For example, if an MMO went free, is there a chance of bringing back P2P? Do you think F2P can last forever?
MMO's go free when the death of the game is on the horizon. And with all these above par f2p games popping up everywhere it may be the future of all mmo's. I don't see anyone reverting back to p2p once they go f2p. FFXIV is the exception.
That's a really hard sell there. To make people pay for what had been free for so long is always going to be a tough task. You won't find many companies daring it because of the potential backlash.
In my opinion no. There are a lot of f2p games, because many convert from p2p or they make the game f2p in the first place. They mostly get their income from people buying items from their stores. I think that is what keep a lot of these free games going. I don't see none of them going back to p2p mode.
I don't think this conversion is possible. In fact, did it ever happen before? And if so, where and when?
Definitely not, the only way a game can pull that off is if they do something like Runescape and release content for 'members only'. But going from a completely F2P game to a P2P one will get rid of your complete player base I think.
Definitely no. I think, like others have said, going F2P harks the end of times for the game. Maybe this isn't always the case, but I think it's definitely a symbol of it. If thats true, then the game likely has other problems associated with it, such as outdated or uninteresting content, boring gameplay etc. Also I think that once you have servers or a game full of free players, it's going to be very hard if not impossible to convince those players to start paying.
Hmm, this is a tricky question, because not rarely can we see developers oscillating between staying with their current strategy or switching to another more profitable one, but to answer your question, I personally believe we will never see a f2p game convert to p2p since it will be very hard to convince people paying for the game afterwards, just think about it. But some will feel a little bit forced to do it since all their work is put within that game. But the odds still tend to incline toward a "no". It would be a total mess.
Well, that is really the entire free2play business model. You try to get people to come in as a ´free´ players, and then you add things that encourage or even force them to buy stuff. There are a lot of examples where games start out with a very easy free2play model, and then make it much more difficult to have fun as a free player. I don´t think any free2play game has gone back to a subscription model though.. usually they just make the free2play version so punishing that you must buy stuff.
