The state of the subscription MMO: Revenues up, WoW's stranglehold slipping

Yeah I tend to agree that Subscriptions almost make you feel trapped into playing a game and free to play usually degenerates to a point where the CS feels abusive. Don't even get me started on the double dipping.

I too look forward to GW2 with great anticipation.

I keep wondering myself. If GW did it, now GA does it, how come aeverybody else complains and throws in cash shops as they were candy?

And 1,6 Biliion subs - 1/4 of the human race, are you sure about that?

That's 1.6 billion dollars, not subs.

"And 1,6 Biliion subs - 1/4 of the human race, are you sure about that?"

How many of those subs are multiple account holders? A majority of the people I play CoX with have at least two accounts, if not three.... I'd imagine some of those gold sellers out there have a dozen accounts, if not several dozen....

It should really be an unwritten rule that a trial is offered with any P2P title. Trying before you buy (and subscribe) is hugely important.

I'm somewhat in agreement, being tied down sucks.

Maybe their next secret MMO will? The one that wont be set in the WC, SC and Diablo universes.. I remember there were some rumors

...Hello Kitty Online! :-)

Multiple MMOs in the same market space will continue to chip away at WoW.. There is no single WoW killer.

Death by a thousand cuts.

Yes, with expansions (and some in-game micro-transactions), and as for how the games can sustain themselves on that, this is why I don't buy the argument that B2P titles like Guild Wars 1 & 2 don't care about retention.

Of *course* they have to care about retention, because they need people to buy every single subsequent expansion/chapter that comes out. If they were only in for the initial cash grab and don't care if people only stick around for a month, they'd be sunk. They may not mind if people come and go over time, but they have to make the game fun and polished enough that people want to return and continue to buy content.

The same scenario you mentioned can happen with subscription games, too - if the subscription numbers aren't what a game hopes for, the game will cease to generate the kind of revenue it needs, either (see several recent MMO releases over the past 2 years).

So, the motivation for B2P games is *similar* to P2P titles, it's just more an attempt to incentivize returning to the game, rather than incentivizing addiction/continued time spent in the game.

"Nobody likes subscriptions"

I do. I don't feel locked into playing an MMO @ $15 a month or so (even after paying for the initial box/client). I also don't feel like I have to maximize how many discs I get per month from my Netflix sub. I do what I want and just enjoy the service/game.

I've played sub only games, sub + cash shop, and F2P with cash shop. Overall my experience with subs or subs+ cash shop has been more positive than negative. Maybe its just that my favorite MMOs are sub-based, or maybe I just prefer that model - I'm not sure.

That being said, I get really annoyed with double-dipping.

I keep seeing this comment about how folks can't see how Guild Wars model can sustain the company. Maybe you can't see how it works but it plainly does as Guild Wars launched in 2005. That's five years of Guild Wars and I can't recall ever hearing about them being in financial straits.

While their financial model may be a mystery to you it obviously works if they can afford to keep the game running for five years while developing two expansions to the original (not counting Eye of the North), and developing a pretty well regarded upcoming sequel.

That an MMO requires subscriptions to pay for future development and server costs seems to me to be disproved by Arena Net's continued existence and prosperity.

"I agree F2P is the way things are going down now, but when a game gets as big as WoW, it's going to have a few million subscribers left until the plug is pulled."

The 1st gen of popular MMOs have shown that most successful games will limp along for huge amounts of time past their prime.