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Would You Pay Pennies For Game Features?
Friday at GDC Austin saw the day starting with a keynote that may seem unusual to players unfamiliar with the Asian online gaming market. Nexon is a major player from the country of South Korea, boasting a handful of titles that see more users in a month than many well-known online games made here in the US. All of the company's titles, regardless of genre, have one thing in common: they're free to play, sort of. Microtransactions, the practice of paying a very small amount of money for an object or service, is what provides Nexon its revenue ... and plenty of revenue it is. Nexon America's director Min Kim gave a discussion on the realities of rolling Microtransaction-based titles out in the states, with a case study of the success of Maple Story's launch in our country.
Paying for added features is ok so long as those features are not deliberately omitted from the game so you have to buy them.
nickels for nipples?
I want to take Anarchy Online as an example. What they did (I don't know if that service is still running) is that you can play the original game without expansions free of charge. Only limitation is that you get kicked if the server load gets too heavy and paying customers are getting preference in slots on the servers (i.e. when a paying player wants to play, you have to wait). This is actually quite playable, you don't get access to all areas but it's still quite fun. Sure, you don't have access to the more current content, and you will level a lot slower than someone who does. But you can still get anywhere you could when the game was released, you can reach the (then existing) maximum of levels and if you're so inclined, switch to a paid account when you reach that limit. Imagine WoW sans Burning Crusade for free.
If the game's more like a demo, where you have access to only a severely limited version of the game where you have to pay to actually play "sensibly", it's a different matter. If you have to pay for something that you simply NEED to play at all, we're talking about bait and lure. It's only a buck here, only a buck there and in the long run, you pay a few 100 bucks for a game that you would've gotten for 50 if it was a "normal" game.
Generally, the idea is good, though. I'm honestly surprised that especially MMORPGs don't offer that kind of service, where you can either invest time to get a certain item or simply buy it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I've forked over my $100 (seems the average new game price down here) now give me the finished product thanks very much.
The problem is, as with every clever marketing strategy, that people will not realize how much money they actually spend.
i could pay pennies for not becoming a friendly fire target. damn
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Would You Pay Pennies For Game Features?
No, I wouldn't. I don't like being nickled and dimed.
I'd pay an extra $5 once in a while for something that's worth it but if the value is only a few cents then you should have given it to me when I paid for the game.
Exception to the rule: If the basic game was -free- but I had to pay pennies here and there for worthwhile features then I'd pay the pennies. I don't game often enough, so this would represent a value.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Look, people pay good money for cheat books to unlock all the bonuses and that money doesn't go back into game development -- instead, it pays a few guys to sit in a room and play games exhaustively. In capitalist terms, this is inefficient: the coders can do the job more quickly, hence cheaply. If they sell unlocks, the extra revenue they generate goes to the companies that are writing the games. In the long term, this means that the average player (he who has a bit of patience) pays marginally less.
HAL.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
My brother and I were at the local drinking well catching up and we were talking about Bioshock's anti-piracy measures. I thought they were too restrictive and harming the people who actually bought the game, he thought it was perfectly fine and well within reason to include such measures. During our argument I began making up ludicrous DRM schemes like the CD blew up after you installed the game, the game phoning the police to come arrest you if they thought you were pirating the game, etc. I came up with one where you were delivered about half the game. Every 100,000 purchases of the game (or whatever number you would like) the game unlocks another level or new content. We both laughed then stopped and thought about it... we could feasibly see this happening. After quietly reflecting for a moment he turned to me and said "Don't ever tell anyone about this. Ever. It could mean a new era of gaming suckage."
:)
I'm not too worried about it. Patent pending.
I keep telling myself I'm not the desperate type.
I'm addicted to MapleStory, and I often pay. Unlike WoW, where I'm required to fork over $15 a month, I can pay as much or as little as I'm willing and still get a fair amount of game experience. That is what keeps me there.
Now, the game comes with all the problems of a free online game, meaning that the individuals has little invested in the community, and for every good person, there's at least one or two assholes. The GMs have gotten better at policing them, but high level players who are willing to screw with you just because they're bored are not uncommon.
The other problem with the game, is that originally, the micropayments offered little gameplay advantage to those people who payed. It was limited to clothing items to customize your avatar, as well as other cosmetic changes.
Now, we can have pets that loot for you and give bonuses to speed and jump($12/3 months). Shops to sell things when you're offline($2/month to $10/month). Cards that give you 2x experience and 2x drops($19/month each). Teleport rocks so you can avoid waiting between continents($2 per use).
It's fairly easy to spend more than a normal pay only game, and those that do have a huge advantage over time than those that don't. There are people in the community that have hundreds, if not thousands invested in their characters.
Still, I get a good gaming experience for on average about $5/month, so I prefer it over a bigger commitment..
~~~
Click here, you know you wanna!
Has Ron been hired as slashdot headline writer?
i just started playing a mmorg you have to pay per month.
//
they also have a "item mall" where you can buy stuff.
i personally would never play a game where you would need to
pay real money for items in-game to be able to advance at a resenable
rate (armour, weapons, skills) even if the basic game is free;
tho i think i'd LUV to be an operator of such a game : )))
still looking for a a mmorg "that has it figured out" tho :
i'm sure there's more to come, oh goody!
Every file upload is 10 Linden Dollars (L$10), that's about 3c. Every group you create costs L$100, about 30c. Advertising costs L$. Land is paid for directly in US$, but you can earn that US$ credit in L$, or rent from someone else in L$ who pays monthly in US$... so you can pay for everything in L$, one way or another.
I don't think I'd pay pennies, but I'd definitely pay Schrute Bucks
Change your name to Homer Junior! Your friends can call you Hoju
NO and NO. Once I "buy" a game it had better damn well come with all the features the main game needs to be played. The war horse amour from Oblivion is one example of some that was not necessary but cool that I did buy. If I have to buy a games cores features to play on top of buying the game in the first place, well, that game company can go fuck themselves.
While I understand the knee jerk reactions that some have to this idea, they should realize that this isn't really a model for single player games IMO but more of a new model for Pay to Play games. So while this doesn't work for say Bioshock (I'd be pissed if 2k wanted to me to buy my Power to the People Terminals!) but it does work for online games. Right now the only legal currency in most MMO's is time, if you put in the time to "earn" (silly concept in a game) something its yours to keep or trade. Now, the problem is that most MMO's are closed systems meaning that even though you can trade, its only for in game items or money that were "earned" by someone else's time. I have long felt that any business model that favors the unemployed (they have lots of time) over skilled gamers who might not have as much free time, is flawed. Micro transaction based games at least offer a possibility of changing that model. The current system of favoring college students, the chronically unemployable, or those willing to break the EULA to buy stuff from IGE or other virtual to real money trader is dumb.
Yohoho Puzzle Pirates is free to play on doubloon oceans. If you want to buy things (swords, ships, houses, the better pieces of clothing) you will need doubloons, which you can buy with pieces of eight that you worked for or gained as booty from a pillage or you can purchase the doubloons with real money.
Most people play games to get away from that sort of economic social stratification bullshit.
I'd certainly pay pennies for a mod that replaced all the characters in Grand Theft Auto with political figures, celebrities, and one certain much-maligned lawyer.
Just started looking at a micropayments game, and once you work through the currency conversions etc, to outfit your character with the gear you cant get ingame, costs about as much as a retail game. Then there are on-going costs for consumables, to upgrade your gear or boost your development. I can see it being a better money-spinner for the game owner than traditional monthly subscription type MMOs, but that doesnt make it a better game for the player. Not having to pay to "get in" attracts one type of gaming vermin, whilst being able to "buy your way to uberness" attracts another. Worst of both worlds
Big Brother watching us has got to be better than us having to watch Big Brother
It would be nice to get a rebate on games where you aren't using all the features.
I wonder how many people would play WoW with the graphics dialed down to Atari 2600 quality...
I'm not an actor, but I play one on TV...
is that they are very rarely "micro."
...but is it art?
I used to play Maple Story (the Global version) and I have to say, people do pay for these "Microstransactions". You can pay money via Paypal which is then transferred into "NX Cash" which goes into your account, and then you can buy items in the "Cash Shop" such as Clothes (that cover your equipment, but you still get the skill bonuses from it) and things that help incredibly with the game, such as a permit which allows you to sell your items. I have to admit I did purchase some of the said NX Cash, and I see nothing wrong with doing so, especially because the game is free in the first place.
Sorry that should be Maple Story in the title.
At least, not with Nexon, not in the US.
I play Nexus TK, now owned by Kru Interactive, which apparently used to be called Nexon USA. They have been slowly moving more and more towards this model.
It used to be that the game was $9.95/mo for four characters, end of story. (Well, before that, it was a free Beta, but nevermind that.) It had been this way for almost decade, and still was when I joined last year.
The only exception was the free trial account, which went up to level 10, and lasted a week. (The game allows up to level 99, after which you can trade experience directly for stats, instead of levels.)
Then, Kru introduced the Item Shop. It runs on "kruna", a currency which can generally only be obtained by buying it outright with real money.
After everyone spammed "OMG! SELLOUTS!!!" on the Community board for long enough, we decided it's actually not that bad, for several reasons: First, everyone on auto-renewal gets a certain amount of "kruna" (currency for the Item Shop) free, every month. Second, item-shop items cannot be transferred to other characters, so you cannot buy them with in-game money. And third, they were pretty much all decorative items -- ball gowns, for example.
I actually was happy when something useful was added to the Item Shop, as I was sick of watching my Kruna pile up and not having anything to spend it on (I thought many of these items were ugly). It was also something we can technically live without -- an extra bank slot -- but it's something that people can and do buy whole separate accounts for, to have "bank characters". I would much rather buy permanent bank slots than pay an extra $10/mo for them.
Since then, it's been a bit like that old frog-in-a-pot scenario. Technically, no content has been added that you must pay to see. It doesn't hinder gameplay -- so far, it's not like people will refuse to hunt with people who don't use the Item Shop (and I generally don't).
But, there are lots of useful items. Take a look -- and here's a quick list, with explanations, of useful items:
Bank slot. Each type of item you deposit in the bank uses one bank slot. Characters have always each had 100 slots or so. This item adds up to 50 extra slots, permanently, one per item.
Teleport scroll. There are various flavors. All of them warp you to places that would ordinarily take at least 30 seconds to a minute to get to, and maybe longer. Understand, this is a huge game, but still, it's relatively quick to get around, even without these things.
Summonable mounts. They look cool (panthers instead of horses), and they are very practical. However, they're also not at all necessary -- it's possible to find horses just wandering around, hop on one, and ride it to where you need to go. This is not always possible, for practical reasons, but it's possible often enough that a summonable mount is a luxury, not a necessity.
Equipment restoration. Basically a repair. Just saves a bit of money, since it only repairs things that can ordinarily be repaired by NPCs, for in-game money. It does not repair "unrepairable" items -- for that, you still need to pay a Sam San Warrior to repair it for you.
Recall stone. Here, it starts to get just a bit unfair. This restores you to the point of your last death. Ordinarily, if you die, you either must be resurrected by a Poet, or you have to teleport back to a Shaman NPC -- and either way, the loss is the same. These were also introduced, I believe, when they did a particularly hard event -- one which had an insane amount of distance to travel, past very difficult monsters, in order to complete the quest -- and this was a one-time event, after the week was over, no one can complete the quest anymore.
Seraph pendant. And now it does seem outright greedy. Ordinarily, when you die, you lose some experience. After level 99, when you die, you lose half of your total
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
It would just result in one of those games, like pokemon the gathering, where the object is to give the publisher as much money as possible.
That doesn't sound all that much fun to me. If the process of getting the loot isn't fun, why are you playing in the first place?