Should the game be F2P later on?

Battleborn Battleborn General Discussion
#1

Hey guys,

I was wondering the real objective Gearbox and 2kGames have about this game.

They decided to make it a P2P game, knowing they would have a smaller “elite” community. On the other side, they look like they plan on making hotfixes and DLCs and major upgrades to make the game more player-friendly (On reddit, the devs are listening what proposal is asked and they judge if yes or no they could be able to put it in the game).

Gearbox looks like they want to make this game able to have a room next to LoL or at least smite on a competitive scene. The game clearly isn’t ready for that at the moment.

We all know that the game isn’t “polished”. We lack some ping options to communicate without being forced to use a microphone, we lack HUD texts to know what is your ally pinging ( Phoebe(Playername) wants to attack Miko(Playername) ), we lack PVE mods matchmaking and some other stuff for exemple.

When the community will be drenched, when the game will be polished, when it will be ready to host competitive games and championships, what will happen ?

Do you think Gearbox would advertise the game a lot more to make the amount of players grow upward ?
Do you think they could put the game on F2P, at least on PC later on, to get a huge playerbase and a successful competitive scene ?

About the F2P I would like to see on the game, it would look more like a “trial” version of the game.
I think about a F2P where you get the game but couldn’t play DLCs until you buy them.
You could play on normal versus matchmaking and also to the first campain, to become more knowledgable about the game before buying it for good.
Ranked matchmaking could be disabled for F2P players.

I know I payed this game about 50€ and that I am gonna buy the DLCs Gearbox will have to offer to us, but I am not against Battleborn being F2P later, even if the community has to suffer about it. As a french proverb says, “you have to suffer to become successful”.

My best regards.

#2

Going to say no to this going F2P. I think with the amount of content it should have gone at $40 instead. I’m not saying the content is bad (in fact I love all of it) however there just isn’t enough at launch for a multiplayer focused experimental title like this.

#3

Aye, 40$ would’ve been a more realistic price for this game, given the almost non-existent singleplayer.

F2P? I haven’t seen Gearbox ever do F2P, so I’d probably say…no.

#4

Can’t do FTP with nothing to buy in the game.

#5

I think they should have marketed the campaign as the main game, then released the arena stuff as free to play.

For people who want to play arena only and to pull in new consumers, they can play for free and have a rotation of free characters, with option to buy characters. Unlocking cosmetic stuff through play time and also getting gear drop with low chances of good stuff.

For people who want to play the campaign, they buy the game, nothing new there, you want to play something you pay for it. BUT you have all characters, you unlock these like it works now for campaign play. You have higher chances of good loot dropping. And you have full access to all the arena stuff that is f2p.

For people serious about arena, they can buy the campaign package, where they get all characters unlocked in arena play, and better chance of decent drops than the f2p peeps.

1 Like
#6

They should have been free to play upon release, its too late now. I paid 75 for mine. Although it probably would have benefit them in the long run if they went f2p and did micro transaction. Bigger crowd, people usually drop a ton of cash on gear boxes, etc.

#7

Meh.

Don’t think the game will go F2P, it would piss off alot of people and would cause a bigger uproar than ACM.
Besides, F2P useally means Pay2Win, so I rather not see that ridiculous system in BB.

1 Like
#8

This, so much this. The game costs $60 USD because it has a story element! If it was like Overwatch and was only focused on the arena battles, then I can see it either costing less or being F2P. Personally I hope it either never goes F2P or the arena section gets split off into its own game, like maybe Battleborn: Arena or something so those of use who like the story can stick with it and not be nickled and dimed to death.

#9

I am filing a trademark for the word “Gearbucks”.
.

.

.

.

.

.

.

No, not really.

#10

Battlebucks

#11

Did you see Smite&League of Legends and Heroes of the Storm ?

They totally are free2play, you only buy cosmetics here. Combined with the campaign it could be pretty interesting in a sense of benefits.

#12

I would say the game would drop it’s price intentionally in order to swap-in some new faces, but that’s it.
2K is not the kind of publisher who want’s her triple A to be a F2P. That being said, most of her games are dropping their prices pretty quickly. I’d say that over 3 months the game will be like 40$ and one year ahead it’ll be like 30$, which is reasonable.

#13
1 Like
#14

But when do you see MOBAs with a story mode? To be honest I think they should release some co-op story modes for free to make the amount of content a little more fleshed out. But I hate F2P games because they’re never “free” they easily turn into Pay To Win games or shove market items down your throat. I love the fact that this game has none of that BS. If it went F2P they would have to add some type of microtransaction.

It kills games… look at Halo 5. They have a pay for power weapons/vehicles mechanic that easily reflects in Warzone where you’ll see the teams that win are the ones with the most crap to spend. It’s the reason why Halo 5 was the fastest Halo game to die. The gear you obtain in Battleborn is earned, not bought and I hope it stays that way.

#15

Unless they’ve changed it, it is possible to buy characters in League of Legends with real money, significantly shortening the length of time required to play those characters, giving the person that paid real money at least a temporary advantage over the player that earns every non-cosmetic item by playing the game.

https://www.reddit.com/r/dotamasterrace/comments/2snxe2/why_league_of_legends_is_paytowin/

I’m not against F2P per se, but I have yet to see a F2P game that doesn’t have a shade of P2W in it. This may only come in terms of boosted leveling and the rate in which a player gains resources, and bag space, but these do put the “playing for free” player at a disadvantage, even if it is only temporary. In a world in which most gamers want everything to happen very fast, it can seem unfair to them, and certainly in a PvP game it is.

I get using a F2P model in a business sense; you potentially get more players up front, and the truth is, the people that stick around usually pay more than the cost of buying the game outright or paying a subscription fee. You might be able to play the game for free in a technical sense, but for most people, it will turn out to be a more expensive game, not a cheaper one, and so, in my opinion, the “Free to Play” label is a disingenuous hook, not a realistic label. To put it more plainly, it is a lie.

I have little issue with companies selling purely cosmetic items for their games; the only way it “hurts” me is that I can’t acquire it in-game no matter what I do, but that’s a minor issue, to me. It was done for Borderlands 2 and caused me no dissatisfaction with Borderlands. But I do have issues with selling a game as F2P because none of them are (they can’t be, they have to make money to keep going) and all of the ones I’ve played have some P2W elements. On top of that they will pop up windows selling to you in the game, and they are made to encourage you to buy things for real money (like being able to travel faster or more conveniently or severely limiting how much container space you start with). The F2P model, in practice, changes how games are made, and not for the better.

I’m certainly not going to tell 2K (we must keep in mind that 2K is the “money-man” here) and Gearbox how to run their businesses; I’d just ask them to be very careful about what they do. The F2P model can be very lucrative, and it doesn’t necessarily ruin a game, and potentially would not take away anything at all from it. But that road starts out by telling your customers that they don’t have to spend any money when the fact is that most of them will have to or your game will go bankrupt. It is a slippery path to step onto.

1 Like