I’m playing such a free-2-play game for 3 years now (simply because I don’t have the money for a monthly subscription) and at some point you have to realize that the people who “invest” hundreds of Dollars (or Euros ) in their game are more important for the publisher/developer than the others. It’s in the service they give them or even the penalty if they’ve done something against the rules.
As people tend to wish for equal treatment, this free-2-play option is really frustrating on this point because it leads to a 2-class-system within the game.

I think these two options (free-2-play and pay-2-play) are for different kinds of people… the ones who like to play on an equal level because all of them paid the same and the others who (maybe) have more money to spend in the game and who can buy themselves a special position this way.

It makes a difference for consumers who experienced either the one or the other… and who aren’t new to this topic. And this difference is no matter of money.

Of course it’s not the only reason but it’s to be seen in addition to the money.

Club Penguin was mentioned, and for online games for small kids then micro transactions are hard. Parents will subscribe, but they won’t allow the kid to pay with micro transactions. Game cards partially solve it, but purchasing retail cards is too cumbersome.

Some games find micro transactions hard because they don’t lend themselves to selling any items at all. Chess or Tetris would be some examples. PopCap spent years trying to monetize Bejweled online. Story-driven games can be the same. Pay-to-play simply make more sense for some games and platforms.

For an AAA online game that cost tens or hundreds of million dollars, shifted in retail after building a huge amount of hype, selling physical boxes will generate a very high amount of revenue which is paying back a large part of the investment already with pre-orders and at launch week. It makes sense here to not disregard subscriptions at least for a long while. If your retention is good then subscriptions will generate stable and predictable revenue, and you can still use micro transactions to top it.

In fact, you can sell boxes, keep your game free to play with premium subscription and micro transactions.

The point is, there are lots of business models, and one doesn’t always exclude the other. You have to figure out which business model(s) are the most appropriate for your game / platform / audience.

To be honest, I tend to think less if something cost barely nothing (less than an euro/dollar, that’s a coin I can find in my pocket)

A problem I see with subscription (similar to argument 3) is that I can’t control easily when I pay. Having to pay every month even if not playing is a bit frustrating,

Concerning Ben’a argument against multiple transactions, I must say that game producer are producing wonders to make it easy and make the user forget he’s actually paying…

I'm not sure that is what is happening in games at the moment though.

Which leads to the question: are games an aberration which are changing the way that consumers see microtransactions, or are we inevitably going to see a reversion to the subscription model prevalent in other media?

I'm not sure that is what is happening in games at the moment though.

Which leads to the question: are games an aberration which are changing the way that consumers see microtransactions, or are we inevitably going to see a reversion to the subscription model prevalent in other media?