- First, in a P2P game, your income stems from player retention, which you earn through quality of content and frequent updates. In other words: If people are having fun playing your game, you make money.
Wrong. If people are paying, you make money. Fun has no place in the equation. You know why? Some people, most actually, wrongly purchase the lifetime subscription or a yearly subscription, and in most P2P games, safe for some exceptions, subscriptions provide little to no advantage whatsoever.
- In an F2P game, your income stems from cash shop sales. This means that you will do whatever it takes in order to push people into spending money.
Wrong again. Riot does not push you to purchase RP to buy things. Because firstly, RP priced items that are not cosmetic only also cost IP(Rune pages, runes, champions). The cosmetic only items are optional. I don´t see Riot forcing you to buy that DJ Sona, Spirit Guard Udyr or PROJECT Yi skins. Sure, the marketing is convincing, but it´s not pushing. It´s marketing. It´s how the business works. You advertise something with the 'this is irresistible' implication stapled to it. If people get convinced, they buy. If not, they don´t.
If you're playing a P2P game, it means that the developer wants to keep you happy and having fun, so that you keep paying that subscription, which makes them money. So they will make sure the game is fun and enjoyable at all levels, and release quality content that keeps you coming back for more.
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Balance is a big deal here, since FOTM classes / characters don't make money through spikes in skin/cosmetic sales.
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Lore is a high priority, since a lot of people play video games for the story -- and in a P2P game, you actually make money off your lore.
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New content is frequently released, and old content will often get touched up from time to time, to keep it fresh.
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The game is made to be challenging, but enjoyable, so that people don't beat it in a day and get bored.
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Quality is a very high priority, since shoddy workmanship will make players dissatisfied.
So, basically, a P2P game is made with quality in mind, since it's that quality that makes them money, since quality enables player retention. Now, of course there will be a bit of time-gating through weekly/daily lockouts, the whole concept of levels and so on, but, generally, the time gates enhance the experience.
This is VERY often the same for most F2P games.
Now, let's say you're playing an F2P game! Here, your income source is the cash shop -- your base game is irrelevant if people don't throw money at things. Oftentimes, this means that companies will make the base game so unbearable that you're all but forced into throwing money at the cash shop for "premium" services and whatnot -- more often than not, these "services" are things that should have been in the game to begin with, but was withheld by the developer as a source of revenue.
- Balance is irrelevant, since (in most cases), if every class/character was viable, there would be no way to spike sales for cosmetics/skins.
No, balance is relevant. Without balance, the game would get stale pretty fast, with a single way to do things. Despite Riot's balancing being a bit biased(Then again, even P2P games have that), it exists. It´s not perfect, but it exists.
- Lore is irrelevant, since it costs money to write, and ultimately has no income potential.
Bilgewater Event. Jhin teasers. Kindred. Illaoi's story. Need i go on?
- New content is on the back burner, and will be half-assed and rushed.
A game company can have as much money and as many employees as they want, content will still be difficult and time consuming to make. Besides...Taric rework. Yorick rework. Mage update. Aurelion Sol(Rippi in kippi Ao Shin). All those are contents being worked on. But Riot is taking is slow in order to get at least most of it correctly.
- The game is made to be so fucking easy that a braindead toddler could not only play the game, but excel.
Hyperbole OP.
- Quality is irrelevant, since player retention is not the goal.
Is League a quality game? Better than the crap EA has been putting out ever since BF3. And better than what Ubisoft's been doing since Rainbow Six 3.
So yes, it is. The community just make it seem bad. And yes, player retention is A goal. Not THE goal, but A goal. If it wasn´t the case, normal, bot and custom games wouldn´t exist. ARAM wouldn´t exist. Only ranked would, and everyone would start out in it from level 1 onward.
So, in an F2P game, the developer focuses on the cash shop over their own game, and really doesn't give a damn about anything but money. At ANet (an NCsoft owned company that runs GW2), employees in the various departments are assigned a quota for items in the cash shop, and are forced to drop any and all real content they're working on in order to fill said quota. If they don't, they risk being fired or docked in pay. Content and player retention aren't the goal anymore, so they will do the bare minimum to keep people playing, and nothing more.
The same old 'F2P is garbage' blah blah blah. Seriously, if you hate it so much, why the heck are you even still here? So you can drag your ass on burnt coal and hurt it more?
P2P = Quality, player retention
F2P = Greed, player extortion
So, even if a company has "good" F2P models, it's still an F2P company. Riot is no different.
Except Riot is actually doing a good job in most points.
All i can get from this thread is a major butthurt. Honestly, one downvote is far too little for this.
Nothing else could make a person this mad
