Free to play what a joke.

I disagree. At least to a point. Conceptually, they are doing it right. For example:

Look at final fantasy online, there is no free to play, except short times periodically throughout the year trying to lure back former players, You have to sub to play that game. The sub includes access to game and and the updates. They have the micro transactions, and market items as well, much like DCUO... Finally, they have large expansions, which have to be purchased separately as they are NOT covered by your monthly sub... Its all well worth the money by the way, they do an excellent job! Large pieces of new, refreshing content, roles matter in that game, so do mechanics, everything is so beautiful and awe inspiring in that game...

ROTFLMAO!! So much better than TL/DR.

It sounds like someone wasn't in the know while being a sub, that when their rent runs out, they are kicked out if they don't renew. I've been a sub since the end of November, and its up next week having gotten the 3 month deal. But I stay up to date on everything, I keep my eyes & ears open, and I have seen others say that the premium content was no longer available once their subscription ran out. I am going to have to renew, being a league leader (helping out a friend who was the previous leader, but is waiting to get a PS4), I won't be able to manage the league without renewing.

Everyone has made valid points here, while saying the same thing. Its like you're paying rent, and if you don't renew that lease, then you have to move out. I have played many "free to play" games over the years. That's pretty much what the gaming industry is nowadays, aside from consoles. But these developers, ALL developers want to get paid for their work. They offer free content to attract the customers/players, then offer some sort of content or currency that assists with playing, for a reasonable price. Some of them you can play entirely without paying money, others you can't. But the bottom line is, our society is money driven. People need to make an income to survive. If you're not willing to contribute to their work or entertainment, why should they contribute to yours?

*laughs* free to play is not what killed marvel heroes. The problem is they couldn't make up as much money as they spent to launch on consoles because the appeal wasn't there (at the end of the day you basically played the same game over and over again, I know pc had a few different things than consoles, but console play was beyond monotonous.

Also warframe is a successful free to play game, free to play does not outright kill a game.

Word is there is going to be a new Avengers mmo coming out. So we'll see what happens. I tried Marvel Heroes, at the same time I started playing DCUO. I didn't like it.

Have a question I've always wondered about. When some of you refer to a game.. ANY game as being free to play.. exactly what does that mean?

See i have played a couple on line Strategy games that were "FREE TO PLAY" . Games where you created a kingdom and started designing your defenses and building your army. You'd increase your strength by doing things like add a treasury so IF another player attacked your currency was safe. Adding a barracks or armory to allow you to train and better equip your army .. and so on.

Now the game was TOTALLY FREE. You didn't pay a cent to download and could upgrade any building or troops without spending a nickle... But the higher you got the LONGER it took for those upgrades to be completed . To the point where some would actually take 24 hours or more to complete. Now as long as YOU were happy waiting that long for the upgrade to be finished everything was fine.... HOWEVER at some point those games started the 'sales" pitch so if I wanted to cut those times down or even eliminate them completely so an upgrade that was supposed to take 24 hours was done in a minute then ALL I needed to do was head to the in game STORE and buy the "SPECIAL GOLD COINS" or whatever they decided to call them on that game and then spend those to make that upgrade just go POOF!

So yeah technically they were FREE TO PLAY because no one was forcing you to buy and use those coins. Of course there would be huge blocks of time where you couldn't do a thing in game because everything was still upgrading.

Oh yeah and at least one of those I tried for a few days even made added money by allowing manufacturers to advertise on the borders.... Hey there's an idea ... Let's just start letting Dominos and Pizza Hut and Coke and Pepsi post adds in game. How hard could it be? Just alter the Cut Scenes ... So while Circe is arguing with Wonder Woman in the Trigon Prison Alert.. she is holding a Coke in one hand and a box of Domino's Pizza in the other. Hey even a Goddess needs to eat some times right? LOL

I'm sorry but one way or another any game out there has some way to make a profit or how on earth did it wind up on line? And who is paying all the people that maintain it and provide new content? MAYBE some very patient player willing to wait 24-36 hours for his or her armory to update to level ??? is paying nothing but How many others are making several trips a day to the store for more coins, token .. whatever?

If it's not like dcuo where I create my own hero them no thanks lol. Marvel heros was cool but not dcuo.

The logic in this thread....What did you think you were paying your membership for? What did you think was going to happen when you dropped it?

There's a chance that this game (even though it's being titled with Avengers something or other) could be a game changer mostly due to the fact that Square Enix is a part of it (versus a smaller outfit from the get go). But again only time will tell.

You mean you didn't like playing the game over and over again where the main difference is just what character you're using? When you also can't choose the character you want from the start so you have to play through at least probably once or twice before you could possibly get the character you want to play the same thing over again?

How on earth was that not a ton of fun

Warframe.

Let me try to answer your question by providing a few examples, and these are games that I have played.

First off, a game called Dragonvale. Players hatch & breed dragons, keep them in habitats on different islands, and its kind of like running a zoo with dragons. Their is gold in the game that is the main currency used to buy many things, such as food and basic dragons. Their main cash cow in the game, what they get their revenue from, is red gems. (Many of these games on Android & iOS use this format.) The red gems are used to buy more unique breeds, speed through waiting times, upgrade buildings or caves, & other buildings. They have frequently run events in the game for the last couple of years that run a limited amount of time. With these events, there is a certain item that players must collect. (Like with Easter, they collect Easter eggs; Halloween, they collect candy corn) Those become a special currency to purchase special items or dragons associated with the special event.

Marvel Puzzle Quest. A "match 3" game like Bejeweled, consisting of several characters in the Marvel comics universe. You build a roster of different characters. Some you get in drops, others you can buy with in game currency. The main in game currency is Iso's, but their revenue currency are gold tokens. These are used to expand your roster capacity, as well as buy character draws so you can add to your roster. Its been a few years since I've played this one, but they tend to run special events, usually based on whats happening in the real world. Such as when Captain America Civil War came out, they ran an event based on that.

Disney's Magic Kingdoms. A game where you are running your own Disney park, available for Android, iOS, and Windows. Mostly free content, you follow a storyline where you unlock certain Disney characters as you progress. The main easy currency is magic of course. Their revenue currency are red gems. Each character have their own set of things to collect for them, which you use to unlock them. The red gems are used to either speed up countdowns, or to purchase unlockable content such as buildings or characters. The characters all come in their associated groups; eg Toy Story, Monsters Inc, Lion King, etc. Within each group, there is at least one character that you can only get by spending red gems, and they are ridiculously high in cost. The developers want you to spend money to get gem packs, to get some of the character content you really want. Otherwise, its free to play.

Lastly, there's Township. A town & farm simulation type of game that has expanded over the years. Gold is the main currency in the game, while Township dollars are the revenue for the developers. That is used to buy content to unlock, speed through counters, expand your territory, and upgrade buildings. This one is relatively free to play without having to spend money to progress through the game.

The control style was just too different. It seemed far more complex than DCUO. And since I didn't want two large file games on my hard drive, DCUO won the space.

*laughs*

far far more simpler than DCUO in every sense of the word.

There was no real end game, you literally did the same thing over and over again.

Well I'm glad that I didn't get into it. Its been a while since I tried it, but if I remember correctly, I think (on PC) you had to point to where you wanted the character to go. And yeah, you couldn't create your own.

What's really funny is the OP only made 1 post and never responded to anyone. Yet somehow we have a two-page thread. Hopefully he got the point by now, lol.

LOL!

Okay but unless I am interpreting what you are saying wrong.... didn't you pretty much describe almost the exact thing i did in my example? So in the Dragonvale game you mention Red Gems .. That I assume a player can BUY with real money to advance faster? In the Marvell Puzzle game you talk about Gold tokens as the "revenue currency" so I assume that means those also can be purchased with a Credit card? The Disney game has Red gems (again) and the Township A game has Township dollars?

Now one of the games I played has some ways you could acquire some of that type of currency with special mission or whatever but it was also available to simply be bought. No clue if the games you mention are the same way BUT the game played it took a lot of special tasks to earn coin while clicking on the in game store and buying them was MUCH quicker. Now since I had no desire to shell out a bunch of cash on any of those game for me until I just flat out stopped playing they were F2P and YEAH I could play any content available as long as I was willing wait days to get at it.... But there were players in the leagues I joined in those.. because you got bonus in game cash by being in a league.... that started out the same level I was and in days were light years higher in level than I was.. ONLY way that was possible in those games was to buy the coins at the store and zip through wait times.

Now let's translate that to DCUO. We have players that get upset if a raid take 3-5 minutes longer than what they are used to. Imagine telling them.. There will be a 22 hour ;long wait before you can complete this mission and get one CR higher. LOL Place would be a ghost town in less than a week.

Yes the special currencies that the developers of the games get revenue from, are available to obtain in the game by doing certain tasks, which differ by game. But they are rare. They're just trying to entice players to buy bundles of them.

My point to the OP was that rarely will you find a game that isn't revenue driven and is completely free to play, without having to spend a cent to increase your progress. Not at least in terms of action or adventure games. You will find that with most simple card games on Android or iOS, but not with this genre.

Earth 3 is pay scam as well , to use your ultrabucks in the vendor you need the DLC and the little chests you get are membership only to open them. It is pointless to do E3 day in and day out when you cant use the ultrabucks and open the little chests you get and I noticed that it seems you get less loot choices after a boss take down.