Well the mobile space is already a wasteland. I have been surprised that all of these new cartoony shooters like LawBreakers, Overwatch, Battleborn, and so on aren’t going with the F2P model when I fully expected them to. I know they’re still going to have microtransactions up the wazoo though. I just hope that developers on the PC space (and consoles) are starting to see the limitations, poor perception, and lack of guaranteed success with F2P.
-Todd
I played LawBreakers at PAX Prime last fall, and it was already playing extremely well and was a ton of fun. I’m so glad they’re changing the business model.
It’s totally possible to release a successful F2P game without making monetization choices that negatively impact gameplay-- LoL, TF2, and DOTA2 are prime examples. I can see that garbage being incredibly tempting to the suits putting up the money to finance the game in the first place, though.
To be fair, TF2 was buy-to-play for the first years of its life, initially as a part of the OB, then as a freestanding $20 product. F2P only came as part of its digital long tail life AND a separate revenue stream in crate keys & hats was well established. Innovative, but not exactly risky, either.
First, how awesome is it that http://www.nooooooooooooooo.com/vader.jpg is a thing?
Second, I think the reputation of F2P games is shit right now. And that this reputation was earned. Accordingly, I regard any F2P product as suspect at best (mmmmaybe I’ll play Warframe or Path of Exile) and untouchable as a baseline (nothing F2P on mobile, period, not kidding).
I have zero problem with B2P even if microtransactions are included, and will probably buy one or two of the games you named. But if I catch any whiff of pay to win associated with a game, I’m OUT.
I actually think F2P ruined the initial or design doc principles of TF2. TF2 used to be about clarity in visual presentation and identification. Each class had a distinct look and outline. A character’s silhouette had a very unmistakable weight and shape. Teams were red and blue. There was clarity in weapon damage and impact since you could see the damage numbers floating off of enemies as you hit them.
Then it went F2P (actually even before that) and all of the above was compromised. Now you have all manner of crazy costumes and hats and even weapons (gameplay changing) that just makes for a very cluttered and muddy visual presentation. Sure you can still distinguish between a Heavy and a Sniper but I feel that a lot of clarity and purity in design was lost. Now TF2 just looks like a rave or a college costume party.
Going F2P also changes the tone and nature of the community. You get a lot more children, trolls, and griefers. That is the precise reason that CS:GO hasn’t gone F2P yet and why the serious/core community bemoan whenever there is a 50% sale on CS:GO. It incentivizes the smurfs, cheaters, and griefers and dilutes the community. The mechanics of MOBAs kind of inspire toxicity but I am sure being free is just as strong a variable.
So LOL, DOTA2, and TF2 might be successes in terms of player count or revenue generated but I don’t count them as great F2P implementations for the reasons listed above.
I stopped playing TF2 right about the time that loot crates, hats, and F2P was introduced into the game.
-Todd
Definitely true that cosmetic monetization can impact aesthetics-- look at Black Desert Online; half their cash shop is various types of lingerie. But of course I was talking about gameplay specifically.
There are some more nuanced aspects to F2P vs. up-front payment too.
In order for a F2P title to get any sort of monetization, its audience needs to be huge. Look at how many F2P MOBAs have died in the last couple of years. It wasn’t because they weren’t good. And in many cases it wasn’t because they weren’t different or distinctive enough. It’s simply because there’s only so many people to go around, and generally once a person chooses a MOBA, they stick with it. The remaining population simply isn’t interested in or dedicated enough to become paying players in an otherwise free game.
The model for premium games, however, is still more tenable, especially if you have a recognizable game and pedigree behind it. It’s important, but not as important, to cultivate a massive audience of millions upon millions of people. I’m pretty sure Boss Key Games is a pretty small studio - Wikipedia says 36 people - so they could probably sell enough to offset development costs pretty easily, and plenty more to remain in business going forward.
The other thing about F2P games is the simple fact that they need to be built to support endless content updates, endless customization, and just a shit ton of other work that is inherently necessary to give people stuff to potentially pay for. This means a larger development team, a much bigger support team, and thus a larger budget and even more risk.
It reminds me of what happened with Hawken. Announced back in 2011 with a tiny team working on it for just 9 months, it looked awesome and close to ready for a beta. But then they changed to a free-to-play model, had to massively increase the scope of the game, bloating development costs, and turning it into a complete nightmare of complexity. And the reason why it and its interface were so bloated and complex was because they needed to have enough areas in which to inject stuff to potentially pay for.
grapling hook!!!
woho!!
ALLCAPS MORE AWESOME VERSION!
GRAPPLING HOOK!!!
WOHO!!!
AWESOME!
Haven’t had a good grappling hook game since Q2CTF.
I’ve liked what I’ve seen so far, but in the last 10 years every time I get excited for a game the dev punts it.
PC Gamer article
http://www.pcgamer.com/lawbreakers-revealed-a-tornado-of-guns-gravity-and-the-f-word/
RPS
A few videos
“We are monetised in ways that delights the user, instead of feeling sleazy.”
Gonna be streaming this today if my rig can handle it well enough. Harkonis on twitch. Maybe we can group up if any of you are also in? I have a mumble server I use while streaming fwiw, let me know if interested.
“Please don’t Battleborn us. We’re different from Overwatch, but just as good!”
“When people see something, they immediately want to put it in a bucket with something else”, Bleszinski says.
“And there is some overlap in regards to the fact that we have characters and guns and weapons and whatnot, but the thing is that our art style is a little bit more gritty – theirs is kind of, super bright colors, almost anime-ish characters…they’re going for a bazillion different characters, while we’re going initially with less is more, and we’re ramping up to find our balance.”
“And them, as a game, are so much rock-paper-scissors. And for us, you know, if I come around the corner in Overwatch and I have the wrong character, and someone else has the right character, in that rock-paper-scissors match, I’m dead.”
According to Bleszinski, this won’t be the case in Lawbreakers. “Also, in Overwatch, if I enter a room with four, five, six people from the other team, I don’t stand a chance of really taking them all out. If you’re really good at this game with any of the different roles and classes, you can take out an entire team.”
“If Overwatch is Street Fighter, we’re going to be Mortal Kombat.”
"If you’re really good at this game with any of the different roles and classes, you can take out an entire team.”
Youtube only has like a bajillion hits for “Overwatch hexakill”.
I was watching that video and thinking (about the visuals) “man this doesn’t good that good…”
Which is weird, because, objetively, it does look nice, if uninspiring.
It’s because Overwatch. You have to give it to Blizzard. They have such a high bar of polish that it’s really hard to resist comparisons with them. They came late to MOBAs with their solution, but in this genre they are the first big hit (TF2 notwithstanding) and now everybody will have to resist comparisons with them…
How was it Harkonis? Do you think this does enough differently to make it worth picking up?
was almost completely unplayable on my system