NS2 a Free to Play FPS
zastels
Join Date: 2003-11-29 Member: 23731Members
Join Date: 2003-11-29 Member: 23731Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Just a fun discussion</div>This is not a suggestion but a just-for-fun thread.
NS2 being unique, great looking, competitive, reasonably priced, and backed by a faithful dev team is not necessarily enough to make it shine through the ocean of crap we have on the market today. So I'm always thinking things in my head, and I think the free to play method has some serious advantages that are not currently being capitalized on in the market.
First, if NS2 went free to play once out of beta, it would be hands down the best free to play FPS game on the market. Its main competition would be BF Heroes and BF P4F, along with the other countless Asian shooters like Combat Arms. Games like League of Legends, which obviously is not an FPS would still be considered competition, but NS2 would be absolutely the cream of the crop in the FPS department. That is a major advantage.
So what I think is worth discussing for fun, is how could Unknown Worlds bank off a free to play FPS using nontraditional methods such as a cash shop and adverts? One idea I have is to incentivize the community to produce top notch content using the editing software. A handsome reward of cash would come out of Unknown Worlds pockets, but the trade off is a constant stream of new and improving free content for the community, which lessons the load on UW's back. This not only pleases the community, but strengthens it by incentivizing teamwork not only in the game, but in improving the games content. Think maps, machinima, models, ideas, communities, plugins, ect. You could host a competition to drive the creation of so many different types of content.
Another way UW could approach the F2P market is by positioning themselves to have the largest player base possible. With such a large player base, there is greater server demand. UW's could partner with server companies, and get a cut of each server purchased. This would be done through advertising on the main page, but its different because it's not going to be ignored. "Purchase a server from x company, and support Unknown Worlds" I'd personally align myself with several companies in order to ensure the best quality through competition.
Regarding cash shops, I think this is an antiquated way of thinking. You're either buying power which upsets people, or you're buying aesthetics which many people find no worth in. A cash shop also complicates a game with so much potential with custom content. So what could be sold in the shop? I don't know, so next thought.
I'll offer one final suggestion, and that is the main method of revenue for UW's. The answer is donations, but can a company stay afloat on donations for years to come? I really do think so, and I think the secret to success with donations is working three angles.
First, you want to make the person feel as if they're directly supporting UW's. This tugs the heart strings, and is hard to reason against since the entertainment being given is free. Imagine you had a player base of 50 thousand people and you somehow managed to get each person to donate a few bucks a month. This is a sensational way of thinking, but I feel it is achievable.
Second, you want a percentage of the donations to go directly to charity. It has been proven, that when you add the element of philanthropy people are not only more generous, but likely to consider even donating to begin with. They get to support their favorite developer, as well as a new charity every month; which may be one close to their hearts. If you take a look at League of Legends, they had great success selling a champion which provided a cut to the Red Cross.
Third, rewarding the donating player with recognition. Remember those little icons in NS1 when you hit tab? People loved those. People love forum titles. Also, why not add a sense of gambling? Donate and be entered into a draw to receive some cool concept art signed by the UW's team. Get your name inside an official map. Design your own map easter egg idea and have it implemented into an official map. You could gain access to servers the dev team play on, the ideas are endless.
Alright now everyone elses turn, if you were in charge of making NS2 F2P work, how would you go about it?
NS2 being unique, great looking, competitive, reasonably priced, and backed by a faithful dev team is not necessarily enough to make it shine through the ocean of crap we have on the market today. So I'm always thinking things in my head, and I think the free to play method has some serious advantages that are not currently being capitalized on in the market.
First, if NS2 went free to play once out of beta, it would be hands down the best free to play FPS game on the market. Its main competition would be BF Heroes and BF P4F, along with the other countless Asian shooters like Combat Arms. Games like League of Legends, which obviously is not an FPS would still be considered competition, but NS2 would be absolutely the cream of the crop in the FPS department. That is a major advantage.
So what I think is worth discussing for fun, is how could Unknown Worlds bank off a free to play FPS using nontraditional methods such as a cash shop and adverts? One idea I have is to incentivize the community to produce top notch content using the editing software. A handsome reward of cash would come out of Unknown Worlds pockets, but the trade off is a constant stream of new and improving free content for the community, which lessons the load on UW's back. This not only pleases the community, but strengthens it by incentivizing teamwork not only in the game, but in improving the games content. Think maps, machinima, models, ideas, communities, plugins, ect. You could host a competition to drive the creation of so many different types of content.
Another way UW could approach the F2P market is by positioning themselves to have the largest player base possible. With such a large player base, there is greater server demand. UW's could partner with server companies, and get a cut of each server purchased. This would be done through advertising on the main page, but its different because it's not going to be ignored. "Purchase a server from x company, and support Unknown Worlds" I'd personally align myself with several companies in order to ensure the best quality through competition.
Regarding cash shops, I think this is an antiquated way of thinking. You're either buying power which upsets people, or you're buying aesthetics which many people find no worth in. A cash shop also complicates a game with so much potential with custom content. So what could be sold in the shop? I don't know, so next thought.
I'll offer one final suggestion, and that is the main method of revenue for UW's. The answer is donations, but can a company stay afloat on donations for years to come? I really do think so, and I think the secret to success with donations is working three angles.
First, you want to make the person feel as if they're directly supporting UW's. This tugs the heart strings, and is hard to reason against since the entertainment being given is free. Imagine you had a player base of 50 thousand people and you somehow managed to get each person to donate a few bucks a month. This is a sensational way of thinking, but I feel it is achievable.
Second, you want a percentage of the donations to go directly to charity. It has been proven, that when you add the element of philanthropy people are not only more generous, but likely to consider even donating to begin with. They get to support their favorite developer, as well as a new charity every month; which may be one close to their hearts. If you take a look at League of Legends, they had great success selling a champion which provided a cut to the Red Cross.
Third, rewarding the donating player with recognition. Remember those little icons in NS1 when you hit tab? People loved those. People love forum titles. Also, why not add a sense of gambling? Donate and be entered into a draw to receive some cool concept art signed by the UW's team. Get your name inside an official map. Design your own map easter egg idea and have it implemented into an official map. You could gain access to servers the dev team play on, the ideas are endless.
Alright now everyone elses turn, if you were in charge of making NS2 F2P work, how would you go about it?
Comments
I'd call it Natural Selection and make it a Half-Life mod. Then keep it up to date and keep creating content for it.
yeah thats exactly what i was thinking when i was reading the first post.
But the thing about natural selection is its always been about the community, especially in aus. When ns1 was popular, everyone who played in the aus servers used to know each other, sometimes even know of what theyre capable of (e.g their skill)
So something to attract new players to the game would have to be thought up around that idea i reckon, alot of ns1 players ive talked to really prefer ns1 compared to 2 :/
I really dislike the idea of putting limitations on a game that is free to play. Cant access the dev tools? How is that a good thing? You would want people to test the waters, and make the game content on their own time. Limiting content in the game does not incentivize people to pay as much as it does for them to stop playing.
it was things like that which made me buy tfc2 and serious sam, etc.
Its prolly the easiest way to do things
With the new bandwidth caps put in place for all Canadians, you gotta ask who would spend their bandwidth to play a game for a weekend?
To me I think the greatest thing you can have is the most players. Valve has a ton of CSS players, but Valve is no longer a company that is being intelligently run in my opinion. From a business perspective (talking about games, not Steam), they have been completely annihilated by the CoD series even though CSS sits there as unused potential. CS2, who wouldn't buy that? Same goes for CoD, who wouldn't buy the next one who plays the current?
I think with a massive player base you can really position yourself to do new things. And if you look at CoD, it releases every year with record breaking success. Yet even seeing that success, where is EP3 or CS2?
So my point is, NS2 with a massive player base, opens the doors for UW's to launch new things.
Also, NS1 is the best free (come on who doesn't have a copy of HL1?) FPS out there so releasing NS2 for free would be digging out of their own market! :)
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggh1h0iyclA&feature=related" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggh1h0iyclA...feature=related</a>
Loved CS but not sure if I would.
I really dislike the idea of putting limitations on a game that is free to play. Cant access the dev tools? How is that a good thing? You would want people to test the waters, and make the game content on their own time. Limiting content in the game does not incentivize people to pay as much as it does for them to stop playing.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I agree, but I was trying to make a somewhat reasonable argument for the op. UWE already went down this road with NS1 and they need to be paid for them to continue. The only viable method is by upfront payments.
Wait a second..
I would have payed money for no reason!
<!--coloro:#FF0000--><span style="color:#FF0000"><!--/coloro-->-1 <!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->
That and The Specialists! Pretty awesome days of HL1 mod playing! I still prefer NS1 to NS2, probably because it's so shaky. I even have it installed but can't really find a good game half the time.
They didn't try to bank off NS1 though.
I never noticed this post, you're wrong.
Consumers should not have to pay upfront, way in advance for a game. Secondly it's not a viable platform.
If consumers (approximately 20k according to Cory found <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=113471&view=findpost&p=1846651" target="_blank">here</a>) pay upfront, way in advance, like they have already, approximately 2 years in advance, you end up with a cash heap. Great, lots of cash. Now you're developing your game for these consumers, your cash heap will drastically lower due to working costs, salaries, <i>paying back investors</i> and so forth. Now you have to keep attracting a new audience while you develop for those that have already paid way in advance, this can be extremely difficult, as roughly, there have been only 7k purchases on top of that approximate figure of 20k, which we can round off at say approximately 18months, 7k purchases. These 7k are worth almost double, as the 20k was sold at a much reduced rate, which brings in a cash flow of roughly 14k of the 20k sales that were previously accrued, which are the sales which the game is being primarily made for as they've injected the initial cash.
So you're now in a situation where you're meeting your commitments financially to your staff, to your investors and to ground rent, contracts etc. that's good. However, you only have a <i>finite</i> supply of cash which means you need to work <i>quickly</i> or go bust. This is the option UWE have opted for and it's not viable because ultimately, if you can't deliver in an amazingly tight deadline, you're going to fail. You've done all the hard work of selling before you've gone the extra mile to create. Not only that you've done the hard work of creating off of multiple sources of cash, which further narrows your ability to get a higher cash injection for primarily, a working business to sell your product and secondarily if you miss any deadlines etc. you find that you can not exploit that area or explore it as it has already been previously used.
A more viable platform is being able to stick with just initial high level investment, creating your product and shipping. Alternatively "the big bad" words around this place are publishers and other development studios. As much as you hate them, big names allow you to live and create a game. Albeit it may not be in your own perfect image, you may have to work with one or two extra influences, although at the end of the day, it's more viable than what I call "smash and grab", where you take cash from all sides before you unleash your final product.
EDIT: I forgot to mention the initial injection, the 20k base, is always going to be your largest sale, a product launch. There on after you can't guarantee a level of cash you're going to bring in unless you constantly market for and against the competition. As we all for well know, the team can't physically do this.
EDIT: And if you want to work out rough ball parking figures, you take 20,000(approx sales figure) * $20(alpha/prealpha sale price) = $400,000, then add that to 7,000 (approximate 'beta phase' sales) * $35 ('beta phase' sale price) = $245,000. Totalling an approximate $645,000 brought in over a 2 year period whilst still creating a game, with any extra high level investment cash left over, you've got towards your development. Business wise, ultimate you'd want this $645K to be profit, not rolling costs, as you then have to go back out and re-market to get your profit level back up after completion.
Consumers should not have to pay upfront, way in advance for a game. Secondly it's not a viable platform.
If consumers (approximately 20k according to Cory found <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=113471&view=findpost&p=1846651" target="_blank">here</a>) pay upfront, way in advance, like they have already, approximately 2 years in advance, you end up with a cash heap. Great, lots of cash. Now you're developing your game for these consumers, your cash heap will drastically lower due to working costs, salaries, <i>paying back investors</i> and so forth. Now you have to keep attracting a new audience while you develop for those that have already paid way in advance, this can be extremely difficult, as roughly, there have been only 7k purchases on top of that approximate figure of 20k, which we can round off at say approximately 18months, 7k purchases. These 7k are worth almost double, as the 20k was sold at a much reduced rate, which brings in a cash flow of roughly 14k of the 20k sales that were previously accrued, which are the sales which the game is being primarily made for as they've injected the initial cash.
So you're now in a situation where you're meeting your commitments financially to your staff, to your investors and to ground rent, contracts etc. that's good. However, you only have a <i>finite</i> supply of cash which means you need to work <i>quickly</i> or go bust. This is the option UWE have opted for and it's not viable because ultimately, if you can't deliver in an amazingly tight deadline, you're going to fail. You've done all the hard work of selling before you've gone the extra mile to create. Not only that you've done the hard work of creating off of multiple sources of cash, which further narrows your ability to get a higher cash injection for primarily, a working business to sell your product and secondarily if you miss any deadlines etc. you find that you can not exploit that area or explore it as it has already been previously used.
A more viable platform is being able to stick with just initial high level investment, creating your product and shipping. Alternatively "the big bad" words around this place are publishers and other development studios. As much as you hate them, big names allow you to live and create a game. Albeit it may not be in your own perfect image, you may have to work with one or two extra influences, although at the end of the day, it's more viable than what I call "smash and grab", where you take cash from all sides before you unleash your final product.
EDIT: I forgot to mention the initial injection, the 20k base, is always going to be your largest sale, a product launch. There on after you can't guarantee a level of cash you're going to bring in unless you constantly market for and against the competition. As we all for well know, the team can't physically do this.
EDIT: And if you want to work out rough ball parking figures, you take 20,000(approx sales figure) * $20(alpha/prealpha sale price) = $400,000, then add that to 7,000 (approximate 'beta phase' sales) * $35 ('beta phase' sale price) = $245,000. Totalling an approximate $645,000 brought in over a 2 year period whilst still creating a game, with any extra high level investment cash left over, you've got towards your development. Business wise, ultimate you'd want this $645K to be profit, not rolling costs, as you then have to go back out and re-market to get your profit level back up after completion.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
This was an interesting read, but I can't clearly see what you think they should of done instead. Just use big investors? Do you think the f2p method is viable at all?
Basically, free to play is definitely not an option as there has been so much money thrown at NS2 already and it's still not completed.
If you wanted a free to play, the only viable thing would be to allow someone else access to the NS1 code and to let a team, for free and out of love for NS1, continue it with major decisions being down to UWE.
As for NS1 being free instead, I think that is an interesting idea. I'm sure a lot of people probably think "who doesn't own HL1"? But on the contrary, if the need for HL could be removed and the game made standalone through some miracle, I think a lot of people would try NS1 if it was marketed in the right light.
Kinda like the Battlefield Play 4 Free game. I really think this game isn't so much about making a profit, but driving others to buy BF3 when released. You know . . . the handful of people who haven't played Battlefield : p
I kinda wanted everyone to think outside the box on how a f2p could work in non-conventional ways.
If a game is designed for this, it works. The Problem is, this wouldnt work for a fps like NS2, there is no stuff you could release every 1-2weeks other than little cosmetical changes - and there is not much money you can get out of it.
All you could do, is make a little extra profit "hats", or that new dlc bull###### - but the game itself still has to cost money.
To make profit the game needs a lot stuff that can be replaced, while still be balanced around this. (and without the ability to buy2win)
You cant just release other lifeforms or marines, weapons etc + different skins for it - on a 1-2week basis.
And you still have to make sure ppl feel like they dont have to buy anything ever to stay competative.
Once it's properly released on steam it will sell quiet well imho just based on the graphics alone..
Consumers should not have to pay upfront, way in advance for a game. Secondly it's not a viable platform.
If consumers (approximately 20k according to Cory found <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/forums/index.php?showtopic=113471&view=findpost&p=1846651" target="_blank">here</a>) pay upfront, way in advance, like they have already, approximately 2 years in advance, you end up with a cash heap. Great, lots of cash. Now you're developing your game for these consumers, your cash heap will drastically lower due to working costs, salaries, <i>paying back investors</i> and so forth. Now you have to keep attracting a new audience while you develop for those that have already paid way in advance, this can be extremely difficult, as roughly, there have been only 7k purchases on top of that approximate figure of 20k, which we can round off at say approximately 18months, 7k purchases. These 7k are worth almost double, as the 20k was sold at a much reduced rate, which brings in a cash flow of roughly 14k of the 20k sales that were previously accrued, which are the sales which the game is being primarily made for as they've injected the initial cash.
So you're now in a situation where you're meeting your commitments financially to your staff, to your investors and to ground rent, contracts etc. that's good. However, you only have a <i>finite</i> supply of cash which means you need to work <i>quickly</i> or go bust. This is the option UWE have opted for and it's not viable because ultimately, if you can't deliver in an amazingly tight deadline, you're going to fail. You've done all the hard work of selling before you've gone the extra mile to create. Not only that you've done the hard work of creating off of multiple sources of cash, which further narrows your ability to get a higher cash injection for primarily, a working business to sell your product and secondarily if you miss any deadlines etc. you find that you can not exploit that area or explore it as it has already been previously used.
A more viable platform is being able to stick with just initial high level investment, creating your product and shipping. Alternatively "the big bad" words around this place are publishers and other development studios. As much as you hate them, big names allow you to live and create a game. Albeit it may not be in your own perfect image, you may have to work with one or two extra influences, although at the end of the day, it's more viable than what I call "smash and grab", where you take cash from all sides before you unleash your final product.
EDIT: I forgot to mention the initial injection, the 20k base, is always going to be your largest sale, a product launch. There on after you can't guarantee a level of cash you're going to bring in unless you constantly market for and against the competition. As we all for well know, the team can't physically do this.
EDIT: And if you want to work out rough ball parking figures, you take 20,000(approx sales figure) * $20(alpha/prealpha sale price) = $400,000, then add that to 7,000 (approximate 'beta phase' sales) * $35 ('beta phase' sale price) = $245,000. Totalling an approximate $645,000 brought in over a 2 year period whilst still creating a game, with any extra high level investment cash left over, you've got towards your development. Business wise, ultimate you'd want this $645K to be profit, not rolling costs, as you then have to go back out and re-market to get your profit level back up after completion.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I guess I should have added a corollary that once they decided to develop NS2 as an indie studio, upfront payment for the game is the only viable method. You're right that they could have also tried to get a big game studio (i.e. Valve) to take over the development costs, but that decision was rejected by Charlie/UWE a long time ago.
Also, you seem to think that publishers and studios don't discontinue games. The benefit of the big game studio method is the large cash influx for development, but that means there is a chance that the big game studio will either drop the game if it doesn't go how they want or (more likely) they'll release a gimped and unfinished version of the game to get as much money back on their investment.
I think the preorders we're handled badly (i.e. they are more like mini-investments IMO), but UWE is making things right by giving refunds. However, I think the preorder system is actually pretty ingenious, though you have be very careful not to misrepresent what your offering. Think of it, UWE is generating cash flow <b>before</b> they have even released their flagship product. How many other startup businesses can attest to that? In fact, I think the major benefit of the 27k+ preorders is to make investment into UWE more attractive. UWE has already mentioned they have outside investors, although they haven't specified the type and amount of that investment.
You're also underestimating the amount of additional revenue they will likely generate from NS2 v1.0 release, from people buying NS2 to play various mods (people still buy HL1 for the mods after 10 years!!!!), from future games UWE will develop on the spark engine. Remember, UWE isn't just developing a game, but a whole new engine to be the workhorse of their future line of games, in the same way that Valve used goldsource/source to make multiple games (and making a game on an established game engine is much, much quickly and cheaper then developing an entire new engine).
A free weekend sounds much more useful to me, and we won't have endlessly ###### games where half the team is stuck as a skulk/marine and is floating tons of res that they can't spend.
Same difference. The cash is used to pay more people to work on that project.
Also, I don't think big game studios are inherently bad (I like Valve quite a bit), but I can understand why UWE would want to stay separate to keep control over the direction of their games. EA is really the company that gives big game studios a bad name.
Believe it was stated somewhere that 95+ percent of initial sales were the special edition $40 version.
Edit: First sign of a hat anywhere in NS2 and I am gone.
Edit 2: I think it would be best for UWE to maintain a standard model. I image the major majority of the people who bought NS2 were people who played NS1 which never received as much attention as it deserved. Once they are done with the game they should be able to budget a modest media campaign, an appearance in Steam News/Store alone would be a big bump, and NS2 will likely see some significant sales. Having a demo out before this time would help quiet a bit too.
So:
In-game ads.
Microtransactions.
Taking a cut from the purchase of servers.
What else?
I despise ads in general, but if a game is designed to display ads (say, on billboards, for instance), that could be interesting.
Microtransactions are great, imo. I've never bought any, myself, though. If people want to customise their game, more power to them. I am, however, operating under the assumption that the microtransactions are for things purely cosmetic. In-game advantage is a big no-no.
The server idea really does require a very popular game. It also seems somewhat rigid. Reminds me of Activision-Blizzard's Starcraft 2.
In-game ads.
Microtransactions.
Taking a cut from the purchase of servers.
What else?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Gonna have to quote Zynga's wiki page because they are probably the most successful f2p game studio.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Several Zynga games require an "Energy" characteristic to play. Engaging in "Missions", a core feature of many games, consumes a certain amount of energy. After expending energy, it slowly replenishes to the character's maximum limit. This can take minutes or several hours (energy replenishes whether or not players are logged into the game). After energy is replenished, players can engage in additional missions. Waiting for energy to replenish is a significant limiting factor in the games. Their support mechanisms take advantage of this.
Zynga games are linked to offers from a number of partners. Players can accept credit card offers, take surveys or buy services from Zynga's partners in order to obtain game credits, which would allow them to replenish their character's energy or receive premium currency that could be exchanged for other various virtual goods.
Players may also purchase game credits directly from Zynga via credit card[28] or PayPal. From within the game, players can purchase the points for a fee: USD$5.00 for 21 game credits, for example.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Now, NS2 isnt KF in terms of easily putting in new content, but it would benefit sales to bundle new maps and any eventual new weapons/structures/alien forms/ etc in bundles large enough to announce each one on steam. Also, I really like how unintrusive the optional skin DLC is in KF - you feel no obligation at all to buy it gameplay-wise, but rather you buy them to support the developer (also works the other way around, rich dudes can pickup skins just for the luls and support the dev by "accident" :) )
Technically, NS2 is free to play, it just first requires purchasing, which isn't free. Once you have it, though...