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Megatrends In Game Development
Gamasutra has a feature discussing some of the extremely common trends in current game design. Many publishers are looking at multi-player content and downloadable additions as necessities, rather than luxuries, for modern titles. Also on the rise is a focus on micro-payments; offering small-scale games, updates, and add-ons for a smaller fee than a full game. Similar to these is the subscription-based model, which Scott Jennings of NCSoft recently called "an arms race that few can even hope to compete in, much less win." From Gamasutra:
"Games relying on micropayments are founded on a somewhat different logic. Like fast gaming, these games are conceived to be immediate hands-on experiences, but are also designed to entice the players to deepen their experience of the game by purchasing affordable additional components. This economic model is fast-growing in Asia, and we can expect to witness an important impact on the west — perhaps even a major one. The design for such games will have to be thoroughly adapted, even for established genres such as racing games or shooters."
Yeah, not intereseted in micropayment-based games.
Find another sucker.
There is a war going on for your mind.
I think Steam / XBOX Live / Wii Ware / etc. have already started this "less than the price of a full game" model with quite a lot of success. I am often willing to pay $5-$10 to try something I am not willing to pay $40-$60 on.
I mentioned tinker-toys once in a post - now I'm modded down for life.
The only trend I've surely noticed is there's a lot more games coming out that always need more everything and deliver a lot less (unless you go by the face counts and seizure inducing flashes).
I don't know, I'm really just starting to lose interest in games in general, it's hard to find good stories in games compared to how damn many are coming out now.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
Player1:Yes I'd like to order the submachine gun, two grenades, and a can of napalm.
Player2: Hey give me the BFG with everything on it...
Player1: I'll have what he's having.
People have been selling items in Diablo 2 for forever and a day. The online play was free, and the people were "purchasing affordable additional components" to enhance their gameplay.
I'm sure this goes back even further in other online rpg games.
I guess it's only a micropayment if the company that provides the game is the same entity that sells the junk.
After all, Epic Megagames doesn't appear to have been responsible for any of these! (At least, not directly.) Clearly, they are just regular trends. As opposed to fads. Y'know, like Rock music is a trend.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
and here I thought the article was going to be about AMI moving from the BIOS industry into gaming.
The micropayment scheme is probably a fine system for a culture with vast differences in income. You get those who can only pay a little playing and get more income from those who are willing to pay a lot. Sort of a self adjusting price scheme to maximize profit.
I play for enjoyment and while I can afford to pay a fair bit would prefer not to. I will not enjoy encountering others who have payed more for flashy more powerful gear.
I will not be playing those games. So while the system might work for some it will fail for others.
" The design for such games will have to be thoroughly adapted, even for established genres such as racing games or shooters."
Of course, because, what works for MMO's must be successful in FPS's or Racing games... right?
Micropayments are not becoming more popular. Smaller payments are. The best example of a game based on the smaller payments model is WarHawk for the PS3. The game itself is reasonably cheap, and the expansions are all less then 10 euros. There is little reason NOT to buy them.
When a game, or an expansion is cheaper, it's less of a risk, and people will buy more. The idea of asking people to fork over 60 or 70 euros for a title which because of its industry has a relatively high probability of being mediocre is asking too much. People are less satisfied with their purchases, and will be more adverse to buying new games. Hence less games will be purchased.
Developers and publishers may finally have realized this. From my own experience, there are a lot of very reasonably priced titles ( 10 euros) coming out on the playstation network. Pixel Junk titles are so cheap at this price that there is practically no risk at all in purchasing them. "Ratchet and Clank: Quest for Booty" was only 4-5 levels long, but as it was priced at 16 euros, I can't say that that bothered me too much. I got my money's worth.
The problem here stems from fixed prices on games. Why are games like GTA4 and Motorstorm are both in and around the same price? It does not make sense, and all the games industry is doing is creating a market for lemons.
May the Maths Be with you!
I already avoid anything that's micro-payment based. Subscriptions, while I loath, I can understand. Micropayments, I cannot.
thefutureisbrown
Consider collectible card games like Magic. It could cost you hundreds of dollars to build an effective deck. Consider getting into D&D where you have to pay for rulebooks, dice, etc. Consider something insane like Warhammer (straight or 40k) where building an effective army will cost hundreds of dollars and starting an army from a different faction costs just as much. Let alone the time sink of painting everything, just think of the money!
What I'm surprised about is that nobody has ever considered trying the same sort of thing with online gaming. For example, let's look at the Warhammer 40k game that came out, Dawn of War. It started out with what, three playable armies? Then they came out with an expansion that had a crappy campaign and two new armies, and now I think they have another one out now. From what I saw of the first game, the multiplayer is pretty primitive but I can just imagine how they could progress it in the future. The price points on those expansions were pretty hefty.
With online distribution available for both computers and consoles, they could do something more along these lines. You get the initial game for $15, two races to choose from, standard units available. Continued gameplay will allow you to build points that unlock the advanced units. A mechanic like this was in use on Navy Field, the Korean WWII naval combat game. The more you played, the better the ship you could earn. The only problem is that the game had a tremendous grind component requiring way too much dedicated gaming to work up to serious capital ships. But keep the grind elements minimized and gameplay will be rewarded. Now six months after release, a new race is ready and their army can be deployed in the game. The army update can be downloaded by everyone so they can play against people using that army but if you want to use it yourself, you pay $10 to unlock that race.
The biggest thing I see lacking right now in these games is auto-ranking to pit gamers of equal skill against each other. I've played several games on Xbox Live and the general conclusion I've come up with is that either I just suck or those other people have way too much time on their hands for playing games. Given that the system is recording the player's performance, auto-ranking should be trivial, and you can always choose a non-auto-ranked host if you feel masochistic.
Now I know the first complaint everyone would have, this sounds like asking the publisher to nickel and dime you to death. Yeah, $5 horse armor in oblivion was stupid. What I'm talking about is paying a reasonable price to get into a game and then helping to fund continued development by giving the publisher a dependable revenue stream. Instead of gambling on continued interest in a sequel to a top-performing title from three years ago, the publisher is dropping content every three to six months, has a finger right on the pulse of the community and can gauge the level of interest. This should benefit everyone, just so long as the publisher doesn't get bought by EA. Then they'll just make a minor tweak to Whatever 2008 and call it Whatever 2009 for $60 MSRP.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
He is my favourite Transformer.
I'm interested in multi-player, but I want the co-op to be in the same room.
I really don't like playing on the Internet because that usually means my wife and I are looking at different screens.
I want another Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance or other SnowBlind engine games.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
I have only seen micropayments applied in shoddy "free" mmorpgs which claim to be free but require the player to spend money to get any sort of real progress, and allows players that do play to tromp all over those that don't. If I wanted a system that gave people with more money than me an advantage, I wouldn't have to play games :-p.
I have seen micropayments done properly - Puzzle Pirates runs separate subscription and pay-as-you-go servers, and it's reasonably fair. You get basic gameplay for free, and pay to gain access to extra content. Works rather well, IMO. (I only stopped playing after two years out of general "been and done" boredom).
If [game developers] want to help avoid piracy, this may be a method that helps. A good example of this would be American Mcgee's Grimm.. a game broken into multiple episodes with the first one being free! This allowed me to verify that the game sucked withOUT having to pirate the game!
Similar to these is the subscription-based model
I've recently found a very nice tool for things like warcraft, which I'm only a casual player of, that require subscriptions: virtual debit card. I pay for the month I want to play with a single use card, and play for a while when I have the chance. As is often the case, when I don't have time to play for a while, I don't have to keep paying for something I'm not using.
PC gamers expect their mods to be free and their addons to be high quality.
We don't want to pay for a mod unless it's a polished product.
We certainly don't want to pay for content that was pulled from the product to sell as DLC.
Battlefield: Bad Company is doing this now. PC Gamers don't want to be nickel and dimed to death with the cost of these addons.
In a few cases, the costs of the DLC adds up to twice the cost of the original game. All of this would be free on PC unless it were a separate addon product.
They're using their grammar skills there.
As a casual gamer, I find that with many MMO titles, I never get to experience the 'whole' game. In World of Warcraft, I do not have 39 buddies and two five-hour blocks of time a week, so I will never see a fair amount of the 'end game' despite the fact that I paid for it and continue paying for it. Analogies are suspect, but I somtimes feel as if i've paid $20 to see a movie, but am not allowed to watch the last reel.
A game where you are charged a minimal fee for the 'basic' game, and optional additional charges for more 'hardcore' content would be fine by me.
I know this won't fly in USA. Despite the underground economy of most MMOs, where player trade real life cash for items, anything official endorsement of such practice in form of item mall would turn large crowds away.
Besides considering the steep price of MMO subscriptions in USA, $15 a month, I doubt they they can make more money any other way. Most hardcore players already have more than one account, if you want to target them, you will lose money in the long run.
Is that in this industry at least (im sure it goes on elsewhere) regards a Micropayment as a 'MULTIpayment', theres nothing micro about 6-8 quid sterling and when you've done that a couple of times it really adds up.
Well, Bart, your uncle Arthur used to have a saying: "Shoot 'em all and let God sort 'em out."
All micropayments mean is being nickle and dimed to death, in the end you will end up paying more if not the same for a monthly subscription based game. The problem with micropayments is that I foresee only the very wealthy being able to play said games competitively, while other less fortunate souls struggle to play the game even on a basic level. In the end you divide up the communities by a economic classification which can hurt player interaction, force compartmentalization upon the player base, and restrict game play. I feel games already have enough restriction built into them, one more level of control in a control dominated environment is not needed.
Just sayin' the parallels are there.
Every time you hear "Its not piracy, its copyright infringement", industry hears "We should be putting this content on our servers, behind a pay-wall, where the folks who consume what we make will have to pay for it".
Its not industry's fault if your business model is broken.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.