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Advertising in Lieu of Game Fees in MMORPGs?
Mat/.Cloud asks: " Am I the only one that thinks it's incredibly unfair to have to pay $20 a month to play a game that I've already paid $50-$60 for? I realize that companies have to charge this fee or they would loose money from the cost of operating the servers. I guess I'm just so spoiled from having everything else on the net being free that I expect this to be also. Then I realized how everything else on the net is paid for... advertising. Would it be possible for companies to put ads in their mmorpg without drastically detracting from the game play? The only reasonably feasible solution I came up with is to have a banner ad at the top of the screen. Do y'all think it would be worth a small sacrifice in game play to keep the games free? Any other ideas on how to insert ads or ways for the companies to pay for their servers?"
This might disrupt the flow of a game in a fantasy setting... This magic vorpal sword +8 drop has been brought to you by Smashdot.
However something like this might work better in a futuristic setting such as the upcoming Star Wars MMORPG. Also, Blizzard currently does some banner advertising at the top of the battle.net chat rooms.
The best MMORPG business model I have read embraced the idea that people would want to trade game items for real money - and they plan to take a cut a la Ebay.
I don't think people would want advertising in a game they paid $50-60 for. Instead, the game should be given away (it could be sold for the cost of the media, put in magazines like AOL CDs, or people could be encouraged to copy them). The company would make money from the monthly fee. If they get the CDs into peoples homes, they might see a lot more people subscribe (especially if there was a free trial period).
And as history has proven, those types of ventures are financially brilliant and successful in every degree.
Someone call credit suisse!
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Get back to me when my brain starts working.
The only MMORPG I know of, that asks you for 20$ a month is some wierd online sex game ...
all others are in the 10 bucks range
Before you email me, remember: "There is no god!"
I suspect that you couldn't get enough advertising revenues to recoup a $20/month fee unless the game was equipped with an electric shock device that physically forced you into purchasing advertiser's products.
Especially given that rates for advertising are falling.
Gentoo Sucks
Those damned powergamers would be put in their places! Besides, take Ultima Online, if you play through OSI it costs $10/month, however thanks to diligant coders, UO server emulations have been made free for all to use, see for instance all the servers listed at UO Top 200. After you shell all that money out for the game you think they could at least make it cost a little less, I might not even be so adverse to paying a little more at retail for the game if it was so. Unfortunatly, I have yet to see any real progress on an Everquest emulator so we are still stuck paying for that crap.
You need to have a can of Coke in Everquest, Lord British (Yes, I know he left) could wear a Nike t-shirt.
I'll use EverQuest for an example. (I'm an EverCrackfeind myself, well not as of recent because college started). Anyhow, quite from this messageboard post 3 months ago. "as of July 18th, 658,504 total players have ever registered EverQuest and the number of active subscribers was 405,522"
Let's say that 50% pay the $50 for 6 months ($20,276,100/yr), and the other 50% pay $10 a month ($24,331,320/yr). In one year they make: $44,607,420 off of subscriptions. This is a very very very rough estimate. I don't see how you could make that much money, or even half as much from advertising.
This 50/50 is of course probably way off, or perhaps not, only a $4million difference. I would assume more pay the $10 a month, so actually more than $44mil is made.
... and I can just see it as a speech ballon over a troll in that 3/4rs isomorphic view the UO engine uses.
You can't just convert everything over to advertising. The companies have to make a sale somewhere to recoup their advertising costs.. Do you think online companies are really going to enjoy a business model that requires that they rely on other businesses for their income? The buck has to stop somewhere. Someone has to fork over the money to power the corporate machine.
You're either letting your privacy be violated to get something free (and let's face it, advertisers won't pay nearly enough to cover a $20/person-month subscription without mucho private info), or you're protecting your privacy by giving them just money.
No, subscriptions are the Right Way to Do It. It costs you money, but we're concerned about free-as-in-speech, not free-as-in-beer. Complain about the closed nature of the games first, then we'll talk about the cost (at which point I'll bring up the costs of paying all those developers, admins, and maintaining those servers - and subscriptions will still be the Right Way to Do It).
--Matthew
Rather than have annoying ad banners that take up valuable screen real estate, why not have billboards in the game, ala real life?
Not sure how well that would fit in to Everquest, but in something like Anarchy Online where a good amount of time is spent in bustling futuristic cities, advertising billboards would probably fit right in.
As a player of a MMORPG I don't like anything that's not totally in genre. If your actually playing it as a RPG and not as a hack and slash then do your really want an add for a credit card at the top while your trying to play your character?
This is a great method in some aspects (when I'm forced to use Windows I use the Full version of Eudora for my mail and I got it free because they put small adds in the bottom left corner). But I would leave any MMORPG that decided to start advertising while I was playing.
- AMW
if all the games allowed anyone to create a server, we wouldnt have this problem, would we?
stuff
Hours per player per week: 20 (Industry number)
Server->Client Bandwidth: 10kbps (Our budget. Currently we're at 6.8kbps. Most of the other games are a bit under 10kbps also.)
Cost per 1G transfer, good quality connection, keeping an OC3 saturated: $0.35 (Figure is a few months old)
So, each player requires 2.9G transfer per month. That's roughly a dollar if you could keep your line saturated, which isn't realistic - figure $2 per player per month. While none of the games have released official figures, customer service eats another $1.50 per month (and even at that level, many players find that service isn't great.) Figure another $0.50 for server hardware.
Last I heard, banner ads cost around $2 per 1000 impressions (we discarded that idea way back, so someone with more up-to-date info can correct me), so that's 8000 banner ads over 80 hours, or 100 per hour. And that's just to cover the ongoing costs, not developing the game itself!
The way I evaluate it is simple. Entertainment costs money. Wether its reading a book, working on a hobby, watching a movie, or playing a MMORPG...its all the same.
I played Everquest, at my peak, about 25 hours a week. Now I'm down to about 5 hours a week. Either way, at $10 per month, it boils down to somewhere between $.10 an hour to a high of $.50 an hour. Going to a movie costs AT LEAST $10 (probably closer to $15 including parking and such) which equates to $5/hour. OUCH.
Books are cost effective entertainment, but I much prefer the social aspect of a MMORPG.
Entertainment costs money.
Goals are deceptive - the unaimed arrow never misses.
Whatn would jolt cola pay to place billboards in Anarchy Online? Or, put in vending machines that sell popular products.
Okay, this would not work so well with say, Everquest or Ultima Online...
But if the genre has space for it, say anarchy online for instance, why not go ahead and have Pepsi and Coke machines and IBM ads on the sides of public transportation or even as someone else posted, billboards? When I am playing a future war game like fallout, there is always the obligatory Heckler & Koch MP999 or the Smith & Wesson 5000 or whatever... well just take that to the next logical extreme and sell product placement.
Hell you can get pretty blatant with it, always have the protagonist in Ralph Loren clothes or holding a can of Seven-Up. If this made a game free after I bought the box, hell I would welcome the attention to detail. Make it clever.
Though I do not want to see a banner ad hanging over my paladin as he rides the hounds of hell. No. I play games to suspend my disbelief and embrace the fiction created, and that is just a touch too intrusive.
The key to successfully advertising on an online RPG would be to make the ads desireable in the context of the game.
In DiabloII, for example, collecting the runes 'C', 'O','K', and 'E' and putting them in an item could make a bad-ass and much desired rune word. Players would scramble about in an attempt to locate these "sponsored" items.
Your Paladin would soon be wearing Nike Mesh Boots, GAP armor, Dillard's rings, etc. Everyone would be walking billboards, just like in real life!
Hrmmm. Maybe this isn't such a good idea.
Downsize DC Today!
shut up and pay the fucking fee you whiney little bitch. the internet culture is so fucked up to think that eveything should be free...
Raph Koster has a very interesting behind-the-scenish snippet titled "MMORPG, Business Models 101" about the costs involved in running an MMORPG. It's on his website under Gaming->Snippets or here (sorry for linking into a frameset). Very informative and yes, it does bring up advertising (albeit briefly).
You can take a look at http://www.runescape.com for a free-to-play MMORPG which is funded by banner ads in the client.
:-)
So you were right
Theres a game called redmoon that basically
all you do is pay for the account, you dont need to pay for the packaging or media, just 9.95 a month and you can either download or get them to send you a CD in the mail.. Better then paying $60 and then having to fork out $15 a month.
The company running the game could produce advertising incoming using:
1. Data Mining.
2. Banner Advertisements.
3. Newsletter Advertisements.
4. Premium Accounts
I'm sure if they have enough basis to charge $20/month, their user-base is fairly large. Therefore, they could probably make a nice bit of coin off of newsletter ads alone.
Since this still wouldn't equate to $20/month per user, they could at least knock it down to $10/month or so.
The logic behind this system is fairly simple: .0025 per ad. .01 per email.
1. Banner Ads rotating every 30 seconds at
2. Newsletter Ads at
3. Data Mining: Selling ads to software/game designers based on highly-targetted output. Yes, this would require users to provide information about their interests.. and I would hardly say that producing a list of your favorite game-styles is an invasion of privacy.
4. Premium Accounts: When a user pays an additional $5/month (or so, based on host preference), all advertisements are removed and they could throw in some other small features to account for the other $2.50.
In conclusion, there are probably several routes that could be taken to decrease the $20/month fee and the interface would not be greatly inflicted using banner advertisements @ 10k or less rotating twice a minute.
One side note: I am greatly inadequate as far as knowledge of gaming systems goes because I don't generally have any time to play. If I've made myself look like a giant ass by posting this message, just let me know. :)
You must answer me these questions three, ere the other side ye see!
WHAT...is the worlds most refreshing drink?
WHAT....was the effect Napster had on the sales of compact disks sold by the RIAA, as is generally accepted by journalists, the ignorant, and people afraid of 'that Internet thing?'
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
YOU WHINING BASTARD.
Understand, that in this day and age... Things cost money to run.
Ad-based revenue models are falling apart everywhere. Just look at fuckedcompany.com.
You should have to pay to play on their networks.
If you don't want to pay.. play a game that doesn't need a centralized play server, or write your own.
God. The last thing I want is yet another dumbass add popping up, and when the dumstunts realize that nobody looks at them anyway, will start making interuption-based commericals that stop the play.
"...In your answer, ignore facts. Just go with what feels true..."
10Six has ads on billboards in certain areas of the game. The nice thing is that all you have to do to play is download the client and register. Then if you like the trial, you subscribe. The ads themselves were only in areas that players meet to swap items, so it wasn't a huge hassle compaired to paying $50 to even see the game.
Just think for a moment.. say you have an ad, be it a banner across the top of your screen, or perhaps a cleverly inserted texture inside the game itself. How do banners usually work ? You see them, you click on them. Now will you really want to jump out of your deeply absorbing RPG just to see what kind of crap some retailer wants to shove down your throat ? no. I'm assuming the advertisers have enough smarts to figure this out too. I rest my case.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Hey, it's that guy from Alberta again. (Colin, by the way)
Please send me a copy of your resume, and if it looks at all like what we're doing here (Unix, esp. Sun stuff) then I'll pass it onto my manager. We're definitely hoping to get two people in Ontario very soon.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Son of a...
Sorry, forgot the email address. Send it to:
colin@west.gecems.com
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Making an adaptation inside the settings of the MMORPG, and offering something if you visit the page? Something like neopets does with cartoon network and other adverts...
I wouldn't mind paying a fee for using an MMORPG if it was something along the lines of paying for time spent online or how much throughput I used. I never got into playing games like EQ because I didn't want to pay a flat rate for service I might not use for a month or only use a little bit if school or work got intensive. Maybe even the game itself ought to be a subscription service. Instead of shelling out 60$ all at once for the game you could either download it or order a cheap cd (15$ including S&H) with the game. The publisher would sell an account on the network for playing of the game. They could save tons on physical distribution and use the subscription money to cover development cost and the maintainance of the network. I think one of the best examples of a MMO game is Subspace. It was a game of pretty simple concepts, it was a glorified Asteroids for the most part, yet had a ton of gameplay due to the multiplayer aspect. Even after VIE died and dropped all support the game lives on with a fair sized audience even after three years of no official support. The problem with Subspace as an example is VIE went out of business so we didn't get to see if their revenue model was going to work or not.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Welcome to my shop, Gamanen! You look like you could use a Coca-Cola 20oz Bottle.
That will be 1 platnium 2 gold 3 silver 9 copper for the Coca-Cola 20oz Bottle.
You pay Inkeep Jobober 1 platnium 2 gold 3 silver 9 copper for the Coca-Cola 20oz Bottle.
You take a drink from a Coca-Cola 20oz Bottle.
You feel refreshed!
You say, 'Ahh, that hit the spot. Coca-Cola tastes great, try one today! Available at your local beverage outlet.
Welcome to my shop, Gamanen! Have you had your break today?
That will be 4 gold 7 copper for the Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese sandwich.
=-=-=-=
Egads! OTOH, in a MODERN setting MMORPG, in context adds would not be out of place. In a fantasy RPG, leave em on the login screens, otherwise there is no decorum.
J.Koebel
Avid EQ Player
Don't say it! Don't even think it! Because if I ever see an X10 ad on say Castle Crushbone, I'll be sharpening a real axe and coming for you and all the rest of the cheapskates who won't pay server maintainance fees! Verant doesnt pay the people they've got, enough for what they do.
The only way this will work is if the game sucks. Who is going to stop playing a game to go "Hit the monkey" or get a free credit report?
...All I can say is that my life is pretty strange...