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

[Ubiquitous Duck]

Yes, that is one of those tactics employed by LoL.

Bring out a new champ, but only allow it to be bought with money for the beginning of its existence and make it possible to gain freely later, once it is not overpowered anymore.

Their sneaky way to weave a pay-to-win model in the middle of LoL.

So I take it you learn everything you know about LoL from DoTA2 fan forums? because absolutely no part of that statement is true.

OT: considering the obsessive hat culture I'm suprised TF2 isn't number one, especially considering the most common drop is box that costs $2 to get fucked over by open.
Also why the fuck is Combat arms anywhere on that list? Its like Counterstike if Counterstrike was a completely unplayable pay2win hackfest, and I didn't even think it had a particularity large playerbase. Although that explains why those greedy bastards at Nexon shut down DFO, they already had a cash cow and didn't feel the need to maintain a more niche title.

Jesus, how many people have to call me up on this point. It's so minor. I guess there are too many passionate LoL fans around these forums.

OK, I was wrong. Get over it. It was just a point I acknowledged from another poster. As far as I remembered it matched with my memories of playing LoL a year or so back.

It also doesn't change the fact that people buy champs with RP and buying a champ is not a cosmetic purchase. Sure, it 'can' be obtained through gameplay, but this purchase can't be seen as 'cosmetic'. It's buying content otherwise barred from you, not changing your appearance or the appearance of your UI or anything like that.

 

[Ubiquitous Duck]

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.

Last time I tried LoL the shop statistic showed they made vast majority of their money from champion sales.
On a totally unrelated note last 3 champions added while I was playing were blatantly overpowered and severely balanced a couple weeks in *rolls eyes*.

It does work for Valve though, surely not as well as some unreliable sources cite but it does work. They've got an unique gig running though, they earn a lot of money without inconveniencing the player base thanks to the marketplace AND they get a massive promotion for their platform which has rather poor penetration with players that play F2P games, which is probably the more important thing.

Yes, that is one of those tactics employed by LoL.

Bring out a new champ, but only allow it to be bought with money for the beginning of its existence and make it possible to gain freely later, once it is not overpowered anymore.

Their sneaky way to weave a pay-to-win model in the middle of LoL.

Bullshit. Champions can be bought with IP from the get-go. Also, champions are typically released in an unbalanced state because their approach to balance is iteractive. From the recent releases, Zac, Jinx and Thresh were released in an overpowered state, Lucian, Yasuo and Zed were pushed into overpowered status after post-release buffs and Quinn, Lisandra, Aatrox and Vel'Koz are considered underpowered or unfit for high level play. They rely much more on pre-release hype and design to sell them then raw power (hint: the same reason why half the 450 ip champions are contested picks in competitive play).

Toooooooooooooooo many passionate people trying to defend LoL here. It really was just a minor point that I supported from another poster.

At the end of the day, people buy champs with RP and that cannot be viewed as a 'cosmetic' purchase. It is buying content of the game, not changing an appearance of something in the game.

Whether or not new champs are OP or not is really not something that needs to be discussed in this thread.

 

[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?

what proof do you have this model doesnt work? what proof do you have that exploitive models work?

why cant we have both free to play games and retail releases? some people dont have the cash to get new games every time

I never said exploitative models were better. I just said that it is too idealistic to assume the industry would work better if all games adopted a F2P model, where the only monetisation was through cosmetic purchases. This would only allow the greatest and best games to survive and make money and the rest would be left on the wheyside. Small developers would be crushed out of the market.

As for proof that the cosmetic model doesn't work - look at LoLs conversion rate of money, as I've laid out in my previous posts. They make terrible money. The only reason they survive is due to the sheer number of people who play their game. A terrible monetisation of players, but survives due to gross popularity.

This is not a reasonable expectation of small developers or even medium developers. It necessitates a massive reception of your game.

It is just too naive to assume that all games could survive and make a good return on F2P with cosmetic purchases only.

and why are you ignoring TF2? a game with a model even more lenient than LoL's and has a much bigger conversion rate

the advantages of a cosmetic driven model is that customers dont perceive it as exploitive, if customers perceive a model as exploitive they are likely to simply stop playing the game altogether, i think its more beneficial for a F2P game to have more people playing, even if they dont play, than having a small playerbase that pays, because a small playerbase is more likely to die out in a relatively short amount of time

maybe a cosmetic driven model isnt the solution for everthing, but any other model must make sure its not exploitive for the good of all parties involved

either way you didnt prove anything

Ok, again on we sludge.

As I've already said, TF2, LoL, these games are enigmas. They are too big, too massive, too much of a rarity to consider as fair examples for other games to follow. Do you really think that all games could go F2P with cosmetics and be supported by this model?

You may appear to be a more 'nice' and 'friendly' gaming studio to put out these cosmetic only F2P games and sure it would be good PR, but a gaming business needs more than that to survive.

I think I actually may have 'proven anything', because your stance has changed from 'develop a culture around cosmetics' to 'maybe a cosmetic driven model isnt the solution for everything'.

Which is my whole point. The gaming industry can't turn into a F2P only, cosmetic-purchase-monetisation-only industry, because it means the strongest survive and everyone else dies. Rather than now, when others struggle but maintain, they'd just die. Because a game with a small player base, even if loyal fans, is not providing enough cash to keep a business afloat on cosmetic-only purchases.

you didnt really prove anything because your LoL examle falls apart with the TF2 counter example

the thing is, if exploitive models were so effective more high profile F2P games would be using em


also i changed my wording because i realized there might be a posibility that just because a game doesnt rely on cosmetics to generate revenue, doesnt mean its model is exploitive




who the hell is saying the entire industry should implement a F2P model? jesus

i wish games like this existed when i was younger and i didnt have the cash to get games, free multiplayer games wouldve been the shit

I constantly have acknowledged TF2 and have constantly said that it is a standalone. That's the whole point. These top examples are exemplars, everyone else who has tried and any smaller developers who have tried end up failing. It's only a decent moneymaker for the great successes.

We are just going in circles now.

I was merely picking up on your point about 'building a game around cosmetics in order to get cash' (paraphrasing from your exact quote).

If this was not your intention, to suggest that F2P games should be built around cosmetics to make money, then I have put words in your mouth. But I have never endorsed exploitative models, so perhaps we are both guilty of doing that.

It's very easy to see why the business-minds of a company would want to try to get more money than these cosmetic models are providing them though. Doesn't mean its the right decision, but it's obvious to see why that pressure is there, to get more money out of your player base. With the numbers of people LoL have, there are going to be people who would want a better return on those numbers. It depends whos voice is loud enough or if these competing voices are in your business, apparently Riot are doing alright at silencing them.

Obviously idealistically we'd like games to be F2P and if we want to throw money at them, then we will. But this does throw decent games to the kerb with often 0 investment and will probably mean you throwing more money at the strongest titles. Sure, the best should get more money, but I think it overly punishes the decent or even quite good games.

It's up to consumers to make games with exploitative models fail. I've never purchased in-game upgrades or in-game perks to make myself better than my opponents for real cash and when I've played games that allow this, I get frustrated and leave.

If everyone did this, then these games wouldn't make any money and would end up massive failures. And then hopefully people would connect the dots and see that the exploitative models don't make money and would stop doing them. But I met plenty of people on APB who bought guns in game for real life cash of up to £25 (£25 is £5-£10 less than PC games on-release pricing online, to give an idea of the pricing, if you aren't used to British Pounds). £25 for an in-game weapon. Are you mental? Apparently yes, some people are.

Allow these titles to fail and the industry will adapt. Adapt or die. That's the way of business.

 

[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

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?

what proof do you have this model doesnt work? what proof do you have that exploitive models work?

why cant we have both free to play games and retail releases? some people dont have the cash to get new games every time

I never said exploitative models were better. I just said that it is too idealistic to assume the industry would work better if all games adopted a F2P model, where the only monetisation was through cosmetic purchases. This would only allow the greatest and best games to survive and make money and the rest would be left on the wheyside. Small developers would be crushed out of the market.

As for proof that the cosmetic model doesn't work - look at LoLs conversion rate of money, as I've laid out in my previous posts. They make terrible money. The only reason they survive is due to the sheer number of people who play their game. A terrible monetisation of players, but survives due to gross popularity.

This is not a reasonable expectation of small developers or even medium developers. It necessitates a massive reception of your game.

It is just too naive to assume that all games could survive and make a good return on F2P with cosmetic purchases only.

and why are you ignoring TF2? a game with a model even more lenient than LoL's and has a much bigger conversion rate

the advantages of a cosmetic driven model is that customers dont perceive it as exploitive, if customers perceive a model as exploitive they are likely to simply stop playing the game altogether, i think its more beneficial for a F2P game to have more people playing, even if they dont play, than having a small playerbase that pays, because a small playerbase is more likely to die out in a relatively short amount of time

maybe a cosmetic driven model isnt the solution for everthing, but any other model must make sure its not exploitive for the good of all parties involved

either way you didnt prove anything

Ok, again on we sludge.

As I've already said, TF2, LoL, these games are enigmas. They are too big, too massive, too much of a rarity to consider as fair examples for other games to follow. Do you really think that all games could go F2P with cosmetics and be supported by this model?

You may appear to be a more 'nice' and 'friendly' gaming studio to put out these cosmetic only F2P games and sure it would be good PR, but a gaming business needs more than that to survive.

I think I actually may have 'proven anything', because your stance has changed from 'develop a culture around cosmetics' to 'maybe a cosmetic driven model isnt the solution for everything'.

Which is my whole point. The gaming industry can't turn into a F2P only, cosmetic-purchase-monetisation-only industry, because it means the strongest survive and everyone else dies. Rather than now, when others struggle but maintain, they'd just die. Because a game with a small player base, even if loyal fans, is not providing enough cash to keep a business afloat on cosmetic-only purchases.

you didnt really prove anything because your LoL examle falls apart with the TF2 counter example

the thing is, if exploitive models were so effective more high profile F2P games would be using em


also i changed my wording because i realized there might be a posibility that just because a game doesnt rely on cosmetics to generate revenue, doesnt mean its model is exploitive




who the hell is saying the entire industry should implement a F2P model? jesus

i wish games like this existed when i was younger and i didnt have the cash to get games, free multiplayer games wouldve been the shit

I constantly have acknowledged TF2 and have constantly said that it is a standalone. That's the whole point. These top examples are exemplars, everyone else who has tried and any smaller developers who have tried end up failing. It's only a decent moneymaker for the great successes.

We are just going in circles now.

I was merely picking up on your point about 'building a game around cosmetics in order to get cash' (paraphrasing from your exact quote).

If this was not your intention, to suggest that F2P games should be built around cosmetics to make money, then I have put words in your mouth. But I have never endorsed exploitative models, so perhaps we are both guilty of doing that.

It's very easy to see why the business-minds of a company would want to try to get more money than these cosmetic models are providing them though. Doesn't mean its the right decision, but it's obvious to see why that pressure is there, to get more money out of your player base. With the numbers of people LoL have, there are going to be people who would want a better return on those numbers. It depends whos voice is loud enough or if these competing voices are in your business, apparently Riot are doing alright at silencing them.

Obviously idealistically we'd like games to be F2P and if we want to throw money at them, then we will. But this does throw decent games to the kerb with often 0 investment and will probably mean you throwing more money at the strongest titles. Sure, the best should get more money, but I think it overly punishes the decent or even quite good games.

It's up to consumers to make games with exploitative models fail. I've never purchased in-game upgrades or in-game perks to make myself better than my opponents for real cash and when I've played games that allow this, I get frustrated and leave.

If everyone did this, then these games wouldn't make any money and would end up massive failures. And then hopefully people would connect the dots and see that the exploitative models don't make money and would stop doing them. But I met plenty of people on APB who bought guns in game for real life cash of up to £25 (£25 is £5-£10 less than PC games on-release pricing online, to give an idea of the pricing, if you aren't used to British Pounds). £25 for an in-game weapon. Are you mental? Apparently yes, some people are.

Allow these titles to fail and the industry will adapt. Adapt or die. That's the way of business.

i think ive lost track, you think very few games can pull the cosmetic centric model successfully, but at the same time think exploitive models dont work?


what i meant is that a cosmetic centric model is one way F2P games can make money and not exploit their consumer base, but i think there must be other non-exploitive ways as well, for instance, the guy in extra credits made an episode about this recently, he cited an example he saw in an asian MMO i believe, it was an item called "cash bomb", the item could be bought at the store, when used it exploded sending money flying around your character, but heres the thing, your character cant pick this money up, but everyone else can, using one of those in any place with lots of people was like an instant party button, it was a very popular item from what i understand

the item was neither cosmetic nor it provided a direct advantage to the player using the item

F2P is still a very new model, devs are still figuring out ways to implement it correctly, but evidence seems to suggest its not a 1 size fits all matter, hell even among similar models in similar games, the approach to cosmetics by Dota 2 is radically different from the one by LoL


anyways what i think your point is, is that regardless of model, very few F2P games are successful, and to a certain degree i agree

 

[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?

what proof do you have this model doesnt work? what proof do you have that exploitive models work?

why cant we have both free to play games and retail releases? some people dont have the cash to get new games every time

I never said exploitative models were better. I just said that it is too idealistic to assume the industry would work better if all games adopted a F2P model, where the only monetisation was through cosmetic purchases. This would only allow the greatest and best games to survive and make money and the rest would be left on the wheyside. Small developers would be crushed out of the market.

As for proof that the cosmetic model doesn't work - look at LoLs conversion rate of money, as I've laid out in my previous posts. They make terrible money. The only reason they survive is due to the sheer number of people who play their game. A terrible monetisation of players, but survives due to gross popularity.

This is not a reasonable expectation of small developers or even medium developers. It necessitates a massive reception of your game.

It is just too naive to assume that all games could survive and make a good return on F2P with cosmetic purchases only.

and why are you ignoring TF2? a game with a model even more lenient than LoL's and has a much bigger conversion rate

the advantages of a cosmetic driven model is that customers dont perceive it as exploitive, if customers perceive a model as exploitive they are likely to simply stop playing the game altogether, i think its more beneficial for a F2P game to have more people playing, even if they dont play, than having a small playerbase that pays, because a small playerbase is more likely to die out in a relatively short amount of time

maybe a cosmetic driven model isnt the solution for everthing, but any other model must make sure its not exploitive for the good of all parties involved

either way you didnt prove anything

Ok, again on we sludge.

As I've already said, TF2, LoL, these games are enigmas. They are too big, too massive, too much of a rarity to consider as fair examples for other games to follow. Do you really think that all games could go F2P with cosmetics and be supported by this model?

You may appear to be a more 'nice' and 'friendly' gaming studio to put out these cosmetic only F2P games and sure it would be good PR, but a gaming business needs more than that to survive.

I think I actually may have 'proven anything', because your stance has changed from 'develop a culture around cosmetics' to 'maybe a cosmetic driven model isnt the solution for everything'.

Which is my whole point. The gaming industry can't turn into a F2P only, cosmetic-purchase-monetisation-only industry, because it means the strongest survive and everyone else dies. Rather than now, when others struggle but maintain, they'd just die. Because a game with a small player base, even if loyal fans, is not providing enough cash to keep a business afloat on cosmetic-only purchases.

you didnt really prove anything because your LoL examle falls apart with the TF2 counter example

the thing is, if exploitive models were so effective more high profile F2P games would be using em


also i changed my wording because i realized there might be a posibility that just because a game doesnt rely on cosmetics to generate revenue, doesnt mean its model is exploitive




who the hell is saying the entire industry should implement a F2P model? jesus

i wish games like this existed when i was younger and i didnt have the cash to get games, free multiplayer games wouldve been the shit

I constantly have acknowledged TF2 and have constantly said that it is a standalone. That's the whole point. These top examples are exemplars, everyone else who has tried and any smaller developers who have tried end up failing. It's only a decent moneymaker for the great successes.

We are just going in circles now.

I was merely picking up on your point about 'building a game around cosmetics in order to get cash' (paraphrasing from your exact quote).

If this was not your intention, to suggest that F2P games should be built around cosmetics to make money, then I have put words in your mouth. But I have never endorsed exploitative models, so perhaps we are both guilty of doing that.

It's very easy to see why the business-minds of a company would want to try to get more money than these cosmetic models are providing them though. Doesn't mean its the right decision, but it's obvious to see why that pressure is there, to get more money out of your player base. With the numbers of people LoL have, there are going to be people who would want a better return on those numbers. It depends whos voice is loud enough or if these competing voices are in your business, apparently Riot are doing alright at silencing them.

Obviously idealistically we'd like games to be F2P and if we want to throw money at them, then we will. But this does throw decent games to the kerb with often 0 investment and will probably mean you throwing more money at the strongest titles. Sure, the best should get more money, but I think it overly punishes the decent or even quite good games.

It's up to consumers to make games with exploitative models fail. I've never purchased in-game upgrades or in-game perks to make myself better than my opponents for real cash and when I've played games that allow this, I get frustrated and leave.

If everyone did this, then these games wouldn't make any money and would end up massive failures. And then hopefully people would connect the dots and see that the exploitative models don't make money and would stop doing them. But I met plenty of people on APB who bought guns in game for real life cash of up to £25 (£25 is £5-£10 less than PC games on-release pricing online, to give an idea of the pricing, if you aren't used to British Pounds). £25 for an in-game weapon. Are you mental? Apparently yes, some people are.

Allow these titles to fail and the industry will adapt. Adapt or die. That's the way of business.

i think ive lost track, you think very few games can pull the cosmetic centric model successfully, but at the same time think exploitive models dont work?


what i meant is that a cosmetic centric model is one way F2P games can make money and not exploit their consumer base, but i think there must be other non-exploitive ways as well, for instance, the guy in extra credits made an episode about this recently, he cited an example he saw in an asian MMO i believe, it was an item called "cash bomb", the item could be bought at the store, when used it exploded sending money flying around your character, but heres the thing, your character cant pick this money up, but everyone else can, using one of those in any place with lots of people was like an instant party button, it was a very popular item from what i understand

the item was neither cosmetic nor it provided a direct advantage to the player using the item

F2P is still a very new model, devs are still figuring out ways to implement it correctly, but evidence seems to suggest its not a 1 size fits all matter, hell even among similar models in similar games, the approach to cosmetics by Dota 2 is radically different from the one by LoL


anyways what i think your point is, is that regardless of model, very few F2P games are successful, and to a certain degree i agree

Exploitative models shouldn't work. It is up to us, as consumers to reinforce this, by not investing in them. But people play Planetside and buy advantages against their opponents, people invest ridiculous amounts of cash into singular items in Eve. There are plenty of games that have spenders on in-game advantages, but I don't play these myself. Too frustrating. But the fact remains that they continue to exist.

There needs to be a better way than pure cosmetic purchasing, because it is not alone a very good way to make money.

Hell, as I've already said, LoL isn't even a purely cosmetic-market oriented game. Plenty of people buy champs with RP, to speed up the acquisition of champs, and that isn't a cosmetic purchase.

You could've acquired this champ through playing the game, but you chose to skip this (for whatever reason) and decided to pay money rather than invest time. I can empathise with this model over say a model that prohibits purchasing other than with real money.

It's like in Hearthstone, you 'can' use real money to buy packs of cards and it makes your endeavours a hell of a lot faster. But, if you invested a lot of time into the game, you could get a bundle of cards, no problem. Maybe not as many, but nothing is barred from you, content-wise, if you choose not to invest any money.

Buying an actual advantage over an opponent, that is otherwise blocked, just causes me frustration though and I normally end up dropping the game.

Trust me, I hate exploitative models as much as the next guy, but I choose to not invest in them as my answer. If I don't like a businesses practices, I don't invest in them. Sure, my impact is tiny, but it's my choice.

I don't pay to win. I don't buy from Primark, due to their negligence to their workforce causing deaths. I won't watch the Qatar World Cup (Football/soccer), because they are literally killing people to make sure the stadiums are completed for it.

My impact as an individual is tiny, I know that, but I can't endorse these companies by buying their products and all I can hope is that people act similarly and I can help promote the message of being a conscious consumer.

If companies want to make games with these exploitative monetisation models, let them. Just don't buy them. If people play them and put money into them, let them. My preference would be that no one did, so we would get rid of these models, but if people continue to fund them, that's their choice and I can't demand that they stop.

 

[major_chaos]

Jesus, how many people have to call me up on this point.

Three. Three people quoted you on that. If you are going to have a conniption over three quotes I advise you to never say anything remotely controversial.

It's so minor. I guess there are too many passionate LoL fans around these forums.

I haven't played LoL for awhile now. I don't need to be a fanboy to correct people who make statements that are blatantly untrue.

Get over it.

You are reading a lot of emotion into a post that had very little. I think you need to calm down.

It also doesn't change the fact that people buy champs with RP and buying a champ is not a cosmetic purchase.

No its a convenience purchase, most F2P games have them (including TF2) and unless you make items stupidly difficult to get without real money *cough*marvelheroes*cough* there is nothing wrong with that.

 

[Hazzaslagga]

not really

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

Wait, I'm not that familiar with F2P models but how is PS2 pay to win? I always thought it was fairly reasonable(recent advertising choices aside).

 

[Alma Mare]

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.

Last time I tried LoL the shop statistic showed they made vast majority of their money from champion sales.
On a totally unrelated note last 3 champions added while I was playing were blatantly overpowered and severely balanced a couple weeks in *rolls eyes*.

It does work for Valve though, surely not as well as some unreliable sources cite but it does work. They've got an unique gig running though, they earn a lot of money without inconveniencing the player base thanks to the marketplace AND they get a massive promotion for their platform which has rather poor penetration with players that play F2P games, which is probably the more important thing.

Yes, that is one of those tactics employed by LoL.

Bring out a new champ, but only allow it to be bought with money for the beginning of its existence and make it possible to gain freely later, once it is not overpowered anymore.

Their sneaky way to weave a pay-to-win model in the middle of LoL.

Bullshit. Champions can be bought with IP from the get-go. Also, champions are typically released in an unbalanced state because their approach to balance is iteractive. From the recent releases, Zac, Jinx and Thresh were released in an overpowered state, Lucian, Yasuo and Zed were pushed into overpowered status after post-release buffs and Quinn, Lisandra, Aatrox and Vel'Koz are considered underpowered or unfit for high level play. They rely much more on pre-release hype and design to sell them then raw power (hint: the same reason why half the 450 ip champions are contested picks in competitive play).

Toooooooooooooooo many passionate people trying to defend LoL here. It really was just a minor point that I supported from another poster.

At the end of the day, people buy champs with RP and that cannot be viewed as a 'cosmetic' purchase. It is buying content of the game, not changing an appearance of something in the game.

Whether or not new champs are OP or not is really not something that needs to be discussed in this thread.

It's not a minor point. Whether some things are locked behind a paywall or not and wether you are being sold power or not is a major issue when discussing a FTP model. Ir's pretty much the crux of the matter, as far as the consumer goes. If you're going to bring it up, get it right.

 

[Ubiquitous Duck]

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.

Last time I tried LoL the shop statistic showed they made vast majority of their money from champion sales.
On a totally unrelated note last 3 champions added while I was playing were blatantly overpowered and severely balanced a couple weeks in *rolls eyes*.

It does work for Valve though, surely not as well as some unreliable sources cite but it does work. They've got an unique gig running though, they earn a lot of money without inconveniencing the player base thanks to the marketplace AND they get a massive promotion for their platform which has rather poor penetration with players that play F2P games, which is probably the more important thing.

Yes, that is one of those tactics employed by LoL.

Bring out a new champ, but only allow it to be bought with money for the beginning of its existence and make it possible to gain freely later, once it is not overpowered anymore.

Their sneaky way to weave a pay-to-win model in the middle of LoL.

Bullshit. Champions can be bought with IP from the get-go. Also, champions are typically released in an unbalanced state because their approach to balance is iteractive. From the recent releases, Zac, Jinx and Thresh were released in an overpowered state, Lucian, Yasuo and Zed were pushed into overpowered status after post-release buffs and Quinn, Lisandra, Aatrox and Vel'Koz are considered underpowered or unfit for high level play. They rely much more on pre-release hype and design to sell them then raw power (hint: the same reason why half the 450 ip champions are contested picks in competitive play).

Toooooooooooooooo many passionate people trying to defend LoL here. It really was just a minor point that I supported from another poster.

At the end of the day, people buy champs with RP and that cannot be viewed as a 'cosmetic' purchase. It is buying content of the game, not changing an appearance of something in the game.

Whether or not new champs are OP or not is really not something that needs to be discussed in this thread.

It's not a minor point. Whether some things are locked behind a paywall or not and wether you are being sold power or not is a major issue when discussing a FTP model. Ir's pretty much the crux of the matter, as far as the consumer goes. If you're going to bring it up, get it right.

Well, as I said, I didn't bring it up.

I acknowledged another poster saying it. I thought it was correct with my memory of the game and it wasn't. And I admitted that.

It was a minor point, because it was only the suggestion of a briefly-lived paywall for the introduction of new characters. And it is even more minor, because it is untrue.

And the point of it being minor, was in the context of a discussion of cosmetic purchasing. Whether or not the champ is purchasable with real money or not or is OP or not is irrelevant, because none of these have anything to do with cosmetic purchasing.

Can we move on from this point now? It's an obvious illusion to say that all LoL purchasing is cosmetic, because it isn't.

 

[Pseudonym]

Why does the chart call them 'MMO titles'? Some of these games aren't MMO's at all.

 

[Rariow]

I'm surprised Hearthstone isn't on there, considering that, unless you have a crazy amount of patience, the only way to decently play constructed is to spend quite a lot more than what these games are getting on packs. I guess my modus operandi of only playing Arena is more popular than I expected.

 

[Zontar]

Why does the chart call them 'MMO titles'? Some of these games aren't MMO's at all.

I don't see any that aren't, could you specify which ones you're talking about?

 

[Pseudonym]

Why does the chart call them 'MMO titles'? Some of these games aren't MMO's at all.

I don't see any that aren't, could you specify which ones you're talking about?

TF2, Dota2, LoL. Those are just Multiplayer Online games. (MO's I guess) They aren't massive. I was under the impression that 'massive' in MMO referred to the amount of players in a single lobby/server/world and that this had to number at least in the hundreds. These games are designed around 10 players for LoL and Dota2 and something like 24 players in the case of TF2. Another difference with your typical MMO is that in the MMO's I've played the world was persistent. It never reloaded or reset whereas a game of tf2 or LoL takes maybe an hour at most and then a new game is started.

 

[Frankster]

I'm a bit surprised Dota2 has a higher average revenue per player then LoL.

Though then again selling bits and pieces of individual components with which to custom your champ is more fun for the customer then when they buy all in 1 skin packages that can't be customized.

Actually then again... Lol doesn't have that BS key/treasure system that is a pseudo gambling mechanic. Oooh look at this extra special super uber duper box that might contain the legendary fellsword of Bel Kahz! And it sits there taunting you until you finally give in in a moment of weakness and buy a key for the thing.. Only for it to give you the same mundane item you already had 5 copies off.

Yeh now I remember why I hate valve's way of doing things. Seems to be effective though so guess Im in the minority.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

not really

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

Wait, I'm not that familiar with F2P models but how is PS2 pay to win? I always thought it was fairly reasonable(recent advertising choices aside).

you use the same ingame currency for upgrades and buying new weapons, so you are forced to choose between remaining competitive and actually trying out new stuff, the rate at which you earn ingame currency is laughable and some of the most imortant upgrades/weapons are also the most expensive, stuff like rocket pods for fighters or anti-air missiles for your heavy, this is stuff that given the right situations can give you a huge advantage in the field

 

[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

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?

what proof do you have this model doesnt work? what proof do you have that exploitive models work?

why cant we have both free to play games and retail releases? some people dont have the cash to get new games every time

I never said exploitative models were better. I just said that it is too idealistic to assume the industry would work better if all games adopted a F2P model, where the only monetisation was through cosmetic purchases. This would only allow the greatest and best games to survive and make money and the rest would be left on the wheyside. Small developers would be crushed out of the market.

As for proof that the cosmetic model doesn't work - look at LoLs conversion rate of money, as I've laid out in my previous posts. They make terrible money. The only reason they survive is due to the sheer number of people who play their game. A terrible monetisation of players, but survives due to gross popularity.

This is not a reasonable expectation of small developers or even medium developers. It necessitates a massive reception of your game.

It is just too naive to assume that all games could survive and make a good return on F2P with cosmetic purchases only.

and why are you ignoring TF2? a game with a model even more lenient than LoL's and has a much bigger conversion rate

the advantages of a cosmetic driven model is that customers dont perceive it as exploitive, if customers perceive a model as exploitive they are likely to simply stop playing the game altogether, i think its more beneficial for a F2P game to have more people playing, even if they dont play, than having a small playerbase that pays, because a small playerbase is more likely to die out in a relatively short amount of time

maybe a cosmetic driven model isnt the solution for everthing, but any other model must make sure its not exploitive for the good of all parties involved

either way you didnt prove anything

Ok, again on we sludge.

As I've already said, TF2, LoL, these games are enigmas. They are too big, too massive, too much of a rarity to consider as fair examples for other games to follow. Do you really think that all games could go F2P with cosmetics and be supported by this model?

You may appear to be a more 'nice' and 'friendly' gaming studio to put out these cosmetic only F2P games and sure it would be good PR, but a gaming business needs more than that to survive.

I think I actually may have 'proven anything', because your stance has changed from 'develop a culture around cosmetics' to 'maybe a cosmetic driven model isnt the solution for everything'.

Which is my whole point. The gaming industry can't turn into a F2P only, cosmetic-purchase-monetisation-only industry, because it means the strongest survive and everyone else dies. Rather than now, when others struggle but maintain, they'd just die. Because a game with a small player base, even if loyal fans, is not providing enough cash to keep a business afloat on cosmetic-only purchases.

you didnt really prove anything because your LoL examle falls apart with the TF2 counter example

the thing is, if exploitive models were so effective more high profile F2P games would be using em


also i changed my wording because i realized there might be a posibility that just because a game doesnt rely on cosmetics to generate revenue, doesnt mean its model is exploitive




who the hell is saying the entire industry should implement a F2P model? jesus

i wish games like this existed when i was younger and i didnt have the cash to get games, free multiplayer games wouldve been the shit

I constantly have acknowledged TF2 and have constantly said that it is a standalone. That's the whole point. These top examples are exemplars, everyone else who has tried and any smaller developers who have tried end up failing. It's only a decent moneymaker for the great successes.

We are just going in circles now.

I was merely picking up on your point about 'building a game around cosmetics in order to get cash' (paraphrasing from your exact quote).

If this was not your intention, to suggest that F2P games should be built around cosmetics to make money, then I have put words in your mouth. But I have never endorsed exploitative models, so perhaps we are both guilty of doing that.

It's very easy to see why the business-minds of a company would want to try to get more money than these cosmetic models are providing them though. Doesn't mean its the right decision, but it's obvious to see why that pressure is there, to get more money out of your player base. With the numbers of people LoL have, there are going to be people who would want a better return on those numbers. It depends whos voice is loud enough or if these competing voices are in your business, apparently Riot are doing alright at silencing them.

Obviously idealistically we'd like games to be F2P and if we want to throw money at them, then we will. But this does throw decent games to the kerb with often 0 investment and will probably mean you throwing more money at the strongest titles. Sure, the best should get more money, but I think it overly punishes the decent or even quite good games.

It's up to consumers to make games with exploitative models fail. I've never purchased in-game upgrades or in-game perks to make myself better than my opponents for real cash and when I've played games that allow this, I get frustrated and leave.

If everyone did this, then these games wouldn't make any money and would end up massive failures. And then hopefully people would connect the dots and see that the exploitative models don't make money and would stop doing them. But I met plenty of people on APB who bought guns in game for real life cash of up to £25 (£25 is £5-£10 less than PC games on-release pricing online, to give an idea of the pricing, if you aren't used to British Pounds). £25 for an in-game weapon. Are you mental? Apparently yes, some people are.

Allow these titles to fail and the industry will adapt. Adapt or die. That's the way of business.

i think ive lost track, you think very few games can pull the cosmetic centric model successfully, but at the same time think exploitive models dont work?


what i meant is that a cosmetic centric model is one way F2P games can make money and not exploit their consumer base, but i think there must be other non-exploitive ways as well, for instance, the guy in extra credits made an episode about this recently, he cited an example he saw in an asian MMO i believe, it was an item called "cash bomb", the item could be bought at the store, when used it exploded sending money flying around your character, but heres the thing, your character cant pick this money up, but everyone else can, using one of those in any place with lots of people was like an instant party button, it was a very popular item from what i understand

the item was neither cosmetic nor it provided a direct advantage to the player using the item

F2P is still a very new model, devs are still figuring out ways to implement it correctly, but evidence seems to suggest its not a 1 size fits all matter, hell even among similar models in similar games, the approach to cosmetics by Dota 2 is radically different from the one by LoL


anyways what i think your point is, is that regardless of model, very few F2P games are successful, and to a certain degree i agree

Exploitative models shouldn't work. It is up to us, as consumers to reinforce this, by not investing in them. But people play Planetside and buy advantages against their opponents, people invest ridiculous amounts of cash into singular items in Eve. There are plenty of games that have spenders on in-game advantages, but I don't play these myself. Too frustrating. But the fact remains that they continue to exist.

There needs to be a better way than pure cosmetic purchasing, because it is not alone a very good way to make money.

Hell, as I've already said, LoL isn't even a purely cosmetic-market oriented game. Plenty of people buy champs with RP, to speed up the acquisition of champs, and that isn't a cosmetic purchase.

You could've acquired this champ through playing the game, but you chose to skip this (for whatever reason) and decided to pay money rather than invest time. I can empathise with this model over say a model that prohibits purchasing other than with real money.

It's like in Hearthstone, you 'can' use real money to buy packs of cards and it makes your endeavours a hell of a lot faster. But, if you invested a lot of time into the game, you could get a bundle of cards, no problem. Maybe not as many, but nothing is barred from you, content-wise, if you choose not to invest any money.

Buying an actual advantage over an opponent, that is otherwise blocked, just causes me frustration though and I normally end up dropping the game.

Trust me, I hate exploitative models as much as the next guy, but I choose to not invest in them as my answer. If I don't like a businesses practices, I don't invest in them. Sure, my impact is tiny, but it's my choice.

I don't pay to win. I don't buy from Primark, due to their negligence to their workforce causing deaths. I won't watch the Qatar World Cup (Football/soccer), because they are literally killing people to make sure the stadiums are completed for it.

My impact as an individual is tiny, I know that, but I can't endorse these companies by buying their products and all I can hope is that people act similarly and I can help promote the message of being a conscious consumer.

If companies want to make games with these exploitative monetisation models, let them. Just don't buy them. If people play them and put money into them, let them. My preference would be that no one did, so we would get rid of these models, but if people continue to fund them, that's their choice and I can't demand that they stop.

but heres the thing, if exploitive models were so successful we should be looking at more games using em in this top 5, you keep saying "only big games can rely on cosmetics only" but the question remains, why do it? apparently according to you exploitive models are simply more successful, and yet most big games seem to avoid it


im a bit more lenient when it comes to F2P, just because a player can buy some convenience doesnt mean the model is pay 2 win in my opinion, otherwise TF2 would fit into this and as we all know, that game is as far from pay 2 win as you can get

 

[Branindain]

Yes, that is one of those tactics employed by LoL.

Bring out a new champ, but only allow it to be bought with money for the beginning of its existence and make it possible to gain freely later, once it is not overpowered anymore.

Their sneaky way to weave a pay-to-win model in the middle of LoL.

I think pretty much all attempts to emulate TF2 would end in failure. TF2 didn't even begin on that model itself and was a success prior anyway. It has been a genius way to elongate out the lifespan of that moneymaker.

No champion has ever been ONLY purchasable with cash. You can get the absolute newest champ for about 20% more Frequent Player Points than any other. And actually they're not usually OP (Yasuo notwithstanding) it just takes a while to learn how to oppose them. If you want to see an overpowered champ check out the new ones when they first show up on the public test realm.

Just came in here to make one point, I spend plenty on LoL but I also have MULTIPLE ACCOUNTS, and so do a shit-tonne of other players. That will distort the userbase and pay-per-user figures and muddy this data quite a bit.

 

[Ubiquitous Duck]

Yes, that is one of those tactics employed by LoL.

Bring out a new champ, but only allow it to be bought with money for the beginning of its existence and make it possible to gain freely later, once it is not overpowered anymore.

Their sneaky way to weave a pay-to-win model in the middle of LoL.

I think pretty much all attempts to emulate TF2 would end in failure. TF2 didn't even begin on that model itself and was a success prior anyway. It has been a genius way to elongate out the lifespan of that moneymaker.

No champion has ever been ONLY purchasable with cash. You can get the absolute newest champ for about 20% more Frequent Player Points than any other. And actually they're not usually OP (Yasuo notwithstanding) it just takes a while to learn how to oppose them. If you want to see an overpowered champ check out the new ones when they first show up on the public test realm.

Just came in here to make one point, I spend plenty on LoL but I also have MULTIPLE ACCOUNTS, and so do a shit-tonne of other players. That will distort the userbase and pay-per-user figures and muddy this data quite a bit.

How the hell did this thread get dug back out again?

I covered this in several posts after this one you have just quoted, but if you can't be bothered to read that, I can't be bothered to read yours.