Not all cash shops support Real cash -> Ingame payment, y'know.

At least they don't have to.

Cash shops can easilly be only cosmetic looks n crap. And it'd still bring in tons of dolla dolla bills.

Everything is speculation at this point. P2P, B2P, F2P, Cash shops, Other.

So if you only want true hard facts of things like payment models: there aren't so it's best you stay away from topics like this.

Saying "expect a cashshop" is not the same as saying "i think there will be a cashshop" .

And you are right, there are not facts about the cashshop that's my point.

Depends on how you look at it.

I see "Expect a cash shop" the same way I see "Expect a Sub model". It's not officially confirmed but it's still heavily speculated.

What? You do realize that 1/3 of those are the only 2 games that have grown over their lifetimes right? Your "facts" are foolish since correlation does not equal causation. Many of those games made vast mistakes with how they chose to monetize their cash shops, for example Eq2 tried charging a sub, and releasing quest packs for $10 a pop on top of it. All of those games are different in design, appeal to differing playerbases, have vastly different number spreads and budgets. The only fact is that cash shops = money in the developers pockets, often at little to no cost to themselves depending of course on when and how they choose to implement them. '


I recommend you watch http://www.slideshare.net/bcousins/paying-to-win#postComment
Offering only cosmetic is of course a possibility, I never said otherwise. It again depends entirely on how and what they choose to monetize and whether or not its deemed sufficient by their business plan. Not all business plans are out to make the most upfront money. For example WoW could easily switch to a f2p model and likely increase revenue and have fuller servers, but that solid 3m accounts is a nice chunk of reliable capitol.

Yes you are right "expect a cash shop" is seen the same as "expect a sub model" but that only applies if someone said the latter which i haven't. I said "i think there will be no cashshop" that's not the same as "expect no cash shop" .

I would have no problem but when some disagrees don't try to put your opinion over as fact when it clearly isn't.

Again, there is no dev quote saying "expect a cash shop" which would be like saying "there is a cashshop".

If there is a quote then i would like to see it, if not then best to keep quite or just form an opinion.

Saying "cash shop is probable because its stupid for the developers not to" is not an opinion though. That is any decent anolysis of the available financial data.

In this case "expect" was used and based on a form of personal opinion and knowledge/experience. He expects it to be implemented in the game and he also states why.

That is how I saw it.

Again link your source of a dev saying "expect a cashshop" so far you have failed to do so. Time for idle chat is over, link the source.

lol If you were to anolyze financial data you would look at the most profitable ongoing MMOs. You could only reach the conclusion then that Cash shop is a No. Subscription is a Yes. We've all seen a wide number of MMOs I expect. We all know which ones charge subscriptions and what their player numbers are like. That gives you an idea of the scale of income.

You contrast that with the models that use cash shops - take into account player numbers, and those that use cash shops and to what degree. The latter is simply a failed model, set up to provide some income for a product that simply isn't good enough to be mainstream.

If you use WoW as an example, please note it has existed for over 7 years now and in this time has build up a very solid fanbase. There are no guarantees that this will happen with newly released MMOs such as ESO with whatever payment model they intent to use.

It realy depends on the developers if they promise and uphold their promise that they keep working on the game and keep bringing in more content then I think its only fair to have a subscription based model. I have been playing Guild Wars 2 for around 5 months and so far its a great game with content that keeps comming and its Buy to Play, which inturn means there is no extra cost for me and it will not feel like I am waisting money when I can not play certain days.

So personaly I prefer B2P this way Zenimax gets some cash, but if this game will be the IT game then I will happily hand over a monthly fee.

Not at all. You have to take into account a large number of other factors, from established fan base to 14 years of content generation and targeting different demographics. As I said above, its likely that in terms of sheer profit if WoW went f2p it would likely generate more revenue. The difference being the revenue stream is much more finicky. Being able to count on the 3m or so western subs and 6m "accounts" from the east is a hefty amount of cash that does not fluctuate much. I mean even looking at Eve, Plex puts it in a very strange position. Especially when upwards of 30% of its playerbase are those with multiple accounts.


Are you being actively dense on purpose? There is no source, otherwise instead of saying "expect a cash shop" I would have simply said "Its cash shop+x". The simple fact remains no matter what other way they choose to monetize, be it sub, b2p, f2p etc, not including a cash shop in there at launch or soon after is literally throwing money away. Even if its just for services like six change or new skins for mounts. The return on investment in them is just to high for them to ignore.

No, but surely they will give it a try.

To sell it short and dump it straight into a F2P market, potentially damaging it further with cash shops would be folly.

Those who tried, however, failed.

WoW is basically the biggest Sub game out there. This game probably had a lot of luck when it came out to have grown as big as it is and to have created such a dedicated fanbase. If TESO will try to do the same and fail like a lot of recent MMO's, they will most likely end up F2P. And I despise F2P games since they need to make cash of their shops no matter what so they keep throwing it in your face. F2P games also tend to be 'lesser'. At least in my opinion they are. I don't want to see this happen to TESO. If it goes F2P i'd probably still play it, since it's free and all, but I won't enjoy it as much.

B2P + cash shop and regular expansions seems the best thing to me mid-ground.

"f2p" is not the dirty word you seem to think it is. The only arguable factor with the f2p model comes from longevity, and that is due mostly to it not being perfected in the west yet. In terms of actual roi, its quite high, often larger than sub games.

Source data?
Common sense and experience indicate this is not likely to be the case for a successful game. By that, I mean a game a large percentage of MMO fans would choose as their "single subscription". I can see cases where roi is higher as F2P. Namely the unappealing, sub standard games, potentially bug ridden, badly polished, clones etc. In those cases, such a small number of people choose to subscribe to them, they get more interest by going F2P to attract drifters. As long as a sufficient number of drifters spend cash they stay afloat. Typical approach is to sell mounts for cash etc, then usually weapons, armor etc etc