Using Fortnite as a comparison and example of why Conan Exiles should go F2P doesn’t work for several reasons;
They are different genres, Fortnite Battle Royale is a battle royale, Conan Exiles is sandbox survival.
They are aimed at completely different audiences, Fortnite Battle Royale is aimed at younger players, yet Conan Exiles is aimed at more mature players (although this forum suggests otherwise at times).
Fortnite Battle Royale has been free since release, Conan Exiles has not.
Fortnite Battle Royale operates under a model and genre that can support microtransactions, Conan Exiles doesn’t, sandbox survival and microtransactions don’t exactly work together.
Fortnite Battle Royale is aimed at more casual players, Conan Exiles is aimed more toward hardcore players.
Fortnite Battle Royale has a large competitive scene and a lot of YouTubers and Twitch streamers that cover the game, yet Conan Exiles isn’t exactly friendly for either platform and can’t really have the same competitive scene due to it’s genre.
Comparing Fortnite Battle Royale to Conan Exiles or vice versa is like comparing a rock to an orange and saying they’re similar. It would be better to compare Conan Exiles to F2P sandbox survival games, but you will find most of those are small indie projects.
Look at the genres that have both F2P and paid games, you will see the F2P games lose out to the paid games more often than not. Take MMOs for example, none of the F2P MMOs even come remotely close in terms of active player numbers to the two biggest paid MMOs currently out there, World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV.
I’m referring to past games, look no farther than Age of Conan, when it released as a subscription game it had partial nudity, when it went free to play it was censored, smiley faces covered things that were uncovered in the original game. 99% was censored at f2p.
Secret World was censored when it went free to play. I played it in beta, believe me it was very different before release and before f2p. Two examples both funcom both censored.
I could mention other games that were sanitized at release then even more at f2p,
but you get the point.
F2P is the quickest way to lose paying players and replace them with people who just want to leech off the backs of the few players too invested to leave, and people too inexperienced to know $10 for a skin is ridiculous.
Knights of the old Republic became free? If it had updated graphics and was on Ps4 it would make a ton of money. Planescape Torment was rereleased. It on Ps4 go tell me how much it is?
I am old, I have been playing video games for as long as there have been video games
However I missed the start of the mmo, I was working too many hours.
When I finally got the time, my first mmo was free to play.
I thought it was great, then after about 6 months I realized how much I had spent on this “free” game, and I quit. Never went back, never spent another penny on a “free” game.
This is the life of an F2P game IMHO they are short lived as money makers, then die a slow death barely holding a dwindling population, and squeaking by until they are unsupportable. Then they just coast along so long as profit says above the cost of the server. Sometimes a company will throw a few dollars at a old game, and sometimes that game will hang on awhile.
But that first f2p I was on? It changed hands a few times, then got bought by a Korean company that just maintains it, no updates, no new content, no bug fixes. One lonely little server with almost no player base.
The truth is with Conan you just need to buy the game once, that’s it. Are you really so hard up for cash you can’t buy a game as reasonably priced as Conan Exiles? For my money Conan exiles is up there in value with Skyrim. Best investment in gaming time I ever spent, worts and all.
It has given me more than my money’s worth in game enjoyment. I would buy it again,
But if I saw F2p I wouldn’t even look at the game page.
B2P really is the best model IMO. Buy the game and play it as long as you want any time you want without having to spend extra money outside of DLCs and expansions. A simple, straightforward transaction that doesn’t screw you over just to drain your bank account. Usually.
F2P is nice, but comes with a lot of necessary caveats in order to support it, among them microtransactions out the wazoo, the ever popular loot crates, and a much greater chance of going P2W. Won’t that be just grand if we get to pay an extra $15 to be able to have five more thralls? Or $10 for each extra religion? Yeah, I’m not too excited about that idea either.
And on the other end of the spectrum, you’ve got monthly subs, which is like a parasite just constantly sucking money out of your wallet for, well, nothing really. It’s like paying for the exact same game over and over and over and over and over. There’s some people who think this is a kind of magic incantation that will banish all bugs from the game, but the simple fact is there’s still going to be bugs and any good developer is going to try and fix them with or without a subscription model. Reason being, if bugs make the game unfun, people aren’t going to buy it no matter what payment model it has.
I agree with you. But purchase of the game doesn’t keep kids out I have a 8 and ten year old on my server. One is from South Africa one USA. At least with them in my clan they are some what filtered. Overall people my server are decent folks. And the 2 kids are more knowledgeable about the game than most and help the adults.
Free what , it is not free, it cost to wipe your nose while playing, its the most popular game for kids and blue hair freaks. God fornite is a cash grab every thing is pay to win , pay to play, pay to dress, pay to move. Sorry but that game is nothing like Conan at all.
No, you’re right. It isn’t terrible to start with an incomplete game. That’s fine, as long as players know going in that it isn’t finished. Funcom presented this game to consoles as if it were a finished product. If you were PC you knew better, if you were console you felt deceived. That is the moment launching something incomplete isn’t ok.
i understand where people are coming from with the game feeling/being incomplete but i also feel sorry for how much crap the devs have taken from the get go with the launch if you go back and watch and read a lot of the streams and forum posts from them, they all mention how in their oppinion the game wasn’t ready for launch but those above them said it was time and it was out of their hands at that point so they did what they could to get it as good as they could before launch i feel if their hands hadn’t been tied it would have been at least another year in EA
Not having control is one thing… Then there’s another thing of stuff being broken for years now and devs doing nothing to attempt to fix it. The thrall weapon bug for instance, earliest post I’ve found was from may 2018. Parts of structures still randomly break on load in single player, been an issue since before the thrall weapon bug. Yet nothing is done. You have people like Joel who when presented with a problem that needs fixing he says, “That’s just too much work”. Verbatim. I mean really? That’s your work ethic? Then you don’t need to be where you are.
So for every bit of undeserved crap the devs take, there’s at least one thing they do deserve it for. Especially when what they’re not fixing they say they know about.