Slashdot Mirror
Pay to Play
nihilist_1137 writes: "Zdnet has a story on how companies are looking at making gamers pay to play online games. It goes over the problem of how to make a game great but yet at the same time appealing to people who pick it up."
← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)
I've been paying $30.00 a month (three accounts) for nearly two years to play EverQuest. Some games are just worth it. EQ would be incredibly boring as a single player game, but as a MMORPG it's unbeatable.
I've been playing Ultima Online for more than two years now. The game itself is cheap, it's in the bargain bin at most retailers, and it costs $9.95/month to keep an account to play the game. I have two accounts. UO boasts some 300K+ active accounts, and other games like Everquest are fairly popular as well. At first I too was hesitant to shell out a monthly fee - then I thought about it. I can pay 10 bucks to go to a movie and be entertained for 2 hours, or I can pay 10 bucks for unlimited entertainment in a month's time. Screw the movie theater.
May only be a niche market, but pay-for-play is definitely a viable model.
Shaun
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
There are a number of free alternatives of course.
In the beginning, the gamers will make games for the hardcore gamers and only the hardcore gamers will play them.
Then sooner or later, the friends of the hardcore gamers will start to get into it, someone will realise that there's money in the market, and make wildly popular games that will enthrall the hardcore gamers and bring some of the outsiders in as well. (Very early on, this was Doom, later, Diablo.) It will gradually move to a more general-gamer based market where titles are made to appeal to the general gamer en masse and will not attempt to develop gaming as an artform or innovate. This is why Diablo II was the worst day in gaming history.
Eventually, I predict, gaming will become so generalised (and therefore lucrative) and the serious gamers will get pissed and form their own independent development projects. The corporates will laugh and be merry because they are making money and that's what matters to them (as opposed to making good games.)
Sooner or later, the independent developers' games will get noticed by the general gamer and they will start gaining momentum ... soon corporates realise that there is a new source of revenue ... the cycle repeats.
The "department" line for this article presents an interesting concept. Of course it's ridiculous, but I'd be curious to see how players would behave with this pricing model. Would they compete for the lowest score? Would they make their objectives accomplishments that do not score points? Or would they just not give a damn?
Now, I don't play Everquest or UO, mostly because I use a Mac most of the time and they didn't come out for the Mac, but I do play Starcraft and Diablo2 online.
It's my opinion that if you are going to charge the person to play the game, then you should give the game out for free.
If I'm playing a game on-line, then I'm already shelling out for bandwidth, then I have to pay to play...make the game free to aquire.
I've got enough bills the way it is, I don't need multiplayer games to cost money as well.
Bungie's servers for Myth and Myth2 didn't have that many lamers or serious cheats on them, so you can't use the elitism arguement that paying will eliminate losers.
While companies will always find new ways to get money, this one will absolutely fail as long as there are cheaters. The only way I can see to stop cheating is to keep the source locked up, and if that's done then all the great mods will never come about. Things like Threewave and OSP for Q3, and Counter Strike for Half Life are all mods that have improved or changed the original game. So as I see it the tradeoff is either less cheating and no mods, or more cheating and pot luck with the mods. Personally I stopped playing CS because of the cheating, so I don't see how they can turn it into a profitable business. I'm not going to pay $x to get railed by an aimbot or whatever.
IMO, Blizzard is one of the best online game producers because of the fact that Battle.net is 100% free after you buy the game. The reason I played Diablo 2 for a year instead of Everquest, Eltima, Asheron's Call, etc. was because it didn't cost me anything more that the 39.95 I spent on the original game. I would never put out for a "connection fee" or what have you just to play the online game.
The future isn't what it used to be.
Yeah, that's one thing they need to do to be successful--create client software that only works with their pay online service that you can download for free, and a retail version that you pay for that you can play offline, online as a client and/or server, and use their pay service as well. That way the hardcore (or offline) gamer can buy the retail package, while someone who just wants to play the pay online version just has to enter their credit card # and download a file...
They should also have multiple games for a base subscription price. Say a FPS, an RPG, and a strategy game. That kind of selection would attract many more users--especially those that like to play all three types.
For example, Ultima Online and Everquest are the only successful games that do this that I know of (I'm sure that there are more). They justify this by adding more game elements and storylines on a continual basis.
Everyone would stop p(l)aying as soon as they stopped adding features and fixing bugs.
Can't really jump in the market with a crappy game, and elevate your status over time with revenue like you could in the old days. Today its mainy super compu global corp feeding your material.
The Uplink guys are doing this and succeeding.
Also, you never heard of a MUD? There have been free "MMORPG"s since before the Internet. Someone could easily start with a free MUD, and slowly build it up over time, getting users, and then switch to a pay model.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
My main hangup is that I don't know if I'm going to enjoy the game at all. However, if they allowed a trial period, I could make my decision before shelling out the money and then return it to the store if I didn't like it.
Or maybe I should get a job.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
I've been playing Planetarion for almost a year and Archmage off and on. Recently both of these web-based games have moved to a p2p model (though Archmage has recently backed down I believe.)
;)
The move to p2p for Planetarion has not happened without alot of groaning however. In the end, though I think they have managed to convince people of the value of the game compared to a relatively minimal fee. The current round getting ready to start is $10 (as low as $6 or $7 if accounts are bought in bulk) for a 3 or 4 month round. Not to mention that PA has extensive and sophisticated external resources, e.g. battle calculatores, alliance sites, etc. The devoted players knew from the beginning they would pay, it was just a matter of minimizing the damage
One of the biggest problems has been the ability for kids without credit cards to find a way to pay. Clearly, many parents are less than willing to support their kids' gaming addiction.
On the otherhand, I play alot of PC-based games, especially Unreal Tournament. P2P for such games would be questionable as much of the online facilities are hosted by the users themselves. However, in the case of the game producer actually providing the facilities, I don't think it's unreasonable to charge a yearly fee for instance.
Thats because they're made by corporations, duh. Ask the hardcore players what is fun, and then you can start charging for your game.
Who works at the corporations? Robots? Do you remember the Simpsons where Homer was Poochie? There was a focus group segment that was so true:
Man: How many of you kids would like Itchy & Scratchy to deal with real-life problems, like the ones you face every day?
Kids: [clamoring] Oh, yeah! I would! Great idea! Yeah, that's it!
Man: And who would like to see them do just the opposite -- getting into far-out situations involving robots and magic powers?
Kids: [clamoring] Me! Yeah! Oh, cool! Yeah, that's what I want!
Man: So, you want a realistic, down-to-earth show... that's completely off-the-wall and swarming with magic robots?
Kids: [all agreeing, quieter this time] That's right. Oh yeah, good.
Rock stars, is there anything they don't know?
There is FAR more to 'paying' for games than what many of these closed-minded "Pay me for service" people want to believe.
First of all, they only mentioned MMORPG's and board games! There is no mention about the thousands of servers for FPS, or RPG games. Not only this, but what about the fact that many of these games aren't suited to a massive, central server (or server network). In fact, several servers are fully paid for (including bandwidth) by gamers who set up a clan/team site.
In addition, most of the ISP's in my area (Local ISP's, not the nationwide ones like AT&T or EarthLink) host a large number of game servers-- anybody on the 'net can play games on the server. It's offered as an incentive to use that ISP. (eg. they have a really great server... But you know (because you're a smart gamer and can use tracert/traceroute) that you are picking up an additional 50 ms latency; so for the same price you can use a local ISP with a great game server, and gives you lower ping time.) What's to lose?
Another item many dreamers don't take into account the fact that most online games (Real-Time strategy, FPS, 'Fighting', etc.) are extremely time-sensitive. Unless they plan on having servers in every city of >100k, and have them interconnected with an internal multi-gigabit digital backbone (the cost of which staggers me...), as well as very high bandwidth connections at each node to the internet, they will never achieve a reasonable latency for gameplay. (Believe it or not, tenths of a second count).
If you want a model for online gaming, for nearly every case, just look at how FPS games, and RTS-games operate online. It's community-supported, often with major companies subsidizing it. (Like extra bandwidth at night, etc).
The idea that you can make a profit on all but the most massively-multiplayer games is laughable. Game players aren't completely stupid. They know it's better to gather a bunch of friends, buy a server (and bandwidth), and share the server with the world (hence obtaining more players on the server, making things more interesting), than it is to pay even higher prices to get high latencies, the same game, poorer service, less selection, as well as padding some idiot's wallet.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
... someone is already paying. When you refresh GameSpy and see all those servers, someone is paying for all the hardware and bandwidth. Sometimes people are generous with their resources, be they time or money, but someone is still footing the bill.
Speaking as a former EverQuest Player and a First Person Shooter Fan, the game type will tend to dictate what pricing model is used. FPS shooter servers tend to be fleeting, both in terms of GamePlay and server support. Would such a model work for EverQuest or DAoC? No, of course not.
People who want a persistant gaming experience are gonig to wind up paying for that security and certainity.
I can also see some interesting things happening in the future with Never Winter Nights. I mean, would you pay ten bucks a month if someone wrote a compelling story would you consider paying for access to a private NWN server? I would, if it was good enough. Creativity will be rewarded, I think.
John Carney
Executive Director - QuakeCon 2002
eviljohn@quakecon.org
Less Talk, More Beer.
Sell a game in the stores, and allow online play for free. If as a company you excersize due diligence and keep creating new great games, the "lifetime play" for older games will be a non-issue as fewer and fewer users will play the older games to play the new ones. You keep a steady revenue stream from new games. This also keeps you from getting caught in the trap of wanting to milk old games for all eternity. Keeps you competitive.
However, if it gets to the point, where like with quake, I can't host my own server and have people play off of it for free, then we have issues. Blizzard's model (as far as I know) never supported any type of network play (other than local) except through their servers. There were free servers released for some games that permitted it, but the company itself never wanted to lose control of that.
Of course, I think they brought in SOME revenue from banner ads in the waiting rooms. I'm not sure what other software companies are doing.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
I always feel a bit, I don't know, weird, when I play games too much. Like I'm wasting my time. I feel the same way about TV (but at least TV is mainstream enough that everyone is watching too much). Regardless of industry sales, etc., in my age group (OAC... that's grade 13 in Ontario) at least, among MOST people, it is unusual to play for more then 1 hour each day on any console or computer (ICQ is a different story...). If I were to play for more then that (and I usually play for less, all I ever play is Diablo II as I can't stand firstperson shooters, but that's a different story) then I feel kind of like I've wasted a lot of time.
If I were to pay for such a service, then I would be caught, because I would want to use it more to get my money's worth, and then less, because I'm wasting my time.
Other people have brought up good points. All these things I have said really just are me. Even if I could overcome all of that, I would definetely need extra advantages over current systems of online play. The limit of my online play involves Starcraft and Brood war (not anymore) diablo I (not anymore, and even when it was new it was so screwed up from cheats that it was unplayable) and now, Diablo II [wow, I'm quite the Blizzard fan]. You'd need cheat monitoring, and definetly not have to pay for it in the store... that's what the monthly fee is for. That went on too long.
Later
Sgs-Cruz
Karma: pi (Mostly due to circular reasoning in posts).
Don't you just love it when you would like to pay a game like Dark Age of Camelot or some such, and are willing to fork over the $10 a month to play, only to realize that they want you to pay full retail price ($40-$50) to get just the game itself? Even when they throw in a free month of play, I think it's a touch pricey. What I'd prefer to see is games that have a monthly fee to play (especially those that have *no* functionality offline) be sold at a vastly reduced price. $10 for the basic game and then another $10 to play each month would be reasonable. Even if you hated the game, you'd only be out $20 which is about what you pay for budget games anyway. Similarly, retailing at $20 and including a free month of access would work. Again, you're only out $20.
The bottom line is this: if you have a game such as Return to Castle Wolfenstein that has excellent online *and* offline functionality, and online gaming is free via hosting, then you are fully justified in charging $50-$60 for your product to compensate you for your work. But if your game is online only, only charge what you absolutely *must* to get your game into the hands of as many people as possible. Hell, if my primary revenue was to come through the online monthly payments, I'd be encouraging piracy of the baseline ware!
--My purpose set, my will defined. Caress the air, embrace the skies.
I don't have a problem with pay for play, god knows I played Everquest a lot. What I didn't like was paying $70 for the game, and then having to pay per month, whether I was playing or not. I got busy doing some other stuff, and probably would have kept my subscription if it was based on how long I spent playing rather than a flat fee, since then I wouldn't have to pay for months that I didn't play.
I'd like to see a game have a pay by the hour scheme, with a monthly maximum, and a low shelf-price. That way those that only play for a short while don't get screwed.
Even for single player games that you don't play over the network, it would be nice to have such a scheme. Then I wouldn't be so worried about spending all that money on a game that sucked. It would also be an incentive to game companies to make games that don't suck.
Anyway, I'm one of the designers who worked on Dark Age of Camelot, a recently released subscription-based OLRPG (which now has revenues exceeding $1.4 million/month and climbing fast). Before that, I had a very minor role on the team that created EverQuest. These games are my obsession, my career, pretty much my Mission in Life (yeah, it's pathetic).
Anyway, there's a lot more going on here than just evil corporations finding a way to extract more money from consumers. Some of the companies involved do think that way, you can tell which ones by the red ink and failed games they produce.
If MMOG's offer no more gameplay than you can currently get from a boxed retail title, they will fail. This was the core problem with Motor City Online, it was not really an MMOG, just a "captive audience" matchmaking service for an internet-playable racing game, the actual game could have been released as a standard boxed title with a GameSpy Lite client, and have been accepted quite happily by the car-crazy crowd that liked the "Need For Speed" and "Test Drive" franchises.
MMOG is only one of the names we apply to these games, there's another that much more accurately reflects what they do: Persistent Simulated Worlds. The monthly fee isn't paying for the game, it's paying the company to safeguard the integrity of the *persistent* world.
The average MMOG player spends 20 hours a *week* playing his game of choice, at a cost around 12 cents an hour. How many forms of entertainment are that cheap? The game is only a focus, what's really happening is an artifical community (there's nothing virtual about it). People have friends, enemies, even romantic relationships (don't ask).
In all truth, it's not the game you're paying for, but the community that forms within it.
--Dave Rickey
Designer, Mythic Entertainment
sql> select e_mail from Customer where first_name = 'Preston' and Games_Played>200
"Sometimes a woman is a kind of religion, she can save your soul & set you free from all your sins" - Bad Examples
Do you remember the online gaming service Kali? I think they're still around, though I can't load kali.net right now. They had a one time fee of $20, and after that you could play pretty much any game capable of IPX network gaming over it. They were marginalized by gaming companies offering free online gaming built in to the game, but if the companies start trying to charge a monthly fee for their service, Kali could make a really big comeback. They may need to change their business model so that you have to pay a couple of bucks to upgrade each new major revision of Kali, but they could probably easily compete with proprietary 1-game networks.
Even if that doesn't succeed, someone will probably make something like Opennap or gnutella for gamers. Once a free service like that comes along, that the companies don't have to pay money to maintain, I don't see why they wouldn't embrace it. Hell, the companies may even surprise us and do it themselves.
BlackGriffen
Even though I'm a fan of Ultima from the early 80s, I have not played UO - because I don't feel like shelling out the $$$ in the store for something that I'll have to pay a monthly fee to keep playing.
Make up your mind - are you selling a game for me to play on my PC or for me to pay you to play online. I'm only paying for one or the other.
UO was the first, and only game I payed to play online. Granted, they kinda broke their teeth on the online rpg genre and probably got overwhelmed by a lot of gameplay issues that simply didn't come up in smaller scenarios. But the first 6 months I played it, it was a constant lagfest. Every feature of the game that made it worthwhile and playable, they kept getting rid of. They had a broken notoriety system and the few means we had to enforce rules against "good" players that played out of character they broke because a few players would whine.
I finally ended up quitting. I don't know if they ever fixed a lot of the problems or not. I would hope so after 3+ years, but you never can tell.
My point is, they needed a much longer and more thorough beta period to root out some of the big problems, especially with cheating, and get them fixed before releasing it to the paying public, after which you can't simply wipe the world to correct a problem. Then you have them offering silly amnesty policies to known cheaters who had been taking advantage of loopholes for months.
Forget the fact that other than names and landscape, the game had NOTHING to do with the series it was based on. That was the biggest travesty of all. I can see them wanting to appeal to a larger market, but I can assure you practically all the die hard Ultima fans had walked out within a year, when they were most likely the first to purchase the game when it was released, not to mention all those creating guilds years before the game was released.
Tis a shame.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
That's why the industry is suddenly waking up. This is a genuinely stronger business model that *works*. Online games are almost certainly going to be a $1,000,000,000 (that's one *billion*) dollar industry in 2003, after the release of Star Wars Galaxies and The Sims Online. It's already worth hundreds of millions in actual revnues companies are collecting *now*.
--Dave Rickey
Designer, Mythic Entertainment
Hate to burst your colliquial bubble, but here I go...
They cost so much money to put together that they're designed only by a corporation.
Yeah, well, most games these days (especially any with 3d or elaborate 2d graphics) take hundreds if not thousands of hours of coding, research, modeling, drawing, etc etc. Do you think Tony Hawk 3, Quake 3 or UO could have realistically been developed by anything but a corporation? Yes, the distributers are huge, but the developers that's working there are what counts. A software house like Neversoft, iD or Ion Storm are relativly tiny in comparison.
Corporations are notorious for not understanding what is fun. People at E3 will honestly say they don't know what will be fun, and only make a crap shoot when making games.
Duh. Granted, there are a lot of ideas born in board meetings (most of which flop), but taking a "crap shoot" often results in the most unique and fun games. MMORPGs were one of these crap shots. So happens, it was a good roll.
Thats because they're made by corporations, duh. Ask the hardcore players what is fun, and then you can start charging for your game.
That's what R&D is for. The game testers are probably the most hardcore in the buisness.
The only reason MMORPG's of today are successful is because there is nothing else out there...
Uhm... Counter Strike is still the most popular online game. Other FPS's like Quake III and II, Unreal Tournament and Tribes II are also going strong. And then there's console gaming like THPS3 online, Halo and (eventually) Final Fantasy XI.
Can't really jump in the market with a crappy game, and elevate your status over time with revenue like you could in the old days. Today its mainy super compu global corp feeding your material.
Get this straight -- the DISTRIBUTERS have the money. They always have, they always will. It's only reasonable that they are selective before going to market and putting up millions for something that may just sit on the shelf. If you don't like it, then you're more than welcome to write your own games.
--
#nohup cat
i have often wished that CS (Cheater-Strike) had a pay-for-play system.
it would seem to me that the only way sometimes to keep people from hacking a game and ruining the experience for others is to make a barrier to entry, ie a monthly charge.
sure it might suck a bit to play that way, but i think even a small monthly fee ($4.99) would go along way. besides requiring a CC to charge the monthly service to, the game makers would have set info for their players: how likely is someone to crash a game server when their CC #, IP, and home address are all linked to their user ID?
oh well, gotta run today and pick up Medal of Honor - my only hopes for a great multi-player shooter that hasn't been hacked.
/* Half alive and half dead too, work is for suckers and the sucker is you. - "Half-life" by Local H*/
Well.. here's the thing.
For a game like Quake and it's cousins.. I'll pay for the game itself. I will not pay a fee to play online, because the company itself does not really provide much in the way of servers.
For a game like Everquest, Asheron's Call.. I can see paying the $10/month.. but the box price should be lowered. The game has no value if not played online.. so the server fees make sense.. HOWEVER
I take real issue with how Verant has made it a violation of acceptable use policies to sell items in the game for real cash. That's just plain wrong. We pay them to play.. they shouldn't tell us not to do this; it has nothing directly to do with the game.
In short... I think games that are played solely online should be nothing more than the cost of playing said game online.. perhaps a media fee (20 bucks or whatever) in the store to buy a kit to get set up, or a free download online (or hell, even a couple bucks to pay for bandwdith/severs)
In a perfect world the only charge would be the $50, but I for one don't like the idea of paying $50 up front, and then having to pay monthly fee.. These game companies should adopt the aol model and give the software away for free. It'll give them a much broader audience to work with.
www.lonseidman.com
--Dave Rickey
Designer, Mythic Entertainment
How about this: give the game itself away, letting players start out with a basic character/resource level for free. If players want, they could buy neat toys (armor, weapons, etc) from game-run "stores" with real money, but for the sake of play balancing the cost should be high relative to acquiring them the hard way, much like the "Build Now" button in Civ/Alpha Centauri/etc. Being able to buy the game's currency with real money is another strategy for games with appropriately elaborate economic models (Everquest)... actually, that's the simplest way of doing things in general, since it minimizes real-world currency transactions (overhead). The game should have an internal eBay-like auction market for items/currency trading, with the game taking an appropriate commission (3-5%). Just like the real world, money would be a substitute for time.
PayPal could have fun with this.
Current they offer The Eternal City -- a romanesque RPG game, Castle Marrach -- a high-fantasy social game popular with women, and Galactice Emperor -- a weekly political game to become the Galactic Emperor.
They also have a number of other games announced to come out later in the year, including "Lovecraft Country" and "Paranoia".
The also have an active articles section with columns by MMPORPG pundit Jessica Mulligan, MUD pioneer Richard Bartle, and many others. If you are an online game designer there are many great articles here!
-- Herder of Cats
Here's a text-based MUD in it's 12th (I think) year of development. They pioneered some stuff the corporate RPG's are just getting into, like dynamic map generation and a 100% user-governed economy (they've even halted inflation for 2 years. Ha!). It is 100% user funded. Their revenue model? They sell in-game items that can only be purchased. Some items are just very hard to obtain in the game; others can only be purchased by sending money to the game. These items can be used to attack and kill other players... Some of these items expire, others last forever.
What else could be funded by virtual item sales? I don't know. But I don't think it's limited to games.
Now I'm sure that EQ and others attract their share of hacks and lamerz that act well below their age. But the $10/mo probably goes a long ways toward keeping that number down.
Bleh!
Unlike games like Quake 3 Arena, Counterstrike, Unreal Tournament, and even Starcraft or Diablo II (which despite the use of battle.net, play games peer-to-peer), all of the servers are hosted by Sony themselves, along with all character information. This article should give an idea of how many servers this requires. (For those who don't want to read the article, it says that it takes close to 1400 computers to run the 41 different game "servers".) Also take into account each server has anywhere from ten to thirty thousand people at any given time, and you're looking at a hell of a lot of needed bandwidth. Add into that paying gamemasters, guides, tech support staff, and maintaining those 1400 machines, and you've got one heck of a cash drain.
Would I pay per month for a peer-to-peer game like Quake? No. However, for a server-side-run game like EQ, $10 a month doesn't seem like a heck of a lot of money, especially considering the resources needed for such an endeavour.
Just my $.02...
This article was priceless. I especially liked thinly disguised
four-paragraph ad for the "Microsoft Zone" built-in, and the other
"AOL should shut up because IE is better than Mozilla, and they should
have put the browser into the OS and I am the ultimate Microsoft
shill" editorial posted while the talkback feature is conveniently
disabled, but that's another thread.
Here's a gem:
"Analysts were more skeptical."
No kidding. Really? Gee, what *are* analysts if they
aren't skeptical? Don't these people get paid huge amounts of
money to say "it'll never work?" Easy to be skeptical of everything
they see; their paychecks show up every two weeks as long as they go
to their meetings.
These are the kinds of people that generate the loudest chorus of
"more more more" in the public marketplace. They CANNOT be impressed
by anything except an all-out #1 tidal wave of profits from a
never-before-seen glitzy all-sizzle "innovative" product. Everything
else (and I mean EVERYTHING else) makes them "skeptical."
None of these people have *ever* had to actually run a business or
build anything before, and they haven't the foggiest idea of the
incredible amount of effort it takes to build a product and bring it
to market. Its disgusting to watch these people line up to say
"so what?" to every new idea.
This habitual cynicism absolutely sickens me.
The snap-180 that takes place when the topic is MMORPGs and not Loki ports, online comics
or pay-per-view DVDs.
"People will never pay for $PRODUCT"
"There will never be a market for $PRODUCT"
Hundreds of comments echoed these and other statements, and the message was clear:
"there will never be a viable revenue model for this, so give up and quit trying to
make money"
Yet, now all of a sudden we get "pay for play is definitely viable" and "I have fourteen
accounts already!! Where's my credit card? I want another!!"
What changed? What was the subscription to online comics? $12/year or something?
This is ten times that amount.
The dream of every revenue-ambitious company is to connect a clock to the cash register
so the bell rings every 30 days or whatever, and the ceiling opens with a new deluge
of cash. Then the products don't have to be of any particular quality, because the
likelihood of next month's paycheck arriving is proportional only to the unwillingness
of people to exert the effort to cancel their account.
So if the average customer stays signed up for 18 months at $9.95 per, every box sold
becomes a $230 profit bonanza with upside instead of a $50 one-time sale with a
0.8% margin.
No wonder the economics of the retail game market are broken.
what made the wntire quake series a massive smash was that you could play your buddies ,fello Spazs, whatever online for FREE.. I dont have topay someone, or give up my personal information via WON (who can disappear at any time and make all those games worthless) and play. If you had to pay $9.95 a month to play online with quakeI,II,III it would have been a dud. The draw of Q3 is to have an insane fragfest in a rocket arena that is too small for the 18 players. it's fricking nuts.... but it's also a blast. I gotta pay to play?? well then I dont buy. I pay my entrance to lan parties. I also pay for other gaming items and services. if anyone tried to force me to pay then they lose. entice me to play and I'll check it out. Pay for play will work if you give meawesome ping times and very low latency. try to make me pay for a simple 10 person fragfest? nope. and that is asking to be cracked and havethecrack spread throughtout the internet.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
damn you for telling me that. If it turns out to be true, I guess I know whay I'll be doing :)
Last time I looked it was something like $40!
Why game makers need to charge a fee to play their games: nothing is free. While this seems like an obvious statement it doesn't seem many slashdotters get it. Playing Quake or CS online doesn't cost a whole lot. Severs run by [whoever] are as a relay server giving a central hub which lets people with the game get together and play the game. Tons of of bandwidth and equipment isn't required on the vendor's end because they don't actually host the games. Said bandwidth and equipment is the onus of the clients playing their P2P game. MMORPGs however are the hosts of the game and the users are merely clients. Thus the onus of equipment and bandwidth falls entirely on them. They need X equipment to support Y users which costs Z money. No matter how efficiently you get the network design down you've always got Z cost. This cost only goes up as the number of users increases.
Why I won't pay to play a game online: it isn't because I feel a game publisher owes me something, I just don't feel that I ought to spending both time and money on a game. Subscription services I get a decent amount of use from I will obviously pay for but a video game which only eats up my time I'm not going to throw money at. Some people of course will throw money at them yet not at something like cable TV. Whatever floats your boat. However with the whole persistant environment thing you end up investing a fair chunk of change into the service. If the game employs an economy where virtual items have a real monetary value what sort of security guarantee do I have that my investment is going to be secure? The game would have to be effectively unhackable so some joker couldn't hack himself The Armor of Mostest Rareness and sell it on eBay for ten grand. I also don't want to invest hundreds of dollars into building up a character only to be PK'ed by some jackass who got a lucky shot. Hell I don't want to invest hundreds of dollars (hundreds of dollars is easy if you've been playing for a couple years paying upwards of 10$ a month) into a character that gets bitten by a rabid squirrel and dies.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
You're at no risk of having to pay-to-play for Quake 3 deathmatches or Empire Earth battles (much as some of the suits would like to delude themselves into thinking so).
This is not a "One size fits all" business model. You cannot plug just any genre or type of game into it and have money magically pour out the other end, and a lot of capital is going to get poured down the drain proving that.
Pay to play works for these because there is genuine value-added that simply cannot be provided any other way.
--Dave Rickey
Pay-per-play is actually a better idea than Microsoft's monthly subscription. As it is, gamers generally do, and always will pay for games on a regular basis. You can only play a game for so long and you get sick of it, then you buy another.
My roomate has about eight games for his PS2 that he's bought and kept over the last year and a half. That's like $25/month. For people like that, a $30/month fee that would allow you to play any game you want, whenever you want would be great. Want to play a couple of rounds of GT3? Download and play. Want to try out the new NFL2003? Go ahead. The stores save money on packaging, gamers get more game for less $$ and more control of the content.
This will never happen, though, because it prevents shitty companies from marketing the hell out of shitty games and convincing people to fork over their $$ for a lousy game. Most are too lazy to return it and the game company makes an easy buck.
-Erik