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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.
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.
Not my idea of worthwhile gaming, what about all your buddies you end up grouping up with? What will happen when they have purchased content you haven't and vice versa? Well, of course you will both have to purchase the missing content to play everything together!
Here would be the process; Develop game, beta test(get everyone clamoring for the full game), dismantle-scrap-cherrypick all the fun and otherwise entertaining pieces, charge the sorry bastards.
No words of wisedom here.
What other way is there to do it? If they weren't after money, then all of the features would be in the game.
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'
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..
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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
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.
The stuff I've seen for sale in MMOs like that was mostly items that can't be gained otherwise, lots of cosmetic stuff and some time-limited super bonuses like "double item drops" and "crafting cannot fail".
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Speaking of WoW, why should I have to pay every month to play a game that I paid for. Guild Wars is free once you buy the game. And Eve-Online is free for the game, but you pay every month. WoW skrews(sic) you instead.
Comparing Guild Wars to WoW is about as extreme as comparing Diablo 2 to EverQuest, which I've seen several people try to do. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, and assume they just aren't familiar with MMORPGs.
Basically, what it boils down to is that in the software industry, the majority of the costs go into developing and maintaining the software. The costs of manufacturing each individual disc is next to nothing. The costs are in creating the data that is pressed onto the disc. Before you can even think about selling a copy of something, you have to have something to sell. You have to pay people to design, develop, and test the software. You have to pay people to create artwork, music, sound effects, 3d models, etc. They all have to work together to create something, and if they are successful you will end up with the software that you can hopefully sell to at least make up for all of the money that was put into creating the software and continue to pay people to update the software when people who want to use it have trouble doing so. Anything made on top of this is profit, which is why someone would invest all of that money into development in the first place instead of just keeping it somewhere safe.
Now, when it comes to MMORPGs, you still have all of those software development costs. In addition, you also have to develop server software, hire people who can analyze the economics and game model to try to ensure that the gameplay and virtual economy inside of the MMORPG won't collapse or fall short, causing players to become disinterested, and the whole project to essentially be a waste of a lot of money and time. You also will likely need more designers, since this game will have to encompass the needs and desires of a lot of different players, without sacrificing too many of the needs or desires of other players.
The biggest difference is that in normal software development, when the software is released, you no longer need all of those designers, developers, etc. You may need one or two, so that they can provide updates to fix things that come up. For an MMORPG, there are still a lot of extra costs. In addition to developing and selling software, they also have to provide a service for that software to be used with. They have to pay people to keep that service maintained, and to continue designing and developing new elements in the game to give the subscribers to the service more stuff to do. So not only are the initial costs much higher, but the long term costs are also much higher.
Now, there are a lot of ideas that people are experimenting with to try and cut down the costs as well as the price. But investors typically want a model that is proven not to lose all of their money. They don't want to gamble, they want to invest. So, traditionally it's been independent developers who experiment with these new ideas. The easiest way to convince people to invest a lot of money into a new idea is by backing up your claims with proof, such as the independent developers who have already tried similar ideas and succeeded.
If you don't feel that the product is worth it's price, do NOT buy it. It's as simple as that. Play something else, use the competitor's product, etc. No matter how many people bitch and moan about their product, if they see high sales records they aren't going to listen to the people who are complaining. They are going to think, "many people are buying our product so we must know what we're doing". On the other hand, if the sales records are low, then they might be interested in listening to complaints and changing the product to satisfy them. Until then, they'll be afraid that changing the product to make the few people who are bitching happy could in turn make the people who are already buying the product unhappy.
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!