A F2P Business Lesson From League Of Legends

[nicopopolis]

Vindictus is a ghost town.  Sure the early levels might have a lot of people checking the game out but the game has a terrible conversion rate of long time players.  So there's the hardcore at the top, the casual at the beginning and giant gap in between where you can't progress because you have to do a raid boss that no one farms anymore to progress.  Now I quit when you needed to spend ~$100 in the cash shop for protection runes to upgrade you weapon so you could hurt the raid bosses (this started after Thor and got progressively worse.)  I hear they've redesigned some things and I tried going back, but once again, ghost town.  No one doing mid-range levels.  Lots of players at the beginning, lots at the end, not many in the middle.

 

Don't bring up WoW when talking about business models.  Ever.  There is never going to be another WoW.  And as a fun fact, WoW has been losing subscribers since Burning Crusade.  Sure it's down to 10 million from 12 million.  But if you know the history of it, they stayed that big only because they're the biggest player on the market and they used that power to bully and kill any viable competition they might have had by adjusting major content release dates to conflict with launches of other titles (Age of Conan and Warhammer online) and stealing and implementing anything good they could come up with to compete in their own game.

 

DOTA 2 and LoL are extremely popular.  So are tower defense games.  Does that mean that DE should copy Orcs Must Die's strategy and give you the first three systems for free and charge $10 to unlock each subsequent system?  These are different games and they use different models.  LoL and DOTA 2 aren't based around collecting heroes.  Warframe is largely based around collecting gear.  In fact, it's about all there is to do in the game, outside of shooting spacemen and zombies.  So a model that puts a micro-transaction on storing and upgrading that gear is what they went with.  And I really don't see why everyone gets so hung up on this.  It literally creates a system where the more you play, the more you pay.  Which is perfect as on ongoing strategy for DE.  As a player, I feel I don't have to pay them unless they keep creating new stuff that I want to collect.  And every time I do pay them, it funds their efforts to keep creating more stuff that I want to collect.  Why do people act like this system is flawed?  It's literally can't think of a better way for them to continue to make money.

 

The only drawback that I experience is that shooting the enemies with all my different weapons isn't that interesting anymore.  I need new enemies to shoot but they're working on that I'm sure.

[CharginTarge]

 

The inventory system

So lets call a spade a spade, requiring platinum to buy slots is nothing more than a tax to ensure that anyone who plays the game for a significant amount of time *must* spend money on the game or lose some of their progress (warframes/weapons must be sold to free inventory space). The amount seems tiny to your boss, but its something, some small guarantee of revenue. But to a player, they are being forced to pay for *nothing*. There is no content associated with buying a 'slot', only the *potential* for content and no gamer I know is willing to pay for nothing, would you?

 

Lessons from LoL:

-Gamers have options, more today than ever before, and the number of F2P titles is only growing. They will see the requirement of purchasing slots as a barrier to their progress and they will become frustrated and leave. It will drive them back to games like LoL which have no such requirement.

-F2P games thrive on population. LoL does so well because there is always someone to play with, at any time of day, in any part of the world. They attain and *retain* that population by having a 0$ cost of entry *and* no requirement to ever spend money.

-LoL has a crazy high conversion rate, the majority of people who play the game *have* spent money on it. They don't spend because they have to, they spend because champions are cheap enough to be an impulse buy for even people with little disposable income; and because the time investment to earn enough IP to keep up with the content cycle is untenable for most people.

-LoL has no concept of limited inventory, because paying for the privilege to pay for content goes against the universal belief that paying for something should actually *get* you something.

 

suggestion: Get rid of buying 'slots' entirely. It will do nothing but create frustration for free players and adds one more step before someone can actually *buy* something they want.

If management demands the extra revenue, either require an up-front entry-fee i.e. guild wars, or roll the cost into the item purchase itself. I should be able to go into the store and just buy a warframe; having to first go buy a slot to put the warframe in is poor design at its worst. Make it *easier* to spend money, not harder.

 

 

LoL has something similar, though not quite as restircting, with the process of buying mastery pages. A new mastery page is not new content, but you have to spend a ton of RP/IP to get it. The only difference is that you can spend IP on them, though that amount is way too high for most players to consider that option. When faced with spending 6300 IP on a boring mastery page or buying Draven, everyone reaches the same conclusion: Welcome to the Leage of DRAAAVEEEEN!.

[Xandorai]

Thing is, if you want to increase your Mastery rank, say to Rank 7 to get those cool Research weapons, you will HAVE to spend real money, there is no avoiding that. You can go out and purchase blueprints for all the weapons you want and all the Warframes you want ... with credits, you will come to the "Give Us Money" wall called Slots. I'm sure someone much more knowledgeable about the game could come up with least amount of Warframes + Weapons to reach Rank 7...and I imagine that would require more than one $5 plat purchase.

[neKroMancer]

Thing is, if you want to increase your Mastery rank, say to Rank 7 to get those cool Research weapons, you will HAVE to spend real money, there is no avoiding that. You can go out and purchase blueprints for all the weapons you want and all the Warframes you want ... with credits, you will come to the "Give Us Money" wall called Slots. I'm sure someone much more knowledgeable about the game could come up with least amount of Warframes + Weapons to reach Rank 7...and I imagine that would require more than one $5 plat purchase.

 

Sell stuff to make room for new stuff usually give you enough room to advance in mastery.

 

Problem is attachment and time invested in these items make player reluctant to sell them.

[brohicks]

So in a nut shell if you don't pay for things with platinum you will be grinding for a long time to get anything bought in the market or receiving them in rewards.  I think blizzard has a nice thing going for Diablo 3, the auction house.

[Mietz]

LoL has something similar, though not quite as restircting, with the process of buying mastery pages. A new mastery page is not new content, but you have to spend a ton of RP/IP to get it. The only difference is that you can spend IP on them, though that amount is way too high for most players to consider that option. When faced with spending 6300 IP on a boring mastery page or buying Draven, everyone reaches the same conclusion: Welcome to the Leage of DRAAAVEEEEN!.

 

A. Mastery and Rune Pages are a convenience item, you can reset and respec your mastery points and shuffle around runes as many times as you like (without losing them, compared to WF's selling of a Warframe/Weapon)

 

B. Mastery and Rune Pages are comparable to loadouts in other games, they are not inventory space, they only govern a quality-of-life improvement to not have to shuffle around your masteries or runes to fill/enhance a specific role before every game. They do not equal item space or champion slots. In WF, if we had loadout slots for Mods in weapons/warframes, this would be the equivalent and I would be ok with selling these as a quality of life improvement for RM since I lose nothing in manually switching my mods before every run.

 

C. Two Rune Pages are entirely sufficient for casual players, being able to have preset pages for two generalized roles, again theres nothing you lose here except the convenience of setting up your desired loadout beforehand. In fact, in organized competitive play (not solo queue) nobody uses rune pages because the setups depend on the enemies you will face as well as your probable pick, the enemies counterpick and character bans. Furthermore in tournament play these features are unlocked for free together with all champions.

 

D. MASTERY Pages are free and capped at a maximum of 20 for every player, RUNE Pages are not, you get 2 with the ability to purchase up to 18 more (capped at 20).

 

The only qualm with LoL that I really have in relation to business model and gameplay structure is that competitive online play (ranked) doesn't unlock all champions, which means that paying players are at an advantage with counter-picks when it comes down to champion-bans.

[Mietz]

Sell stuff to make room for new stuff usually give you enough room to advance in mastery.

 

Problem is attachment and time invested in these items make player reluctant to sell them.

 

It has diminishing returns as mastery rank requirements are exponential, at some point you hit a wall and either need to grind the same weapon over and over by selling it (like a Braton, since its cheap) or spend money on boosts.

[ALL.CAPS.GUY]

honestly i stopped reading at the end of page one.

what i have to say is:
"tedious and unfun"

<-- paid (master founder)

 

i primarily play as much as i do now BECAUSE i paid so effing much already.. what if the game takes a horrible horrible horri-f***ing-ble turn for the worst? i entirely quit and rage all over DE til they mark my email address spam because i want a refund on everything i spent - well that won't happen - so would i get a refund on what's left? LOOOOOLLLLLLL as if.. by that point i wouldn't have s**t for plat left, and what i do have would be worth all of $8 ... so ef it, what would be the point in arguing over that? LOL

[matrixEXO]

Not sure if mentioned but I will mention it again anyway, LoL has rune pages being charged at a cost. If you don't want that cost in RP, you can always pay in IP (6.3k). I think we all agree that they should be buyable with Credits, at the very least.

 

EDIT: Side note, LoL gives out free plat enough to buy a champ on the lowest tier. Sadly, 50 Plat isn't enough to buy anything substantial (weapon at least) other than slots.

Edited August 2, 2013 by matrixEXO

[Mietz]

Not sure if mentioned but I will mention it again anyway, LoL has rune pages being charged at a cost. If you don't want that cost in RP, you can always pay in IP (6.3k). I think we all agree that they should be buyable with Credits, at the very least.

 

EDIT: Side note, LoL gives out free plat enough to buy a champ on the lowest tier. Sadly, 50 Plat isn't enough to buy anything substantial (weapon at least) other than slots.

 

Like, 3 posts up

[lMasterBetal]

Not sure if mentioned but I will mention it again anyway, LoL has rune pages being charged at a cost. If you don't want that cost in RP, you can always pay in IP (6.3k). I think we all agree that they should be buyable with Credits, at the very least.

 

EDIT: Side note, LoL gives out free plat enough to buy a champ on the lowest tier. Sadly, 50 Plat isn't enough to buy anything substantial (weapon at least) other than slots.

 

Not to mention that there is a free rotation of champions every week to prevent people from grinding to play X champion. They just have to be patient.

[RoboDoge]

I would like to see slot availible for either creds or mastery rank, but AFAIK in LoL you must grind at least 1 week before buying new champion. In WF you can get new WF in 30 mins if you are lucky enough.

 

So my conclusion is: with free slots people will breeze trough the content. But having limited options to increase inventory size would be nice.

[Mietz]

In WF you can get new WF in 30 mins if you are lucky enough.

 

How?

Like seriously.

 

You need 3 parts + master BP +  24h crafting per part + 3 days crafting for the frame itself.

[MEsoJD]

 TF2 (or valve as a whole) would be a better reference.

[lMasterBetal]

 TF2 (or valve as a whole) would be a better reference.

As a player of both, I always prefer LoL for some reason.

[drakwon]

Paying for warframe slots even though they were cheap and they give us 50 starting plat, almost kept me from playing the game. The argument shouldnt be it only equates to about 50 cents, but should be is it worth losing a potential customer over 50 cents.