Just how "free to play" is DCUO?

How would you know? Weren't you a new player? Or are you just generalizing?

I understand subs and agree with it but DCUO loses 90-95% of its potential customers before level 30. DCUO advertising as a Free to Play game when it is not causes most of those players to quit because of those false advertising practices. If DCUO would go all in on Free to Play like it advertises while keeping the subscription model as well. Then we all would have a much better product to play because of the volume of players playing the game. You have to understand that if your customer retention rate is always at a certain percent (lets say 5-15%) no matter what you do. Then the only way to get more paying customers is to bring in more players as a whole. The only way DCUO is going to get more people playing DCUO is by having open episodes from T1- end game.

If you look at what's happening and has been happening. Open episodes are almost here. All the new content is free until the next episode comes out. So why not go all in and give 100%. That lower content is not going to hurt anyone that pays for premium or subscribes. That lower content being free will give everyone more players to play with. Which in turn will give most paying & potential customers a better gaming experience. You can look at some of the villain threads right now. Those are dying to have more players to play with and yet some of them are too blind to see the overall benefits that we all would get from a larger player base.

Does that really make sense?

Villains & all EU in general:
ITS DEAD OVER HERE?
CAN WE MERGE WITH U.S. SERVERS?
CAN WE MERGE FACTIONS?

Devs & people that support open episodes:
DO you guys want more players to play with?

Villains & all EU in general:
YES!!! NOW PLEASE

Devs & people that support open episodes:
AWESOME!!!!!
We are going to have open episodes
We will have shorter Q times
We will have twice as many players to play with

Villains & all EU in general:
NOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Devs & people that support open episodes:

I could see that happening. At this time most of the ‘paying customers’ are at end game. The event versions of the current episode ensure there’s plenty of bodies where they need them to be. I don’t see them opening up all the episodes permanently like ‘tomorrow,’ just because there’s still very little sending the endgame players back to do (artifacts is a start). I could be wrong, but for me, little would change either way. It’s almost more of a pain if you q into something and then find the other 3 are ftp, can’t do a role, and are undergeared...and don’t communicate.

Yeah but that's new players in general. Just because a player paid up front does not mean they know anything either. If we ever get an influx of new players they will have a learning curve the same as we all did.

I started as a free player along with a few friends. They did not stay longer than a week because of the locked content and the obvious paywalls. A couple went straight to STEAM and paid for games right after they logged out of DCUO. They thought the advertising was shady and wanted no part of it. I'm sure they are not the only ones either. I stayed because DCUO had an actual subscription and I liked the game.

in my time free was demo or shareware,dont believe in free stuff,nothing is free in life,i play games i like,"free" or not,like this game,did research bfr i started,knew what i'm geting as free,premium,legendary...started as premium,liked it and switched to legendary to support something i like,buy here and there something from market...you get to much as f2p from this game,i would cut some benefits down...skipp a beer or two and pay subscription and enjoy in full game...ppl making games have to eat and pay bills...or go play something else,or fight captain kruel and save civilians...enough with me want,other games have...for 15$/13€ a month you have everything...feats,gear,they'll come in time unless you want all now and buy 100's stabs to open tcs,but thats on to you...

That was very hard to read or understand.

I think that’s fair. Everyone’s gonna have a learning curve. The story mode here is good enough, so download and be ftp throughout the story. Thinking back...we paid money for that experience...lol

Okay so let's say DCUO did as you said, what is the point in having a subscription? Why pay a monthly fee when you could run all the required content for free? Do you honestly think that if they opened up all content to be free and did not require a subscription that people would still carry on paying the monthly fee to support the game and future content?

These are my thoughts on doing free to play right, verses not doing it right. AKA how DCUO did it.

First and foremost every free to play player [ftpp] should have the same opportunities as any paying player [pp].

Am i saying they should just open everything for everyone free of charge? No. I think ftpps should have to work for it. aka, the grind.

Take bank tabs. Currently as a ftpp they are hilariously limited. So give me the option to ether drop cash, or unlock a few slots at a time for 5 [enter random cool super hero thingy name] marker. each marker i can buy for 10000 in came currency. so, 50 grand i can get the same thing as pps. Of course i would have to be able to HOLD 10k at a time, so you re work escrow. If i want to pull from escrow as a ftpp it would be a 20 percent haircut or something. I still get access to my cash, just less of it at a time. where as pps get all of it.

You follow a model like that and you will get the long lasting ftpps that will sink endless hours into the game unlocking everything. And you will also get those that are just willing to open there wallet to bypass the grind. In the end everyone still gets everything the game has to offer, the ftpps just work harder to get it.

No, that's how it is for free-to-play players.

Years ago, for various reasons I decided to go it alone as much as possible in this game. I'll run seasonal instances and the Stabilizer Duo with other players, but that's about it. If I can't run it by myself or walk into content and run it alone, I generally don't run that content.

I knew what I was getting into when I made that decision and how it would affect my progress in the game, and as such I haven't come into the forums complaining when I find something is inconvenient for me. I wouldn't have a leg to stand on if I tried complaining about slower progress along the tiers, lower Mark returns on content or stat point totals being lower than expected in relation to a character's CR.

I made my decision as to how I was going to play the game, and I own that decision. Can you say the same?

I have the ONE answer, to end all answers.

Do you have to pay any money or swipe a debit or credit card everytime you play?

There you go.

That image. What I wouldn't lick off her belly. Well, there are probably at least a few things, but dayam!

Oh, so you do have a copy of their financial records...

Seriously, though. What is your basis for these "professional" statistics?

Also, why would 95% leave before level 30? Is there a huge difference between players at level 20 who are f2p and subs? As a matter of fact, many subs didn't even start subbing until the end of tier 4... so...

So, open episdoes cured all the queue time issues on both sides did it? Can you tell me why Tiers 1 through 4 are virtually impossible to queue into then? After all, the HUGE numbers of f2p players just desperately running content must be there, right? So if they open up tier 5, 6, 7 and 8, then all those players who are making T1-4 queues pop like crazy will all migrate to those later queues, and everything will be rainbows and butterflies, right?

Of course, many subscribers will just play the game for free now that everything is the same for both, but it doesn't matter because all these new f2p players are going to generate so much POTENTIAL future revenue, maybe, right?

Free players already have the same opportunities as paying players. But to unlock those opportunities, they have to spend a little cash (just like the paying players did).

Free to play is just a glorified demo... to fully enjoy DCUO, you need to be a legendary member... this isnt Warframe.

Again, all your saying is its mandatory to pay for a free to play game. If thats the case, the heck is the point of the free to play platform?

It’s not mandatory.

You downloaded and played the game at no cost to you, right?
^ Free to Play ^

We can sit here and argue over the semantics of “free to play” ad nauseum. Write the company a letter if you want, I don’t understand the purpose of making a thread on the forums about this. None of us can give you more free stuff. Are we really arguing over the value of “free?”

I'll be honest.
I do not like any Free to Play model games. I like subscription games and this is the only reason why I continue playing DCUO. I would rather DCUO be a sub only but it is not.

On that point, DCUO it is definitely not a Free to Play game either.

DCUO's FREE to Play advertising model is a misleading joke. Being advertised as a Free to Play game is the reason why DCUO cannot retain very many new customers.
DCUO needs to be honest with itself and its potential customers.

Look at how WOW does it.



This is how DCUO does it but DCUO advertises as FREE and WOW does not.






Nothing is spelled out for new players except that they get to play for free. They don't find out they need to pay for anything until they have wasted their time downloading and playing the game.

If they are going to advertise as being free then they need to fix it. It is their current model and how the game is advertised that is hurting the game more so than anything else as far as new player retention goes.