Study rounds up top ten of average revenue per user in F2P games, WoT first, LoL last

[NuclearKangaroo]

http://www.superdataresearch.com/blog/mmo-arpu/

Team Fortress 2 close second, AMERICA WINS AGAIN!


so what are your thoughts on this


personally ive spent probably over 20 bucks on TF2, plus the 10 dollars i paid for it before it became F2P, money well spent, not only because TF2 is a Multiplayer Masterpiece, but also because that game has paid itself several times over thanks to trading

 

[Lictor Face]

HA not surprised to see PS2 on that list. That game is a very very cleverly disguised pay to win game.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

HA not surprised to see PS2 on that list. That game is a very very cleverly disguised pay to win game.

not really

is not cleverly disguised at all, you know its pay 2 win within 1 hour of playing

 

[Techno Squidgy]

Strangely enough I play 4 of the games on that list and have only dropped money on TF2. I like LoL, but consider the skins to be waaaaaaaaaaaaayy too expensive to buy, I'm not good enough at WoT to consider dropping money on it, and War Thunder is also prohibitively expensive. If they dropped the prices a little, I'd be more than happy to give them my money, I absolutely love War Thunder and the bonuses for a premium account would save me so much time. But it's just too damn expensive for me.

 

[Zontar]

Great, looks like I'm way above average for #1 and 2 (I've spent 30$ on WoT, and more then I care to admit on TF2). But at least those two don't have the monetization really effect gameplay most of the time.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

WoT is an exploitatively monetised FPS mod of "a game"...far moreso that TF2...which is at least "more honest" and less "arm twisting" about it...

on refection however neither of the two of them should be near the top of that list given "what you get for your money" is just a multiplayer FPS mod.

when you get down to number 3 and below the majority of the games are serving up far more "meat and potatoes" in comparison.

in short multiplayer FPS mods do not...deserve...to be at the top of that list...and there's something wrong with the fact that they are...

TF2 deserves to be on the top list of everything good

 

[Erttheking]

Kind of weird considering that I've heard a lot of people say they prefer DOTA 2 to LoL because of DOTA 2 being cheaper and not requiring you to buy champions, but the average DOTA 2 player spends more money than the average LoL player? I feel like I'm missing a key variable here.

 

[Ferisar]

Kind of weird considering that I've heard a lot of people say they prefer DOTA 2 to LoL because of DOTA 2 being cheaper and not requiring you to buy champions, but the average DOTA 2 player spends more money than the average LoL player? I feel like I'm missing a key variable here.

LoL has a larger playerbase that spends less. This is a list of average spending per user, not overall gain.

LoL still makes more money.

OT:
I don't understand why I want to celebrate the revenue gained per individual person from games that tend to enjoy exploiting their users through shitty business practices. "Hooray, my playerbase spends, on average, more money in a F2P game! Such Free! Much Monetary Support! Very Corporate Growth! Wow!"

EDIT:
Disregard above bit. I don't even know why I was angry. What is wrong with me, I just ate icecream, everything is supposed to BE GOOD. NOTHING IS EVEN WRONG.

GOD DAMN IT.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

Kind of weird considering that I've heard a lot of people say they prefer DOTA 2 to LoL because of DOTA 2 being cheaper and not requiring you to buy champions, but the average DOTA 2 player spends more money than the average LoL player? I feel like I'm missing a key variable here.

dont shove microtransactions down everybody's throat, develop a culture around cosmetics, get cash


also since LoL has more players i guess the amount of money spent gets dissolved

 

[Angelblaze]

Kind of weird considering that I've heard a lot of people say they prefer DOTA 2 to LoL because of DOTA 2 being cheaper and not requiring you to buy champions, but the average DOTA 2 player spends more money than the average LoL player? I feel like I'm missing a key variable here.

dont shove microtransactions down everybody's throat, develop a culture around cosmetics, get cash


also since LoL has more players i guess the amount of money spent gets dissolved

Plus, unlike most of those other games, they perma ban you if you act like a jerk enough or get paired up with enough jerked - this serves as a pretty good way to encourage me to not spend money, considering the un-clear specifications of what is and is not 'jerkdom'.

 

[JET1971]

I want to know where they got the numbers for both the Valve games. Valve does not share revenue info and according to SuperData they get that data from the publishers and developers. How did they get Valve to give out that info or is it a guess? Unless Valve states they shared the numbers with SuperData I am going to call those numbers made up.

 

[Ubiquitous Duck]

Kind of weird considering that I've heard a lot of people say they prefer DOTA 2 to LoL because of DOTA 2 being cheaper and not requiring you to buy champions, but the average DOTA 2 player spends more money than the average LoL player? I feel like I'm missing a key variable here.

dont shove microtransactions down everybody's throat, develop a culture around cosmetics, get cash


also since LoL has more players i guess the amount of money spent gets dissolved

It's proven time and time again that paid in-game cosmetics as the only driver of cash for a game is incredibly flawed.

The only people who can make good gains off of this model are absolute powerhouses like TF2 (Valve) and LoL.

They have made a pitiful amount of money, per player, from LoL. It only stands on its two feet because it commands such a ridiculously large player base. Within this, there are people who drastically increase the average by pumping large quantities of money into it (they call these people 'whales'). These are the people that prop-up free to play games. Average spend of $1.32 is a good show case of this, because that wouldn't buy you anything in LoL. It's even too small amount of cash to even buy (as you have to buy Riot Points in order to spend cash and the lowest possible is more than £1.32). Because a very large number of people played and never spent anything at all on it, despite often a heavy investment of hours of play. Instead the average is inflated by the people buying skins at $4-$8 a pop.

And even still, both these games have transactions that are not only cosmetic. Such as the buying of new champs on LoL or the buying of guns on TF2. Sure, often a lot less integral to the game, and normally have workarounds, but they are still existent.

These are not models that a regular game can exist on.

I'm fine with just buying my games and forgetting all about these free to play ones. Can we just return to that?

 

[Flatfrog]

They have made a pitiful amount of money, per player, from LoL. It only stands on its two feet because it commands such a ridiculously large player base.

This seems an odd argument. Surely for a game that you're giving away free, the money per player is pretty much irrelevant, it's the total revenue that matters. The cost of developing the game is the same, obviously you have higher server costs for a game with more players but above a certain level that can't make that much difference.

So I don't see why it's 'pitiful' to have a 'ridiculously large player base', enough of whom love the game enough to put decent money into it and keep it going, and why that's a worse business model than having a smaller number of players who pay more money on average.

If anything, I think the first model is really the ideal model for F2P from the player perspective: a game that is completely free and fun to play, which commands a huge player base and so you can be sure to find people there to play against, without any pay-to-win element to make it frustrating for newcomers, which gently encourages you to support the game by occasionally purchasing some frippery. For me, that's what F2P was always supposed to be about.

 

[sXeth]

I want to know where they got the numbers for both the Valve games. Valve does not share revenue info and according to SuperData they get that data from the publishers and developers. How did they get Valve to give out that info or is it a guess? Unless Valve states they shared the numbers with SuperData I am going to call those numbers made up.

They mention 'payment service providers' down in the same spiel just after publishers. That said, they don't mention what scale was applied to the survey, or even if the same number of users were used on each game to find the average, so the numbers are a bit dubious.

 

[Ubiquitous Duck]

They have made a pitiful amount of money, per player, from LoL. It only stands on its two feet because it commands such a ridiculously large player base.

This seems an odd argument. Surely for a game that you're giving away free, the money per player is pretty much irrelevant, it's the total revenue that matters. The cost of developing the game is the same, obviously you have higher server costs for a game with more players but above a certain level that can't make that much difference.

So I don't see why it's 'pitiful' to have a 'ridiculously large player base', enough of whom love the game enough to put decent money into it and keep it going, and why that's a worse business model than having a smaller number of players who pay more money on average.

If anything, I think the first model is really the ideal model for F2P from the player perspective: a game that is completely free and fun to play, which commands a huge player base and so you can be sure to find people there to play against, without any pay-to-win element to make it frustrating for newcomers, which gently encourages you to support the game by occasionally purchasing some frippery. For me, that's what F2P was always supposed to be about.

It's just because, if you scale it down to a more reasonable expectation of a player base, $1.32 per gamer is not a sustainable model.

The model necessitates a massive player base, in order to make a return on your game. And for niche products or even games that just don't become a big success, they really will be seen by their business and sales analysts to of failed.

The point is that it is unreasonable to assume because LoL and TF2 can survive being F2P with almost entirely cosmetic purchases for in-game content, that it is a workable model for all developers to adopt.

Say you sold a game for $30. If you had 10,000 people buy it, you'd get £300,000. In order to make the same amount of money free to play (on an average of $1.32 spend per person), you'd need 227,272 people to get it. That's 217,272 more people or a 2,272% increase on sales/downloads.

It demands the game be a massive success or else it will be a massive failure.

It's too idealistic to assume all free to play games could be marketed with the only monetisation method as cosmetic items.

 

[Me55enger]

You should see what some folk have sunk into APB: Reloaded. I'll give you a clue: Lots.

 

[Adeptus Aspartem]

It's just because, if you scale it down to a more reasonable expectation of a player base, $1.32 per gamer is not a sustainable model.

The model necessitates a massive player base, in order to make a return on your game. And for niche products or even games that just don't become a big success, they really will be seen by their business and sales analysts to of failed.

The point is that it is unreasonable to assume because LoL and TF2 can survive being F2P with almost entirely cosmetic purchases for in-game content, that it is a workable model for all developers to adopt.

Say you sold a game for $30. If you had 10,000 people buy it, you'd get £300,000. In order to make the same amount of money free to play (on an average of $1.32 spend per person), you'd need 227,272 people to get it. That's 217,272 more people or a 2,272% increase on sales/downloads.

It demands the game be a massive success or else it will be a massive failure.

It's too idealistic to assume all free to play games could be marketed with the only monetisation method as cosmetic items.

Jeah but there's an error in your thinking. If you scale down the playerbase the average spending will rise by a good chunk. There are millions of "freeloaders" in Lol which drag down the average, these are players that would never spend money anyway but LoL has such a big appeal that they play anyway. LoL has probably more non-paying costumers than most of those games on the list have as a total playerbase.
A second study that questions/checks the amount of money spend by only paying customers would be very interesting to see. Because the players i know, which are willing to spend money on LoL did so in quite a generous manner.

We once did a mini-survey in our national facebook group with maybe 100 people or so. And basically each and everyone in the group spent at least +100 bucks in the last 1-3 years (depending on their join date). I assume the "hardcore" playerbase is paying alot.

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

I haven't played World of Tanks, but I've seen it played, and it looks Pay-to-Win as fuck. As in you can't compete with people who have premium ammo. But I have played TF2, and it warms my heart to see it in second place, being one of the least annoying, least frustrating, least unbalanced and least mandatory F2P schemes I've seen. Angry Birds on the other hand has gone to shit, I updated it recently and they've got fucking buttons all over a quarter of the already inadequate screen, implemented a daily prize wheel and pester you every time you spend too long on a level to use a fucking powerup, which gets VERY annoying when you're trying to get 3 stars. Same with all the games of that ilk. The worst part is it was a good game originally, and has gained the symptoms of mobile gaming like so many cancerous growths.