South Korea's Free Computer Game Business Model Hits the US

Anti-Globalism writes with this excerpt from AFP via Yahoo! News: "Seoul-based 'free-to-play' computer game titan Nexon on Wednesday blasted into the US videogame arena with a 'Combat Arms' online first-person shooter title that makes its cash from optional 'micro-transactions' by players. The game makes its money from players that buy animated helmets, outfits, emblems or other virtual items to customize in-game characters. To keep the battlefield even, players earn experience or advanced weaponry by skill so people essentially can't pay for power. ... Startups and established game makers including Japanese goliath Sony are venturing into the free computer game market, according to DFC Intelligence analyst David Cole. 'It looks like it could be very big,' Cole told AFP. 'It's one of the things everybody seems to be looking at. The challenge is it is a very new model and it remains to be seen whether customers used to a free model will be tight when it comes to actually spending money on it.'"

Comments

Hrmm

[acehole]

So essentially, people will be paying for pieces of flair on their characters?

How many pieces of flair should you wear to express yourself?

Re:Hrmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Stan wears 37.

Re:Hrmm

[JohnSearle]

So you're arguing that we should bring the class distinction into the gaming world as well? The rich get the most powerful items / weapons because they can be afforded, and the poor are left with either purchasing beyond their means, or being hindered? and, yes I do understand this is probably minimal amounts of money, but the more resources controlled in this manner, the more the cumulative costs will be.

This would also means that the gaming companies will most likely incrementally increase the power of items to keep people purchasing new thing (and to perhaps keep people interested in this type of system). Most MMORPG's do this with their incremental additions of more powerful equipment, levels and stats with game expansions. The only difference is that they encourage equal opportunity, in that they ban external trading.

I don't know about you... but I prefer to play in a system that encourages equal opportunity.

- John

A new age of micro-transactions?

[compumike]

We've heard about micropayments for years, mostly for web content. But clearly this kind of market for virtual goods emerged in WoW -- without the explicit support of the company. It looks like the vendors are catching up! Still, there are lots of games that aren't based on continuous user profiles, and where the imbalance created might be significant and disruptive.

The other concern I have is about how to manage this between kids and parents. It's one thing to have a fixed up-front payment to buy a game, but to have kids (teens) linking credit cards (or even pre-paying) to a game seems like it might not go over well with the parents...

--
Hey code monkey... learn electronics! Powerful microcontroller kits for the digital generation.

Re:A new age of micro-transactions?

[plasmacutter]

So far as teenagers linking credit cards to the games.

We've had pre-paid charge cards for online transactions for a while, with the explicit purpose of allowing minors access online "credit" transactions without involving the related credit approvals required with "real" credit lines.

This sounds like an excellent place to apply it.

You get X dollars a month to spend on this game, when you run out you run out.

An interesting market experiment...

[creature124]

I have played several Korean MMO's (with engrish interfaces, of course) based off the business model (Maple Story, Flyff and the like), and from my experience, most people can't/won't spend money on them, but those that do tend to spend big, customizing every piece of equipment they possible can. The fact that these games are still running several years on is proof of profitability.

It will be interesting to see how this pans out. It might be quite nice to play a free game with decent english ingame.

Not nearly the first

[neostorm]

Nice. This article forgets that there are tons of free-to-play MMO's already available in the US.
Knight Online
Fly For Fun
Granado Espada

And lets not forget our own domestic free-to-plays, such as Guild Wars, Minions of Mirth, Graal Online and the like.

Here's a great resource for all of these- http://www.gameogre.com/

Kingdom of Loathing

[ThreeGigs]

http://www.kingdomofloathing.com/

Different type of game entirely, but same basic business model. And they've been doing things that way for 4 years now. Free to play, but $10 gets you a nifty trinket.

Yes, the business model works in principle and in practice. And it's about time that more genres of games that use that model become available.

This is old news ..

[Saffaya]

Every MMO to appear in Korea for several years now have been based on the Free-To-Play model.
Even those who were launched on a subscription one migrated to it, forcing their western licencees to do the same.

Example :
_RF Online (CodeMasters dragged their feet but had to accept the free to play model)
_Granado Espada aka Sword of the New World (K2 Networks wanted a hybrid system, but had to change to a pure free to play one)

Even legacy power house Lineage 2 from NCsoft is heading towards a cash shop item addition to its subscription based model.

More recent ones like Perfect World are free to play from the start.
To sum up :
Free-to-Play IS the de facto business model in asia, and has been for years. The western licencees also are bound to use free to play.

WOW so many bad facts

[Foo2rama]

www.k2network.met Has been bringing in Free to play microtransaction games into the US for awhile like 3 years Warrock an FPS and Sword of the New WOrld... Hell even Nexon brought had one like 6 years ago in the US with Shattered Galaxies. As for Virtual markets... EQII runs it own, and even UO had a strong real money economy going.