Micro-transactions driving costs of PC games down

September 15th, 2011

Tired of paying a monthly subscription for that MMO of yours? Good news, the trend appears to be on the decline, according to a new report via Gamasutra

In short, after seven straight years of measured increases in total subscriptions (cough, cough World of Warcraft), PC gamers are increasingly moving towards free-to-play games like League of Legends and Heroes of Newerth, which make money upselling digital goodies to impulsive gamers.

As a result, subscriptions were down five percent last year, according to Screen Digest.

It's likely our crap economy has contributed to the decline in subscriptions, but it's also obvious free-to-play games are chipping away as well. 

This isn't to say games are necissarily getting cheaper. In fact, a recent study found that the average paying customer of a free-to-play game spends $80 or more on upgrades. But overall, innovations like microtransactions and Steam promos are helping to drive the cost of video games down.

Read more: PC gaming headlines

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The fact that F2P games are well designed and updated on a regular basis also helps. I remember playing F2P and having nothing but 4 million bugs and glitches.

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Posted Thursday, September 15th, 2011    Quote This Post
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OnyxAnomaly said: The fact that F2P games are well designed and updated on a regular basis also helps. I remember playing F2P and having nothing but 4 million bugs and glitches.
true, true. They're are still bugs and hackers in-game trying to bust the game. But, they're free 2 play. But, you pay 2 win :D

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Building around the business model of "free". Love it.

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I've never really like Micro-Transaction games. I don't like that you can buy skill / power items which make you better than the players not spending money but have been playing longer.

Maybe it might be because I like to just buy the game and that's it lol. I've always preferred to earn my title and experience.

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F2P games have really come a long way. The only F2P model I don't like is the one that EA seems to be clinging to with the "Pay 2 Win" philosophy. Vanity items or different characters types / classes or ingame skins are great ways to make people pay. Also, multipliers to ingame xp or cash are also great microtransactional items. However, buying items that do extra damage, or grant other buffs in a PvP environment is complete and utter garbage.

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as long as they don't do anything stupid with the micro transactions like combat arms did. League of Legends and tf2 are the only free games that have the micro transaction thing down

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This is very interesting because companies have reported higher profits since going F2P. LoL and TF2 are perfect examples of good F2P systems. You play it a while, get addicted, and buy buy buy. Without microtransactions, these games would have stopped making money after you buy them.

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Zerosama0000 said: This is very interesting because companies have reported higher profits since going F2P. LoL and TF2 are perfect examples of good F2P systems. You play it a while, get addicted, and buy buy buy. Without microtransactions, these games would have stopped making money after you buy them.
u are right

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i hate games with supscription fees i dont play them. I think you should have to pay for a game once and only once

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League of Legends was built on not selling power. You have to play to get the items you need. Yes people that are better at the game gain the items faster by winning. The only thing you buy in LoL is vanity items or champions.There are always 8 champs that a F2P, that rotate every week so you can try new ones.

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Yeah the F2P games definitely get you. I started playing LoL and wanted some of the big bundles they had, and didn't realize that i quickly spent $100 on upgrades...gotta be careful about that kind of stuff.

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I have noticed that it seems to be Free-to-play but Pay-to-win, like somebody said earlier.

There are just too many features that cannot be achieved by Free-games or if they can be achieved it take a Very Long Time.

"He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future.

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I was hoping that this would happen someday. F2P games are going to keep getting better.

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F2P is also good in increasing the more hardcore gaming community. Without the need of subscriptions, more casual gamers will be able to play the big name games as opposed to just Facebook games :O

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Lol, funny how free games can affect so much

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Remember free internet? FreeI netZero ect? This is NOTHING like that. Free 2 play is here to stay and for great justice!

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definewikipedia said: Building around the business model of "free". Love it.


I love my F2P games. A few of them now tend to have less bugs than my subscripton based games.

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Free 2 Play but Pay 2 WIN !!!

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The future or games are in random creators which have really good ideas. For example like DotA was created and puff today you have many games of that style. Screw most of the big companies whos only wish is to earn money on basically selling nothing except shit games made in few months with nothing new in them. Long live the cheap/free random games.

Through all the differences it is still perfection.

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Yes f2p is the the future...you may have noticed WoW now has a f2p model for early lvls to entice new players, and other games like HoN and Champions Online did it before them. I just hope like others mentioned that it becomes the norm that microtransactions are for vanity items, skins, etc. and not a short cut to bigger better items/abilities.

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Posted Sunday, September 18th, 2011    Quote This Post
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I like P2P, and micro transactions, In wow do the mounts and mini pets count ast mico transactions?

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Micro-transactions driving costs of PC games down but in the end it cost use more to use their "premioum" services in the game, and sometimes you are forced to pay for a gun or something to be able to enjoy the game.

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I like F2P as long as I don't have to pay to win....

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My only problem is the pc, even is F2P like APB my pc don't have the capacity to run it.

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Ye, I agree with some of the comments saying that most of the F2P games have a PayToWin option -.-... but nice to hear that prices are dropping :D

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