Sorry for multiple posts, but two more F2P PS4 exclusives:

War Thunder

Think World of Tanks but with WWII airplanes. I'm pretty excited about this one. Gameplay at about the 5 minute mark:

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DC Universe Online

Nothing new here, really, but it should mirror the PC version. This one looks like it could get pricey as it's more of subscription model rather than a purchase upgrades or earn them in game model.

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The only F2P games that are legitimately not out to screw the end user and are great games happen to be Valve's Dota 2 and Team Fortress 2 and Riot Games' League of Legends. The user doesn't have to buy items to "win" the game, all of the paid items are mostly for decoration. While Team Fotress 2 does allow the user to buy weapons and other accesories that might give them an advantage; the longer someone plays, the more likely they'll receive the items in a drop.

The statistics don't lie. LoL averages over 500K users a day, Dota 2 averages over 300K users a day, and TF2 averages over 70K users a day (which is huge considering the game is five years old). Out of all the multiplayer games I've played, these games also have some of the best communities out there outside of Battle.net.

Blacklight: Retribution currently sees over 1K users a day on the PC, which is pretty fucking pathetic for multiplayer. Maybe that's because to get the full experience, one has to pay $75 in DLC alone. Fuck that shit. You could purchase a Battlefield or Call of Duty title when on sale, purchase all of the DLC online afterwards, and still end up at a cheaper cost. Hell, you could purchase any of the Counter-strike games which still have more users on per day (30-40K users per title) and one can pick up any of the games for under $15... or the upcoming summer Steam sale where they'll most likely be $2.49 - $4.99 again. Yet all of the DLC out for Warframe can cost upwards of $179 and the game has more than 15K users a day.

Surprisingly, PlanetSide 2 has no DLC making it truely F2P and gets over 10K users a day. Maybe I'll have to check that one out.

While it's great to see the PS4 and XO aim for F2P titles, the majority won't give a shit unless the games are truly something or go the route where paying gives one the advantage.

I'm not sure how well LOL translates to console controllers...looks very much like a PC game. Similarly, I get why Valve didn't bring DOTA to consoles already, but I don't understand why they didn't port a proper regularly updated TF2 over as DLC. Hell, I'd even pay $10 for it if they needed to recoup some costs.

I don't understand what you mean by "the full experience". Do you mean buying ALL of the guns and gear, or are there some map packs or something? I would think most people would only pick a few weapons that they really want and earn a few others in game.

I'm also not sure that the current players online is all that meaningful of a number when it comes to predicting how they'll do on console. I'd never heard of Warframe or Blacklight until I went looking in earnest, and console gamers are a different crowd than PC gamers. Blacklight looks like a console friendly game, and it's very polished, but it also looks like a pretty typical shooter in a VERY crowded market, so I'll take your point on that one. But Warframe is co-op, so that's a different dynamic entirely, and I'll bet it gets some play.

I expect Planetside 2 to have a really dedicated community on PS4, and there's a great chance I'll be in it, especially if the next Battlefield plays like BF3 did.

More Hawken with a nice gameplay demo from Angry Joe:

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This one needs to come to the consoles. Looks like a blast.

Happy Wars is a f2p 360 game. I think it sucks though.

This is a must read in any F2P thread: (The Top F2P Monetization Tricks ) http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/Ramin...130626/194933/


There are exceptions, as mentioned above, but there are not truly free F2P games. It's a business there should be a way to get some kind of reimbursement. Even LoL and TF2 should have a way to get some money back.

And of course if the product is free, what they are selling is YOU.

Appreciate the article, but most everything there references the kind of stuff you see on mobile or facebook games that are aimed at a less savvy market.

The stuff we're talking about here is simply a different business model for AAA (or near AAA) games where the developer has an ongoing incentive to keep the game fun both for paying and non-paying players. If there is a trick, it's in the slow trickle of in-game currency to unlock stuff compared to the instant gratification of getting that gun/perk that you want. The other possible trick is convincing the player who pays that he's getting a big advantage when he really isn't while simultaneously convincing the non-paying player that he's not outgunned when he just slightly is.

I don't think anybody here is looking at these games as "completely free", though I suppose you could. I simply look at it sort of like a loss leader. They take a financial hit to get you in the door in the hopes that their game is good enough to keep you playing (and hopefully paying at some level) or alternatively that you stick around as a slightly outgunned "bot".

My mindset is that if I really like one or more of them, and I don't find them too shady, I will find a level of financial support that corresponds with my level of enjoyment.

To be fair, with work, LoL and Dota 2 could be ported to the next-gen consoles. Just look at Diablo III. Hell, there were rumors LoL was going to be an Xbox One F2P console exclusive.

One of the reasons Valve didn't support TF2 in its 360 variation was due to Microsoft's monetization (and this was back in 2008-2009). Valve wanted to release all of the additional guns, accessories, and maps for free like on the PC. Microsoft said no. The same thing ended up happening for Valve's two Left 4 Dead games. PC gamers got all the DLC for free, Xbox gamers had to pay for it. I wonder if Microsoft's tune on that has changed due to its focus on cloud computing. TF2 gets a patch nearly every other day and Microsoft could theoretically support that based upon comments from Insomniac and Respawn. However, I feel TF2 just works better on the PC. Not just the keyboard and mouse layout, but specifically, the community. There's a lot of community created maps that run circles around the maps Valve has officially put out that wouldn't be able to work on a console unless significant work was done.

It's also interesting to note that Valve made way more money off TF2 when it became F2P than when they sold it through retail outlets or Steam. Before Valve made it F2P, the game averaged around 20K users per day. As you can tell in my last post, that has tripled now that it's free. And yes, Valve still updates the game with different modes and map packs and they're still free for everyone. On the other hand, if you want fancy hats, you'll pay up the ass.

In regards to the full experience on games like Blacklight and Warframe, yes. To get the "full experience," the DLC that's available for these F2P games include accessories, guns, and map packs. I could see why you'd want to monetize the accessories and guns, but map packs? Why not just alienate the audience a bit more.

I've heard of Blacklight: Retribution and Warframe before. I've heard nothing but positives with the former, but the community simply isn't there to gain longevity. I don't care about third-person shooters outside of like Gears of War and Metal Gear Solid, so Warframe holds of no interest to me.

Planetside 2, if kept the same in regards to no monetization, could be one to keep an eye on. Will it be the next Battlefield? Absolutely not. In the next eight months, fans of first person shooters will be hit over the head with Battlefield 4, Call of Duty: Ghosts, Titanfall, and possibly, Destiny. There's only so much to go around. Sony and the developers will have to make the game something truly special to succeed.

I'm curious, how do you know they made more money? Because of the number of users? Or did they release some other info. Seems to me like there's little incentive to pay for anything, though I'm not familiar enough with the community to know how many people really value the trinkets that cost money.

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/01/11/va...re-of-modding/

For third-party content, Valve takes 75% of the sale. Some of the third-party content makers make somewhere in the six-figure range on their content. However, as a private company, Valve really doesn't disclose much.

Anyway, I would absolutely download a F2P Team Fortress 2 on console, and I'd probably buy a thing or two just on principle. It's the one I'd most like to see ported, and I can't imagine it would be a difficult port. The only reason I can think that Valve wouldn't do it is that they might want to keep the updated version exclusive to Steam.

Otherwise, I'd say that Planetside 2 is pretty much a sure thing and Warframe looks like something I'd definitely enjoy. Blacklight: Retribution, World of Tanks and War Thunder all look promising, and TF2 and Hawken are on my wishlist.

For now, I see these as legitimate games with a legitimate business model, and this is a customer base that will not tolerate being jerked around, so I'm confident we won't see a lot of iOS or facebook tactics.

Free to Play is going to be around for a long, long time and is most definitely a legitimate business model. The big F2P games out there on PC like League of Legends is making Riot Games a ton of cash, and I know a large number of people that went to go work there because of the salaries they were throwing at people. I'm curious how the console crowd will react to it, since some couldn't get over the account based DRM type of system. I am a bit surprised that there hasn't been a push for the MOBA style games like Dota and LoL, as I think they would work pretty easily on a console.

I've played a handful to various degrees, like TF2, LoL, and just gave Hawken a try the other day. I still haven't made an in-game purchase in any of them, but its easy to see how a couple dollars here and there for a new weapon or character are so appealing.

Everquest Next

It's shit like this why I hate EA and most "free to play" games with every inch of my body. From Reddit...

The next one is spoiler-ized due to size:


RIP Popcap.

Oh, and speaking of Warframe: http://www.vg247.com/2013/07/15/warf...-three-months/

Thanks for confirming that PvZ will be one of those games I played the hell out of but whose sequel I will never touch.

Wow, that's horrific.

Regarding my post quoted above about Planetside 2,
After looking through the weapon store it appears I was incorrect and there are guns that are only available by paying money for them, BUT the only ones I could find were pistols and there were literally only a few of them. So still not really an issue, at least not for me since the only time I use my pistol at all is if I run out of rifle ammo and don't have anywhere nearby to re-stock.

I like f2p on silly shit like Candy Crush.

I'd rather just pay $2 for most games though.

I agree that is a horrific way to implement free to play, and the single player space on mobile is chock full of that kind of crap. I'm also particularly dissappointed to see that happen to PvZ, because I thought the first game was brilliant.

That said, I think there is a way to implement FTP in the multiplayer, cooperative and MMO space that can work for both players and publishers. It's a fine balance, but I'm still open to the idea.

ftfy

Couldn't find a more recent F2P discussion thread, and didn't want to muddy the mobile games threads.

Toucharcade published an article yesterday. The sensationalist headline is "we own you" but it's really more an anonymous dev lamenting the model, and just how much data they accumulate and how they use it (he gives one example of going after a "whale" by friending them on facebook, then tailoring content specifically to them)

http://toucharcade.com/2015/09/16/we...play-producer/

last paragraph:
I'm under no illusion that a non F2P game can't/doesn't do this exact same thing, but I thought it was an interesting article, since F2P is pretty much the number one model in the mobile games market.