Embracing the Paradigm Shift: Converting a Premium Team to an (Enthusiastic!) Freemium Team
First of all, how great is that title for that talk? Reminds me of “Up in the Air” (awesome movie btw) when they talk about how best to phrase “you’re fired” to people. That’s the hotbar salesman here, expect rather than everyone being directly fired, some of them get the ‘opportunity’ to work on a Freemium Team.
Schubert advocates for a terminology shift from the word “whale” to the word “patron.”
“These people are very important, and we can start by treating them with some fucking respect,” Schubert told his audience.
The fun one could have in suggesting terminology shifts around the F2P model in the MMO space…
Talking about respect to customers when it comes to F2P is hilarious though. Is the hotbar salesman aware that the model he is talking about only works when you trick enough dummies to overpay for crap? This is the same guy not only selling you hotbars, but multiple forms of lottery lockboxes, right? The guy who’s former game is getting ready to bombard the cash shop with cheap movie tie-in crap? This is like a black hole calling the pot a little dark.
But really this is what F2P does to people. You can’t be a normal, decent human being and make F2P work in the MMO space. You have to become the hotbar salesmen, always attempting to dupe the next dummy for a buck. And when that dummy figures it out, you move on to the next, or dig even deeper into the slime bucket to again attempt to get a little money off someone. And most of all, when you do hook a whale, you do everything in your power to fully gut them. You don’t care if some weak-willed fool can or can’t afford the thousands he is spending; all you care about is that once he is hooked, you continue to provide bigger and bigger ‘deals’ or ‘opportunities’ to them to keep that money rolling.
That’s the ‘game’ you are designing when working on a F2P MMO. It’s just a vehicle for what in most industries would be called a scam, and the scam artist behind it talking about ‘respect’ is amazingly crazy.
Hardcore Casual 
LOL they don’t respect them they play into their addictive nature and willingness to separate themselves from their income just like RL casinos do. Lets not pretend its anything else.
On top of that the “shift” was years ago. The current shift is basically having every pay model you can crammed into your game. Crowfall’s model is a good example of this.
Damion Schubert is such a fucking douchebag, Since he’s become a f2p crusader his shitty blog has made me retroactively question the fun I had in M59.
There is a grand irony in how f2p proponents dismiss old school, time investment subscription games. You’ll see time and again the plebs use the term “special snowflake” or the like to deride the accomplishments people achieve in the game they are playing. Oh you want there to be content only for people who are good at the game, so you can be a special snowflake? Then they turn around and prop up an entire system where *you optionally hand over real money for the sole purpose of becoming a special snowflake.* It’s mind boggling how stupid they are.
And yeah, Daimon has no idea how to design a fun game (see SWTOR). He does seem to be catching on how to bilk morons though.
omg Damian Schubert is such an ass kissing moron. Read his blog if you can stomache the stupidity. Should provide weeks of blog posts of your own.
I tried that a while ago, and honestly couldn’t do it. Just so utterly boring 90% of the time, that finding the 10% stuff to laugh at wasn’t worth it.