Can a Free Online Game Make Money?

Zenithal asks: "I've been slowly and silently developing an online game for quite some time now, and I'd like very much for it to be free. The problem is that the game will require several servers and lots of bandwidth if it is at all successful. For now my workplace is willing to sponser my needs, but if things ever picked up it would start costing serious money to run. What I'm wondering is, how can I make any money to maintain the game universe and possibly maybe even get cash for a few beer? I know the potential is there to sell box versions and manuals, but that just doesn't seem realistic. Any ideas Slashdot?" If you aren't willing to sell the game, then maybe you can sell things about the game to fund its further development. Of course, it goes without saying that the game will have to be good, so one of the first things one should do is get a good core group out there to test it. Also, if any game like this is to succeed, it should not ignore whatever community that happens to develop around it. I know something like this is unlikely, but if it were to happen, what would you do to get it started?

Comments

Use the "service" model.

[Christopher Thomas]

Making money with a free MMPRPG system is simple in concept - charge for access to your world, not for the software. The software is just a means for the players to access your service.

There are a few gotchas with this:

• You will have to invest heavily in building and maintaining the world.
  
  You're asking people to fork over a monthly subscription fee for the privilege of playing in your shard/continent/what-have-you. Your world had better be a lot more fun than the free alternatives that others will set up. You can do this; you just have to be willing to support several *good* full-time artists and game designers to build, maintain, and continually improve the universe that your players will be logging into.
  
  Collaborative efforts could in theory compete with this, but in practice *good* artists and game designers who can work full-time (read: have maintaining the world as their paid day-job) can almost certainly provide a richer environment than a patchwork of volunteers could (this is art, not software).
  
  
• You'll have to spin off and maintain a customer support company or division.
  
  If you're trying to get Joe Teenager to install and use your software, you're going to need a nice, packaged box with a good manual, and a fully-staffed tech support pool. What the user pays for when they buy the box is the ability to call you and have you hand-hold them through installing the software and connecting to your servers. You're *going* to have to sink a large amount of money and manpower into the division that handles this - if you have crappy support, most of your users will give up, and spread the word that your boxed software was impossible to use. Your servers will sit idle, and you'll lose a lot of money.
  
  Subscription to your service should be optional, not mandadory. Ideally, you'd have about three versions of the box on the shelves, with different price tags - one that's just the client (with support for using the client), one that's a client bundled with a subscription to your service (with support for both), and one that's the client and _server_ with support for maintaining the server (charge them through the nose for this, because they're going to be *using* this tech support).
  
  
• You'll have to spin off and maintain an ongoing software development division.
  
  You don't have to be in control of the project itself, but you do have to have a paid team working on the software. This lets you address bugs customers find promptly (which you'll need early-on if you want to *keep* the customers), and continue to tweak the install and server selection routines (which you'll need to keep making more idiot-proof, and adapt to new server/client versions), and add features to the software that would help you make a more interesting game world.
  
  

All of this will cost a *vast* amount of money to set up, but will have a sustainable revenue stream coming back in. You'd have to do most of this regardless of whether the game was open or closed. Opening it means you save a bit on maintaining the software (because others' improvements and bug fixes are folded in for you), but forces you to work harder making your game world attractive (because anyone can set up their own world to compete with you).

Technical edges don't last past release anyways, so as far as I can tell you'd lose nothing by making the software itself Open or Free. Your IP is in the artwork and world design.

Well...

[mindstrm]

If you ask me, you're saying 'how can I give something away to people at no cost when it costs me money to do'.

You can't.

The only realistic model is to have people pay to play.

Answer is simple: Incorporate advertising...

[glebite]

I hate advertising like most people around here, but to be honest, if you are wishing to have an online game make money without charging users a fee, then advertise.

It could be possible to include ads in text RPG scenarios:

You enter the orc lair kitchen. There are various cooking implements strewn about the walls. A can of cool, refreshing Fizzy(tm) soda.
HP: 13 % drink can
Ah, that cool, refreshing Fizzy(tm) soda has restored some of your endurance and has given you courage to attract many females of your race.
HP: 14 % go north
... and so on...

Graphic based games could incorporate logos, etc... Yes, it's sick, vile, and evil, but it does sometimes pay in the real world.