Business Model Poll

[Kurik Lein]

I know it's not enough votes so far but I find it hard to imagine a bigger population having a different spread unless of course a lot of under 18 people were polled.

I was curious about how other communities voted and any research on it and this is what I found.

2011 Massively Poll 2707 Votes

Subscriptions - 1513 55.9%
Free-to-play - 1194 44.1%

2011 MMORPG.com Poll 2040 Votes

F2P/Subscriptions Hybrid - 22.8%
Free-to-Play - 30.2%
Subscriptions - 47.0%

http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Mar...MOs-37567.html

While the MMO crowd has mostly been bombarded with medieval fantasy MMOs all trying to cash in on Blizzard's World of Warcraft success, the reality is that many American gamers actually prefer free-to-play science-fiction MMOs over any other pay-to-play MMO sub-genre.

According to NewZoo, 36% of the near 40 million active MMO gamers in the United States like to play games with a sci-fi theme or overtones...14 million gamers to be exact. What's more is that out of the 39 million MMO gamers in the United States less than 16% of those gamers actually pay-to-play MMOs online, which would explain the upsurge in former P2P MMOs being quickly converted over into F2P MMOs. Even more than that, 68% of all MMO gamers in the United States prefer free-to-play games, while the remaining 16% are undecided and will go either way.

It's kind of the opposite in the Asian territories where 52% of the MMO gamers prefer over there prefer pay-to-play games, but the rest are still quick to jump into free-to-play MMOs as well, showing a rapid growth in the F2P market just the same as the North American market.

Unsurprisingly enough 80% of all gamers in Russia, Brazil, Mexico and also prefer free-to-play games. That kind of ties into the whole market research suggesting that 75% of all Russian gamers get their games for free...or eh, illegally.

[Malikai]

Guess I shall forever be in the minority. I want the subscription fee in place if for no other reason to keep the rif-raf at a minimum, and I dont give scifi games a second thought. Couldnt even play all the way through the ME3 demo movie..err game, had to let my son finish it for me.

I am me, and I am ok.

[Dynimix]

Guess I shall forever be in the minority. I want the subscription fee in place if for no other reason to keep the rif-raf at a minimum, and I dont give scifi games a second thought. Couldnt even play all the way through the ME3 demo movie..err game, had to let my son finish it for me.

I am me, and I am ok.

I am part of this minority as well. I appreciate the model of a monthly subscription because then I can also expect certain things from the game and feel that I have a legitimate complaint when they don't appear. I am not in to "the Final Frontier" in any shape so even Mass Effect was just not that fun for me.

[Kurik Lein]

Guess I shall forever be in the minority. I want the subscription fee in place if for no other reason to keep the rif-raf at a minimum, and I dont give scifi games a second thought. Couldnt even play all the way through the ME3 demo movie..err game, had to let my son finish it for me.

I am me, and I am ok.

I think that a good portion of MMO players who post on forums and fansites like we do for the most part prefer subscriptions. If Copernicus does end up being F2P and has a tiered business model I would love to have a subscription only server.

[Darksend]

I prefer the subscription model because I REFUSE to even play any competitive game that lets someone buy an advantage over me with real world money. On the other hand I see the companies point, best item in game costs 1000000000 currency, player goes to illegal gold buying site and buys 1000000000 currency and gets the item and the company loses that money.

[Crowbar]

I prefer Box sale / Sub based games. I have played a few F2P mmo's recently, and am currently playing LOTRO to kill some time, and in my opinion there is no good F2P system. I have tried to see the benefits, but for me it just seems to ruin the game play. My main issue, I guess, is that I want all of the content available to me from day one, even if it takes me 3 years to see it all. The artificial limitations put onto gameplay, so you will spend money in the stores is frankly offensive; even LOTROs store, which by many accounts is one of the better ones out there.

I don't mean to sound dramatic, or full of nerd rage, but if Copernicus follows an F2P system, I wont play. It's a scam designed to dupe people out of their money, one nickle or dime at a time. I even find myself fighting for self control sometimes; if you know about LOTROs task limits, then you understand what I mean. I'll find a single player RPG to get lost in, rather than fall into the F2P trap for anything other than a temporary diversion.