I completely agree with Yoshi-P's sentiment that Free-to-Play models are for publishers who want a return investment on the product they're funding quickly. I feel like that's the reason it's become more prevalent, too. Publishers who want their money back now and don't care about the long term health of the game.
I don't like free-to-play because I feel like it detracts from the game. Either I'll have to worry about not having access to the good parts of the game, or I'll have to deal with the game pestering me to buy items from the cash shop, or I'll have to wait longer for updated content to come out. I'd rather just pay a monthly fee and get everything.
Free to play also lays down the welcome mat for more RMT. What better way to encourage gil sellers than to take away the cost of subscribing to the game in order to farm and powerlevel?
To be honest, I like FFXIV's current spin the cash shop system. The game rewards for subscribing x number of days not only encourages you to pay ahead for subscriptions, but it advertises itself without being annoying. It also paces itself really well.
Two new items every month would be a pathetic trickle for a cash shop, but you don't even notice it when it's touted as a subscriber reward. You're waiting for more, but you're not thinking "geez, why don't they release more stuff", you're thinking "wow, I can't wait to see what we'll get in another three months!" It's genius!
I'd be very surprised to see this turn into a free-to-play game. Maybe if the subscription rate drops so low that they can't afford to keep the game up otherwise, but at that point I'd think that turning it free-to-play would just delay the inevitable shutting down.
I don't like free-to-play because I feel like it detracts from the game. Either I'll have to worry about not having access to the good parts of the game, or I'll have to deal with the game pestering me to buy items from the cash shop, or I'll have to wait longer for updated content to come out. I'd rather just pay a monthly fee and get everything.
Free to play also lays down the welcome mat for more RMT. What better way to encourage gil sellers than to take away the cost of subscribing to the game in order to farm and powerlevel?
To be honest, I like FFXIV's current spin the cash shop system. The game rewards for subscribing x number of days not only encourages you to pay ahead for subscriptions, but it advertises itself without being annoying. It also paces itself really well.
Two new items every month would be a pathetic trickle for a cash shop, but you don't even notice it when it's touted as a subscriber reward. You're waiting for more, but you're not thinking "geez, why don't they release more stuff", you're thinking "wow, I can't wait to see what we'll get in another three months!" It's genius!
I'd be very surprised to see this turn into a free-to-play game. Maybe if the subscription rate drops so low that they can't afford to keep the game up otherwise, but at that point I'd think that turning it free-to-play would just delay the inevitable shutting down.
