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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 paid for something you enjoyed... don't worry about it any more than that. You should never feel that you have to amertise something after you've made the decision to buy it -- especially if it's not a large expenditure. In my experience, trying to "get your money's worth" ruins the fun, whether it's eating too much at an all-you-can-eat buffet or by playing an MMO past the point of fun.
Another good way to look at it is by percentages -- was the game worth $14/(your monthly salary)? This helps me justify (or reject) stuff all the time, because it puts purchases in perspective of their size.
A large portion of their player base are the players who do play for 40 hours a week. If they decide to charge these guys $100/month because they play nonstop, then they are going to go to a different game. Unless your thinking of letting players choose which billing model they want to use. Although I think the majority of people who would be interested in these games would be willing to pay the flat fee, and by letting them pay a smaller amount, they might not earn as much profit, even if they do pick up a few extra people.
You're forgetting the famous health club business model:
- Sign up as many people as possible in January and Feburary when everyone's fat from Christmas and being inside all the time and bored with life;
- Make things seem interesting for a while with 'fun' programs;
- Gradually make things seem less interesting;
- HOPE NO ONE SHOWS UP.
Health clubs make their money on people paying for a membership they rarely use, or at least start out using and then don't keep up with.
The MMPORG business model seems the same. They have less server cost if fewer people show up; They just want people to show up occassionally and keep paying their dues, guiltily or not.
Unitarian Church: Freethinkers Congregate!
it is easier for the companies to have a flat fee for monthly subscriptions. If they did meter, it would require more work for the company, now that they have to track time per subscription, and send varied amounts to different subscribers.
Players who play a lot of hours may get screwed in a metered subscription. They may end up paying higher than the flat fee because they are on more than the average player.
I like paying one fee, and getting unlimited play time for the month. If I feel I don't play the game enough I cancel the subscription.
Where's my metered usage for my ISP? I want to be able to surf one or two hours a week and pay a small amount of money. Oh yeah, the vast majority of users don't want that, and adding the extra code and overhead, along with all the complaints from parents who got $100 AOL bills ended that business model.
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
I suppose you'd like it even better if...
If I'm right, you may want to go cell phone shopping.
For my self, I far prefer a company that simply tells me what their product costs and then lets me decide if I want it.
--MarkusQ
Firstly, if the model is 'pay as you go' I would worry that it would reduce enjoyment of playing. If the longer you play the more it costs, it will always be in the back of you mind that each minute / ten mins / hour you play costs you more - breaking the immersion. If you don't worry about the cost, you can explore more freely, experiment, and just have more fun.
Secondly, if I had kids who wanted to play a MMOG, but knew it was charged by the hour, I'd be worried about them running up costs. Even if there are parental control, I think many 16 yr old gamers can beat their less tech-savvy parents' passwords by guessing them / working out common family passwords / finding the post-it note ( will Pop have a 16 character alpha-numeric password, or will he use the name of the dog??).
That's my 2 cents (a minute) worth.
I don't understand the notion that MMOGs are too expensive. How much does it cost to go to a single movie in a theater? That's two hours for about $10. How much is a night in a bar? Even nursing cheap beer, you'll spend at least $10 in a few hours.
For $15 per month you can play an MMOG any time you want, for as long as you want. You get regular patches and new content added every few months. This seems like a decent entertainment bargain to me.
Asian games tend to support pay-by-usage and/or micropayments to unlock content. There is no technical reason why this isn't done in the states; it is just a cultural difference. North American publishers have done small-scale tests and they do not believe that there is a large market for pay-by-usage or micropayments in the US.
Case in point: World of Warcraft is pay-by-the-minute in China, and the client is a free download as opposed to a $50 boxed CD set.
I'll pass on point 1. I think the MMO world is going to use instances more and more (see Dungeons and Dragons Online.) Whether you consider that a MMORPG or not is up to you.
On point 2, however, Guild Wars has been out since when, April? May? They have added loads of new content, and haven't released a single expansion. $15/month is $180/year. I spent $40 on GW, and have had access to it for 9 months. COnsider World of Warcraft. Over that time, the WoW player who started in April (let's just say that's when GW started) has spent $50+($13*9) or $167. If GW released an expansion pack tomorrow for $40 (and that's the same amount I paid for the original game), I'm still ahead by $87. I could be ahead by more - the expansion packs will likely cost less than that. (The WoW calculations are generous - I assume the player pays the lowest possible amount - $13 - per month, even though that would only available to those who prepay in 6 month increments.)
Note: none of this makes any claims about which game is more fun. Also GW might very well change their expansion pack release schedule to something more frequent. I'm only observing what I've paid so far for GW, and what I'd have paid for WoW. WoW was chosen because it's a MMORPG that's very popular. I've also heard that they're to release an expansion pack shortly as well, cost unknown.
It's all about making money. Monthly costs in no way reflect the costs in development or maintainance.
They want to make revenue. They want to make as much as they can. And sadly publisher are just happier when their customers are paying an overly inflated price every month.
I played WoW for 4 months.
Minus the free month, I payed for 3, so that makes 40 Euros. Did I cost them 40 Euros when I was playing? Shit no!
The bandwidth costs next to nothing.
Support? I wrote them an Email once, they didn't answer.
Content updates? Bugfixes and stat corrections, done by maybe a few dozen people. Based on the amount you pay, the game should be getting signifigantly better every few months.
Character storage? Complete bull! Are they seriously suggesting this is an Issue? Even with quite a few characters the Data from one account could hardly exceed a few Megabytes. Gmail gives me 2.5 Gigs for free. The price I payed for the game, Blizzard should give my characters guarantee of existance for the rest of all eternity. Instead Blizzard deletes them if you go 6 Months without subscribing. Mine will be deleted next month. Why? They hope to scare me and get me to take up the subscription again so that I can keep my precious characters.
There is no reason why MMORPGs couldn't be completely free after paying full price for the game.
But the way it is, the publishers are making a fuckload of money, and they damn well want to keep it that way.
I don't want to start too much of a discussion about value, but there is no real reason anyone should have to pay 15 Dollars a month so they can play a game they already bought.
The price is totally unjustified. They say they've got 4 Million subscribers.
What kind of black hole have they got that needs $50 000 000 plus every month?