Are you a hardcore gamer who prefers free to play MMORPG? Or the one who thinks subscription fees for MMORPGs are long term investments? There is no doubt that the F2P (Free to Play) MMORPG’s market is growing rapidly compared to P2P (Pay to Play) MMORPGs today. Given that scenario, gamers are enjoying the option whether to go P2P or F2P given the wide range of choices from free, to pay to play mmos.
F2P games nowadays are not the typical “good for a free game” but rather highly competitive like any other P2P games in the market. They offer games with no subscription fees and can be played anytime which is a good marketing strategy to compete with P2P MMORPGs.
Being a free game, getting the desired number of players is not a problem for F2P publishers. All they need to do is to make the game interesting and fix any bugs and exploits as soon as possible to maintain the quantity of their subscribers. F2P developers/publishers earn profit by selling virtual items through an item mall or offering premium subscriptions (X2 experience/drop rate etc.) for a specific time, but still, it is not required to pay to be able to play the game.
The main issue in F2P is the balance of the game, it is common that some financially well-off players will dish out several hundred bucks just to get strong and pawn other players in the game, which really suck for a normal gamer or for some “wise-spender” in the F2P world. Also, Free MMORPGs are prone to spammers and scammers; anyone can join and create a new account making an annoying and negative impact to the F2P world. But none the less, it is still free; anyone can still experience a decent MMORPG without the subscription fee.
On the other hand, P2P MMORPGs that requires a weekly/monthly subscription before one can play are having a hard time going up against the less expensive F2P games. The pressure is so intense that they need to come up with something new and give their respective games an edge over F2P games. If a developer is too slow to fix an exploit or inconsistent with content updates, odds are players will shift to a new game.
One strong edge of P2P MMORPGs is the integrity of the game. Being a P2P game, players that have malicious intent like hackers, scammers, spammers cannot penetrate the game easily because of the money they will spend just to fool around.
Either way, discipline and spending money wisely is the key. Whether you are playing a F2P or P2P game, you still have the most powerful item in your hand… and that is your freedom to decide.
Irie Rastafari,
Gamerce CGSView Source....
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