» Mon May 20, 2013 4:23 am So looking at the current state of games, a lot of games are moving to the MMO F2P style structure. id has already done it with Quake live and wasn't very successful.
What if id software took another shot at F2P games with their new games. Now they can release DooM4 for example with all the single player, mod tools etc but at the same time release the MP as F2P and take the DoTA2 approach to the F2P model.
Leverage Steam as their battle.net style platform.
Here we can have Elder Scrolls Online, Quake live, DooM F2P etc. Attach the Bethesda online store to this and start selling in items.
The problems with Quake live were that it had a high skill cap and the only revenue was subscriptions and ads.
DoTA 2 achieved success without dropping the skill cap by adding cosmetic items, UI items, show support for your favorite team kind of items and other items that wouldn't hurt gameplay. The next set of BETH MP games should try to take this into account.
Well advantage is this is:
1) People with have a longer lasting game to play bringing back the pros to game like Quake, DooM, Wolf.
2) Games will constantly undergo improvement and we don't have to wait for the next big thing forever.
3) It will create a larger more dedicated community, not just for id but for the whole of Bethesda.
4) Inter game communication and game visibility along with F2P tag will draw people from all Beth franchises to try other games which might result in people embracing other genres of MP play.
They can keep releasing their packaged SP games and keep updating existing MP games.
This will reduce pressure on the SP teams who can solely dedicate their time to create great SP experiences which can be independent their MP counterparts.
The MP teams will be fully focused on the MP side of thing and will fine tune their engines to MP needs without affecting the SP teams.
And both teams can justify their profits and losses accordingly. We know we will go into DooM4 expecting the next best id MP experience but might come back disappointed because it didn't get the same treatment as the SP or vice versa.
In the F2P model if the game svcks they can go back and make things better based on community feedback. They can have more changes and quicker changes. DoTA 2 pushes patches every week. Something we will never see in a packaged MP.
DoTA 2 approach will also the community to make their own game modes and let people try it out in bot or non ranked matches. If the community loves it the devs can instantly refine it and add it to the official ranked list. Same goes with Maps, weapons, models, UI designs.
TLDR version: Look at DoTA 2 models of F2P. Make game accessible to everyone without compromising skill. Don't make it pay to win keep stuff cosmetic. Keep making regular packaged SP while keeping MP as an ongoing F2P model constantly updating it with changes and even engine updates. Let both MP and SP teams justify their profits and losses independently.
