It is not that you cannot afford it. The thing is that you paid for the game, and to be able to just play with your character, you have to pay again upfront. One thing that I like of "freemium" is that they have payments method, be it VIP fees or micro payment as DDO, but at the same time they let you play with your character for free ever. The only reason I don't play WoW is monthly fee, a forced monthly fee. If they had not such thing, but a VIP fee version and micro payments, I would have probably spent hundreds of euros over the past 6 years, in which I have returned intermittently because of my friends. If I had the opportunity to play again, to get hooked again, I would have paid, but when I wanted to play, they asked for money, so I decided to spent it somewhere else.
I am talking about a business model, not about the game itself. Those are two different things. Also Frederick, the $500 prices you are talking about are not official ones, but community market/ebay ones. Valve and Riot Games haven't released cosmetics over €30/€20 respectively in the cash shop. The very expensive ones are random drops. In addition, Valve is a good example of a compromise between profit and quality, as shown by DOTA2. They let the community create the cosmetics for them so they can focus on content.
If Bhvr could make an optional subscription in game that would be quite nice, but then again what would the perks be though, Sub can be viable i wont deny it fully, in most instances it has back tracked yet, Tera is a prime example of going F2P from Sub but instead the move gave them even more subscribers then being only subscriber based, people found out it is a fun game and that i want to sub and get as much as i can out of it. Truth to be told i would be extremely happy if the game was only B2P with Expansions driving it forward for purchase. We talked a page or two back regarding making a monthly vote of sorts, you pay five bucks to vote for something that should be developed on a list of upcoming content, and the 5 bucks get converted into ingame cash, partisan had an idea as well regarding ingame donation to drive content forward. Not exactly sub but there are ideas other then a clean cut crocked cash shop to accept. Well they said no subscription based game, but then again lets try and find a way to have it in the game yet not have it, like the pay to vote for upcoming content idea by beast. Maybe we can come up with a compromise or an even better idea!
So would I. The fact this option wasn't even included in the initial poll options by Miguel doesn't bode particularly well.
It could work but the expansions / huge major updates for purchase would have to come often then to make it profitable. Well if only it worked though.
Fun story time. I recently added up all the money I've spent on World of Warcraft since June 23rd, 2007, when I made my first account. The total was around 3,850 dollars or so. Counts subscription fees (about 1500 dollars right there, as I have a second account I use for having a full complement of Horde toons in addition to my Alliance toons on the same realm), 64 paid race changes, a smattering of other character services, a plushie, three action figures, four expansion packs (but doesn't include WotLK or earlier ones, as I didn't get those digitally so they're not listed there). That's over 6 1/2 years. 78 months. Roughly 2370 days. So my actual cost on World of Warcraft on an average day was about 1 dollar and 62 cents. Considering that I played the hell out of that game to the point where I have 19 max-level characters, most of which have maxed-out professions and at the end of the previous expansion had 18 maximum level characters, 17 of which were geared pretty decently, the 18th having been leveled to cap the week before the next expansion came out... I'd say that's a pretty solid investment. Hell, if you're not like me and don't constantly dither over what species your character is for whim-of-the-moment aesthetics reasons, you can shave off about half of that right there.
I would say that there is a blur where a game is free 2 play and pay 2 win. To buy powers is bad, just bad but if a game has been online for a long time, then can small boosts for like a week (in form of exp boosts, or money boosts) be OK. (so long it is limited to newer players)
I personally am vouching for B2P (with the F2P Boyz) with as minimum micro-trans as possible. Maybe a couple of skins and stuff, but really nothing more. Roll out some REALLY good expansions, make us buy those, but keep the micro-trans to an absolute minimum (or rather none at all, if possible). I'll gladly buy the game and the occasional expansion once a year, but please, I'm begging you, no daily/weekly/monthly/annual/decade/century/etc subs, those always feel like a goddamn robbery. Anyone remember the "good old days" when companies simply made good games to flourish? Like Guild Wars? The first one? I'm thinking something along that line. I don't know much about the second one though... But I guess I'll be happy already if its nothing like SWTOR (where you'll be restricted from half of the game if you don't sub) and/or I won't have to grind my ass off for that next Thunderhammer if I don't want to buy boosts. Also, definitely nothing that gives you powers, even if its just an earlier unlock. Stick to cosmetic stuff if there must be micro-trans.
