No they won't make any money but some peoples buy so many skin that it is worth it for them.

Free to play games make most of their money on the 1% of players who whale for everything or have a gambling addiction, so they'll make more than enough to stay afloat even with F2P players.

In Fortnite's time I knew some people that spent more than a thousand dollars in the game and that wasn't so uncommon

You are the 'content' of their game. If they don't have players they don't have anything.

Unless they sell your data you won't be making them any profit, but don't think too much about their wallets since they're already overflowing. There are more than enough players paying for cosmetics so they make a huge profit

An online game needs a player base to survive. So, yes, you are still useful even if you don't buy anything. The whole microtransaction concept has been built on the shoulders of few buying costumer and a lot of cannon fodder around them.

The problem is we really shouldn't play games with pay to win mechanics.

I get that, but looking at just me right. Does the benefit of me adding +1 to the player count outweigh the negatives of having to pay for 1 more player? I would imagine that game maintenance costs sorta plateau for AAA games but player count is a volatile and indicative of a games likelihood of receiving more investment

Your a potential buyer. They want as many of you as they can get. A higher player count feeds new players in as well.

A lot of game fail for that reason but AAA game are the most worth it for companies because there will always be someone to buy items or even merch of that game

Whales need free to play players or there's no one to shit on with their expensive stuff and then the game would die.

So no they need you not the other way around

I ask this because my friends and I got into a debate recently. My friend and I both agree that playing the free game but not spending any money still benefits the game company. Where we disagree is the value of the player count. He believes that the cost burden he imposes by playing but not buying outweighs the benefits of increasing the player count. I believe the opposite.

And we are looking at this with a microscope. We understand that there are the ‘whales’ that spend tons of money that make of <1% of the player base but are >99% of the revenue from cosmetics.

What we are pointlessly trying to determine is if playing the game without spending is a net gain or net loss to the company.

I agree. All players are useful weather you're a F2P or not. As long as you play the game, you contribute to the game.

If you, a non-paying player is in the game, that's another target for the paying player to shoot at.

One more or less player on a map doesn't change the operating costs of the servers significantly, and the bandwidth you consume is minuscule.

The development costs will be the same no matter how many are playing the game, and the cosmetic items are paid for by those who use them.

Did Blizzard get that Memo?

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You as a free player are the fodder for the whales

It’s still Fortnite’s time btw. Starting a new Chapter this weekend and that’ll likely be a new map. Sure, the game has become an advertising/collab juggernaut, but it makes sense in their wacky storyline.

Anyway, they keep adding features like their parkour system, no build mode, and now likely a first person mode. So, a lot of the reasons people wouldn’t want to try it, the building, no longer interfere with just having a good time.

You see, this right here is why I like it when I can just straight up pay for something. I don't like the idea of not knowing how a company is making money off of me.

Yes, they will sell your data. Any free service will either sell your data or feed you ads to be profitable.

Plus there are people that spend ludicrous amounts of money on cosmetics.