FilthMcNasty wrote:
Catwho wrote:
Like I said earlier, the position you want your game to be in is the game that people return to after they quit.
I think that's exactly what they're banking on. That's another benefit of being a F2P/P2P hybrid MMO. You have the people who enjoy the game enough that they don't care how frantic the pace of content releases who will subscribe. You also have tons of other players who either play just because it's free, they play it intermittently because they don't have the time to justify an MMO subscription, or they are career MMO-hoppers.
The general population is never satisfied with the content updates they receive for subscription based MMOs because to be fair, they're not much better than some of the F2P MMOs. When they get fed up or bored, they either go try something new or go back to something familiar.
I know I've probably beaten the horse into glue by now, but your comment really brings the point to light. I'm on record as stating that starting a second MMO alongside a current, very successful(though not currently) MMO is a bad idea. I weighed the pros first and the cons last simply because the cons far outweigh the pros, but the one solid pro for it was that they could've had that 'fallback' MMO on lock.
The way I see it, that would only work well if...
1) FFXI were F2P
and/or
2) FFXI were still creating at least enough content to keep those players busy for the few months they were waiting for new content in XIV
At the very least(and purely from a business standpoint), SE should have allowed for a subscription to XIV to allow free access to FFXI. If you wanted to play XI only then you'd pay a subscription fee, but if you subscribed to XIV then you could play both.
Players get more for their subscription. Not only do they keep the option to login to XIV whenever they want, but the added boost in players who do 'fallback' to XI makes that game feel more alive. Going further, they could have also staggered their content updates so that XI was receiving updates as interest in recently released content for XIV tapers off. SE wins because they retain subscriptions and those subs are technically for XIV so the IGN articles they pay for would actually hold some weight.
The only variable in all of this is the FFXI-based app. Yoshi himself said that content justifies subscription fees so unless that content is somehow funneled through the app, charging for FFXI is questionable at best. Again, not a final condemnation until we see how it plays out.
Edited, Jun 1st 2015 5:46pm by FilthMcNasty
Another reason why F2P/B2P hybrids are phasing out most P2P is that content created is leaning more towards more content/less time consuming versus the old way of slower content/time consuming. Though not popular, it is an inevitability that comes when content time consumption is lessened to attract a casual market. That is, the faster content is consumed, the faster players expect more content or leave. FFXI was never going to get a millions plus playerbase, but I am almost certain that they held 500k active subscribers over the whole course of it's first eight years of life.
That says something in today's world. People play Skyrim or Dark Souls for hundreds or thousands of hours and they didn't get content every 1-3 months over a course of years. If the content is deep, meta, thought provoking, unique, or highly customizable. It hooks the player and makes it a game they always come back to. Take Tera, really bland in story, quests, and side content. It just does one thing most mmorpgs didn't do before which is true action combat. They now have twenty million registered accounts and I find myself returning to it again and again just as I return to FFXI often. I breeze through other mmos and enjoy the initial max character then the boredom sets in and I mmo hop usually never returning to most mmos.