[iVoid]

Big corporations seem to be very afraid to innovate in this tough economic times.
Meanwhile, indie corporations are filling that void with interesting new ideas and keep gaining momentum with more and more ambitious projects.
And what about this new tidal wave of great free-to-play games in development? It's crazy! Not to mention that some F2P games already claimed a position as the most played online games.

Do you think it is too far fetched to think that the future of gaming will be F2P?
Will the old business model survive?
I'm just curious about how you guys see the future of gaming.

[Lorric]

I think unfortunately the big companies will retain their stranglehold. They'll just buy out anyone who's a threat.

[General Battuta]

I think unfortunately the big companies will retain their stranglehold. They'll just buy out anyone who's a threat.

Explain Riot to me. If the big companies will retain their stranglehold why is the biggest game in the world F2P from a recent startup?

[QuantumDelta]

Cuz WoT requires very little .....anything?

[Lorric]

I think unfortunately the big companies will retain their stranglehold. They'll just buy out anyone who's a threat.

Explain Riot to me. If the big companies will retain their stranglehold why is the biggest game in the world F2P from a recent startup?

There's nothing to stop these companies muscling in and taking over that market if they want to.

[Klaustrophobia]

dear LORD i hope the future isn't in free to play (pay to win) MMOs.  or half-baked base games with endless paid DLC.  or any form of money-milking structure.  but i fear such is the reality. 

[Mikes]

If anyone still thinks EA is "the worst" there is...  please do take a look at Nexon and the perversion they turned "Free (yeah right haha) to play gaming." into.

As far as I'm concerned, if free to play gains traction in the long run, then it's propably gonna be worse for "quality gaming" than soap operas and talk shows have been for "quality TV." lol.

While there are always exceptions (I do keep hearing good things about WoT /shrugs, dunno myself) ... the vast majority of socalled "Free to Play" games are simply a horribly deal - if not outright scam - from a consumer perspective, compromising gameplay for twisted monetization schemes that usually revolve around some kind of compulsive stat grind and/or "pay to win" fueled PvP.



P.S.: Help us Indie van Kenobi, you are our only hope.

[Scotty]

Cuz WoT requires very little .....anything?

Might want to do a little research first.  World of Tank is Wargaming.net.  Riot does stuff like League of Legends.

[Dragon]

I think big companies might have problems with keeping up with Indie studios, especially considering that a publisher is redundant in the age of digital distribution. I think that in the future, few big publishers will sell physical copies of their games, and the market will be dominated by "professional indie" studios like Bohemia Interactive, with all the capabilities of a "normal" game studio, but none of the burdens associated with being tied to a publisher.

[Flipside]

Big Companies start off as little companies, as the behemoths get old and unstable, the 'Indy' companies will simply become the new Behemoths. This is very evident in the Music industry, where a new style gets popular, the record label grows and becomes commercialized, and the next thing you know, they are more concerned about profit than music.

[QuantumDelta]

Cuz WoT requires very little .....anything?

Might want to do a little research first.  World of Tank is Wargaming.net.  Riot does stuff like League of Legends.

LoL isn't as big as WoT, not even a tiny bit. I assumed his two statements were slightly apart, especially since LoL isn't all that, nor uniquely seated in it's little niche either (in fact HoN and DotA 2 are better examples of what he was talking about since money can't even remotely effect the game play in them).
Summary; LoL isn't worth talking about.

[Scotty]

Which is all great and everything, but Batts specifically mentioned Riot, which does League of Legends.  You can argue and complain all you want about how LoL isn't as big or as good (QQ more HoN fanboi) as its competetors, but it's sure as hell more visible than most of them, which is a major point with the modern gamer.

(obviously the fanboi comment is in jest)

[Flipside]

I just overloaded on acronyms...

[General Battuta]

Cuz WoT requires very little .....anything?

Might want to do a little research first.  World of Tank is Wargaming.net.  Riot does stuff like League of Legends.

LoL isn't as big as WoT, not even a tiny bit. I assumed his two statements were slightly apart, especially since LoL isn't all that, nor uniquely seated in it's little niche either (in fact HoN and DotA 2 are better examples of what he was talking about since money can't even remotely effect the game play in them).
Summary; LoL isn't worth talking about.

Maybe it was just PR but I'm pretty sure that by at least some decent metrics LoL is currently the biggest game in the world. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2012/10/12/league-of-legends-bigger-than-wow-more-daily-players-than-call-of-duty/

[The E]

Do you think it is too far fetched to think that the future of gaming will be F2P?

Yes. The thing is, F2P is a mixture of design formulas that is not a guaranteed fit for everything that can be done in gaming.
Just as independent film makers coexist with big budget AAA Baysplosion producers, so will the Indie scene and the traditional publishers coexist. After all, it's not a zero-sum game; There is room in my wallet at least for interesting low-budget indie titles and the occasional full-price AAA title.

Will the old business model survive?

Yes, but with a few new options added. Like crowdfunding, which is a nice and neat little thing between the ability of big publishers to fund game development and the freedom enjoyed by Indie devs.

[QuantumDelta]

Cuz WoT requires very little .....anything?

Might want to do a little research first.  World of Tank is Wargaming.net.  Riot does stuff like League of Legends.

LoL isn't as big as WoT, not even a tiny bit. I assumed his two statements were slightly apart, especially since LoL isn't all that, nor uniquely seated in it's little niche either (in fact HoN and DotA 2 are better examples of what he was talking about since money can't even remotely effect the game play in them).
Summary; LoL isn't worth talking about.

Maybe it was just PR but I'm pretty sure that by at least some decent metrics LoL is currently the biggest game in the world. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2012/10/12/league-of-legends-bigger-than-wow-more-daily-players-than-call-of-duty/

Interesting, I suppose it's all just numbers and spin, but didn't Riot recently announce that if you didn't log on and play one game your account went bye bye? Bolstering the numbers? (Timing may be off on my part)
I know the concurrent players on one server record is held by WoT, and I know the online concurrency record is held by WoT too (it's in the Guinness book of records for crying out loud ).

Having half their player base online on a monthly basis feels like it doesn't fit in the general curves set amongst the other computer games I've played, even in 'real' mmos where you see people paying monthly, you don't always see them log in, despite the additional mental pressure of paying for an account you're not using. 32Million from 70Million/monthly really seems insane.
I guess I can swallow the daily number if it's true, but that one seems ridiculously high too.. all the numbers seem consistent against themselves, assuming 12Mil a day, 75 Deaths per second is pretty believable.
I'd love to see more in depth statistics on the games in that genre. (Comparatively, WoT has about half the account base LoL does, it sounds crazy that LoL has these kinds of numbers yet not the records WoT does..)

I hadn't seen this link, thanks for it, guess I'll have to keep my eyes out for similar stuff.
12Million/Daily - more than the population of all but the biggest (singular) five cities in the world, bonkers! ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_proper_by_population )

[iVoid]

Which is all great and everything, but Batts specifically mentioned Riot, which does League of Legends.  You can argue and complain all you want about how LoL isn't as big or as good (QQ more HoN fanboi) as its competetors, but it's sure as hell more visible than most of them, which is a major point with the modern gamer.

(obviously the fanboi comment is in jest)

Well, I play LoL frequently but had never heard of HoN, I guess that's one more point in favor of what Scotty is saying...

Maybe it was just PR but I'm pretty sure that by at least some decent metrics LoL is currently the biggest game in the world. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2012/10/12/league-of-legends-bigger-than-wow-more-daily-players-than-call-of-duty/

But about that, don't the corporations behind an online-only game always have the exact statistics on how many people play it? Or is it that we would just be naive to believe any numbers they publish?

Anyway I have read an article similar to that one (http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2012/07/11/riot-games-league-of-legends-officially-becomes-most-played-pc-game-in-the-world/) and it was supposedly based in xfire data, so it might not just be PR...

While there are always exceptions (I do keep hearing good things about WoT /shrugs, dunno myself) ... the vast majority of socalled "Free to Play" games are simply a horribly deal - if not outright scam - from a consumer perspective, compromising gameplay for twisted monetization schemes that usually revolve around some kind of compulsive stat grind and/or "pay to win" fueled PvP.

Well in regards to pay2win I think developers have at least started to realize how unpopular it is among gamers. I think most of the times it just ends up being counter-productive to their profits. And the fact is that many times new f2p games start off by assuring gamers that there will be no pay2win (whether or not that ends up being the case most of the times I don't know).

And about the compulsive stat grind, personally I'm ok with that, as long as there is good matchmaking with people at the same level and the paid features are decently priced. Let's face it: 50+$ (or worse, euros!) is NOT an ok price to pay for a videogame!

I think calling some f2p games a "scam" is going a little too far, but you raise a pretty good point though: how can we have the same trust in a free game as we have in a game that we bought? Personally I still get a little suspicious about f2p games. I seem to remember a time when they were vastly inferior to the paid ones (at least graphics-wise) but I can't deny the fact that there are a lot of f2p games in development or beta that seem to look just as good... How has this happended? I guess a big deal of my suspicion and disbelief towards f2p games is that I don't quite get how games without pay2win can sustain themselves or even generate profit... Usually this kind of games have a shop where they take money in exchange for cosmetic items or exp boosts, but is that really enough??

Again the best way to know this would be to know the actual numbers of a company like Riot.

[QuantumDelta]

The reason scotty mentioned me being a hon fanboi is because it's the least forgiving of newbies and the most rewarding for skill level of all of the MOAB games, LoL is the actual opposite end of the spectrum(and thusly the one I enjoy the least (*Note; not that I call it a bad game)).
It wasn't much to do with the debate, sheer numbers wise, I wouldn't rely on xfire (cuz, lets face it, how used actually IS xfire 20 something million? that's not actually that significant a number if Riot and wargaming etcs claims are to be believed, though that is concurrency I guess, but still)
Although I would take riots numbers with a pinch of salt (as I would with blizzards) because it's normally trying to spin to take on the franchises it competes with (most notably will probably be dota 2 once it's properly released). The only reason people really give a crap about competitive LoL is because Riot chuck money at it, money that they get from the pay-2-win-esque(cuz it's not really P2W but P4AdvantagevsTime mostly it does give you a slight e-lo unadjusted advantage though, especially early on) crap in the game.
WoT has undeniable advantages in using your wallet too, certain 'premium' tanks are cheaper to run, making the grind faster.

[iVoid]

The reason scotty mentioned me being a hon fanboi is because it's the least forgiving of newbies and the most rewarding for skill level of all of the MOAB games, LoL is the actual opposite end of the spectrum(and thusly the one I enjoy the least (*Note; not that I call it a bad game)).
It wasn't much to do with the debate, sheer numbers wise, I wouldn't rely on xfire (cuz, lets face it, how used actually IS xfire 20 something million? that's not actually that significant a number if Riot and wargaming etcs claims are to be believed, though that is concurrency I guess, but still)
Although I would take riots numbers with a pinch of salt (as I would with blizzards) because it's normally trying to spin to take on the franchises it competes with (most notably will probably be dota 2 once it's properly released). The only reason people really give a crap about competitive LoL is because Riot chuck money at it, money that they get from the pay-2-win-esque(cuz it's not really P2W but P4AdvantagevsTime mostly it does give you a slight e-lo unadjusted advantage though, especially early on) crap in the game.
WoT has undeniable advantages in using your wallet too, certain 'premium' tanks are cheaper to run, making the grind faster.

LOL I did a google search for MOAB and ended up in wiki looking at some article about something called MOAB, the "Mother Of All Bombs"! I was really confused 'til I went to the League of Legends wiki page and finally found out it was a typo xD MOBA - Multiplayer Online Battle Arena. Anywayz...

I'm pretty new to LoL, I guess I'll check HoN out soon. So far I'm enjoying myself in LoL. But if people are mean to newcomers in LoL I can just imagine how it is in HoN! LOL (not LoL, the actual LOL xD)

As I said before I'm ok with that kind of "pay2win" you mentioned. Just as long as it is implemented reasonably, a choice between paying and a 1000hrs of grinding is not a choice!

[Scotty]

LoL doesn't actually have much of a Pay2Win formula going.  Indeed, the only things that increase character performance are either available through levels (Masteries) and in-game currency (the stuff you can't pay for).  The only things real money buys are different skins for champions, and increased IP/XP gain.  And, since games are balanced primarily through player level, that XP gain will just get you landed in higher level games before you've played as many games.  IP gain does make the small, in-game available performance boosters available more quickly, but the current meta is that you shouldn't buy any of those (runes) until you're already at or above level 20 (out of 30), and experiencing those higher level games anyway.