The game should be $9.99 or $4.99. I doubt that sales contribute much.
I always get confused by “trash players” on F2P. The best comparison I currently have is Warframe as there is very little PVP in the game and it relies a lot on co-op.
I don’t run into any trash players and by the term trash I assume you mean griefers, trash talking, players. I actually have run into WAY more issues in Boundless than I ever have in Warframe.
The two games are VERY different though.
Just because a game is F2P doesn’t make it P2W I mean all in all Warframe isn’t P2W any more than Boundless is in the terms most people have stated here. Technically, Boundless is P2W as it does have P2W aspects to it, it’s just not your typical toxic P2W.
Needless to say, I partially take offense to F2P players being trash players or entitled snowflakes, but then again, I know some are out there.
EDIT: Back to the OP. Making the actual cost of the game free and sovs/gleam club/cubits still cost real money the whales could invest there. I don’t think the current infrastructure or lack of dev involvment in-game or the lack of some sort of community manager that can deal with players in-game would help the additional influx of Free Players or any players for that matter.
I don’t play games with mods. I don’t even use any ad-ons in world of warcraft (apart from a dps meter). I actually refuse to do so, i believe a game should be what the developers make it to be.
Now i do like mods, and modders, but more for showing developers ways to make their games better, and giving them new ideas. But I won’t go through the process of adding extra anything to a game… If a game doesn’t hook me with what it has without external resources, i move on.
Release the game on Xbox as well, now that it isn’t published by Squeenix, then see if you can’t get it a part of the game pass. That is a good way to get players, without the issues free players can bring.
See the thing is i can say imagine the free weekend plot messs every where for several weeks but than in a continuous loop butt not sure if you experienced that before sovs came…
Or the like said before trolls that just for the fun of it plot areas just to bother. (Yes I understand we probably have a few now).
Nobody has to adhere to COC cus if ya get banned what evsss.
Constant new account generation is extremely common even in games that cost up to and over $100. It’s not much effort to make a new account and the cost isn’t an issue depending on how much you’re making IRL trading in-game goods. It’s kind of a universal problem in multiplayer gaming atm.
How many people have been banned in Boundless? Does anyone actually know of someone?
To your comments, there are many people that could plot areas just to bother people but think about how it is now, there are places that plot a 500-plot buffer on their areas because they don’t want anyone building by them. Heck, we did it in the new DK Mall hub.
You are going to get trolls and you are going to get more trolls when you have more players be it Free or not.
I personally don’t want it to be Free 2 Play, but if we or James want to save this game throwing out update 249 isn’t going to do much. Titans being added isn’t going to do much. What these new things would do is add value to the game for us that currently play and have already spent our $40 and invested a crazy number of hours to the game.
Simply put, I don’t think we will ever have both a $40 game and lots of players in the current state of the game. So, to me, it’s either drop the game to $9.99 or $4.99 on all platforms or make it free. Now I am not saying making it Free 2 Play would bring in more players, but there is a definite spike in sales when the game drops to $5.
The bigger problem is the new player experience and retention of players.
I have to say I would go for $20. Too low and it lowers the perceived value for people and it starts looking like a throw-away game that isn’t worth much. Just my thought on it.
Well it was clearly stated before that square enix was paying for the servers, and not getting money from GC or sovs. I don’t foresee James giving out numbers on this now that things have changed.
Obviously that’s a month to month issue but yes I suspect that some months GC + planet rentals might meet server costs. There’s usually a few hundred sovs running as far as I know.
For the most part, probably not. And that’s completely ignoring some part time pay for support/maintenance.
Gleamclub is bought through steam for pc players so square enix did get that income. Also the income from any cubit purchases. But since sovereigns and fuel for sovereigns are bought through a different portal, any income after paying for the servers does go to the developers.
And this does not account for any purchases made by ps4 players where we have no idea about Sony’s cut of the revenue.
Yep, this. We know it is low thousands for the server costs. If the sovereigns were to make them a 50% profit, and add in GC, I could see where it might meet the costs. But the cost of labor is another issue, and the worry for me. Putting much more labor into the game may be seen as too much a gamble, especially with other projects going.
I’ve said it a number of times on the board before, and still believe it - the only way I see that could make the game “free” and also turn enough of a profit to justify further development is to cut a deal with a subscription service like the new Playstation Premium. Reason is, with those, I figure the execs will be wanting to see games that get people to subscribe… looking at things like, do people sign up after looking at a game’s page? That is something Boundless could do really well, it is beautiful and a mix of genres a lot of people like. Free MMO and building sort of like Minecraft. It sort of would check a few boxes for them on their offerings, so to speak. The retention rate I would think wouldn’t matter much to them as long as people didn’t also unsubscribe from the service (or really bash the game along with the service hard on social media or something), which is unlikely. I’ve heard with Game Pass that the deals they cut with devs are all over the place, too.
I think it’s a mind-set for me. I think it’s sooo presumptuous to think you (not YOU you) should get someone’s hard work for free. I don’t have thoughts on the ‘quality’ of the palyers or griefing, whatever, but I care greatly that anyone thinks it’s ok to take a product and expect not to pay for it. Sure, there’s money to be spent on ‘things’ in game, but it’s the presumption that a player should jsut be ‘given’ a thing that bugs me. I send them their GC money (or whatever game i’m playing) because I’m paying for my entertainment value and to show my support.
From the dev perspective, it’s an ecosystem. In addition to being conversion potential, the free players exist as a feature to help the paying players enjoy the game. It’s one of those “if you aren’t paying for a product, you are the product” things. An abundance of free players makes sure paying players have someone to play with. They also provide perspective on how cool they are for being paying players - with money you feel even more cool and powerful with your cash shop outfits and P2W transactions since you can compare yourself with those F2P plebs.
So, yeah, people who beg for F2P are begging to be used as a product or squeezed for money.
I’m still waiting for more games like Warframe where the F2P isn’t crazy exploitative.
Bit extreme mate. It’s literally a game and u saying they should be shot. Tell me how much money boundless is acc making off sales ? All I said is to make it f2p for a bit more fun I don’t play it anymore bc I walk around and everything is dead I can’t even play half the game like the shop side bc all the big boys is the only one who get money. Why would my little unknown shop get money ? But with f2p more players meaning more chance for new players like myself WHO HAS PAYED FOR THE GAME to acc grow and let me acc play the full game.