Free Memberships?

Runescape and AQW is quite good.

 

i need free memship plz pick me for the free memship

 

how do i get the free memship??

 

Exactly. I hate when people complain about 'this game should be free'. Many times, games wouldn't exist if they were free because no one would bother to make them. The only advantage with online games is advertising which can sometimes make up for not having a paid membership.

I feel if you spend enough time on the game, you should be fine putting up a few bucks a month towards it. For example, with RuneScape, if your just a casual MMORPG-er (like me) playing the free version is more than enough in terms of things to do. However, if you are a hardcore gamer when it comes to games like this, is 5-10 dollars a month really going to kill you?

 

What gets me riled up is when a game says that they are free to play, when in fact they are limited free to play. For example, you have to pay to get into the area where the ninja pigs that you see fighting on a Wizard101 trailer are. There is no way you can become a Grandmaster in that game (play the game to its fullest extent) unless you pay to battle in certain areas.

My firm opinion is : "Follow the definition of free, especially if you are marketed for the tween/teen segment or change to limited free to play."

 

You don't, this is a debate on the benefits of free membership.

Vic, the game has to have some way to make money, otherwise there's no game at all.

 

The very best MMOs have memberships, sometimes compulsory for playing the game. However, there are a few exceptions (Perfect World, Guild Wars). A game company has to make a living, but memberships are not the only way.

Some mmos have cash shops, some have an in-game money that you can buy, which you can use for lots of premium STUFF all over, and some have advertising.

 

Perfect World is great without membership I'm currently playing it and it's fine

 

Yes, Perfect World is a free game, with no membership. It's proof that a free game with no membership can still be good.

 

Yesh, a lot of games are great even without membership but the supposeably good games have to have membership >.<

 

Well, when you have more money, then you can afford to get massive production teams, with talented members that will require more pay. Or you can get all that first, then use membership as a way to pay it all back.

Membership is a way to make lots of money in an MMO.

 

it like farming for thing lol

 

I think developers that make a free game should make it completely playable with out a premium account. Shame on those that dont. There is nothing more annoying that playing a free game and find you can only get so far with out paying for a premium account. Free means Free.

But that does not mean that I disagree with premium accounts - giving players the option to purchase premium accounts is great and many player love to have the cool game stuff, but the game should be completely playable for free too!

Thats my two cents on this...

Happy Gaming

 

I think everyone has made some good points.
If the game is advertised as free, it makes sense that it can be played to the finale without paying. Otherwise it should be called "free trial" or some such other indicative language should be used.
I currently play a vampire MMO called City of Eternals, it actually achieves the free game-play ideal. One can play every mission, and beat them all without paying a dime. The way that the developers make money is through luxury goods which are virtual goods payed for with real world money.
Buying these luxury goods does seriously effect game-play in a positive manner, and it makes some stuff easier/more convenient. This whole idea of paying for stuff in game is a real hot-topic in most of the games I play. My stance is, if the game can be successfully played without paying, stop your griping. Yeah, paying may increase the fun of the game, but the developers need to eat too!
So, if you have to pay to access missions, it is not free. If you can play all of the missions, but paying would enhance the game-play it is free. Obviously, if some sort of subscription is required to play the game is also not free.

On a related topic, one user mentioned advertising in this discussion; I think that is a facet that requires more thought. How much money can an online game make through advertising alone?
My thought is: not much. Most advertisements follow a pay-per-click system, meaning the advertiser pays the developers each time one of the users clicks on their link. Generally the advertiser pays between 0.20 and 0.80 USD per click.
Lets look at this in a best case scenario:
The advertiser buys an ad at 0.80USD/click
One coder makes 30k USD per year (which is way way low for a game coder)

That would mean that users would have to click that advertisement 37,500 times to pay the annual salary of that one coder. This is a dismal statistic when one considers the other expenses involved in maintaining much less starting a game. Also, one must consider the fact that a user will only click on an ad IF they have interest in it.
Lets look at this again from in a best case scenario:
The game has ten thousand users
Each user can be expected to click an advertisement of some sort once per month.
this would create a gross income of 96,000 USD per year
A game with that many users would probably employ more than 4 employees (lets keep the 30k USD per year) which would need to be paid 120,000 USD per year.
This company is already in the red by 24,000 USD per year and they have not paid any other expenses! So I think we can safely say that the standard click advertising is not going to make the game much money.

Other forms of advertising are possible but unlikely to make much of a dent unless the game is something huge like WOW.

 

I agree that a game cannot be funded only by advertisements. In most MMO games, it's also hard to implement advertisements ingame. Racing or sports games can easily integrate that, without the player giving comments on it. It just fits those games. In MMO's you can't just do that. You don't want to see a Coca Cola poster in a medieval fantasy game... Advertisements on a website would also not make enough money.

As Greg pointed out with his example with the coder who got paid 30K/year (which can easily be the double for a programmer in a game company), it's just not possible to keep the game running with advertising as only income.

I personally like the item shop approach. Casual players can play for free, while the others can buy some extras. It's obvious that these extras should give the buyer some advantages over free players, otherwise they will not buy anything.


~Infina

 

I think a free MMO is what it is: free. The only time a free MMO isn't considered free is when a person decides to invest their own money to make their players "godly". So you have to ask yourself the question: play for fun? or play to be the best?

Of course paying for premium membership is a total advantage on free MMOs because you start to feel like you are playing a P2P MMO when it is actually a free 2 play. Very creative way of getting revenue. Some companies are greedy and won't offer premium membership. They will force their players to pay for premium items which divides the community up because players don't want to invest 50 bucks a day paying for premium items that won't last very long but they still do it because they are committed to the game and the company knows that.

 

while free memberships are good you get an advantage for being a wallet warrior

 

Dead thread but

I never like free membership in games (like F2p and P2p in one game)
All the games I have played that have that system I always quit playing...
And all games that are pure p2p or f2p I play a lot longer

 

I have said this in the forum before: I love Wizard101 but I have a sincere problem with them saying it is a free to play game. It isn't. The spells that you see in the tutorial can't even be played unless you pay for those areas later on.

This isn't a marketing mistake ... mistakes happen but can be changed in a new patch ... KingsIsle just keeps on doing it ... now with the gardening ... more money.

I never thought it would happen ... I still love the game and the staff (not Marketing) ... and I waited and waited for Celestia ... played a bit of it in Beta, even ... but I haven't done more than 5 quests now. I just get sick inside when I play. A disappointed feeling kind of sick feeling. I know I know ... not good ... but I can't help it.

I don't mind paying a monthly fee ... like I do for Lego Universe ... Everything I get in Lego Universe, everyone else can get if they pay the monthly fee and put in the effort to do quests and farm for drops.

I understand that a company needs to make money ... I don't have any solutions but I do know that psychological tricks in order to make people buy items in a game is wrong ... if you are going to make people pay then be upfront about it.

If you go to the library there are books about the psychology tricks that marketing departments use in gaming. I almost wish I hadn't read the books.

The problem is that gamers only have so much money each month and there are so many great games. As I said I don't have any solutions but I wish someone would figure out what we can do! I was just thinking of the Lord of the Rings video of the gamers picketing and having a gamer's revolt ... maybe that is what we need to do.

Should we start a revolution? On Facebook? On Twitter? On Myspace? You know that website that you click on a spot and it gives a cup of rice to someone? Why couldn't gamers do something like that?

I remember Club Penguin had us build something ... in a quest ... and when we finished we were told that money was going to be donated to a needy cause ... Why couldn't we do that in all games ... except the money go to the game's company ... Big business could pay them for our quests ... like Alienware or Microsoft or Dell.

Why can't we buy stock in a game?

Why can't MIT students figure this out? Or GameOgre members?

 

Of course, premium members have an opportunity in game better than free accounts