Opinion: Free To Play Vs Subscription Vs Buy Once

I have an opinion! Why is mine special and your isnt? Because I have a collumn to rant about my opinion! In other news, if you are afraid of opinions, and people who think diffrently then you, please DONT read this collumn. If you want to know what other people think, then continue. Yes I did another generic disclaimer!

Ok today I will be discussing MMO buisness models. You may have seen F2P MMO's like RaiderZ, or Aion. or Subscription MMO's like The Secret World or World of Warcraft. You may have even seen this new Buy Once MMO genre like Guild Wars 2. Today I will be discussing these genre's pros and cons, and which one I think is the best. Hint: it may not be what you thought. Well maybey it is.  Lets begin.

Free to Play MMO's
Pros:

• Free to try, so it is irrelevant if it is bad. Also you never need to pay*
• Control over the amount you pay
• You can play many at once, without worring you are wasting subscription time
• Lots of high quality MMO's are going F2P lately
• For Devs, they usually make more money, and are easier to maintain.

Cons:

• Quality isnt always good
• Typically bad community, as anyone can play (even kids) and bans are irrelvant due to creating multiple accounts
• Lots of pay2win  MMO's
• Some MMO's cost alot in microtransactions (moonbreakers)

So those are the Pros and Cons of Free to Play MMORPG's. Do the pros outweigh the cons? In some games. And that is the real problem with Free to Play. Some games do it terribly, some do it really good. Overall I rank Free to Play as number 2 in terms of the three big models. The free to play games I have played (except one) were done really well, and were of high quality and really fun. I really liked the model. There was one F2P game I played that sucked though. Age of Empires Online. On launch that game was pay2win, we wasted hundreds of dollars on that game, and the community and gameplay were sub-par. Now I think it is fixed a bit, but I still stick with End of Nations.

Subscription fee
Pros

• Baiscly (aside from a few flops) assures quality due to the amount of money you need to spend
• No pay2win
• You know exactly how much you are spending
• Ensures lots of content patches, so they can keep you playing
• Better community due to needing to spend money each month, so less trolls willing to do that

Cons

• More grindy (as they want to keep you longer, so it takes longer to do everything)
• You have to spend money each month to play (even if you only play 1 day a month)
• Less people to play, due to some not willing to spend money a month
• Devs: Have to spend alot of budget to make it worth playing over every other subscription MMO and f2p MMO. Or then why bother using the money a month
• Can only play 1-2 of these, unless you can grow money off trees. So you are spending all of your gaming time on one game

So those are the Pros and Cons of Subscription MMO's. Again if I missed some, post in comments and I will add them in. So this, perhaps due to my lack of money, perhaps due to me not wanting to spend money and be basicly forced to only play one game, this is my least favioret model. Number 3. I have only played one sub MMO before, and that is the obvious: World of Warcraft. I didnt stay with it due to the money each month that I wasnt willing to pay.  Ok there can only be one model that is Number 1 now.

And the images broke. Sorry for that. Deal with the small Guild Wars 2 :(
Pay Once and Play Forever

Pros

• Pay once, and you have good quality (due to needing money), and also dont have to pay money continuesly
• Not obligated to play them, and you can play many at once.
• Better community
• You know exactly how much you are spending
• Not grindy, due to them not needing to use all your time to make you pay a sub fee.
• Devs:  dont need worry about adding content really quickly, or making it grindy as you dont need to keep people playing. Add content, but not extremeley quick.

Cons

• Doesnt ensure constant content patches
• Typically has expansions, or some other microtransaction store. (They cant fund a MMO with just 60$ a copy usually)
• Still have to spend money

These are the pros and cons that I can immediatly think of for Pay once. I persoanlly really like this model. This model is the best of both world: Free to Play and Subscription. You barely have to spend any money, due to only paying once, and you gain the advantages of both F2P and subscriptions. But most importantly, Guild Wars 2 uses this model. Yes I really like Guild War 2. Thus me and Sebatian will co-lab review Guild Wars 2, so he points out flaws I miss, and I point out flaws he misses. Anyway this is my number 1 model due to best of both worlds.

Whoo this was a really really long post. Been writing for hours, and the pictures broke. Hope you enjoy my Opinion on F2P Vs Sub Vs Buy once. And do remeber this is my opionion, however I do want to hear yours. Please leave your opinions in the comment section. I will repsond to every one.