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'Free 2 Play' games, Ubisofts decision, and the future of traditional games.

JCK75

Member
I have gotten a TON of enjoyment out of free to play games but one thing that really stands out is how it makes anti-cheat measures extremely difficult if not almost impossible..
Call of Duty Warzone really is suffering from too many cheaters and I don't know how you stop it if there is no financial punishment for losing your account.
 

elliot5

Member
Am I taking crazy pills or wasn't it incorrect that Ubisoft would be moving more to F2P titles as a replacement of AAA traditional games, and it was more like "we expect more of our REVENUE share to come from F2P games in our portfolio"... which makes sense. This is already happening with other F2P titles like Warzone and COD Mobile and other mobile games under King making up a HUGE amount of the revenue for Activision. They're just following market trends? How is this anything about Ubisoft's "decision" like it's new to the industry?
 
Yeah, gaming is ever evolving, and often not for the better. (I loathe Ubi and their ilk, fwiw.) Thankfully, gaming has become so ubiquitous that we aren't confined to "mainstream" gaming to find great games to play imho. The big boys, generally speaking, will continue their profit-above-all-else model, to the detriment of real creativity and engaging, meaningful experiences, while I'll just play other stuff.
 

ripeavocado

Banned
Old gamers are losers? Care to explain that thought process in more detail?

I was very clear.

if you are an older gamer and you have a lot of time to play then you must be a loser that doesn't have a job,a family and irl friends.

There is a small chance you are rich as fuck and you don't need to work but that's statistically irrelevant.
 

NickFire

Member
To me it will always come down to cosmetics v. pay to win. If it's pay to win I will avoid unless it seems like something special based on feedback. If its cosmetics only I applaud the dev whether its good or not, just for dropping the access barrier for everyone.
 
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adamosmaki

Member
Well most of their games already feel like F2P of the worst kind so i guess is a natural evolution for a company that is creatively bankrupt for a long time now
 

jufonuk

not tag worthy
I was very clear.

if you are an older gamer and you have a lot of time to play then you must be a loser that doesn't have a job,a family and irl friends.

There is a small chance you are rich as fuck and you don't need to work but that's statistically irrelevant.
Road Rage Jam GIF by JamCycling


what if i play like a few hours a week? like max three
cos I don't watch hand egg or footy ball, you accept that?

Lying Season 4 GIF by Curb Your Enthusiasm


james franco GIF
 
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jakinov

Member
It every big publisher will succeed in going to F2P people will fail and go back. Others might not. If companies fully go out of the traditional AAA business, new companies will probably come in to fill the void. As long as there’s still people willing to pay money there’s people to make money off of.it just that it becomes more of a “niche” market. If non traditional grows while taking away from traditional spend (e.g. if people spent $10 billion a year оn games and now it’s only $1 billion) and consumers make decisions to lower the prospects of the market (e.g. I don’t care how much games cost to make I want it looking next gen and I’m not paying an extra $10) then traditional gaming might have a problem.
 

jufonuk

not tag worthy
I'm not sure NeoGaf is the place to throw down this particular gauntlet. People are generally enthusiasts here so maybe they prioritize gaming in place of other recreational activities (movies, tv, music, sports, etc.) a bit more than the average Joe.
I Got You Heart GIF by Tristen J. Winger
 
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jufonuk

not tag worthy
look I am an old(er) gamer and I don't mind spending the money on a game that is complete and doesn't need a fuck ton of patching, I do not mind optional DLC as well, patching done right can add some quality of life etc so that's good

but the more and more gaming slides into F2P apart from a few exceptions (war frame and rocket league, no P2W shit) the more I am looking at indies and Nintendo games, I hate micro transactions (looking at you dead space 3) and always online that is forced on a player if the game doesn't really need it.

Games pass seems like a good idea if it offers a lot of choice, like a library service. yeah I can see the positive in that and then buy games that I want to keep. but how much profit does it offer the devs?

but the issue is if F2P generates easy revenue then more and more devs will follow suite and gaming will become bland and meh, if a dev can create a game that is bare bones but generates a shed load of revenue from loot boxes or mtx it's easy money and then you get into the issue mentioned above where you end up spending mad amounts of money to get something that you are not guaranteed (character unlock). by that definition it kind of becomes gambling. yeah I get it people need to generate money and keep the lights on.

it's probably an old man yelling at clouds response from me, but I can see as games become cheaper due to pay walls people are not going to want to pay for a full game, so could it be a race to the bottom? lets see.
 
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NickFire

Member
It every big publisher will succeed in going to F2P people will fail and go back. Others might not. If companies fully go out of the traditional AAA business, new companies will probably come in to fill the void. As long as there’s still people willing to pay money there’s people to make money off of.it just that it becomes more of a “niche” market. If non traditional grows while taking away from traditional spend (e.g. if people spent $10 billion a year оn games and now it’s only $1 billion) and consumers make decisions to lower the prospects of the market (e.g. I don’t care how much games cost to make I want it looking next gen and I’m not paying an extra $10) then traditional gaming might have a problem.
It won't be any different than every other time it felt like big companies copied each other. Some will succeed, some will fail, and those that fail / new ventures will look at the other side of the fence again. With gaming as big as it is, there will always be someone looking at the smaller revenue streams and trying to take a bite.
 

laynelane

Member
It won't be any different than every other time it felt like big companies copied each other. Some will succeed, some will fail, and those that fail / new ventures will look at the other side of the fence again. With gaming as big as it is, there will always be someone looking at the smaller revenue streams and trying to take a bite.

Now that you mention it - there was the time everyone was trying to create the next COD craze, multiplayer craze where it was being put into single-player games just 'cause, and the BR and FTP craze are still ongoing. Nothing much really changed each time, everything reverted in time. Perhaps this is no different.
 

jufonuk

not tag worthy
It won't be any different than every other time it felt like big companies copied each other. Some will succeed, some will fail, and those that fail / new ventures will look at the other side of the fence again. With gaming as big as it is, there will always be someone looking at the smaller revenue streams and trying to take a bite.
well in that case Nintendo will revive the industry again..... you're welcome

nicolas cage wink GIF
Angry Nintendo GIF
 
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ripeavocado

Banned
I'm not sure NeoGaf is the place to throw down this particular gauntlet. People are generally enthusiasts here so maybe they prioritize gaming in place of other recreational activities (movies, tv, music, sports, etc.) a bit more than the average Joe.
I didn’t even mention other recreational activities but family, friends and work
 
Free 2 Play games have never really bothered me, and i never thought of them as a theat to traditional game releases.
Then we got Ubisofts decision to move at least some of their franchises to the F2P model.

Now nothing wrong with any of that really, but i was just watching a streamer on Twitch, a smallish streamer by the way, spend $120 on Genshin Impact trying to buy 2 characters, and she didnt even get what she wanted. Apparently she has spent so much money on this, and other F2P games, and it just got me thinking how widespread this kind of spending is on F2P games. Especially with us living in the moblie phone era where we are overflowing with F2P games.


Really starting to feel that Ubisoft could be first of many publishers going towards the F2P model in the coming years, and eventually 'traditional' $60/$70 releases of 'full' games may end up a thing of the past.

Now i dont know about anyone else but i'm not really looking forward to a F2P future where 90% of games are lower budget games where you will end up spending hundreds of dollars to get the 'complete experience'.

Should we be worried about this, or just wait and see what happens?.
Ubisoft going F2P might be the biggest disaster in the making in the history of the company, so idk, maybe I'd see it play out.

Then again, I have zero loyalty or affinity towards them in many years - so may be a little bias against them.
 
I don't think the whole industry will move to F2P model. I understand that is huge right now, but there are plenty of people who don't play any F2P game at all. Just like television is filled with reality TV garbage these days, but we still have incredible TV series being made as well. There are a large variety of gamers out there, and they each want something different. Take GTA 5. If it didn't have a killer single player game in there do you really think it would have sold 135 million copies over the last several gens. No way, that game peaked at like 1.3 million players in online concurrently across all platforms. That's big (huge even) for a multiplayer game, but no way in hell does it sell that much without the extremely well done single player campaign.
 

ShaikhCroft

Member
Doesn't F2P gets a dev a lot of profits? I spent so much in Valorant skins that could have gotten me some $70 games.

And I thought devs get less money from a traditional $60 game!
 

_Ex_

Member
if you are an older gamer and you have a lot of time to play then you must be a loser that doesn't have a job,a family and irl friends.

There is a small chance you are rich as fuck and you don't need to work but that's statistically irrelevant.

Not sure what you consider "a lot of time to play" on a per day basis?

Not every grown up gamer is sitting in their mom's basement playing video games all day. An adult can enjoy video games late at night, after they've finished their day job, responsibilities, and social interaction for the day. It's possible to be a responsible adult and also maintain quality time with the hobby.
 

Bryank75

Banned
If nearly everything goes free to play, you've got to ask where that leaves Gamepass.....

Does that mean Gamepass will depend on only its own 1st party content in the future?
 

OldBoyGamer

Banned
I was very clear.

if you are an older gamer and you have a lot of time to play then you must be a loser that doesn't have a job,a family and irl friends.

There is a small chance you are rich as fuck and you don't need to work but that's statistically irrelevant.
Nice. Honest question. Do you generally dislike people?
 

SSfox

Member
Been a while Ubisoft become trash, it's just that now they saying it out loud.

Beyond, POP trilogy, and first AC games was the golden age of Ubisoft, they slowly started loosing after Patrick left and start making yearly AC.
 
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scalman

Member
If they will have solo mode still and story missions and they could release them faster im all for it. Its ljust too long to wait for next game 4 yrs or so
I need at least 1 new game every year from them. Well with multiple teams that shpuld be possible.
 
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It's certainly something to keep an eye on. For instance Halo Infinite has a traditional release (obviously on Gamepass) and a Free to play MP. So they've broken the game up, maybe that's a possibility going forward that will satisfy everyone.
 

ZywyPL

Banned
If nearly everything goes free to play [...]

I don't think everything will become F2P, at least not during our lifetime, it's basically impossible - as of now only the MP games are F2P, where the devs can capitalize on the userbase with skins, weapons, characters and so on, and it does make a perfect sense since those are the kind of games people spend hundreds, thousands of hours on and are hence so attached to them, but I cannot imagine SP titles taking F2P route, because where the profits would be? People would just blast through 8, 15, 20h of the campaign completely for free and never go back to the game, leaving 0$ on the table.
 
we shall see how the market shapes it out. one thing for certain is that the current f2p model wont remain static if everything is f2p.

there might be a limit on how many f2p can exist in the market at once. people might be willing to drop hundreds on mtx for one game, maybe two, but can the model survive when every game is fighting for that 1 slot most people have available for that type of game?
 
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Shubh_C63

Member
I am actually excited for this.
Ubi games are generic af, but they have strength of studios to make stuff at a pace. I mean I look at Destiny and 5$ a season is a STEAL.

I cannot wait for Division to go GaaS F2P model or Seasonal model like Destiny.
Am I taking crazy pills or wasn't it incorrect that Ubisoft would be moving more to F2P titles as a replacement of AAA traditional games, and it was more like "we expect more of our REVENUE share to come from F2P games in our portfolio"... which makes sense. This is already happening with other F2P titles like Warzone and COD Mobile and other mobile games under King making up a HUGE amount of the revenue for Activision. They're just following market trends? How is this anything about Ubisoft's "decision" like it's new to the industry?
I think its news because they themselves openly said they are looking to release 2-3 blockbusters game a year. and they won't invest in something which can't be turned into a franchise. So by that logic a F2P route seems like a U-turn but I get you, its basically an evolution rather than burn and raise it again.
 
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