Slashdot Mirror
MMOGs Branch Out
Via Kotaku, a Wall Street Journal article looking at ways the Massively Multiplayer genre are opening up to new players. Besides new game genres, the article discusses changes in revenue collection schemes. From the article: "The industry's traditional business model is to charge about $50 for the game software and a monthly subscription fee of about $15 for online play. That model has proved risky: When a game is highly popular, the monthly fees yield steady revenue streams for many years. Some of the industry's earliest hits, such as EverQuest, released in 1999, still have many users. But monthly fees have been "a significant barrier" to growing the market, said John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment, based in San Diego."
but:
1) I'm shit at games
2) I don't have much free time
3) I'd get addicted and lose my job
Would I be happier with a shittier job, a small residence and spending all my time playing games? Hmm...
Personally, I would be more inclined to play a MMOG if I wasn't charged a monthly fee. When I already have to pay $50 a month for DSL/Cable connection, another $50 for my cell phone, $35 for my land phone line, $50 for Cable/Satellite television, how on earth can I justify paying $15+ a month to play a game I spend $50-60 for at the store? They aren't necessarily providing me a service in the sense that the previously mentioned items are. Or are they? World of Pirates is a fun one and it is only a one-time charge of $20 to play. Granted its not World of Warcraft, but its an enjoyable clone of the old Sid Meier's game, and its all online, and it plays on relatively old machines.
But I bought it a couple of weeks ago and have played it for maybe 20 hours so far. It seems pretty good but for the last few days I've been struck down with a horrible illness that's left me with little energy to do anything except sit and wait to get better, including...playing games.
There's the beauty of the Guild Wars model for me, when I played WoW I'd be annoyed if I couldn't play for an extended period of time (my trip to the USA for the whole of June last year, for example) since I'd be paying for that time even though I wasn't actually getting anything out of it. With GW I don't have that annoyance and don't feel I should be playing more than I feel like just to make sure I get a "good deal" on a monthly subscription charge.
I'm currently hooked on Dark Age of Camelot. One of the things I absolutely hate about it is that each new expansion pack has introduced obscenely overpowered races, classes, and items, presumably to entice everyone to rush out and buy it. In the process, classic races and classes have been rendered obsolete, and whole zones of the game world have been left empty and forgotten. Not only is this a source of frustration for players who don't feel like starting a new character, but from a business standpoint, it seems like a terribly inefficient way to develop a game. They've basically thrown out all the time and energy they invested into designing those old zones and classes. And in their rush to market, the quality control on the expansions is terrible. Trials of Atlantis was released, what, two and a half years ago? They've come out with two major expansions since then, Catacombs and Darkness Rising, yet the ToA encounters are still riddled with bugs, and they're still grudgingly undoing the horrible game balance issues introduced by ToA.
I like the Eve Online model, myself. The game is free to buy and can be downloaded from their site. Monthly fees are about average for the market, and go down if you buy them in larger quantities at a time. You can cancel your subscription and they will hold your character and account for a -very- long time (they did it for me for 8mo) without you paying a nickel, and you can resume with all your cash, skills, items, etc. later, so cancelling a subscription for a 1mo vacation, or while you move if you know it will take a month or two to get the 'net hooked up again, or whatever, and it's all good. Also, the server goes down for 1hr. a day for maintenance, and patches / x-packs are released (free of charge) on a regular basis. That's not to mention that they regularly set records for most players simultaneously playing on a single server, or that they are ranked at the top on mmorpg.com for quite some time. It's an awesome model, and something I would love to see other companies strive to meet.
Unpleasantries.
ArenaNet (developers of Guild Wars) did away with monthly payments to play, but instead decided to generate their additional revenue by way of expansion modules. The first one should be on the shelves fairly soon. Included in the modules are things like additional playable races, more lands to discover, additional items and skills, etc. Instead of forcing the users to pay every month whether they play or not, it is up to the users themselves whether (and when!) to purchase the modules. As noted elsewhere here, being away from your computer for a few weeks doesn't feel like throwing money away!
Flagship Studios' forthcoming debut title Hellgate:London will likely follow a similar path.
I run a very sucessful online gaming community, but never have much time to play. Avoiding being locked into a monthly fee suits me just fine.
TPJ - Founder, The Amazon Basin
Oh sure, there will always be people who say they won't pay a subscription on top of the box fee. Some of the more insane even bring up their internet connection fee. This is a bit like people who object to having to pay for gas after they bought a car. Even when they pay roadtax!!! The outrage!
WoW has proven that whatever anyone thought about the MMO industry was wrong. The market had not been saturated. There was no objection against paying a monthly fee. People were not tired of fantasy worlds with orcs and elves.
People just wanted a game that was fun to play without to many game crippling bugs. No matter how rough WoW has been it was nothing compared to games like EQ and UO wich were at launch so bad it begged believe.
The subscription fee however is indeed a barrier. Against kiddies seeking to grief. While it doesn't stop them the costs involved keep games like WoW and EQ/SWG cleaner then say a guildwars. As to the few totally free games. Well, browse slashdot at -1 for an instant impression.
There will be different ways of "selling" an MMO but I think the old and tried box+monthy subscription model is far from death. In fact WoW should have revived it a lot. Wich company could possibly resists years of receiving hundreds of millions of revenue. Most game companies drool at the thought of making that during the launch of a game and Blizzard is doing it month after month after month.
SOE failed, Blizzard succeeded. Now it will be intresting to see if anyone else can copy WoW's success or wether it was something unique.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
2-3 hours at a movie = $15.
If you spend more than 3 hours having fun in a MMORPG, it's well worth the $15/month.
I don't get why people are adverse to such a small monthly fee.
Guild Wars is NOT an MMOG. Or, rather, if you call GW a MMOG, then all games that consist of a lobby area and instanced versions of the game are also MMOG: Counterstrike, Unreal Tournament, etc. There's a big difference between playing with a group of people in an instance and with a large number of players in a large zone.
Guild Wars is an evolution of Diablo 2 and it is a fun game, but it isn't a MMOG comparable to WoW, Everquest, etc. In fact, Battlefield 2 is more of a MMOG than Guild Wars, I'd argue.
Vincent J. Murphy
Spandex Justice
EverQuest is still chugging along seven years after launch, still making money, still releasing expansions and enhancing the game. In what universe could you ever call SOE and by extension, EQ a failure. It's been an unqualified success.
In six more years, then you can compare WoW and EQ.
I play WoW. I sit in long queues every night. I get random disconnects. Farmers own places I would like to solo (they even try to sell people stuff in BGs). Some things are severely broken. The endgame is deathly dull and repetitive.
It's hardly the end-all, be-all of games.
I agree with you, though... the subscription model still seems like a wild success. But wouldn't it be even nicer if one subscription let you play any of a dozen games? And by that I mean real games, not a big game and ten you would never ever play.
Sort of like the cable service. 500 games. One fee.
This article brought up an interesting revelation in my mind. It stated at the end how the number of retiree's playing MMO's is increasing. Now my mom and dad were born in the 50's, they'll be retiring in 10 years, and they introduced ME into gaming. My first memory is at 4 years old playing an educational game called Mixed Up Mother goose. As I got older I actually played Diablo II online (on the realms) with my mom when she was out of work. My dad played games like CnC Generals and the likes. My mom has recently even given games like EQ and WoW a shot. It makes perfect sense if they were to retire tomorrow (unlikely) that they would pick up MMO's. Even my grandma has confessed to me she's played her slot machine game until 4am on some nights ("wow grandma I didn't know we had that much in common") Now my conclusion is that if games become more user friendly to begin with, easier to pick up and get interested in and allow for a larger interest and larger market it is very possible and logical to me that retirees, in 15+ years (and even more so come the time gen X retires), may very well replace your typical retiree activities of today (think Bingo, knitting, romance novels, etc.) Compare the demographic similarities of your average mmo player (16-20 something) and a retiree: Lots of free time Moderate levels of expendable income (or access to it like parents/kids) The desire to do something that involves commitment and shows progress (think knitting, quilting, crafts) Now future retirees will have more tech savy and important factors like being able to understand a sort of virtual world, but other than both my parents slow repsonse time (another thing I think will slowly change) it seems perfectly viable for a retiree to be the next MMO demographic. Or maybe my family has a genetic addictive personality and for some reason all of it gets channeled into video games and vodka (in grandma's case)
This article brought up an interesting revelation in my mind. It stated at the end how the number of retiree's playing MMO's is increasing. Now my mom and dad were born in the 50's, they'll be retiring in 10 years, and they introduced ME into gaming.
My first memory is at 4 years old playing an educational game called Mixed Up Mother goose. As I got older I actually played Diablo II online (on the realms) with my mom when she was out of work. My dad played games like CnC Generals and the likes. My mom has recently even given games like EQ and WoW a shot.
It makes perfect sense if they were to retire tomorrow (unlikely) that they would pick up MMO's. Even my grandma has confessed to me she's played her slot machine game until 4am on some nights ("wow grandma I didn't know we had that much in common")
Now my conclusion is that if games become more user friendly to begin with, easier to pick up and get interested in and allow for a larger interest and larger market it is very possible and logical to me that retirees, in 15+ years (and even more so come the time gen X retires), may very well replace your typical retiree activities of today (think Bingo, knitting, romance novels, etc.)
Compare the demographic similarities of your average mmo player (16-20 something) and a retiree:
Lots of free time
Moderate levels of expendable income (or access to it like parents/kids)
The desire to do something that involves commitment and shows progress (think knitting, quilting, crafts)
Now future retirees will have more tech savy and important factors like being able to understand a sort of virtual world will become more prevelant, but other than both my parents slow repsonse time (another thing I think will slowly change) it seems perfectly viable for a retiree to be the next MMO demographic. Or maybe my family has a genetic addictive personality and for some reason all of it gets channeled into video games and vodka (in grandma's case)