Can an MMORPG stay in business without cash gamble items?

I mean anything is possible, lol, but just having fashion in your CS isn't practical especially how demanding MMOs are these days. Servers are more and more expensive and that means you need to play your fanbase with gambling addictions in order to pay rent.

 

That's a very interesting question, do games that are F2P all have P2W options in any fashion?

 

Most if not all modern F2P games incorporate P2W aspects such as microtransactions, boosts, etc because unlike P2P games that have a stable flow of revenue if their playerbase can be retained, companies that create or host F2P titles require those means of generating revenue to to answer to their employees, partners, and shareholders for the common reason which is income and profits.
This is not withstanding other necessary costs such as the maintenance, rent, etc that reduces gross income.

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On the topic itself, i would say no as MMORPGs of this scale like MS will not be able to generate enough income to sustain its business solely on cosmetics because of the extremely low percentage of paying players against the entire playerbase.

 

So the simple answer is no?

 

I believe your quite wrong in that statement. Servers are getting cheaper and cheaper, it's just that hosting games are getting more and more demanding.

 

A new F2P action rpg named Dauntless is coming out soon and they supposedly won't have any pay2win (paid cosmetics only).

I'm looking forward to seeing if they can make a profit. I think it should be possible as long as you can provide a quality experience and get people hooked.

 

Seems like speculation atm, but if they actually attempt to make long-term profits from paid cosmetic items it should be interesting to see how that strategy works for them.

 

I'm quite a negative person so in the realities of this industry, getting people hooked is always a good start but the biggest hurdle is turning them into paying players to sustain the business.
Though i am intrigued on their business model too if that's what they are following up with and will pay some attention to how they progress.

 

I hope this business model works, or they adapt if it doesn't - because this game looks awesomeeeeee. So hyped for it.

 

they could probably run if they made good outfits and kept pumping outfits in updates. but the problem is that without the p2w RNG element, companies cannot make MAD BANK. So in the short run, probably yeah they could stay in business but in the long run, probably not. unless you make a really good game that keeps players playing with a fun and engaging end game element(like LoL. i know its not an MMO but theres no p2w exactly aside from i guess IP boosts and exp boosts, skins are just cosmetics. Also theres no real end game factor)