Cryptic's Roper Explains Microtransactions For Champions Online

Karen Hertzberg writes "Many MMO gamers have expressed concern over the recent announcement that micro-transactions would play a role in the upcoming release of Champions Online. Knowing that MTs can be a touchy subject for fans, Ten Ton Hammer sat down with Bill Roper for an interview. He reveals more about Cryptic's take on the business model, what type of items you can expect to find through MTs, and how the system will be integrated into Champions Online come launch day. Roper said, 'The idea is wanting to be able to have things there that players can get if they want to, but they don't negatively impact the balance of the game. It's not like we're expecting players to go and purchase things through micro-transactions that then give them some huge leg up. All those things I think people get worried about, but really the focus is on having things that are fun, cosmetic or are things that are more account-wide and maintenance based.'"

Comments

Corpo-Speak

[dcollins]

There's a lot of bull being thrown around in that interview. In response to the first question about whether the US market can accept micro-transaction games:

"I think a great example of that is Rock Band. That game is based wholly on micro-transactions and has a really high cost of entry, you know? With Rock Band you're not just buying the game, you're buying all of the peripherals and equipment... World of Warcraft has micro-transactions and people don't even think about it. Their micro-transactions are fairly steep at times - like $25 to move your character to another realm - and that's account-wide micro-transactions."

If an item is "really high cost" and/or "fairly steep", then it's not a micro-transaction, duh. And look, our game is comparable to both Rock Band and WOW, right.

City of Heroes has been doing this.

[Chas]

Seriously, this isn't necessarily some huge, game-breaking thing.

Their previous product, City of Heroes, has been doing this for over a year now with Super Boosters.

What these boosters deliver are a few extra costume options, some extra emotes and what is usually a neat, but relatively useless power.

The first, though not officially a "super booster" was the Wedding Pack

SuperBooster I: Cyborg

SuperBooster II: Magic

SuperBooster III: Superscience

The only thing that has me worried...well, not worried, but apprehensive is that it sounds like they're going to allow the purchase of actual, game-changing items.

If that's ACTUALLY the case, then you DO have something to worry about other than the lousy play mechanics in the game.