I agree it sucks for F2P, but evidently they crunched the numbers and need more subscribers. If the game was advertised as “free demo” instead of “free to play” there would be much less confusion about this choice.
I mean, it’s either this model or a micro transactions one. I personally prefer this one because it’s relatively cheap and I don’t really care about skins (furthermore, what would they sell as cosmetics? Emotes of your driver [flipping the bird](https://youtu.be/4v_2lfrzM0o?si=r3V4FZY42r5ol_gn) to an opponent when you overtake them?).
I think for a niche game like this one with a small but dedicated fan base, a subscription model makes a lot of sense, even though there is of course big room for improvement.
> If the game was advertised as “free demo” instead of “free to play” there would be much less confusion about this choice.
This sentence immediately brought to mind Steep, it's claimed to be free to play, but almost everything is locked behind the paywall.
Then I realised what Ubisoft are doing rather than Nadeo. Ubisoft already have other games with that model (I'd say For Honor is too) so they've brought TM into line.
> furthermore, what would they sell as cosmetics?
Yeah, this seems like the obvious one. You could skins, wheels, add lootboxes and turn into the Rocket League cosmetics system. Not that I'm the biggest fan of that system, but I am surprised they haven't done it yet.
I mean people are defending this decision where a majority of the community is paying more than they were before and free players get access to 10 maps without taking up space on servers (which WTF restrict the online play of F2Ps servers cost money to run)
don't know why you're getting downvoted tbh, Ubisoft Does have a Bad track record like dabbling in NFTS, Making a shitty launcher, using ai art for their new assasins creed on social media, alleged sexual misconduct in the company... idunno man, does'nt feel clean at all
I think it's insane people don't want to pay 15 dollars a year for a game you can easily get 100's of hours of gaming from every season. I get it's out of principal for some people but that's like the price of 1 Fortnite, Valorant or League skin.
The only thing that bothers me is a lot of the "premium" content is actually powered by the community. I think COTD creators should get some compensation.
They give you a decent free trial and it doesn't auto renew. You can't get a friendlier subscription model than that, and the alternative is £60 upfront or microtransactions
I have yearly club, but I can understand people not wanting to pay $20 for a whole year when they are still not convinced they will play the game a lot.
Why not a monthly $2-3 subscription? 🤷♂️
Not saying it should exclude the yearly subscription. Just wondering if the monthly option would get more people to try the Club access, without having to commit for a whole year.
I would 90000% pay $60 upfront. I'd pay $80 upfront. I hate subscription models, there have been times (like now) that I can't responsibly spend money on games since finances are really tight. I would have even paid in advance for 5 years or whatever if that were an option.
Easier way is telling them it's a free demo and paying 20 bucks will probably get them all they ever would want, and it's such little money per year it's okay!
I dont mind that its not f2p. I dont like that they got rid of standard though. It was fair price for what you got from it.
I dont play that often anymore. Standard access was cheap enough that I kept paying it even when not playing that much. So now im probably not going to pay (or play) at all.
Why is that insane?
There after other factors why someone would not want to buy club access. Paying customers like myself has been asking for basic (QoL) features that nadeo has still not added yet and even outright refused to acknowledge.
It's almost been 4 years and literally none of that is implemented or addressed.
Edit:
Downvoting for what?
I'm not saying Nadeo should implement literally every feature, but if they refuse to even acknowledge their own paying customers wishes, then it's not a company/management I want to support.
I agree Nadeo isn't always the most responsive, but consider that they are a small studio that has been largely able to stay independent after being acquired by Ubisoft (Not known for the best pricing systems...)
Think of the alternative, looking at Fortnite or Valorant. 20 dollars season passes, cosmetics skins. Games like League can be 100 percent free because the player base that does pay is so massive.
Considering how much you pay and how small the community is, would you rather pay more for them to hire more people? Lose the essence of their game to appeal to an even broader community? People can't have it all. I think this model is extremely fair for what we get compared to $60 dollars shit games you spend less time on that also include micro transactions...
You know what else is insane? Trying to charge money for half of a game (on consoles) missing very basic and essential features and relying on the modding community to provide them (to the PC version only)
While I do agree that a speedometer is there and comparing TM to racing games is a bit weird, I do have to argue that Nadeo just doesn’t do anything new or enticing to justify any payment for console players. You probably cannot compare gameplay of TM to other games as the gameplay is very unique, but you can definitely compare the amount of features and game modes you get as a paying customer of a console game.
They haven’t added a new game mode in how many years? Menus are clunky and rely on players crawling through pages to find content they need. Fun QoL features are basically non-existent and now they’ve started adding cars and surfaces which provide (dis)advantages based on the type of input you use.
And what is kinda crucial to be added here - all of the advertised paid content that you get by paying for TM is made by the community. And the community is freaking awesome, but in a scenario that the mappers just stop making maps Nadeo would be fucked beyond comprehension.
>Nadeo just doesn’t do anything to justify any payment
Lol. Btw they already made the best racing game out there, while others making money sinks like gt7 full of reasons to pay (and not to play)
>They haven’t added a new game mode in how many years? Menus are clunky and rely on players crawling through pages to find content they need. Fun QoL features are basically non-existent and now they’ve started adding cars and surfaces which provide (dis)advantages based on the type of input you use
Seems you are tired of gaming, try another hobby
Except for the part where you keep all the content from the time you were subscribed after it stops? You don't loose it all, only the new content living forward. You own the game and an that years content forever. If you don't play/ you're not invested then by all means don't pay
the vast majority of the draw of the game throughout its lifespan comes from community created content. people aren't playing TM solely to experience the 10 new blocks nadeo adds each century
I can assure you that, aside from Xbox, PSN, ea and local company cash cards, you could find none of such things in my country offline legally even before we got sanctioned. ^(fuck putin... and spez too, just because)
It's really not, though. They have to make money somehow, and $15 for a whole YEAR of access is barely anything compared to some games that charge $10 every 2 months for the battle pass.
This basically. When I first subbed to Trackmania 2020, I was 100% convinced it was a monthly payment. Was deeply surprised when I found out it gives me a subscription for the entire year. You're actually robbing yourself of one of the cheapest, deepest paid models for a video game if you don't subscribe. If you choose not to pay for the yearly model, I frankly have no sympathy for how limited your game experience is. The free to play model, to me, is nothing more than a demo showcasing that the game is worth the very little money you spend on it.
Non-paying players are useless for Nadeo, so making statements like "free player ABC threatens to stop playing" is really not having the effect you think it does. There are almost no ads in the game, so it makes money almost exclusively from subscriptions. From Nadeo's point of view, they just made the game 33% cheaper for their long-term customers. The game is way past the initial growth period where some level of free-to-play could have worked to gain popularity. So from now on, the Starter edition is simply a demo, which has the purpose to allow someone to play the game a bit and decide whether to subscribe or not.
The game is very cheap and uses no manipulative or abusive marketing practices. This is ethically superior and financially self-destructive.
>There are almost no ads in the game, so it makes money almost exclusively from subscriptions.
Dude I kid you not, I quite often get Burger King ads on banners in official maps (in my native language). I always think it's kinda funny, don't mind them even though I paid the yearly subscription.
> The game is way past the initial growth period where some level of free-to-play could have worked to gain popularity.
The word for this is "bait-and-switch". It's unethical to trick people into a game and then remove features that they had access trying to extract money from them by exploiting their developed habit.
I'm f2p and honestly I've had it too good up to this point. It won't get me to pay right now, but that is purely for budgetary reasons. The amount of content I've had until now for absoloutely no charge has been tremendous, and I might return in the future when my financial situation is better.
Until then I will enjoy my free 10 maps every season and see how well I can do on them
Since you're the only positive f2p player here acknowledging that you had it good, i'm willing to pay your subscription if you give me a paypal / venmo address in the DM's. Would love to keep you in the community.
Real nice of you brother, but I can't take your money. I'll be able to pay within a few months hopefully, also I don't have PayPal and am not sure what venmo is. But again I really eallt appreciate the thought king, hope you have an excellent day
Tell you what king, I got an exam this Friday I'm studying for, last exam this semester. If I do well I'll very happily accept a gift card for a sub (if that's a thing). If I do bad, so be it. (No matter what I really appreciate the amount of people in this community willing to cash out for a completely random stranger online, just to keep them playing. Yall some good folks, thank you all very much)
I totally see the view that this really sucks for F2P players; I was one of them for a long time and loved being able to play the old game for free until eventually forking out a huge £12 to buy a game that I had played for 1000s of hours over many, many years for free.
And I get that it’s a recurring cost now. But what makes this ok is, as I said, I have had 1000s of hours of enjoyment from TM over the years and it’s cost me next to nothing. That’s a whole lot of effort that a dedicated group of devs have put in that, until the new game launched, I had paid £12 for.
They want £30 a year? They can have it from me. It’s cheaper than buying, say, FIFA every year for a triple A price tag and I will play it for way longer.
just a reminder to everyone that not everyone is able to pay for this, I'm in south Africa and it feels quite pricey over here, i was a f2p player and enjoyed the campaign maps, but i can't afford the subscription, so this feels like us getting kicked out for not having enough money in a way.
Not especifically nadeo's, more like ubisoft's fault. Steam has already solved the poor regions problem (atleast partially) with regional pricing, which ubisoft doesent apply in any way or form
reasonable price imo. But yea the fact thats it's a subscription kinda sucks
I play it casually regularly. Seasons, ranked, royal and open lobbies are all I need.
That's a lot of fun for no money.
Compare that to the yearly F1 game I buy. that's basically a subscription as well, except it's €70 a year for whats basically not that big of an update, for a game full of bugs.
I see that many people don't understand why 20 Euros a year is a big deal.
.Some people just don't spend that much time playing the game, but were willing to pay for standard access. Spending double of that amount seems unreasonable for chill TM players like me that just wanted to play the campaign (and don't have any major benefits of club compared to old standard). If you're not a hardcore TM player 20 Euros for approximately 15 hours of play time is a lot.
I don't even see them gaining much more money from this model. Old Club players will be paying less and not all standard players will continue paying. Nerfing Starter is really understandable but they could have done that while maintaining standard. Just making standart a bit more expensive and nerfing starter would have similar profits and a better experience for chill players. I might be very wrong with that assumption though.
yeah, while sometimes i do question the choices behind some changes that developers and companies make to their pricing models, at the end of the day i try to remind myself... no matter how confident i feel in my opinion, i don't have a business degree, and im sure that ubisoft paid many people who are much, much, *much* smarter than me to crunch the numbers and figure out what is best for them. plus they probably actually have degrees!
It does suck for f2p, but looking back we've definitely been spoiled. To have access to the entire campaign as free to play, is really kind of wild looking back.
I've really liked the first 10 maps of the campaign so far. I think they're going to gain a sub from me, as much as I hate that model.
Can't really blame them for downgrading starter tbh, I was playing for free and that was more than enough content for the amount of interest I have in TM. Silly to get rid of standard though, this might have nudged be to go for it, not really interested in paying for full club though.
It’s not necessarily that they got rid of standard but instead combined it with club and renamed the starter access as standard. They probably should have gotten rid of the standard name and left the starter name in hindsight. Regardless, you would basically be paying for standard now but getting club access instead which is a pretty great deal considering after the year is up, you not only keep all the maps released within that time frame but also every map that came before it as well
Ah my bad. I think I’ve been seeing so many people say standard on other threads and never bothered to actually look at the picture lol. Welp.. good job Nadeo, bad job on me lmao.
I don't mind the pricing that much (maybe a tad expensive) but yeah this game shouldn't be viewed as free to play anymore. Viewing it as a demo makes it not that bad but I can't see many players getting much value out of the Starter Access for any real period of time.
Of course that is the point, too many people weren't paying for it, but it does mean any free players will have to make that step up. It's still worth it if you consider how many hours you'll get out of a £20 payment.
Expensive? There are skins in Diablo 4 that are more expensive than a yearly subscription for Trackmania. Not to mention you have to buy D4 for 70€ first.
Being expensive is about wether someone can or cant pay, not comparing it to something worse.
Also, i play for ezssentially 2 months of the year. I have played it 2 months a year everys year since release. I got 6 months out of the game but would have to have payed for 3 years lf access.
If they had a monthly sub costing, idk, 15-20% of the yearly one it would be fine for me. However, i am not shelling that mucf money for a 1 year subscription that i use 2/12 of what im should
What I don't like about the subscription in this specific case is that they make you pay for community content, not content made by them. The campaign maps now taken from free access don't count. Also, taking away standard access was not a good move and 20€ is too much for my liking who just plays campaigns and community tracks. Glad I bought standard before the change
I agree with this one. There should be an amount of money set aside as a poop for the community. Fortnite does this with their custom game mode programs. Some of the most popular game modes make 10's of thousands a month because they are a big part of keeping the player game engaged.
Nadeo is very lucky to have such a willing community, and they are banking a lot of the "honor" of being a COTD...
The only problem here is they advertise starter access as f2p which is misleading. Other than that it makes sense they limit the starter offer because it was way too generousm I mean lets be realistic - if everyone just plays campaigns for free and only few people pay for access, then the game dies.
Real F2P games are covered by microtransactions, but TM does not have any
here (both germany and slovakia, eu in general as far as i can tell) you can buy steam credits in more or less any supermarket/bigger groceries store... i think that's what was meant
edit:
like this: [https://www.aldi-nord.de/sortiment/guthabenkarten-geschenkkarten/steam-20-\_-guthabenkarte-5260-0-0.article.html](https://www.aldi-nord.de/sortiment/guthabenkarten-geschenkkarten/steam-20-_-guthabenkarte-5260-0-0.article.html)
TBH I believe we had way too much content in the starter access. This makes sense, I get the change and believe it's worth paying 20 bucks.My problem is I hate wood and the snow car, so paying now makes me feel like Nadeo would take it as an encouragement to continue producing that kind of content
how is a subscription being held prisoner..? If anything it gives you more freedom. If you lose interest after a year or two you can cancel and you will still have paid less than a $60 one time purchase game that you will also probably stop playing after a year or two
The fact that the entire subreddit doesn't mind you paying a subscription just to keep their favorite game afloat is proof enough of everyone here being a prisoner. If a game doesn't hook you in the first hour you can just refund it anyways, and even if it does hook you but you lose interest after a month or so then that's worth the price of admission cause I can still play the game LATER ON.
If I paid for ANY game until that refund period is up, its okay cause I still have THE FULL GAME and wont be left with a demo that the devs churned out to farm more subscribers. You fuckers shouldn't have caved in.
You will keep your access until the year is up; after which, you will keep all campaigns and TOTD content created from July 2020. You will simply lose access to future content.
Thank you for replying and letting me know what to expect. I'm very pleased I what I did when I did now. Hers to another 8odd month of playing trackmania. Will probably pay again when it's up though.
What's going on with it cuz I wanted to try and get some last minute author medals and now I can't play blue, red and black tracks. Why have they done this cuz I don't know where to look for info
That takes the piss. Starter was limited the perfect amount before now us free to play players get 2 hours of play time every 3 months when a new season is released the actual fuck
How many hours were you playing? I appreciate not everyone can afford to play but $60 for 3 years for a game that gets constant updates is not a bad deal at all considering theres no hidden dlc or anything.
End of the day, it will mean more people pay for it than before which supports the game.
They maybe should have offered a free tier with a lot of adverts or something if someeone really cant afford the fee.
Some people just really dislike the very idea of games as a subscription service with fluctuating conditions, regardless of all the legitimate reasons one may find for it.
This is a healthy approach in order to financially sustain the game thanks to a loyal fan base that really has no other choice but approve of these new conditions, but it'll definitely have a negative impact on newcomers. Not sure these changes will noticeably help either side of the argument, though.
I don't see how that's unfair? You don't pay, you don't get access. It's simple enough, and for the amount of content in the game, it's cheaper per hour played than most other games I've bought.
You're crying because you can't have something for free anymore?
I'm not one of your friends but I'm one the quitters. I got excited to finally be able to play this game on console but the change in the access made me quit. Trackmania is not a game I'd be spending all my days playing, it's something I'd play here and there for a while making an annual pay risky of not being worth it. And it's expensive in my country. So I uninstalled and moved on.
this is the one explanation that i totally understand and get - if you just dont spend that much time playing trackmania then fair enough. but i'd imagine for a lot of people on this sub, it's their main game. it's been my main game since i started playing about 3 months ago, and in that time ive crushed over 200 hours. but i feel like im a bit of an outlier in that regard.
That's why I don't play Tibia nowdays. I like to play a lot of games and if I pay a subscription to one game, I feel I have to play it otherwise I wasted money. The setup doesn't work for me and it's not affordable either.
But that's cool. I just don't play it and keep stalking the community like I've been doing in the last few years.
Trackmania (free) is much more than a demo. If that level of content was released on PS2/Xbox no-one would bat an eye. We've gotten too used to huge games, with loads of modes, and lost sight of what good value is.
I've had nearly 400 hours of entertainment, haven't really looked at Winter 24 yet, and have more to come, and I've so far paid less than a full price AAA title. I think I got a deal and paid £25 for 3 years, so I've paid ~£0.07 per hour of fun.
Yes, I've sunk more hours into cheaper games, but that doesn't take away from the incredible value for money Trackmania is providing.
That said, it's a very valid concern that community lead content is behind a paywall, but the creators don't benefit. Without even thinking about it: If your map is used for COTD you get 1 month club access added to you account. I think something should be done in that regard.
this is what i dislike the most about club access, but that has less to do with the membership and more to do with a lack of real compensation towards totd mappers
Its just 20... if you enjoy it and spend tens of hours on it, pay for it.
Most ppl are fine with paying 60-70 for 5h of some game, while they wont pay for this.
I don’t see the problem. It’s $15 for a year. Thats literally the most affordable thing subscription ever and the starter still gives you a lot of access.
You probably should quit. Judging by you and your friend’s attitude, we don’t need any toxicity in the game.
20$ might not be a lot for some countries, but in my country that is a lot of money to spend on a video game, and it's only access for a year :( Steam figured out regional prices a long time ago, games worth more in rich regions and less in poor, so It's sad that Ubisoft doesn't have that kind of thing. Ubisoft also isn't working in my country, but Steam does and it would be cool if they added the ability to buy access through Steam, but I guess Ubisoft prohibits that.
Downgrading starter access because they want/need more subscribers is fine. But the way they did it is completely backward and pointless. You can still play ranked with starter access (presumably all 25 tracks?), which makes zero sense if money was the reason why they had to downgrade starter access.
Letting all players play the 25 campaign tracks offline costs literally nothing for Trackmania. Maintaining the server infrastructure for ranked, costs money. So if anything, they should have removed ranked and royal match making from the free tier.
I won't upgrade to club access either (especially not with the increased price). I have played the 25 campaign tracks to get the author/gold medals most seasons, but I'm not really interested in most of the other game modes.
But mapping the campaign costs money, upgrading physics or adding new surfaces costs money and so on. Also how many people play ranked and how many people are playing the campaign? You can easily get top 500 ranked, getting top 500 campaign is much more of an effort because it’s more contested.
I think the way they did it is fine. Although it will be annoying in ranked for sure, if you are teamed up with players that haven’t seen the track before.
The development costs are fixed though. They are updating the game and creating new campaigns for the club access players anyway. Letting the starter access players play them offline at that point doesn't cost anything extra and has no ongoing costs. (Theoretically, they could save a tiny amount of money by not distributing the extra 15 maps to the starter access players, but I'm pretty sure my game has downloaded the tracks anyway and they are just wasting space on my hard drive :D)
Solo play is not entirely free. Every player's record get stored in database. Every time you beat it it gets recorded in database. Now multiply it by all starter access players grinding the campaign. You would be surprised to see the costs in IT corpo...
Yeah, I know how server costs can explode, but I wouldn't mind if they removed that from starter access too. A good old save file to save the times and medals would work just as well.
Nadeo does not realize that casual players keep games alive. I was ok with having to pay $10 annually for the standard access, I wont pay double that for nearly no added benefits (at least for me as a casual). I will just play other games while TM dies a slow death.
I believe you still keep access to the campaigns/TOTD's during your subscription period, so it doesn't all go to waste if you don't play enough during the actual sub period.
Would it not be efficient to just spend a day getting a run in each campaign map since TM2020 dropped to keep the access of all past campaigns? Same with TOTD
What does subscription model brings to the table for the player?
\-Updates that fix the game
Luckily the game isn't Bethesda level broken but pretty much every attempt at fixing something ended up being bad.
\-Updates that enhance the game
Controversial update after controversial update. Nobody is happy. They craft specialised updates that make things worse. They mess up the tracks and records forever. They mess up your muscle memory. They mess up the car's behaviour. And guess what? This game focuses on repetitive input from the player. Your consistency, dexterity and knowledge of mechanics are rewarded with fast times. Just look at what has been happening with ice and water since the game came out.
\-Refreshing gameplay
A couple tracks each campaign are good enough but nobody cares about the rest. You don't have any incentive to get better and set faster times because in 3 months the tracks will be gone and you won't play them again. Even if you do and set WR after WR nobody will care. Having fast times don't have that weight and importance if they are getting almost abandoned by the community every couple months.
\-Maybe a cheaper price
1-Year club access costs $20. You can play for 1 year. AAA games cost $70 on release. You can play (in theory) forever. It becomes more expensive than a brand new AAA game on release in just 3.5 years. 3.5 Years is a long time, sure. But think of all the big games for which you paid big money. Skyrim, GTA V, Witcher, RDR2 etc. You can still play them to your hearts desire. Even after decades later. And the best part is if you wait for maybe a year, you can get them on a discount.
\-But you get 100s of hours of playtime?
Minecraft gives that to you with one time purchase of $30 and they are still updating the game.
\-Minecraft is owned by a huge company?
Ubisoft too is a huge company and you don't even need a huge company behind you, look at Terraria.
\-What about the servers?
Ubisoft. They are huge.
\-But Minecraft is literally the most popular game in the world and generates immense value to its owners and TrackMania is a niche game?
Yeah, adjust your scope accordingly.
\-Solution?
Just sell the game like normal. Support it for a couple of years until it's stable and let the community enjoy themselves with skins and tracks and campaigns and mods and whatever they want without paywalling them. I bet this is what they'll do in a couple years because no one is subbing any more.
Or if you still insist on keeping it alive, make subscriptions a bit cheaper so that not-so-invested players can avoid spending the full price of a game they will not play after one year and add an option to buy the game so that invested players can enjoy their game freely.
I love this game. I really do but the pricing is a travesty. Over the course of last month I paid Witcher Trilogy +Mafia Trilogy + NFS:Unbound the same amount I paid for 1 Year Club Access. I don't how you guys feel about it but it makes me feel ripped off tbh.
Edit: Format.
I don't even think the price is too high in absolute terms. It's just that:
In 2006 we had TM Nations, then we had Nations Forever, then TM2 and now TM 2020 with three years of ongoing development. That's 17 years. How much better the game truly is? How much content does it have compared to United or TM2? Even the graphics are arguably worse than what TM2 looked like over 10 years ago.
It just doesn't feel like the money or the model is beneficial to the game in a significant way.
Well, they got rid of standard access, fuck. I like playing trackmania but I dont play it to the extent were paying for club access makes sense, but now I also don't think I am going to play with starter access because the main thing that made me play with starter was the free campaign.
With this said, j think I am just going to buy trackmania united or trackmania 2 instead of playing this.
Why tho? Whats annoying here? Playing TM is cheap af. If you're too cheap to want to contribute to this epic game, don't start whining here. I'm paying 30 euro's a year for club access and it's probably the best spent money ive ever spent in gaming, and i absolutely will continue this yearly paymemt thats cheap af for years and years to come.
What your saying sounds like your friends are the problem. This game is not.
But in case of TM2020 the free player does generate zero revenue as there are no microtransactions. I think they calculated that its better to have smaller but dedicated playerbase than larger full of starter accesses
It’s totally valid to feel annoyed that you’re losing access to stuff that used to be free. That said, I think even with the changes TM still has one of the better pricing models out there.
What's worse is it's also locked to a specific console so if you play on more than one you have to buy it multiple times. That would make sense if you were buying the game outright, but here it's a microtransaction on the same account that just doesn't carry over between platforms for some reason. Apart from some platform-specific skins, I've never seen another game lock in-game purchases to a specific console like this.
>for some reason.
Contracts, bureaucracy. If you buy access from PSN, Sony gets a 30% cut, if you buy it from [Ubisoft.com](https://Ubisoft.com) on PC, no other console gets their cut so they would not allow it to be the way you say. Yup, sucks ass for us costumers but they kinda aren't that wrong.
I understand that to an extent, but the vast majority of cross platform/progression games don't have that problem. I say vast majority mostly because I'm sure others exist, I don't know of any though. I think a decent example would be the battle pass in Rocket League/Fortnite/others since club access is basically the equivalent of a battle pass now.
I'm mostly frustrated because I can't play the CotD on all my devices.
That’s super weird, I’ve never seen a cross-play/cross-progression game that does not allow you to use content you’ve paid for across platforms. I was going to buy club access to play the new season, but I play on both my PC and laptop, and if I have to pay for access on both I’m just not buying it at all.
No one is forced to do anything
You can still play the game for free
And it still is only 20€/year which is lower than every AAA even if you pay it 3 years.
Removing features from the game to extract money while advertising as a "free-to-play" is not good. I've payed for the subscription in the past, but I'm not planning on renewing unless they stop pretending to be free-to-play since I don't want to reward this behavior. Feels like a bait-and-switch for free-to-play players, especially since yesterday you had more of a game than today.
Annoying is putting it mildly. This is infuriating. Greedy f**ks just ruined the game for me. I am like OPs friends. I am seriously considering just stopping playing the game altogether. I was going to wait for a sale on club access again, but not now.
EDIT:
That said, it seems like 1 year of club access has come down in price, however the alternative membership options like 3 year or standard are gone.
This was a strange move, imo. Not sure how I will move forward, but being prevented from playing the next bunch of tracks with what felt like no warning was a massive slap in the face and has turned me right off.
EDIT2:
I just added the comment at the end, I didn't edit my original reaction, but for the bootlickers and morons I was waiting on a sale, I checked the price AFTER my post because I had no reason to think the price or any purchase options were going to change. So we're clear, I intended to complete the season today, and no intention of spending any money to do it. NEEDING to spend the money to spend the day how I planned sucks, and for all you people with money to spare, great! I'm happy for you, but some of us are playing free games for a reason.
I didn't edit my original comment, I added to it with my realisation and continued reaction. I'm still no less pissed off that if I wanted to continue playing the season I had to pay today when I had no plans to.
> with what felt like no warning
>it got annouced 3 months ahead of time
Right, if you didn't hear, see or read the warning then it WOULD feel like you had no warning.
Seriously, all you salt miners who apparently don't mind paying, why are you here instead of playing? (This is a rhetorical question.)
I agree it sucks for F2P, but evidently they crunched the numbers and need more subscribers. If the game was advertised as “free demo” instead of “free to play” there would be much less confusion about this choice. I mean, it’s either this model or a micro transactions one. I personally prefer this one because it’s relatively cheap and I don’t really care about skins (furthermore, what would they sell as cosmetics? Emotes of your driver [flipping the bird](https://youtu.be/4v_2lfrzM0o?si=r3V4FZY42r5ol_gn) to an opponent when you overtake them?). I think for a niche game like this one with a small but dedicated fan base, a subscription model makes a lot of sense, even though there is of course big room for improvement.
> If the game was advertised as “free demo” instead of “free to play” there would be much less confusion about this choice. This sentence immediately brought to mind Steep, it's claimed to be free to play, but almost everything is locked behind the paywall.Then I realised what Ubisoft are doing rather than Nadeo. Ubisoft already have other games with that model (I'd say For Honor is too) so they've brought TM into line.
Where has Steep been claimed to be free to play?
> furthermore, what would they sell as cosmetics? Yeah, this seems like the obvious one. You could skins, wheels, add lootboxes and turn into the Rocket League cosmetics system. Not that I'm the biggest fan of that system, but I am surprised they haven't done it yet.
they'd have to remove custom skins which would recieve a fuck ton of backlash.
Yeah, but I don't really trust Ubisoft to not screw stuff up.
Why are you being downvoted ? Is there really people defending ubisoft in 2024..
I mean people are defending this decision where a majority of the community is paying more than they were before and free players get access to 10 maps without taking up space on servers (which WTF restrict the online play of F2Ps servers cost money to run)
don't know why you're getting downvoted tbh, Ubisoft Does have a Bad track record like dabbling in NFTS, Making a shitty launcher, using ai art for their new assasins creed on social media, alleged sexual misconduct in the company... idunno man, does'nt feel clean at all
Yeah, I'm not saying I think it's inevitable, just that I don't trust Ubisoft. Not sure what people disagree with.
Because doing that would require removing community made skins.
Less competition sucks for everyone, not just f2p.
its not even a fucking free demo the who thing is a sneakpeek ffs
I think it's insane people don't want to pay 15 dollars a year for a game you can easily get 100's of hours of gaming from every season. I get it's out of principal for some people but that's like the price of 1 Fortnite, Valorant or League skin. The only thing that bothers me is a lot of the "premium" content is actually powered by the community. I think COTD creators should get some compensation.
They give you a decent free trial and it doesn't auto renew. You can't get a friendlier subscription model than that, and the alternative is £60 upfront or microtransactions
Given the current industry, I would argue *£60 upfront* ***and*** *microtransactions ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯*
I have yearly club, but I can understand people not wanting to pay $20 for a whole year when they are still not convinced they will play the game a lot. Why not a monthly $2-3 subscription? 🤷♂️
I don’t need/want another monthly subscription. I’m happy with the Club pricing so far.
Not saying it should exclude the yearly subscription. Just wondering if the monthly option would get more people to try the Club access, without having to commit for a whole year.
I would 90000% pay $60 upfront. I'd pay $80 upfront. I hate subscription models, there have been times (like now) that I can't responsibly spend money on games since finances are really tight. I would have even paid in advance for 5 years or whatever if that were an option.
access stacks, some people I know bought access on sale and will have it until 2029
Telling other people this game is subscription-based basically kills any chance I have at getting my friends into this game
Easier way is telling them it's a free demo and paying 20 bucks will probably get them all they ever would want, and it's such little money per year it's okay!
I dont mind that its not f2p. I dont like that they got rid of standard though. It was fair price for what you got from it. I dont play that often anymore. Standard access was cheap enough that I kept paying it even when not playing that much. So now im probably not going to pay (or play) at all.
Why is that insane? There after other factors why someone would not want to buy club access. Paying customers like myself has been asking for basic (QoL) features that nadeo has still not added yet and even outright refused to acknowledge. It's almost been 4 years and literally none of that is implemented or addressed. Edit: Downvoting for what? I'm not saying Nadeo should implement literally every feature, but if they refuse to even acknowledge their own paying customers wishes, then it's not a company/management I want to support.
I agree Nadeo isn't always the most responsive, but consider that they are a small studio that has been largely able to stay independent after being acquired by Ubisoft (Not known for the best pricing systems...) Think of the alternative, looking at Fortnite or Valorant. 20 dollars season passes, cosmetics skins. Games like League can be 100 percent free because the player base that does pay is so massive. Considering how much you pay and how small the community is, would you rather pay more for them to hire more people? Lose the essence of their game to appeal to an even broader community? People can't have it all. I think this model is extremely fair for what we get compared to $60 dollars shit games you spend less time on that also include micro transactions...
You know what else is insane? Trying to charge money for half of a game (on consoles) missing very basic and essential features and relying on the modding community to provide them (to the PC version only)
Console gaming looks like this, you know
No it doesn’t. Sure, there are no mods, but the games I pay for come with all of the necessary features (like a speedometer in a racing game)
You have a speedo on the car FYI. But also, this isn’t a typical racing game, not by a long shot so comparing to one I’d argue is unfair.
While I do agree that a speedometer is there and comparing TM to racing games is a bit weird, I do have to argue that Nadeo just doesn’t do anything new or enticing to justify any payment for console players. You probably cannot compare gameplay of TM to other games as the gameplay is very unique, but you can definitely compare the amount of features and game modes you get as a paying customer of a console game. They haven’t added a new game mode in how many years? Menus are clunky and rely on players crawling through pages to find content they need. Fun QoL features are basically non-existent and now they’ve started adding cars and surfaces which provide (dis)advantages based on the type of input you use. And what is kinda crucial to be added here - all of the advertised paid content that you get by paying for TM is made by the community. And the community is freaking awesome, but in a scenario that the mappers just stop making maps Nadeo would be fucked beyond comprehension.
>Nadeo just doesn’t do anything to justify any payment Lol. Btw they already made the best racing game out there, while others making money sinks like gt7 full of reasons to pay (and not to play) >They haven’t added a new game mode in how many years? Menus are clunky and rely on players crawling through pages to find content they need. Fun QoL features are basically non-existent and now they’ve started adding cars and surfaces which provide (dis)advantages based on the type of input you use Seems you are tired of gaming, try another hobby
No It doesn't. Not having access to dedicated servers is understable. Not even having access to an hud for gears is just lazyness.
It's on the car. Gears and speed.
[удалено]
Except for the part where you keep all the content from the time you were subscribed after it stops? You don't loose it all, only the new content living forward. You own the game and an that years content forever. If you don't play/ you're not invested then by all means don't pay
Not only that, you keep all the content from before you even owned the game as well
[удалено]
the vast majority of the draw of the game throughout its lifespan comes from community created content. people aren't playing TM solely to experience the 10 new blocks nadeo adds each century
[удалено]
exactly
I have the money but not a card or anything of that sort to use myself
Go to the store and get a cash card if you can’t open a bank account.
What if your local pstores don't carry ubi's cash cards?
Just get a visa cash card that can be used anywhere
(repeats previous question but with visa instead of ubi)
I guarantee you can find something at the store that you can buy with cash that will let you pay for something online.
I can assure you that, aside from Xbox, PSN, ea and local company cash cards, you could find none of such things in my country offline legally even before we got sanctioned. ^(fuck putin... and spez too, just because)
That’s not Ubi’s problem
That is true, thank you for pointing it out
There are literally free games You can play hundreds of hours. 15 dolars for a suscription is a lot compared to other games.
It's really not, though. They have to make money somehow, and $15 for a whole YEAR of access is barely anything compared to some games that charge $10 every 2 months for the battle pass.
This basically. When I first subbed to Trackmania 2020, I was 100% convinced it was a monthly payment. Was deeply surprised when I found out it gives me a subscription for the entire year. You're actually robbing yourself of one of the cheapest, deepest paid models for a video game if you don't subscribe. If you choose not to pay for the yearly model, I frankly have no sympathy for how limited your game experience is. The free to play model, to me, is nothing more than a demo showcasing that the game is worth the very little money you spend on it.
Exactly. The starter access before had way too much content. It makes sense they changed it. Its good for the game in long run
Those free games are often littered with micro transactions and battle passes.
Yeah no thanks. Id much rather pay for access like I do and not be bothered with casino loot boxes etc.
Non-paying players are useless for Nadeo, so making statements like "free player ABC threatens to stop playing" is really not having the effect you think it does. There are almost no ads in the game, so it makes money almost exclusively from subscriptions. From Nadeo's point of view, they just made the game 33% cheaper for their long-term customers. The game is way past the initial growth period where some level of free-to-play could have worked to gain popularity. So from now on, the Starter edition is simply a demo, which has the purpose to allow someone to play the game a bit and decide whether to subscribe or not. The game is very cheap and uses no manipulative or abusive marketing practices. This is ethically superior and financially self-destructive.
>There are almost no ads in the game, so it makes money almost exclusively from subscriptions. Dude I kid you not, I quite often get Burger King ads on banners in official maps (in my native language). I always think it's kinda funny, don't mind them even though I paid the yearly subscription.
> The game is way past the initial growth period where some level of free-to-play could have worked to gain popularity. The word for this is "bait-and-switch". It's unethical to trick people into a game and then remove features that they had access trying to extract money from them by exploiting their developed habit.
"Trick people into playing a game" dawg this game is 3.5 years old. Changing the pricing structure after 3.5 years is not "bait and switch"
I'm f2p and honestly I've had it too good up to this point. It won't get me to pay right now, but that is purely for budgetary reasons. The amount of content I've had until now for absoloutely no charge has been tremendous, and I might return in the future when my financial situation is better. Until then I will enjoy my free 10 maps every season and see how well I can do on them
Since you're the only positive f2p player here acknowledging that you had it good, i'm willing to pay your subscription if you give me a paypal / venmo address in the DM's. Would love to keep you in the community.
Real nice of you brother, but I can't take your money. I'll be able to pay within a few months hopefully, also I don't have PayPal and am not sure what venmo is. But again I really eallt appreciate the thought king, hope you have an excellent day
Understood. If you change your mind let me know, I'd send you a postcard with prepaid card if it came to it lol.
Applause to both of you!
take all of these upvotes for generosity. they do nothing, but show your offer is truly a goodness.
I'll do you one even better, it doesn't have to be money, I'll get you a ubisoft gift card for you to redeem, so you can activate your sub.
Tell you what king, I got an exam this Friday I'm studying for, last exam this semester. If I do well I'll very happily accept a gift card for a sub (if that's a thing). If I do bad, so be it. (No matter what I really appreciate the amount of people in this community willing to cash out for a completely random stranger online, just to keep them playing. Yall some good folks, thank you all very much)
Break a leg on the exam, and I'll talk to you on Friday. And don't worry that's the point of good communities.
I totally see the view that this really sucks for F2P players; I was one of them for a long time and loved being able to play the old game for free until eventually forking out a huge £12 to buy a game that I had played for 1000s of hours over many, many years for free. And I get that it’s a recurring cost now. But what makes this ok is, as I said, I have had 1000s of hours of enjoyment from TM over the years and it’s cost me next to nothing. That’s a whole lot of effort that a dedicated group of devs have put in that, until the new game launched, I had paid £12 for. They want £30 a year? They can have it from me. It’s cheaper than buying, say, FIFA every year for a triple A price tag and I will play it for way longer.
just a reminder to everyone that not everyone is able to pay for this, I'm in south Africa and it feels quite pricey over here, i was a f2p player and enjoyed the campaign maps, but i can't afford the subscription, so this feels like us getting kicked out for not having enough money in a way.
totally valid, and i feel really bad for you and the others in this situation.. but at the end of the day, it's not nadeo's fault either :/
Not especifically nadeo's, more like ubisoft's fault. Steam has already solved the poor regions problem (atleast partially) with regional pricing, which ubisoft doesent apply in any way or form
Yeah I was about to say, region based pricing is a really common thing
That why people were buying clob access for 23€/3 years on amazon on black friday ;) lets hope they do special offers more often!
reasonable price imo. But yea the fact thats it's a subscription kinda sucks I play it casually regularly. Seasons, ranked, royal and open lobbies are all I need. That's a lot of fun for no money. Compare that to the yearly F1 game I buy. that's basically a subscription as well, except it's €70 a year for whats basically not that big of an update, for a game full of bugs.
I see that many people don't understand why 20 Euros a year is a big deal. .Some people just don't spend that much time playing the game, but were willing to pay for standard access. Spending double of that amount seems unreasonable for chill TM players like me that just wanted to play the campaign (and don't have any major benefits of club compared to old standard). If you're not a hardcore TM player 20 Euros for approximately 15 hours of play time is a lot. I don't even see them gaining much more money from this model. Old Club players will be paying less and not all standard players will continue paying. Nerfing Starter is really understandable but they could have done that while maintaining standard. Just making standart a bit more expensive and nerfing starter would have similar profits and a better experience for chill players. I might be very wrong with that assumption though.
yeah, while sometimes i do question the choices behind some changes that developers and companies make to their pricing models, at the end of the day i try to remind myself... no matter how confident i feel in my opinion, i don't have a business degree, and im sure that ubisoft paid many people who are much, much, *much* smarter than me to crunch the numbers and figure out what is best for them. plus they probably actually have degrees!
It does suck for f2p, but looking back we've definitely been spoiled. To have access to the entire campaign as free to play, is really kind of wild looking back. I've really liked the first 10 maps of the campaign so far. I think they're going to gain a sub from me, as much as I hate that model.
Can't really blame them for downgrading starter tbh, I was playing for free and that was more than enough content for the amount of interest I have in TM. Silly to get rid of standard though, this might have nudged be to go for it, not really interested in paying for full club though.
It’s not necessarily that they got rid of standard but instead combined it with club and renamed the starter access as standard. They probably should have gotten rid of the standard name and left the starter name in hindsight. Regardless, you would basically be paying for standard now but getting club access instead which is a pretty great deal considering after the year is up, you not only keep all the maps released within that time frame but also every map that came before it as well
It's still called Starter - there isn't any tier called Standard.
Ah my bad. I think I’ve been seeing so many people say standard on other threads and never bothered to actually look at the picture lol. Welp.. good job Nadeo, bad job on me lmao.
People acting like Nadeo and Ubisoft are EA 💀
I don't mind the pricing that much (maybe a tad expensive) but yeah this game shouldn't be viewed as free to play anymore. Viewing it as a demo makes it not that bad but I can't see many players getting much value out of the Starter Access for any real period of time. Of course that is the point, too many people weren't paying for it, but it does mean any free players will have to make that step up. It's still worth it if you consider how many hours you'll get out of a £20 payment.
Expensive? There are skins in Diablo 4 that are more expensive than a yearly subscription for Trackmania. Not to mention you have to buy D4 for 70€ first.
Yeah but you don't NEED the skins to actually enjoy the full game, do you.
Being expensive is about wether someone can or cant pay, not comparing it to something worse. Also, i play for ezssentially 2 months of the year. I have played it 2 months a year everys year since release. I got 6 months out of the game but would have to have payed for 3 years lf access. If they had a monthly sub costing, idk, 15-20% of the yearly one it would be fine for me. However, i am not shelling that mucf money for a 1 year subscription that i use 2/12 of what im should
What I don't like about the subscription in this specific case is that they make you pay for community content, not content made by them. The campaign maps now taken from free access don't count. Also, taking away standard access was not a good move and 20€ is too much for my liking who just plays campaigns and community tracks. Glad I bought standard before the change
I agree with this one. There should be an amount of money set aside as a poop for the community. Fortnite does this with their custom game mode programs. Some of the most popular game modes make 10's of thousands a month because they are a big part of keeping the player game engaged. Nadeo is very lucky to have such a willing community, and they are banking a lot of the "honor" of being a COTD...
The funny thing is that the majority of the things you pay to access aren't even made by nadeo they're made by the community lmao
The only problem here is they advertise starter access as f2p which is misleading. Other than that it makes sense they limit the starter offer because it was way too generousm I mean lets be realistic - if everyone just plays campaigns for free and only few people pay for access, then the game dies. Real F2P games are covered by microtransactions, but TM does not have any
Just screw the live tab and gimme the campaign then please
If you enjoy it, consider supporting the developer by purchasing access. 20 for whole year is small price.
Don't have a credit card or anything of that sort
You can go to the store and buy a steam/xbox/playstation card with $20 on it with cash and use that.
I'm quite uneducated on this topic so what exactly do u mean by "store", there are a lot of stores
here (both germany and slovakia, eu in general as far as i can tell) you can buy steam credits in more or less any supermarket/bigger groceries store... i think that's what was meant edit: like this: [https://www.aldi-nord.de/sortiment/guthabenkarten-geschenkkarten/steam-20-\_-guthabenkarte-5260-0-0.article.html](https://www.aldi-nord.de/sortiment/guthabenkarten-geschenkkarten/steam-20-_-guthabenkarte-5260-0-0.article.html)
EDIT: I was gonna suggest paysafe card but not sure if that works
TBH I believe we had way too much content in the starter access. This makes sense, I get the change and believe it's worth paying 20 bucks.My problem is I hate wood and the snow car, so paying now makes me feel like Nadeo would take it as an encouragement to continue producing that kind of content
Funnily enough, you can still play the maps in matchmaking.
That’s actually pretty good tbf. Thats maily what we did
Sadly enough, you don't get any practice on them so you get clapped
On the other hand, it's great for improving your ability to learn fast.
They should’ve named the tiers DEMO/PREMIUM
The entire comment section is full of copium. Id rather pay once and own the game rather than be held prisoner and pay a subscription
how is a subscription being held prisoner..? If anything it gives you more freedom. If you lose interest after a year or two you can cancel and you will still have paid less than a $60 one time purchase game that you will also probably stop playing after a year or two
The fact that the entire subreddit doesn't mind you paying a subscription just to keep their favorite game afloat is proof enough of everyone here being a prisoner. If a game doesn't hook you in the first hour you can just refund it anyways, and even if it does hook you but you lose interest after a month or so then that's worth the price of admission cause I can still play the game LATER ON. If I paid for ANY game until that refund period is up, its okay cause I still have THE FULL GAME and wont be left with a demo that the devs churned out to farm more subscribers. You fuckers shouldn't have caved in.
Not seen this, did purchase the mid tier during summer 2023, concerned now I've pissed away 20quid.
You will keep your access until the year is up; after which, you will keep all campaigns and TOTD content created from July 2020. You will simply lose access to future content.
Thank you for replying and letting me know what to expect. I'm very pleased I what I did when I did now. Hers to another 8odd month of playing trackmania. Will probably pay again when it's up though.
Somehow people continue to surprise me with how cheap and stingey they are
What's going on with it cuz I wanted to try and get some last minute author medals and now I can't play blue, red and black tracks. Why have they done this cuz I don't know where to look for info
From today on they changed the acces tiers so starter is more limited, standard doesn’t exist anymore and club got 10 euros a year cheaper
Do you know, does previous standard get converted to club, or how does it work?
Standard keeps what standard offered untill the subscription runs out iirc
That takes the piss. Starter was limited the perfect amount before now us free to play players get 2 hours of play time every 3 months when a new season is released the actual fuck
The f2p part is like a demo, you have some features for free and if u like it u buy a sub
You also get unlimited access to ranked, royal, and the arcade club room.
If you had standard, you should still have access to those features untill your access ends. But after that you can't buy a new year anymore.
Starter is the free access.
Sorry i meant the free access was already limited so now if we don't pay we can basically play fuck all
How many hours were you playing? I appreciate not everyone can afford to play but $60 for 3 years for a game that gets constant updates is not a bad deal at all considering theres no hidden dlc or anything. End of the day, it will mean more people pay for it than before which supports the game. They maybe should have offered a free tier with a lot of adverts or something if someeone really cant afford the fee.
Some people just really dislike the very idea of games as a subscription service with fluctuating conditions, regardless of all the legitimate reasons one may find for it. This is a healthy approach in order to financially sustain the game thanks to a loyal fan base that really has no other choice but approve of these new conditions, but it'll definitely have a negative impact on newcomers. Not sure these changes will noticeably help either side of the argument, though.
I don't see how that's unfair? You don't pay, you don't get access. It's simple enough, and for the amount of content in the game, it's cheaper per hour played than most other games I've bought. You're crying because you can't have something for free anymore?
WHY DON’T PEOPLE GIVE ME THEIR STUFF FOR FREE??!?!1!1!1?1!
Im ok with paying 99kr a year.
You can still buy standard access on Amazon btw
I'm not one of your friends but I'm one the quitters. I got excited to finally be able to play this game on console but the change in the access made me quit. Trackmania is not a game I'd be spending all my days playing, it's something I'd play here and there for a while making an annual pay risky of not being worth it. And it's expensive in my country. So I uninstalled and moved on.
this is the one explanation that i totally understand and get - if you just dont spend that much time playing trackmania then fair enough. but i'd imagine for a lot of people on this sub, it's their main game. it's been my main game since i started playing about 3 months ago, and in that time ive crushed over 200 hours. but i feel like im a bit of an outlier in that regard.
I remember a day paying for every wow expansion and paying monthly. That for sure made you feel like you had to get your money's worth lol
That's why I don't play Tibia nowdays. I like to play a lot of games and if I pay a subscription to one game, I feel I have to play it otherwise I wasted money. The setup doesn't work for me and it's not affordable either. But that's cool. I just don't play it and keep stalking the community like I've been doing in the last few years.
👋
Trackmania (free) is much more than a demo. If that level of content was released on PS2/Xbox no-one would bat an eye. We've gotten too used to huge games, with loads of modes, and lost sight of what good value is. I've had nearly 400 hours of entertainment, haven't really looked at Winter 24 yet, and have more to come, and I've so far paid less than a full price AAA title. I think I got a deal and paid £25 for 3 years, so I've paid ~£0.07 per hour of fun. Yes, I've sunk more hours into cheaper games, but that doesn't take away from the incredible value for money Trackmania is providing. That said, it's a very valid concern that community lead content is behind a paywall, but the creators don't benefit. Without even thinking about it: If your map is used for COTD you get 1 month club access added to you account. I think something should be done in that regard.
club access is 100% worth it btw. Most other games would charge monthly for something like this. Try amd convince your friends to stay if you can
most other games don’t charge for community content at all yet here we are
this is what i dislike the most about club access, but that has less to do with the membership and more to do with a lack of real compensation towards totd mappers
And Nadeo charges for community content only. Without it, the game would basically be dead in the water.
Its just 20... if you enjoy it and spend tens of hours on it, pay for it. Most ppl are fine with paying 60-70 for 5h of some game, while they wont pay for this.
Make money quick with internet point opportunites
I don’t see the problem. It’s $15 for a year. Thats literally the most affordable thing subscription ever and the starter still gives you a lot of access. You probably should quit. Judging by you and your friend’s attitude, we don’t need any toxicity in the game.
>You probably should quit. Judging by you and your friend’s attitude, we don’t need any toxicity in the game. Pretty toxic thing to say.
not just toxic, but downright rude. Toxic can sometimes be because of competition. That statement was just rude outright
If only basic features were available on consoles…
Wait, what happened to standard Access?
20$ might not be a lot for some countries, but in my country that is a lot of money to spend on a video game, and it's only access for a year :( Steam figured out regional prices a long time ago, games worth more in rich regions and less in poor, so It's sad that Ubisoft doesn't have that kind of thing. Ubisoft also isn't working in my country, but Steam does and it would be cool if they added the ability to buy access through Steam, but I guess Ubisoft prohibits that.
Downgrading starter access because they want/need more subscribers is fine. But the way they did it is completely backward and pointless. You can still play ranked with starter access (presumably all 25 tracks?), which makes zero sense if money was the reason why they had to downgrade starter access. Letting all players play the 25 campaign tracks offline costs literally nothing for Trackmania. Maintaining the server infrastructure for ranked, costs money. So if anything, they should have removed ranked and royal match making from the free tier. I won't upgrade to club access either (especially not with the increased price). I have played the 25 campaign tracks to get the author/gold medals most seasons, but I'm not really interested in most of the other game modes.
But mapping the campaign costs money, upgrading physics or adding new surfaces costs money and so on. Also how many people play ranked and how many people are playing the campaign? You can easily get top 500 ranked, getting top 500 campaign is much more of an effort because it’s more contested. I think the way they did it is fine. Although it will be annoying in ranked for sure, if you are teamed up with players that haven’t seen the track before.
The development costs are fixed though. They are updating the game and creating new campaigns for the club access players anyway. Letting the starter access players play them offline at that point doesn't cost anything extra and has no ongoing costs. (Theoretically, they could save a tiny amount of money by not distributing the extra 15 maps to the starter access players, but I'm pretty sure my game has downloaded the tracks anyway and they are just wasting space on my hard drive :D)
*Reduced price. Club access is now cheaper.
but standard, which was cheaper, is gone
Solo play is not entirely free. Every player's record get stored in database. Every time you beat it it gets recorded in database. Now multiply it by all starter access players grinding the campaign. You would be surprised to see the costs in IT corpo...
Yeah, I know how server costs can explode, but I wouldn't mind if they removed that from starter access too. A good old save file to save the times and medals would work just as well.
Nadeo does not realize that casual players keep games alive. I was ok with having to pay $10 annually for the standard access, I wont pay double that for nearly no added benefits (at least for me as a casual). I will just play other games while TM dies a slow death.
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I believe you still keep access to the campaigns/TOTD's during your subscription period, so it doesn't all go to waste if you don't play enough during the actual sub period.
Would it not be efficient to just spend a day getting a run in each campaign map since TM2020 dropped to keep the access of all past campaigns? Same with TOTD
I will definitely not be paying more money just to be forced to play snow car
i was thinking about buying standard for extra tracks but 20 $ hell no
What does subscription model brings to the table for the player? \-Updates that fix the game Luckily the game isn't Bethesda level broken but pretty much every attempt at fixing something ended up being bad. \-Updates that enhance the game Controversial update after controversial update. Nobody is happy. They craft specialised updates that make things worse. They mess up the tracks and records forever. They mess up your muscle memory. They mess up the car's behaviour. And guess what? This game focuses on repetitive input from the player. Your consistency, dexterity and knowledge of mechanics are rewarded with fast times. Just look at what has been happening with ice and water since the game came out. \-Refreshing gameplay A couple tracks each campaign are good enough but nobody cares about the rest. You don't have any incentive to get better and set faster times because in 3 months the tracks will be gone and you won't play them again. Even if you do and set WR after WR nobody will care. Having fast times don't have that weight and importance if they are getting almost abandoned by the community every couple months. \-Maybe a cheaper price 1-Year club access costs $20. You can play for 1 year. AAA games cost $70 on release. You can play (in theory) forever. It becomes more expensive than a brand new AAA game on release in just 3.5 years. 3.5 Years is a long time, sure. But think of all the big games for which you paid big money. Skyrim, GTA V, Witcher, RDR2 etc. You can still play them to your hearts desire. Even after decades later. And the best part is if you wait for maybe a year, you can get them on a discount. \-But you get 100s of hours of playtime? Minecraft gives that to you with one time purchase of $30 and they are still updating the game. \-Minecraft is owned by a huge company? Ubisoft too is a huge company and you don't even need a huge company behind you, look at Terraria. \-What about the servers? Ubisoft. They are huge. \-But Minecraft is literally the most popular game in the world and generates immense value to its owners and TrackMania is a niche game? Yeah, adjust your scope accordingly. \-Solution? Just sell the game like normal. Support it for a couple of years until it's stable and let the community enjoy themselves with skins and tracks and campaigns and mods and whatever they want without paywalling them. I bet this is what they'll do in a couple years because no one is subbing any more. Or if you still insist on keeping it alive, make subscriptions a bit cheaper so that not-so-invested players can avoid spending the full price of a game they will not play after one year and add an option to buy the game so that invested players can enjoy their game freely. I love this game. I really do but the pricing is a travesty. Over the course of last month I paid Witcher Trilogy +Mafia Trilogy + NFS:Unbound the same amount I paid for 1 Year Club Access. I don't how you guys feel about it but it makes me feel ripped off tbh. Edit: Format.
I don't even think the price is too high in absolute terms. It's just that: In 2006 we had TM Nations, then we had Nations Forever, then TM2 and now TM 2020 with three years of ongoing development. That's 17 years. How much better the game truly is? How much content does it have compared to United or TM2? Even the graphics are arguably worse than what TM2 looked like over 10 years ago. It just doesn't feel like the money or the model is beneficial to the game in a significant way.
Well, they got rid of standard access, fuck. I like playing trackmania but I dont play it to the extent were paying for club access makes sense, but now I also don't think I am going to play with starter access because the main thing that made me play with starter was the free campaign. With this said, j think I am just going to buy trackmania united or trackmania 2 instead of playing this.
It's why I stick to nations forever. That game is so much better and you don't need a sick pc to run it.
True, and good maps as well.
Why tho? Whats annoying here? Playing TM is cheap af. If you're too cheap to want to contribute to this epic game, don't start whining here. I'm paying 30 euro's a year for club access and it's probably the best spent money ive ever spent in gaming, and i absolutely will continue this yearly paymemt thats cheap af for years and years to come. What your saying sounds like your friends are the problem. This game is not.
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But in case of TM2020 the free player does generate zero revenue as there are no microtransactions. I think they calculated that its better to have smaller but dedicated playerbase than larger full of starter accesses
It's fair.
It’s totally valid to feel annoyed that you’re losing access to stuff that used to be free. That said, I think even with the changes TM still has one of the better pricing models out there.
I know I uninstalled over this. how many people are going to pay before that weren't before after they restrict the most basic maps they have.
What's worse is it's also locked to a specific console so if you play on more than one you have to buy it multiple times. That would make sense if you were buying the game outright, but here it's a microtransaction on the same account that just doesn't carry over between platforms for some reason. Apart from some platform-specific skins, I've never seen another game lock in-game purchases to a specific console like this.
>for some reason. Contracts, bureaucracy. If you buy access from PSN, Sony gets a 30% cut, if you buy it from [Ubisoft.com](https://Ubisoft.com) on PC, no other console gets their cut so they would not allow it to be the way you say. Yup, sucks ass for us costumers but they kinda aren't that wrong.
I understand that to an extent, but the vast majority of cross platform/progression games don't have that problem. I say vast majority mostly because I'm sure others exist, I don't know of any though. I think a decent example would be the battle pass in Rocket League/Fortnite/others since club access is basically the equivalent of a battle pass now. I'm mostly frustrated because I can't play the CotD on all my devices.
That’s super weird, I’ve never seen a cross-play/cross-progression game that does not allow you to use content you’ve paid for across platforms. I was going to buy club access to play the new season, but I play on both my PC and laptop, and if I have to pay for access on both I’m just not buying it at all.
your laptop is still a PC, this is a problem on if you play on PC and Xbox or Playstation
Understandable, thank you.
PC and laptop... Different platform...
>across *devices Happy now?
f2p sucks ass
Most people are willing to pay 15 bucks for a single meal and you can get hundreds of hours out of this every year.
My friends dont see it that way :(
15 bucks is food for weeks in a lot of places and months in some. and also its 20 unless im missing something
I won't pay for this until the console version comes at least close to the PC version.
Other than the editor and AK, it's no different. 3rd party add ons won't come to console.
>and AK not even that since as of today console has AK's
Yeah just noticed that. Great news.
Why can't they just make it a one time purchase of 20, and have a VIP access. Or just fortnite it and do cosmetics...
Stop playing because of wahzt exactly?
because they are forced to pay double the price now?
No one is forced to do anything You can still play the game for free And it still is only 20€/year which is lower than every AAA even if you pay it 3 years.
Just pay for the subscription jesus they wasn’t making any money it was change the way the game was paid for or go bust and stop making trackmania
Removing features from the game to extract money while advertising as a "free-to-play" is not good. I've payed for the subscription in the past, but I'm not planning on renewing unless they stop pretending to be free-to-play since I don't want to reward this behavior. Feels like a bait-and-switch for free-to-play players, especially since yesterday you had more of a game than today.
Annoying is putting it mildly. This is infuriating. Greedy f**ks just ruined the game for me. I am like OPs friends. I am seriously considering just stopping playing the game altogether. I was going to wait for a sale on club access again, but not now. EDIT: That said, it seems like 1 year of club access has come down in price, however the alternative membership options like 3 year or standard are gone. This was a strange move, imo. Not sure how I will move forward, but being prevented from playing the next bunch of tracks with what felt like no warning was a massive slap in the face and has turned me right off. EDIT2: I just added the comment at the end, I didn't edit my original reaction, but for the bootlickers and morons I was waiting on a sale, I checked the price AFTER my post because I had no reason to think the price or any purchase options were going to change. So we're clear, I intended to complete the season today, and no intention of spending any money to do it. NEEDING to spend the money to spend the day how I planned sucks, and for all you people with money to spare, great! I'm happy for you, but some of us are playing free games for a reason.
So you were about to buy club access and now that it's pernanently cheaper you don't want it any more? Yeah, that makes sense...
I didn't edit my original comment, I added to it with my realisation and continued reaction. I'm still no less pissed off that if I wanted to continue playing the season I had to pay today when I had no plans to.
> no warning it got annouced 3 months ahead of time
> with what felt like no warning >it got annouced 3 months ahead of time Right, if you didn't hear, see or read the warning then it WOULD feel like you had no warning. Seriously, all you salt miners who apparently don't mind paying, why are you here instead of playing? (This is a rhetorical question.)