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Currently no free-to-play game on Switch says it will require a Nintendo Online sub

ggx2ac

ggx2ac

Sales Heaven or Sales Hell?
Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,504
I saw this getting asked a lot in the thread about online not being free anymore in a month.

If you go to the eShop, and look at an online game like Minecraft, it will have something like this in the fine print:

"To use online services you must have access to a wireless internet connection. Some online services may not be available in all countries. From the full launch of the Nintendo Switch Online membership service in 2018, online play requires a paid membership."

Lots of retail games with online play have that fine print.
However, if you look at the following free to play games:

Paladins
Fortnite
Pokémon Quest
Dawn of the Breakers
Fallout Shelter
Galak-Z: Variant S
Zaccaria Pinball
The Pinball Arcade
Kitten Squad
Pinball FX3

None of them have that fine print.
 
PK_Wonder

PK_Wonder

One Winged Slayer
Member
Mar 22, 2018
1,102
Strange, seems like a missed money opportunity since I'm sure the amount of people who only play Fortnite when it comes to online is non-negligible.
 
patapon

patapon

Banned
Dec 7, 2017
3,614
Good job Nintendo. F2P games should be 'Free to play', not locked behind a paywall.
 

GreedyG

Member
Dec 13, 2017
39
My opinion on this might be unpopular, but I've always found the distinction arbitrary.

Online play on for a free title has the same cost/impact on the platform holder as a full price paid title (if not more so because more people are willing to try). Obviously I'd prefer it if the platform holders absorbed the cost of online and made it free across the board, which is unlikely, but I've always found the stance from Sony (& now Nintendo) odd.
 
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Dyle

Dyle

One Winged Slayer
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
31,407
Good, as with everything else with this service it should have been more clearly communicated from the get go
 
bsigg

bsigg

Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,662
I would hold out until the service launches to see if anything changes. Hopefully F2P are truly F2P on the Switch unlike Xbox.
 
julian

julian

Member
Oct 27, 2017
17,866
That's upsetting. Not because I want them to charge for free to play games, but because I'd hoped they limited the subscription to Nintendo made online games.
 
Medalion

Medalion

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
12,203
It makes a certain amount of sense, despite someone argued to contrary when I said this...

Nintendo Online is for the services Nintendo themselves are forking over for servers and storage space and content... obviously third party games that do their own servers, unless aligned through Nintendo's deal, is not a requirement because it bypasses Nintendo's network.
 
NLCPRESIDENT

NLCPRESIDENT

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
5,969
Midwest
GreedyG said:
My opinion on this might be unpopular, but I've always found the distinction arbitrary.

Online play on for a free title has the same cost/impact on the platform holder as a full price paid title (of not more so because more people are willing to try). Obviously I'd prefer it if the platform holders absorbed the cost of online and made it free across the board, which is unlikely, but I've always found the stance from Sony (& now Nintendo) odd.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yea, but usually a bigger return on those F2P titles. And free is free, and if MS is the only one doing so, they will have the lowest users for those titles. They still will make it up from xbl, so it's probably a win across the board.
 
julian

julian

Member
Oct 27, 2017
17,866
Medalion said:
It makes a certain amount of sense, despite someone argued to contrary when I said this...

Nintendo Online is for the services Nintendo themselves are forking over for servers and storage space and content... obviously third party games that do their own servers, unless aligned through Nintendo's deal, is not a requirement because it bypasses Nintendo's network.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

But then why is the text on Minecraft? They don't host Minecraft servers.
 
ghostcrew

ghostcrew

The Shrouded Ghost
Administrator
Oct 27, 2017
31,032
To be fair, no game at all so far requires Nintendo Switch Online sub.
 
Jon Carter

Jon Carter

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
5,746
That's good for me because I don't intend on playing online games other than Fortnite and Paladins in the foreseeable future.

And they shouldn't give Sony any ammo regarding the Fortnite kerfuffle.
 
Dreamwriter

Dreamwriter

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,461
This could very well change, they may just not have put the fine print in all the games yet. But it doesn't really make sense to me - I mean sure, at a surface level, you expect a free game to be, free. But, Fortnite has earned literally $1 billion. A billion! The game may be free, but people are spending money on it.
 
Sander VF

Sander VF

The Fallen
Oct 28, 2017
26,780
Tbilisi, Georgia
skittzo0413 said:
If you're an investor it's not necessarily the best news. Some investor may point out that this doesn't let them leverage Fortnite's popularity to earn more subscription revneue.

But for consumers it's undeniably good news, yes.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Then it would be in Nintendo's interest to offer superior online features for the subscribers, as that could entice even those who mostly play f2p games.

But I wouldn't hold my breath.
 
Bazry

Bazry

Member
Oct 30, 2017
1,537
This seems like it may dent Nintendo and MS's whole cross play campaign against Sony if one has to pay for Fortnite and the other doesn't
 
Waluigilicious

Waluigilicious

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,497
This makes sense, free to play games make money from in game purchases... which require an internet connection. There's no upfront payment unlike other games so this seems like a logical compromise, to me anyway.
 
Bjomesphat

Bjomesphat

Member
Nov 5, 2017
1,959
It's silly that if I'm paying for a game I also have to pay extra to use all of it's features, but millions of gamers are ok with this. So it doesn't really make sense to me that some of you are not ok with requiring a subscription for a F2P game. Obviously gamers have justified it to themselves that companies need to charge for online, so it should be irrelevant if it's a paid game or F2P. It's still the same service.

I just wish console gamers had these same convictions when they overwhelming forked out cash for a service that never needed a subscription model in the first place. Unfortunately we can't go back now.
 
Boiled Goose

Boiled Goose

Banned
Nov 2, 2017
9,999
Unless Nintendo offers some Switch level functionality to aid online play and they use their own servers then they should be free I guess.
 
Vire

Vire

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
5,591
Now we are applauding them? I'm still annoyed about Switch Online. 20$ isn't a big deal, but nonetheless I was able to play Mario Kart and Splatoon 2 for free for over a year and now for no reason at all for the end consumer, we have to fork over cash to play the same exact thing they were previously getting with no added benefit.
 
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