They could make you watch a 30 second ad every 6 fights if you want to contribute.
I really think they should have the option to watch an ad for like 1 unit or xxxx gold or some tiny selector, with a cap of like 10 a day or whatever they decide. It's just free money for them at that point.
If they have optional ads they can't advertise their app in playstore and appstore so it affects their new downloads.
They could make you watch a 30 second ad every 6 fights if you want to contribute.
I really think they should have the option to watch an ad for like 1 unit or xxxx gold or some tiny selector, with a cap of like 10 a day or whatever they decide. It's just free money for them at that point.
If they have optional ads they can't advertise their app in playstore and appstore so it affects their new downloads.
Put it in the marketplace then.
You mean in their website? Want to clutter their website with ads? That's recipe to suicide
First we had that HOF event that was mostly for spenders and only those who grinded arena 24/7. Next we have a lot of champions that are locked behind paywall. Then this new wheel of fate which even big spenders hate. I mean why release an endgame content that 99% of players will hate? I know kabam is a company that wants to make profit but they can't just ignore a whole community to have like 1000 or 2000 people happy. Something needs to be done.
Because they are care about ONLY money and unsterstand MONEY language
If they only cared about money they wouldn't buff champions or even have a titan cysts
They could make you watch a 30 second ad every 6 fights if you want to contribute.
I really think they should have the option to watch an ad for like 1 unit or xxxx gold or some tiny selector, with a cap of like 10 a day or whatever they decide. It's just free money for them at that point.
Nope, see you are watching an ad for the unit. They should watch the ad for "the community"
I would watch the ad for the community, COD Mobile does this and when I used to play I watched
They could make you watch a 30 second ad every 6 fights if you want to contribute.
I really think they should have the option to watch an ad for like 1 unit or xxxx gold or some tiny selector, with a cap of like 10 a day or whatever they decide. It's just free money for them at that point.
If they have optional ads they can't advertise their app in playstore and appstore so it affects their new downloads.
Put it in the marketplace then.
You mean in their website? Want to clutter their website with ads? That's recipe to suicide
No, like a purchase, but you watch an ad and get whatever. Just like claiming the daily crystal. They could even say "want another daily crystal, watch this ad!" Also, if you are saying that the contains ads on candy crush is hurting their numbers you should look closer. Over a billion over 100 million just like MCOC
Of course, that doesn't interest them, they love to play a zero sum game... Boggles my mind as a business person
I am a business person too, have 5 different stores of different categories. I don't really care about free people or people that don't make me profit.
Why is it that F2P players always shield themselves with "the community". I mean its nice to have a community and all; but "community" doesn't pay the bills, doesn't make the game better, doesn't allow to increase budget to make it better. I mean you could not go out to eat, cook at home and spend whatever you were going to spend out in the game for "the community" right?
All for community as long as it’s free 😉
Its like those family gatherings, you always have someone who didn't even bring a drink complaining about the food.
Why is it that F2P players always shield themselves with "the community". I mean its nice to have a community and all; but "community" doesn't pay the bills, doesn't make the game better, doesn't allow to increase budget to make it better. I mean you could not go out to eat, cook at home and spend whatever you were going to spend out in the game for "the community" right?
All for community as long as it’s free 😉
Its like those family gatherings, you always have someone who didn't even bring a drink complaining about the food.
What is this logic? So only spenders are allowed to play the game? That's what you're saying right now.
No, but spenders keep the lights on. Without them there is no game. This is something that I think some ftp players fail to grasp. They think they are the pure players because they play the game the 'right way' and the spenders are cheaters essentially. The reality is it's the spenders that allow you to play the game for free at all, and this game in all honesty is one of the most ftp plays out there in what it offers that part of the community.
True, but a never-ending supply of high progression F2Ps is necessary to keep the whales happy and engaged and spending. F2Ps are the cannon fodder that whales pay to dominate, the bodies that fill the matchups, and the audience that makes their flex worth anything.
F2P Players will get sick if they don't say they are F2P every minute.
There is definitely an unfair treatment between spenders and f2ps so your comment doesn't make any sense.
You're right, it is unfair. Spenders spend to keep the game running, while you play it for free. But while that does seem completely unfair, I'm willing to let you, if the rest of them are.
First we had that HOF event that was mostly for spenders and only those who grinded arena 24/7. Next we have a lot of champions that are locked behind paywall. Then this new wheel of fate which even big spenders hate. I mean why release an endgame content that 99% of players will hate? I know kabam is a company that wants to make profit but they can't just ignore a whole community to have like 1000 or 2000 people happy. Something needs to be done.
BGs are the main game mode now. The original game is just repetitive filler now.
First we had that HOF event that was mostly for spenders and only those who grinded arena 24/7. Next we have a lot of champions that are locked behind paywall. Then this new wheel of fate which even big spenders hate. I mean why release an endgame content that 99% of players will hate? I know kabam is a company that wants to make profit but they can't just ignore a whole community to have like 1000 or 2000 people happy. Something needs to be done.
BGs are the main game mode now. The original game is just repetitive filler now.
Why is it that F2P players always shield themselves with "the community". I mean its nice to have a community and all; but "community" doesn't pay the bills, doesn't make the game better, doesn't allow to increase budget to make it better. I mean you could not go out to eat, cook at home and spend whatever you were going to spend out in the game for "the community" right?
All for community as long as it’s free 😉
Its like those family gatherings, you always have someone who didn't even bring a drink complaining about the food.
What is this logic? So only spenders are allowed to play the game? That's what you're saying right now.
Once upon a time, it was only spenders that were allowed to play online games. And have internet access, and have email, and all those other things an entire generation of people seem to now assume grows on trees and everyone should get for free.
Online games used to be subscription based, because they needed money to actually exist, and having everyone pay to play them kinda makes sense. The typical subscription for things like MMOs was about twenty bucks a month, equivalent to a player buying two Odins a year for MCOC. That was just the norm.
Game companies were not getting rich on that twenty bucks a month ether. For most online games, that paid the bills and earned a decent profit, and that's it. MCOC currently has on the order of a million active players, and if it charged everyone $15-$20/month, it would generate about $180M to $240M USD a year. And that's about what it does in fact generate in revenue, after app store cuts. It just does it using a different model, where a few pay that and the rest play for free. Kabam is not being greedy, they are basically getting what they would have been getting had they just charged everyone the same subscription most games used to charge, before the F2P model replaced the subscription model.
It is actually a much better model, as evidenced by the fact that it is so much more successful than the subscription model - that's why it displaced the subscription model in the first place. But it requires players understand the choice they make. Free to play players get to play the game for free, understanding that the spenders will get more stuff in the game than they do. And the spenders get to spend more money to get more stuff, but everything they buy will likely get devalued over time, forcing them to continue to spend just to maintain what they have.
MCOC is, in my opinion, one of the very best at balancing this trade. Very few things are actually paywalled, and almost nothing is paywalled permanently. Free to play players can do basically all the content, they can progress to the highest levels, and they can be competitive to very high levels in all competitive areas of the game. They can even earn practically unlimited premium currency if they spend the time doing it, which is almost completely unheard of in the F2P space. There's over 70000 units up for grabs for only moderate levels of effort every year. This is by far the most free to play friendly game I've ever played, seen, or heard of.
MCOC does not make ridiculous amounts of money. They make a decent amount of money for a game their size, and if everything was completely fair everyone would pay the same amount to play it, and that amount would be about two Odins a year in subscription fees, and MCOC would be making about the same money now. But no one would get to play for free. Fair is not everyone plays for free. Fair is no one does.
And yet, a free to play player can literally earn almost twenty three hundred dollars a year in premium currency playing the game fewer hours than most Americans watch TV. Practically enough units to max out two of the largest spender events in the game. Its almost ridiculously stupid how much free to play players can get in this game - it is borderline economic suicide actually. No one else would even dare attempt this, and I'm pretty sure if Kabam had it to do over they wouldn't either. That's just how the game evolved.
The argument that not everyone can actually do it is irrelevant. It is doable, and it doesn't take a lot of time. Not everyone has even that amount of time, but that's life. Asking for a few hours a day to keep up with all but the largest spenders in the game is entirely fair, and yes, some people won't be able to do it because of their busy lives, but being fair to free to play players is not handing them everything for free without having to invest any time at all just because they are busy. As I said, most Americans have families and jobs, and yet MCOC asks for no more time commitment than the average American parks themselves in front of a TV, busy lives and family notwithstanding.
Maybe I see this differently because I did not grow up at a time when people are told you can get everything for free. I used to put quarters into arcade machines. Adjusted for inflation, I was paying about two dollars per restart, comparable to about 60 units in MCOC premium currency. If MCOC charged 60 units to restart a mission, people would lose their minds. I used to subscribe to online games: usually $15-$20 per month, and I used to subscribe to multiple games at a time. Again, that's multiple Odins per year just to play the game at all. I know the current model allows most people to play for free, which is actually great, but I also know that money still has to come from somewhere. And the people spending it have to believe they are getting something reasonably for their money.
The model works because for most of the people playing for free a hundred dollars is a lot of money they might not be able to afford to spend, but for most of the spenders a hundred dollars is not a lot of money and they are willing to spend it without nearly as much concern. We're getting the money from the people who value it less and value their entertainment in the game more, and using it to subsidize the people who can't afford to pay. And this all works in spite of the fact there are actual free to play players spending more units on purchases in the game per year than most of the actual spenders of the game (most spenders aren't spending thousands of dollars a year). I spend, and not an insignificant amount, and the overwhelming majority of my units come from game play.
It is a delicate balance, but it works well enough and it benefits enough players - both spenders and free to play - that frankly I do not care even a tiny bit if the people who don't like it go find another game to play. I'd rather keep the monetization balance we have and lose those players than lift a finger to keep them.
First we had that HOF event that was mostly for spenders and only those who grinded arena 24/7. Next we have a lot of champions that are locked behind paywall. Then this new wheel of fate which even big spenders hate. I mean why release an endgame content that 99% of players will hate? I know kabam is a company that wants to make profit but they can't just ignore a whole community to have like 1000 or 2000 people happy. Something needs to be done.
You can 100% explore it free2play. Grinding the Arena and play serious AW and BG will grant ypu a big account. You don't need any champs that are behind a paywall for this content. You can farm hundreds of revives in Classic Miles Morales mission. But yes Kabam monetarising everything sucks.
yeah, totally. they're ignoring f2p soooo much that that they started handing out r4s for free in epoch of pain 5 weeks after charging whales 20-30 thousand dollars for them.
F2P Players will get sick if they don't say they are F2P every minute.
They're the real Champions in the Contest and they want need everyone to know that. Not constantly acknowledging them by agreeing that they should be able to acquire an insignificantly smaller amount of everything paying players do for the same effort is a slap in the face to F2P players.
Why is it that F2P players always shield themselves with "the community". I mean its nice to have a community and all; but "community" doesn't pay the bills, doesn't make the game better, doesn't allow to increase budget to make it better. I mean you could not go out to eat, cook at home and spend whatever you were going to spend out in the game for "the community" right?
All for community as long as it’s free 😉
Its like those family gatherings, you always have someone who didn't even bring a drink complaining about the food.
Why is it that F2P players always shield themselves with "the community". I mean its nice to have a community and all; but "community" doesn't pay the bills, doesn't make the game better, doesn't allow to increase budget to make it better. I mean you could not go out to eat, cook at home and spend whatever you were going to spend out in the game for "the community" right?
All for community as long as it’s free 😉
Its like those family gatherings, you always have someone who didn't even bring a drink complaining about the food.
What is this logic? So only spenders are allowed to play the game? That's what you're saying right now.
No, but spenders keep the lights on. Without them there is no game. This is something that I think some ftp players fail to grasp. They think they are the pure players because they play the game the 'right way' and the spenders are cheaters essentially. The reality is it's the spenders that allow you to play the game for free at all, and this game in all honesty is one of the most ftp plays out there in what it offers that part of the community.
True, but a never-ending supply of high progression F2Ps is necessary to keep the whales happy and engaged and spending. F2Ps are the cannon fodder that whales pay to dominate, the bodies that fill the matchups, and the audience that makes their flex worth anything.
Is it though? Most of the whales are probably comparing themselves to their surrounding whales, not F2P players.
The whole point of a massively multiplayer game is in fact we're all playing the same game. Comparisons are inevitable, and actually encouraged. A little envy is a good thing when it comes to such things. But the mega whales aren't comparing themselves to the free to play players, that's completely worthless. I doubt most give it a second thought, because that would be like Valiant players comparing their rosters to Proven players. That's interesting for all of two seconds. Valiants compare themselves to other Valiants, or sometimes to Paragons.
It is important to remember we do not need to guess. We know what a game comprised of nothing but spenders looks like. It looks like every MMO before about 2010. And games where everyone spent and spent a significant amount did perfectly fine. Spenders can support a game with zero free to play players. But free to play players cannot support a game all by themselves.
There is a virtuous reinforcement between the free to play players and the spenders in an F2P monetized game: it is better for both sides when the game reasonably balances the two. But make no mistake: a game with all the free players gone is smaller, a game with all the spenders gone is dead.
Why is it that F2P players always shield themselves with "the community". I mean its nice to have a community and all; but "community" doesn't pay the bills, doesn't make the game better, doesn't allow to increase budget to make it better. I mean you could not go out to eat, cook at home and spend whatever you were going to spend out in the game for "the community" right?
All for community as long as it’s free 😉
Its like those family gatherings, you always have someone who didn't even bring a drink complaining about the food.
Why is it that F2P players always shield themselves with "the community". I mean its nice to have a community and all; but "community" doesn't pay the bills, doesn't make the game better, doesn't allow to increase budget to make it better. I mean you could not go out to eat, cook at home and spend whatever you were going to spend out in the game for "the community" right?
All for community as long as it’s free 😉
Its like those family gatherings, you always have someone who didn't even bring a drink complaining about the food.
What is this logic? So only spenders are allowed to play the game? That's what you're saying right now.
No, but spenders keep the lights on. Without them there is no game. This is something that I think some ftp players fail to grasp. They think they are the pure players because they play the game the 'right way' and the spenders are cheaters essentially. The reality is it's the spenders that allow you to play the game for free at all, and this game in all honesty is one of the most ftp plays out there in what it offers that part of the community.
True, but a never-ending supply of high progression F2Ps is necessary to keep the whales happy and engaged and spending. F2Ps are the cannon fodder that whales pay to dominate, the bodies that fill the matchups, and the audience that makes their flex worth anything.
Is it though? Most of the whales are probably comparing themselves to their surrounding whales, not F2P players.
The whole point of a massively multiplayer game is in fact we're all playing the same game. Comparisons are inevitable, and actually encouraged. A little envy is a good thing when it comes to such things. But the mega whales aren't comparing themselves to the free to play players, that's completely worthless. I doubt most give it a second thought, because that would be like Valiant players comparing their rosters to Proven players. That's interesting for all of two seconds. Valiants compare themselves to other Valiants, or sometimes to Paragons.
It is important to remember we do not need to guess. We know what a game comprised of nothing but spenders looks like. It looks like every MMO before about 2010. And games where everyone spent and spent a significant amount did perfectly fine. Spenders can support a game with zero free to play players. But free to play players cannot support a game all by themselves.
There is a virtuous reinforcement between the free to play players and the spenders in an F2P monetized game: it is better for both sides when the game reasonably balances the two. But make no mistake: a game with all the free players gone is smaller, a game with all the spenders gone is dead.
The value in a ftp player is represented by the possibility that they might become spenders. You nurture a huge group of free players and hope to improve your conversion rate over time. If half of the ftp players quit overnight, I don’t think there would be any noticeable change in experience for paying players. But I’m sure Kabam has a finely tuned metric that says they need xxxxx free players for every 1 paying player at some average rate of spend. So their current model demands keeping the ftp crowd happy to some extent. Or they could choose to ignore the needs of ftp players but it would require them to constantly acquire new trial players at a much higher rate. I’m guessing they have the balance where they want it.
Why is it that F2P players always shield themselves with "the community". I mean its nice to have a community and all; but "community" doesn't pay the bills, doesn't make the game better, doesn't allow to increase budget to make it better. I mean you could not go out to eat, cook at home and spend whatever you were going to spend out in the game for "the community" right?
All for community as long as it’s free 😉
Its like those family gatherings, you always have someone who didn't even bring a drink complaining about the food.
Why is it that F2P players always shield themselves with "the community". I mean its nice to have a community and all; but "community" doesn't pay the bills, doesn't make the game better, doesn't allow to increase budget to make it better. I mean you could not go out to eat, cook at home and spend whatever you were going to spend out in the game for "the community" right?
All for community as long as it’s free 😉
Its like those family gatherings, you always have someone who didn't even bring a drink complaining about the food.
What is this logic? So only spenders are allowed to play the game? That's what you're saying right now.
No, but spenders keep the lights on. Without them there is no game. This is something that I think some ftp players fail to grasp. They think they are the pure players because they play the game the 'right way' and the spenders are cheaters essentially. The reality is it's the spenders that allow you to play the game for free at all, and this game in all honesty is one of the most ftp plays out there in what it offers that part of the community.
True, but a never-ending supply of high progression F2Ps is necessary to keep the whales happy and engaged and spending. F2Ps are the cannon fodder that whales pay to dominate, the bodies that fill the matchups, and the audience that makes their flex worth anything.
OMG thanks to this comment I am now looking at the game in a whole different way, I spend here and there but man the way you put it. The hammer and the nail concept. Head blown, you are right bro!
Why is it that F2P players always shield themselves with "the community". I mean its nice to have a community and all; but "community" doesn't pay the bills, doesn't make the game better, doesn't allow to increase budget to make it better. I mean you could not go out to eat, cook at home and spend whatever you were going to spend out in the game for "the community" right?
All for community as long as it’s free 😉
Its like those family gatherings, you always have someone who didn't even bring a drink complaining about the food.
Why is it that F2P players always shield themselves with "the community". I mean its nice to have a community and all; but "community" doesn't pay the bills, doesn't make the game better, doesn't allow to increase budget to make it better. I mean you could not go out to eat, cook at home and spend whatever you were going to spend out in the game for "the community" right?
All for community as long as it’s free 😉
Its like those family gatherings, you always have someone who didn't even bring a drink complaining about the food.
What is this logic? So only spenders are allowed to play the game? That's what you're saying right now.
No, but spenders keep the lights on. Without them there is no game. This is something that I think some ftp players fail to grasp. They think they are the pure players because they play the game the 'right way' and the spenders are cheaters essentially. The reality is it's the spenders that allow you to play the game for free at all, and this game in all honesty is one of the most ftp plays out there in what it offers that part of the community.
True, but a never-ending supply of high progression F2Ps is necessary to keep the whales happy and engaged and spending. F2Ps are the cannon fodder that whales pay to dominate, the bodies that fill the matchups, and the audience that makes their flex worth anything.
Is it though? Most of the whales are probably comparing themselves to their surrounding whales, not F2P players.
The whole point of a massively multiplayer game is in fact we're all playing the same game. Comparisons are inevitable, and actually encouraged. A little envy is a good thing when it comes to such things. But the mega whales aren't comparing themselves to the free to play players, that's completely worthless. I doubt most give it a second thought, because that would be like Valiant players comparing their rosters to Proven players. That's interesting for all of two seconds. Valiants compare themselves to other Valiants, or sometimes to Paragons.
It is important to remember we do not need to guess. We know what a game comprised of nothing but spenders looks like. It looks like every MMO before about 2010. And games where everyone spent and spent a significant amount did perfectly fine. Spenders can support a game with zero free to play players. But free to play players cannot support a game all by themselves.
There is a virtuous reinforcement between the free to play players and the spenders in an F2P monetized game: it is better for both sides when the game reasonably balances the two. But make no mistake: a game with all the free players gone is smaller, a game with all the spenders gone is dead.
The value in a ftp player is represented by the possibility that they might become spenders. You nurture a huge group of free players and hope to improve your conversion rate over time. If half of the ftp players quit overnight, I don’t think there would be any noticeable change in experience for paying players. But I’m sure Kabam has a finely tuned metric that says they need xxxxx free players for every 1 paying player at some average rate of spend. So their current model demands keeping the ftp crowd happy to some extent. Or they could choose to ignore the needs of ftp players but it would require them to constantly acquire new trial players at a much higher rate. I’m guessing they have the balance where they want it.
That's true: that is in fact the whole point of the F2P model. You lower the barrier to entry, gambling that some fraction of players will convert into spenders before they get bored and move on to the next free game.
But in this context, that's not relevant. The post claimed the value of F2P players is that they are the things whales compare to, and without that comparison it wouldn't be as interesting to be whales. I don't believe that to be as important as implied because games with all spenders exist, and for obvious reasons games with no spenders don't really exist, at least not of this type at this scale.
The normal metric in the industry is the converse of the one you describe. Its conversion rate: the percentage of your players that eventually stick around and become spenders. Combined with the average rate of spend, it essentially means a game must attract a certain number of new players to compensate for attribution and to provide new opportunities to create new spenders, and those spenders must spend a certain amount on average to sustain the game. That is in part why Kabam focused on the new player experience in the last few years.
MCOC is, in my opinion, one of the very best at balancing this trade. Very few things are actually paywalled, and almost nothing is paywalled permanently. Free to play players can do basically all the content, they can progress to the highest levels, and they can be competitive to very high levels in all competitive areas of the game. They can even earn practically unlimited premium currency if they spend the time doing it, which is almost completely unheard of in the F2P space. There's over 70000 units up for grabs for only moderate levels of effort every year. This is by far the most free to play friendly game I've ever played, seen, or heard of.
Instead of pay walling things in MCOC, instead kabam have found that FOMO, time and cash locking resources especially the last 2 recently are the way to give benefits to spenders.
Now while most content is available for most players bar your story progress and state of roster to handle said content, the majority of resources are locked behind having to spend in general and during events to get locked champions, rare champions, extra inventory space, faster arena, faster resource gains.
And yet, a free to play player can literally earn almost twenty three hundred dollars a year in premium currency playing the game fewer hours than most Americans watch TV. Practically enough units to max out two of the largest spender events in the game. Its almost ridiculously stupid how much free to play players can get in this game - it is borderline economic suicide actually. No one else would even dare attempt this, and I'm pretty sure if Kabam had it to do over they wouldn't either. That's just how the game evolved.
Because the value with real world currency is large doesn't mean it is good or worth it.
even looking back to when the sigil first was released, they had access to the gold quest, extra inventory, a special store. and later with the locked sigil scarlet witch. The system kabam operates on when we get "FTP" rewards doesn't benefit FTP players but all players which then is irrelevant to any particular set of players.
As a ending comparison with a game like marvel strike force where for one every character is available eventually, even those locked to time events, and there is less of an emphasis on gambling to get the champion but aquiring them through playing. versus mcoc where even with the thousands you can grind in units will not guarantee you get a heart of fire or omega days champion unless you max out the event because RNG is the backbone of this game
Why is it that F2P players always shield themselves with "the community". I mean its nice to have a community and all; but "community" doesn't pay the bills, doesn't make the game better, doesn't allow to increase budget to make it better. I mean you could not go out to eat, cook at home and spend whatever you were going to spend out in the game for "the community" right?
All for community as long as it’s free 😉
Its like those family gatherings, you always have someone who didn't even bring a drink complaining about the food.
Why is it that F2P players always shield themselves with "the community". I mean its nice to have a community and all; but "community" doesn't pay the bills, doesn't make the game better, doesn't allow to increase budget to make it better. I mean you could not go out to eat, cook at home and spend whatever you were going to spend out in the game for "the community" right?
All for community as long as it’s free 😉
Its like those family gatherings, you always have someone who didn't even bring a drink complaining about the food.
What is this logic? So only spenders are allowed to play the game? That's what you're saying right now.
No, but spenders keep the lights on. Without them there is no game. This is something that I think some ftp players fail to grasp. They think they are the pure players because they play the game the 'right way' and the spenders are cheaters essentially. The reality is it's the spenders that allow you to play the game for free at all, and this game in all honesty is one of the most ftp plays out there in what it offers that part of the community.
True, but a never-ending supply of high progression F2Ps is necessary to keep the whales happy and engaged and spending. F2Ps are the cannon fodder that whales pay to dominate, the bodies that fill the matchups, and the audience that makes their flex worth anything.
Is it though? Most of the whales are probably comparing themselves to their surrounding whales, not F2P players.
The whole point of a massively multiplayer game is in fact we're all playing the same game. Comparisons are inevitable, and actually encouraged. A little envy is a good thing when it comes to such things. But the mega whales aren't comparing themselves to the free to play players, that's completely worthless. I doubt most give it a second thought, because that would be like Valiant players comparing their rosters to Proven players. That's interesting for all of two seconds. Valiants compare themselves to other Valiants, or sometimes to Paragons.
It is important to remember we do not need to guess. We know what a game comprised of nothing but spenders looks like. It looks like every MMO before about 2010. And games where everyone spent and spent a significant amount did perfectly fine. Spenders can support a game with zero free to play players. But free to play players cannot support a game all by themselves.
There is a virtuous reinforcement between the free to play players and the spenders in an F2P monetized game: it is better for both sides when the game reasonably balances the two. But make no mistake: a game with all the free players gone is smaller, a game with all the spenders gone is dead.
The value in a ftp player is represented by the possibility that they might become spenders. You nurture a huge group of free players and hope to improve your conversion rate over time. If half of the ftp players quit overnight, I don’t think there would be any noticeable change in experience for paying players. But I’m sure Kabam has a finely tuned metric that says they need xxxxx free players for every 1 paying player at some average rate of spend. So their current model demands keeping the ftp crowd happy to some extent. Or they could choose to ignore the needs of ftp players but it would require them to constantly acquire new trial players at a much higher rate. I’m guessing they have the balance where they want it.
That's true: that is in fact the whole point of the F2P model. You lower the barrier to entry, gambling that some fraction of players will convert into spenders before they get bored and move on to the next free game.
But in this context, that's not relevant. The post claimed the value of F2P players is that they are the things whales compare to, and without that comparison it wouldn't be as interesting to be whales. I don't believe that to be as important as implied because games with all spenders exist, and for obvious reasons games with no spenders don't really exist, at least not of this type at this scale.
The normal metric in the industry is the converse of the one you describe. Its conversion rate: the percentage of your players that eventually stick around and become spenders. Combined with the average rate of spend, it essentially means a game must attract a certain number of new players to compensate for attribution and to provide new opportunities to create new spenders, and those spenders must spend a certain amount on average to sustain the game. That is in part why Kabam focused on the new player experience in the last few years.
Completely agree. The point I was trying to make, hopefully without being disrespectful, is that ftp players presence (or not) has almost no impact on the experience of paying players. They’re important to Kabam as potential revenue, but not to me.
Comments
No, like a purchase, but you watch an ad and get whatever. Just like claiming the daily crystal. They could even say "want another daily crystal, watch this ad!"
Also, if you are saying that the contains ads on candy crush is hurting their numbers you should look closer.
Over a billion
over 100 million just like MCOC
Online games used to be subscription based, because they needed money to actually exist, and having everyone pay to play them kinda makes sense. The typical subscription for things like MMOs was about twenty bucks a month, equivalent to a player buying two Odins a year for MCOC. That was just the norm.
Game companies were not getting rich on that twenty bucks a month ether. For most online games, that paid the bills and earned a decent profit, and that's it. MCOC currently has on the order of a million active players, and if it charged everyone $15-$20/month, it would generate about $180M to $240M USD a year. And that's about what it does in fact generate in revenue, after app store cuts. It just does it using a different model, where a few pay that and the rest play for free. Kabam is not being greedy, they are basically getting what they would have been getting had they just charged everyone the same subscription most games used to charge, before the F2P model replaced the subscription model.
It is actually a much better model, as evidenced by the fact that it is so much more successful than the subscription model - that's why it displaced the subscription model in the first place. But it requires players understand the choice they make. Free to play players get to play the game for free, understanding that the spenders will get more stuff in the game than they do. And the spenders get to spend more money to get more stuff, but everything they buy will likely get devalued over time, forcing them to continue to spend just to maintain what they have.
MCOC is, in my opinion, one of the very best at balancing this trade. Very few things are actually paywalled, and almost nothing is paywalled permanently. Free to play players can do basically all the content, they can progress to the highest levels, and they can be competitive to very high levels in all competitive areas of the game. They can even earn practically unlimited premium currency if they spend the time doing it, which is almost completely unheard of in the F2P space. There's over 70000 units up for grabs for only moderate levels of effort every year. This is by far the most free to play friendly game I've ever played, seen, or heard of.
MCOC does not make ridiculous amounts of money. They make a decent amount of money for a game their size, and if everything was completely fair everyone would pay the same amount to play it, and that amount would be about two Odins a year in subscription fees, and MCOC would be making about the same money now. But no one would get to play for free. Fair is not everyone plays for free. Fair is no one does.
And yet, a free to play player can literally earn almost twenty three hundred dollars a year in premium currency playing the game fewer hours than most Americans watch TV. Practically enough units to max out two of the largest spender events in the game. Its almost ridiculously stupid how much free to play players can get in this game - it is borderline economic suicide actually. No one else would even dare attempt this, and I'm pretty sure if Kabam had it to do over they wouldn't either. That's just how the game evolved.
The argument that not everyone can actually do it is irrelevant. It is doable, and it doesn't take a lot of time. Not everyone has even that amount of time, but that's life. Asking for a few hours a day to keep up with all but the largest spenders in the game is entirely fair, and yes, some people won't be able to do it because of their busy lives, but being fair to free to play players is not handing them everything for free without having to invest any time at all just because they are busy. As I said, most Americans have families and jobs, and yet MCOC asks for no more time commitment than the average American parks themselves in front of a TV, busy lives and family notwithstanding.
Maybe I see this differently because I did not grow up at a time when people are told you can get everything for free. I used to put quarters into arcade machines. Adjusted for inflation, I was paying about two dollars per restart, comparable to about 60 units in MCOC premium currency. If MCOC charged 60 units to restart a mission, people would lose their minds. I used to subscribe to online games: usually $15-$20 per month, and I used to subscribe to multiple games at a time. Again, that's multiple Odins per year just to play the game at all. I know the current model allows most people to play for free, which is actually great, but I also know that money still has to come from somewhere. And the people spending it have to believe they are getting something reasonably for their money.
The model works because for most of the people playing for free a hundred dollars is a lot of money they might not be able to afford to spend, but for most of the spenders a hundred dollars is not a lot of money and they are willing to spend it without nearly as much concern. We're getting the money from the people who value it less and value their entertainment in the game more, and using it to subsidize the people who can't afford to pay. And this all works in spite of the fact there are actual free to play players spending more units on purchases in the game per year than most of the actual spenders of the game (most spenders aren't spending thousands of dollars a year). I spend, and not an insignificant amount, and the overwhelming majority of my units come from game play.
It is a delicate balance, but it works well enough and it benefits enough players - both spenders and free to play - that frankly I do not care even a tiny bit if the people who don't like it go find another game to play. I'd rather keep the monetization balance we have and lose those players than lift a finger to keep them.
wantneed everyone to know that. Not constantly acknowledging them by agreeing that they should be able to acquire an insignificantly smaller amount of everything paying players do for the same effort is a slap in the face to F2P players.The whole point of a massively multiplayer game is in fact we're all playing the same game. Comparisons are inevitable, and actually encouraged. A little envy is a good thing when it comes to such things. But the mega whales aren't comparing themselves to the free to play players, that's completely worthless. I doubt most give it a second thought, because that would be like Valiant players comparing their rosters to Proven players. That's interesting for all of two seconds. Valiants compare themselves to other Valiants, or sometimes to Paragons.
It is important to remember we do not need to guess. We know what a game comprised of nothing but spenders looks like. It looks like every MMO before about 2010. And games where everyone spent and spent a significant amount did perfectly fine. Spenders can support a game with zero free to play players. But free to play players cannot support a game all by themselves.
There is a virtuous reinforcement between the free to play players and the spenders in an F2P monetized game: it is better for both sides when the game reasonably balances the two. But make no mistake: a game with all the free players gone is smaller, a game with all the spenders gone is dead.
The value in a ftp player is represented by the possibility that they might become spenders. You nurture a huge group of free players and hope to improve your conversion rate over time. If half of the ftp players quit overnight, I don’t think there would be any noticeable change in experience for paying players. But I’m sure Kabam has a finely tuned metric that says they need xxxxx free players for every 1 paying player at some average rate of spend. So their current model demands keeping the ftp crowd happy to some extent. Or they could choose to ignore the needs of ftp players but it would require them to constantly acquire new trial players at a much higher rate. I’m guessing they have the balance where they want it.
But in this context, that's not relevant. The post claimed the value of F2P players is that they are the things whales compare to, and without that comparison it wouldn't be as interesting to be whales. I don't believe that to be as important as implied because games with all spenders exist, and for obvious reasons games with no spenders don't really exist, at least not of this type at this scale.
The normal metric in the industry is the converse of the one you describe. Its conversion rate: the percentage of your players that eventually stick around and become spenders. Combined with the average rate of spend, it essentially means a game must attract a certain number of new players to compensate for attribution and to provide new opportunities to create new spenders, and those spenders must spend a certain amount on average to sustain the game. That is in part why Kabam focused on the new player experience in the last few years.
MCOC is, in my opinion, one of the very best at balancing this trade. Very few things are actually paywalled, and almost nothing is paywalled permanently. Free to play players can do basically all the content, they can progress to the highest levels, and they can be competitive to very high levels in all competitive areas of the game. They can even earn practically unlimited premium currency if they spend the time doing it, which is almost completely unheard of in the F2P space. There's over 70000 units up for grabs for only moderate levels of effort every year. This is by far the most free to play friendly game I've ever played, seen, or heard of.
Instead of pay walling things in MCOC, instead kabam have found that FOMO, time and cash locking resources especially the last 2 recently are the way to give benefits to spenders.
Now while most content is available for most players bar your story progress and state of roster to handle said content, the majority of resources are locked behind having to spend in general and during events to get locked champions, rare champions, extra inventory space, faster arena, faster resource gains.
Because the value with real world currency is large doesn't mean it is good or worth it.
even looking back to when the sigil first was released, they had access to the gold quest, extra inventory, a special store. and later with the locked sigil scarlet witch. The system kabam operates on when we get "FTP" rewards doesn't benefit FTP players but all players which then is irrelevant to any particular set of players.
As a ending comparison with a game like marvel strike force where for one every character is available eventually, even those locked to time events, and there is less of an emphasis on gambling to get the champion but aquiring them through playing.
versus mcoc where even with the thousands you can grind in units will not guarantee you get a heart of fire or omega days champion unless you max out the event because RNG is the backbone of this game