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Where Is The Metered Pay Model For Online Games?
bturnip writes "I just cancelled my account with the game A Tale in the Desert. I really liked the game- it had a fresh interesting approach, a Linux client, a non-linear style of game play, and was just fun to play. The graphics were pretty good, the sheer amount of stuff to see and do was impressive, and the online community was extremely helpful and friendly. My problem? I didn't play often enough to justify paying $13.95 each and every month. Is isn't that the price is outrageous, I'm not having any problems paying the bills, I just didn't play enough to make it worth my while. Where is the metered pay model for the casual gamer? If a certain game has a monthly fee of $15, and the average player plays 40 hours a month, a metered model might offer 40 metered hours for $25. Hours could be set to expire after a set time, say 4-6 months. Some months I might pay more than a monthly subscriber, some months less. This is a win/win situation. I can have more fun playing my character at my own pace without feeling I need to play more often to justify the montly cost. The game gets money that it would not get otherwise. If I end up playing often, maybe I end up as a monthly subscriber. The downside I can see for game makers is the overhead of running two billing models, extra work in tracking hours spent, etc. What are the other downsides? Is the potential market for this type of billing not worth the effort?" Along these lines, I think that Planetside would have been a huge success if it had launched with a different subscription model.
You can let your account expire when you want and pick it back up when you want.
This is true of most of WoW's competitors and always has been. Exceptions are 1) SWG deletes characters shortly after account cancelation because Sony is in league with Satan 2) UO does not delete characters immediately, but, based on the account in question, purges characters after extended periods of dormancy 3) EQ has purged meaninglessly low-level characters on dormant accounts. Otherwise, if you have a character in AC, UO, EQ, DAOC, etc., your character and their equipment will be there when you get back.
Personally, I recently went back to AC after four and a half years of dormancy. My character was exactly where I left him in 2000.
Puzzle Pirates -
There is an option in puzzle pirates to play in a "dabloons" ocean. Dabloons are basically a form of in-game currency that you buy with real cash. While you need gold to buy things, you also need dabloons. You can use dabloons to purchase badges which allow you to do certain things in-game, such as play certain puzzles or lead a team of pirates. These badges generally last for 30 login days (as opposed to 30 calendar days)... in other words, they only degrade as you log in and use them. You can play Puzzle Pirates perfectly well for free, if you so choose, or you can pay to access certain features of the game. And it's pretty cheap: a badge that will allow you 30 login days of access to the most commonly used puzzle costs the real-world equivalent of a dollar.
Certain Asian-style games, such as Gunbound don't require a subscription, but allow you to use money to purchase in-game items. Or you can play for a really, really, really long time to earn the gold to have those items.
The ______ Agenda
It's amortize.
Any AC1 accounts not migrated to turbines billing system(from microsofts) will soon be inaccessable forever. Of course if they are in the turbine system they can sit there forever unsubbed.
t =26714
"Account Migration
On December 7th 2005 we will be turning off the ability to migrate accounts through our three point authentication system or through our billing department. This change is being made due a necessary update to our billing system. If you have any accounts that you have not migrated by this point you will not have the ability to do so after December 6th 2005."
http://forums.ac.turbinegames.com/showthread.php?
[20:36] wwwdot/.dotorg
(BTW, I'm lead designer of A Tale in the Desert)
Actually the main reason in this case isn't a business one. Many of the challenges in ATITD are formulated with the assumption that most players have a single character (account). For instance in "The Test of Octec's Ghost" you are given twelve identical crystals, and are given the task of trading to assemble a collection of twenty different crystals and using them to build a huge animated statue. I intentionally designed the Test in a way where there would be a scarcity of crystals overall.
Now I realize that even as-is, some people will just buy an extra ("mule") account, but most do not. Setting up a strictly hourly system would, I believe, tempt a lot more people to do so. And it's a slippery slope: Once that happens, the game would likely develop a culture of people buying their way through challenges, and that doesn't strike me as much fun.
There are some business reasons as well that other posters have hit upon, though for some MMOs such a model may make sense. FWIW, bandwidth costs per hour are negligible: $0.0065/hour by my quick calculation.
One thing I gave serious consideration to, and may still do in a future Tale - is a separate casual server that limits players to 10 hours/week, but still charges $13.95/month. Why would anyone opt for this? By *far*, the biggest complaint and reason that casual players leave ATITD is a feeling of being unable to compete with the hardcore 40-80 hour/week crowd. The game then becomes about playing the smartest 10 hours/week you can, rather than grinding.
But also mind that Puzzle Pirates is vastly different from the majority of MMO's *because* it is puzzle-based, and not the "kill stuff, get bigger, kill bigger stuff" model.
(that sucking sound you hear is my karma plummeting)
It is because in Asia, a lot of gamers hang out in Internet cafes where they play the MMOs and pay their metered rates ALONG with the cafes' rates.