. I did though, I played both games for a while, but it wouldn't work for me anymore. Path of Exile has the best way to monetize in my opinion.

[Calen]

You don't NEED a subscription for ESO, you're just handicapped if you don't get one.

[CovertAgent]

He might mean old ESO. It caused me to stop playing after I lost my free gametime.

[Astraea]

Technically you don't need it, but in reality you'll get sick of it pretty fast not having your unlimited crafting bag etc. For me it would be unplayable without it.

[fenrif]

I would rather pay a subscription for something like an MMO. With the understanding that there will be no cash shop whatsoever. Also I would expect that subscription to go towards monthly content releases/narrative progression/etc. Sure, throw an expansion pack onto that once a year, or even every 6 months.

For anything that isn't an MMO the developer should just let players host their own servers. Too often server hosting is used as an excuse for the worst predatory pricing schemes imaginable. "We need to sell you a £7 hat, otherwise we can't keep the game running!" It's become standard for battle royale games to do this. Whereas if they just let players host their own servers the games life would be extended with mods and custom game modes, communities would form, and it wouldn't cost the devs anything. Though they would lose out on all that sweet whale cash. Which is the real reason they do this.

[gbullock32]

Most of them do both options... since greed.

Look at wow.

Very true, the old way it was back in classic was what I liked. Once they added more crap it just lost me. Runescape did the same thing, switching from just a monthly cost to both monthly and a shop.

[Frostweaver]

Very true, the old way it was back in classic was what I liked. Once they added more crap it just lost me. Runescape did the same thing, switching from just a monthly cost to both monthly and a shop.

It all started in Wotlk when they introduced the Algalon mount for money in the shop, later pets... It ruined the whole economy and incentive for certain things. Flashy mounts stopped being a thing of prestige and something people aim towards.

[Irritablesquid]

I'm fine with flat rate. The only time I think monetization is justified is when it's used to pay for the game, but I still don't like it.

[Merlin]

EIther one or the other for me. I don't think its good to have to pay for the game, then pay for a monthly fee. Even worse if there are mtx beyond that. Thats one of the reasons I didn't ever get into WoW originally(also because dial up and being poor).

[Matcam89]

As long as the game is good, adding more content at no extra charge i am ok with it - You aren't signing a life contract so you can cancel at any time. I know some people who play F2P games and have ended up spending many times more than the game is worth in my opinion.

[Yoshi]

I don't have a fundamental aversion to subscriptions, but they don't work for me anymore. I paid for years of SWG and (pre-cosmetic item) WoW and a few months of ToR. Now I just don't have the appetite for that type of game to justify playing enough hours to make the subscription worth it. For the record, I don't subscribe to PS+ or SBLG anymore either, though I have in the past. The discounts alone used to pay for the service for me, but not since essentially everything comes to PC now.

[ethansito]

I despise games that sell upgrades and powerups. I would rather pay a subscription than have to suffer through pay2win garbage.

I like it the most when I only have to pay for a game once, but I can understand that devs who want to maintain and update their game after release might need some money to support them. They better show that game some real love though.

[Odyssey]

Paid subscriptions is a good paying scheme for massive games. They are server based and multiplayer only and with the subscription rate your are paying so that the company could make some profit. And is therefor interested in keeping the service up and running.

Using Pay2Win instead is just fraud. If someone isnt able to play a game, why should money change that fact?

[Pantsu Hunter]

So far the best model for me is buy to play with cosmetics shop just like Guild Wars did it before they decided to make core game F2P. Then subscription. Both B2P and sub models dont require game to be grindy hell and in most cases have a good adult community without bratty kids and bots trying to sell you money every 10 seconds. All F2P games can suck my little nuts cuz of all the kids, bots and grind.

[Merlin]

I despise games that sell upgrades and powerups. I would rather pay a subscription than have to suffer through pay2win garbage.

I like it the most when I only have to pay for a game once, but I can understand that devs who want to maintain and update their game after release might need some money to support them. They better show that game some real love though.

you see, this is what is so fascinating about what Blizzard is doing right now. I'm sure you and others here are aware of it, but it makes sense.

CHINA

Chinese players are totally okay with the idea of pay to win games and seem to prefer the free to play, pay to win type games. And what is Blizzard geared to do? Well, the writing on the wall was when Overwatch stopped making real updates to the game. They have a team making an update to warcraft 3's graphics which is not resource hungry but will make them big bucks. Finally they moved all their best developers to mobile games(their words not mine) working with a chinese company on the first of many mobile pay to win games.

China is a huge emergent market. Western markets and Japan/S.Korea are saturated markets, while China is still open to growth. So if they can, Blizzard will make a huge push to this market, and thus, is following the trends the players there know at the expense of their loyal fans who they expect to just suck a fat one and go along with it. Ultimately I think they hope to be strong in China and don't care long term about other markets anymore. Unlike China, we are picky consumers, and we have shown that we have standards to some extent and can make a stink. Will they be successful? I don't know. It is hard to know as an outsider much of how Chinese players feel and think. I don't even know if they have a concept of brand loyalty or how long they stick to a single game. But if they can, then Blizzard will want to get people hooked on their brand and their games and get invested in it. If they succeed then don't expect any "good" by our standards, games from them ever again. They won't have to deal with pesky laws stopping how they monetize. Sure they have some draconian rules, but at the end of the day, they can MTX the crap out of players and make millions off of basic mobile games.

What I think will happen is that the future of western games will be boutique games made by small teams of disenfranchised former AAA devs and artists who have either been fired or quit. AAA developers have pretty much alienated the best talent of yesteryear and these folks still need to make a living. I think the future will be the AAA mtx heavy games as service type stuff against the short experience single player primarily games with cosmetics at most or DLC or monthly fees if multiplayer.

The people with a pulse on the hardcore crowd(by that I mean people in the know, not people who like the hardest games) will be independent games studios. I don't see them getting rich, but filling the gap left by the direction AAA devs will go. Outside of that I can only see Sony and Nintendo trying to make classic love note type games to sell their consoles, and Microsoft is a totally different beast.

The future I think is a less homogenous market, we are already seeing it as it is. I think the problem is they are marketing the wrong games to the wrong people. Diablo Immortal is the right game for China, but they showed it off to the wrong market. Same with Fallout 76, it was clearly a B team game made for a niche audience who like games like ARK where bugs are overlooked for the experience had in exchange(though it was a bit more than just a few bugs). They were trying to appeal to Fallout fans, when they should have appealed to survival fans outside of their E3 announcement and made it clear who it was for, and not to consider it fallout canon. Also a special edition like that was a bad idea too, but I digress.

In time the companies will figure it out, and I suspect might wisely make sub companies for each genre of game so that players don't get the wrong idea who the games are for any longer.

But that is just my crazy prediction and ranting. The whole system might just implode worse than when it did during the 80s.(thanks E.T.)

[Odyssey]

OMG. E. T. did well. It was sold in millions (the production price for a cartridge back then was just a few dollar. So the sold copies of E. T. made sure that E. T. made a profit. Doesnt matter how much werent sold). The home computer price war sourced the video game crash in the US in 1983. And it stopped in 1985. Way before the release of the NES. And about the chinese market: Blizzards game are already banned there, cause China has way more limits to video games then most other countries. There is even a video about how Blizzards games are banned in China. They dont allow gambling in China (so wave goodbye to lootcrates) and showing sexy women (and yes, this includes the nice presentation of women in Overwatch). So the chinese market is a closed market which is only allowed for chinese companies. Thats a lesson all western software companies have to learn. But by then they have lost most of the western customers and will most likely crash.

[Zenryu]

I actually prefer subscription-based MMOs. F2P games tend to become Pay2Win or put cosmetics behind a pay wall (usually way overpriced), which for me, is an absolutely necessary feature for MMOs. This is why I love FFXIV. I have most cosmetics available to me (I believe most of the paid cosmetics are old event costumes) and doesn't become as ridiculously grindy as F2P ones. Many of the other things that are locked behind a paywall are things I can live without. I usually go off and on that game. I won't be willing to touch any Subscription-based games that still has a somewhat Pay2Win mentality or still puts many cosmetics behind a pay wall.