Make the entire game f2p?

[XoF CS.ARMy]

Played the whole week of free mem's and i haven't play the game in nearly 10 year's.

I saw that there is data saying the game makes more money from crown sells then mem's.

Why not make the game fully f2p besides the newest area that comes out for 3 months or something then make it also f2p.

The game will be more likely to retain player's if it's 90% f2p then if not.

From what one of my buddies tells me this is the most packed the game has been in a while so why not make the game more accessible?

Studies show that people that invest there free time into things are more likely to reinvest there money in a way of time well spent and investment to quality of life.

I'm just saying if something like this happened id actually play the game longer then a week,
As it stands i cant find a good reason to pay for mems on the game as i have other games to play and would be wasting my money IMO.

[76561198102799856]

It's simple: "If it's not broke don't fix it" making everything "accessible" and trying to make things enjoyable isn't their #1 priority they're really focused on how much money they can make in the shortest amount of time and sticking with whatever formula works the best, cause when you get down too it no matter how scummy things get people still will play or shell out cash.

There's not much reason to play Wiz (at least in my opinion) there's better games out there (while sometimes hard to find seeing what gaming has become) with ACTUAL F2P content etc. the only reason you would ever come back to Wiz is if:

1. You've literally got zero games to play and this is your only option
2. You want a trip to nostalgia bait land
3. You have a long-running membership

[XoF CS.ARMy]

Originally posted by P®acticality:

It's simple: "If it's not broke don't fix it" making everything "accessible" and trying to make things enjoyable isn't their #1 priority they're really focused on how much money they can make in the shortest amount of time and sticking with whatever formula works the best, cause when you get down too it no matter how scummy things get people still will play or shell out cash.

There's not much reason to play Wiz (at least in my opinion) there's better games out there (while sometimes hard to find seeing what gaming has become) with ACTUAL F2P content etc. the only reason you would ever come back to Wiz is if:

1. You've literally got zero games to play and this is your only option
2. You want a trip to nostalgia bait land
3. You have a long-running membership

To some degree that's true but it's also based on your view of it.
I simply asked why not make the entire game free and pointed out the data of the game.
If they do it or not only matter's if they do or say they wont, So why not try making there game free 2 play fully in terms of the actual games content.
They make 70-80% of there money from crowns the other 30-20% is mems.
So i pointed out if there are more people playing there more likely to make more money off of crown sells then mems and that would make them the most money in the short term anyway.

[PhoenixPyre]

crown sales bringing in MORE money isnt the point, its that both crowns and memberships generate revenue, the longer it pulls from both, the longer it stays alive as a game.

[XoF CS.ARMy]

only if there are people to play.

[DisneysHercules]

You bring up some good points so I'll try to respond to them one at a time in order to play Devil's Advocate a bit.

I wouldn't be surprised if the crown sales were a lot higher than the membership sales at this point. A lot of the W101 playerbase are now adults with their own jobs and can spend money on the game freely. The thing is though, the game has an incredibly dedicated playerbase that's kept it alive so long so at the moment, the membership stream is still worthwhile to keep alive.

It's true that the game is probably more packed now than it's been in awhile, I come back for a 3 month stint or so every 6 months and it's seemed a lot more lively than usual. They've made a lot of QoL changes to the game which has brought more people in. I would argue that they HAVE made the game more accessible. Their player base is growing again and in return their membership sales increase as well.

If you're only playing the game for a week at a time you're probably not their targeted audience. I'd argue that you'll know if W101 is a game you're interested in based off of playing through Wizard City. They'd rather get the guaranteed $10 membership sale off a new player than hope a different players spends money on the crown store if the game was F2P.

There's a difference between saying something will happen and it actually happening. Right now they have a guaranteed revenue stream from crowns + memberships. The game going fully F2P would remove the membership stream without a guarantee that overall sales of crowns would go up. They'd have to get back into their old advertising hay days in order to draw enough players in to make that change worth it and the expenses for advertising on that scale alone is monumental. It just really doesn't make sense to make it F2P at the moment, especially when they're already going through a surge of players willing to buy the membership.

[XoF CS.ARMy]

Fair enough, How about a toned down version where something more toward the lvl 60 content become free and alter half still mem's?
I mean only to fire cat alley in wizard city is really not much, Maybe up to dragonspyre or something.

[DisneysHercules]

Originally posted by Swing King:

Fair enough, How about a toned down version where something more toward the lvl 60 content become free and alter half still mem's?
I mean only to fire cat alley in wizard city is really not much, Maybe up to dragonspyre or something.

I 100% Agree with you there. Honestly I think the first arc should be free, or at LEAST Krokotopia.

[XoF CS.ARMy]

I just really am advocating for a better quality of life for people to really get to play the game, I mean once your maxed it's all pvp pretty much right?
I just find it very odd how much you gotta pay monthly for no real end game kinda thing.
I mean the oldest mmo most people have atleast seen but has ways for people to get mems without paying is OSRS and there is so much end game content in that game it's almost overwhelming.
So i am really just thinking what can they do to make it alot more appealing to play out side of finishing the game pretty much and for people to get some what invested be for they decide to pay for it.

[Monroe]

I just got into the game so take my opinion with a grain of salt, but the most expensive games are free games. Wizard101 has a hybrid system, if they did away with membership entirely we'd probably start to see more pay to win mechanics and more annoying ads. I recently uninstalled Siege because I was sick of the lobby being one big ad.

MMORPG subscriptions aren't much when compared to other hobbies. I sub to WoW, FF, ESO, and added Wizard. All together that's still like as much as a cable TV bill. It's really not a lot. There's several MMOs I want to play still, so I may not stick with Wizard (out of time limits), but I'm really enjoying it and I don't mind a monthly subscription while I do play it.

[A Trap]

I never really got into W101, but have played P101 (same difference in this scenario) and I would love to see them go full F2P without the membership needed to go anywhere or do anything. They could even keep the membership, but change it to be more like other F2P game memberships, like Albion Online.

[Mynx-In-Match]

The original players are all adults now and come back for a nostalgia trip or to show their kids. The other new players are mostly kids who just discovered it mainly because they see it on steam or they see the prepaid cards in stores. Not to mention ads in other places. Marketing strategy plus the continuous revenue from all the short term, trial memberships most people start with then "upgrade" to just purchasing areas permanently with crowns is why these things will never change.

This is their cash cow. It works and wouldn't make any sense from their perspective to change things at this point. As long as new accounts are being made, memberships and crowns are being bought and there is activity on the servers, w101 is gonna keep going as is for at least several more years. Eventually it will die out but I highly doubt the devs/creators/maintainers will care much by then other than the generated income from this particular source finally stopping.