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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.'"
Roper has confused microtransactions with on-line purchases. How did he get that job? A microtransaction is a charge so small that you don't really notice it and the charge is made in such a way that its not really noticed, and dont require any complicated action, by the buyer. I don't understand how anyone can confuse that with buying a char transfer for WoW, or buying something from iTune's.
Microtransaction = Cheating. Its like the rich kid who gets al the best baseball equipment and coaching. It leaves the other teammates feeling like he cheated. In fact he did, because his effort is as much a product of his parents money as it is his skill, and so it is here. the game world is really supposed to exist in itself. In a monthly pay game, when you get the magic sword you got it by working for it, not buying it at the store because you have a great job outside of the fantasy world. THis is why gold farmers are all about cheating. Here you have the publisher becoming the gold farmer. MMO's and all RPG's are supposed to be about merit and skill. When you take that away you destroy your achievements.
Microtransactions: This would be the payment model that has so much going for it: 1.Instead of playing the games to win items you buy them.. so the point of playing is to allow the folks with money to burn work less? 2.The model that relies on a few people subsidising the rest of the player base, hoping that the urge to compete will cause people to shove coins in like some fruit machine that never pays out. 3.Lets companies who can't come up with outstanding original products to compete with World of Warcarft give in and try to beg for spare change instead. Welfare for failed MMOs? We don't need to improve our products or stop churning out crap, we can just rip people off to get money instead.. YYAAYY. 4. How about crafting in games? Didn't the 'fluff' items used to come under the skill sets. Interesting to see that Cryptic on other news sites are saying that solo players wont need to be in 'guilds' to win the same items. Not going in your nice little shop are they? Even if the items on sale do stay at the 'cosmetic level' does anyone really think that if this games gets established that someones eyes wont light up with the chance to claim they've boosted profits with a little 'greying' of the line between cosmetic and useful gameplay items. 5. The argument 'Other games do it' Most games give a way free items, for example pre-ordering boxed sets you might get a free mount. Given that most MMO games struggle to get one expansion pack out a year at best, it's going to be pretty much impossible to see a regular flood of items. Plus these are free things that come with buying an expansion pack and are not created for their own sake, they are little bits of blurb on the side of a box. Can anyone tell me a good reason how this all benefits the majority of game players.. please? Oh, and it's not a Free to play game, so you still have to pay a months subs up front, so all the cheapskates out there hoping to get a free game, well you're out of luck :) Not that I don't think my above arguments don't apply to real f2p games anyway. The price of a months subs for just about any of these onlines games is usually around, or less than, the price of a DVD that will be watched once and thrown in a pile to gather dust and never be seen again. To be brutally honest if you can't afford this each month you can't afford the prioce of the fancy graphics cards to run them. But that's not the argument here, this is just dumb.
Only last year the studio was releasing interviews describing micro transactionas as dumb, I wonder whose been arm twisting for this. Surely that Star Trek IP doesn't come cheap...
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.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
This sounds a lot like the subscriber/non-subscriber deal from Hellgate London. Either way, if Bill Roper gets his hands in like Flagship, this mmo, microtransactions or no, won't see it's first birthday.
Anyone looked up the term "Flagshipped"?
There was nothing wrong with the game Hellgate London but they screwed the pooch with a bad payment model by trying to sell a game as an MMO that was definitely not an MMO.
I smell a another debacle in the making. Bill Roper at the helm is apparently not a good idea.
"If I were bound by all laws everywhere I'm sure I would have committed a capital crime somewhere."
That's nonsense right there.
You assume everyone is equal right now, and that's simply not true. There are enough people in MMOs that have multiple accounts and pass money from one to the other. There are people with nothing else to do, who can grind all day, and there are people with job, friends, family, who can't.
If you want an "everyone is equal" game, play chess or go. MMOs aren't equal as they are now. Adding micro-transactions simply allows people who have a job to offset their time disadvantage compared to people without a job with something else that they have that the others don't.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I always see incredibly negative feedback to micro transactions in subscription games. While forum polls are obviously very biased by the vocal minority, they tend to also have an overwhelmingly negative response to questions about integrating micro payments into subscription MMOs. My impression is that a non-trivial percent of MMO players will not subscribe to a game that also integrates micro payments in a substantial way. Perhaps marketing research has shown that the revenue from micro payments will more than offset the cost of lost subscriptions, but I personally consider it to be a bold gamble. There's a certain value proposition in the MMO market, and if you're saying your game is worth both a subscription fee and micro payments you're really going to have to deliver something that other companies aren't.
Even in WoW, where the micro transactions are hidden behind the card game there is often a general sentiment of contempt for those players who show off their card game items. Ride your Goblin Rocket around and while some players will ooh and aah others will be laughing at you.
The comparison to Rock Band, or to paid character transfers are entirely ridiculous when talking about access to items and content in an MMO.
Well, I understand your point and would even side with it, if it was indeed that. Except it probably isn't. Even the summary mentions that they don't want to actually sell things which would break balance or give someone a leg up.
For example, since largely it's the same people who came up with City Of Heroes, here's what COH sells: higher resolution costume pieces.
If you come from an EQ/WoW school of MMO, that may sound like an advantage right there, but in reality it's 100% cosmetic. The costume or weapon don't have any stats or DPS like in WoW or EQ. The defense and attack powers are inherent in the super-hero, not in the costume pieces.
If you want to pretend that your hero gets his powers from some magical bracers, you put that in your description and wear some bracers. But technically the in-game bracers don't actually do anything. They're just a visual prop.
So really what you can buy in COH are some meshes and textures for your character. The only benefit is looking good, not extra DPS, nor extra defense, nor anything else which would actually translate in any actual in-game advantage.
The only morally questionable item they have for sale for RL cash is a jetpack. But the funny thing is, you can get an identical (performance-wise) jetpack at level 5 by just doing the bank mission, and at level 14 you can get an innate power that's actually faster. On the COV side, you can get 3 different ones, or you can just hike your butt to Grandville and buy one for a very small price in in-game currency even at level 1. Grandville _is_ the top level area but there are no enemies between the boat and the vendor.
So realistically the only advantage you'll get out of it is at levels 1 to 5. Or maybe 1 to 6 if you do that bank mission later, or had a ton of rested xp at level 4.
And it's only transportation. For about an hour (because that's about how long levels 1 to 5 take) you have faster transport than you would have had normally, but it won't help you at all in a fight.
Now I do have a bit of a moral problem even with the transport advantage, but, let's face it, it's not like it'll break the game if a newbie is spared running a couple of miles total on foot in their first hour. If anyone is silly enough to pay RL money for that, well, let's just say it'll tick me off a lot less than the guys paying RL money for gold to buy purple twink gear in WoW.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
FTFA: "And it's not even because that item has a gameplay effect; it's that cool mount, or that cool pet that is a super rare drop or that kind of thing. [...] But if I had the opportunity to get something that was similar or something that I felt was equally cool, so not even necessarily the exact same thing, I might say, 'Oh cool, I'm going to buy this cool pet for myself.' I don't think that negates from the enjoyment of my game, or the enjoyment other people have with their game because they're going to be getting stuff that's equally as cool if not cooler by playing, but they didn't have to spend any money on it." ...except that then it would no longer be "super rare" or, probably, "cool". Duh.
I don't understand the MT hate. You aren't forced to buy anything from Cryptic off of the MT store and they have said everything you can buy will be earnable by playing the game. I will take them at their word here -- if they are selling a silly hat on the store, then I expect to be able to somehow earn it in the game if I don't want to buy it.
This is just a bunch of people who think having Tier 8 or whatever actually matters. If you are a gear whore -- then you can still earn gear the "legit way". If you want to collect the pets, you can still get your pets the legit way. I think the big thing is they maybe should consider making it clear that someone bought and item vs earned it. Maybe an A and B Variant.
What this does do is let people who can only do 1 aspect of the game -- say Raid or Farm get the other stuff. If I only have time to Raid, but I want the special horse you get for farming -- I am kinda screwed, but now I could just buy the horse off of the MT store.
The whole "well Rich Kids will benefit" thing is silly -- currently the person with the most time benefits or who is lucky or who bought stuff off ebay and the rich kid might already have 2 or 3 accounts. I don't care if you earned it by beating the boss -- it has no effect on my enjoyment of the game if you bought your gear or earned by playing a lot more time than me.
In fact I like the MT -- My little brother is in college -- he plays WoW 20+ hours a week.
I work a full time job and play 8 hours a week. He gets items I don't have time to get and he wants me to run dungeons that I am "not geared enough" to run. Now with Microtransactions I have a choice -- I can play the game and keep hoping for a drop or trying to craft an item -- or I can go online, buy the item I need so people consider me "geared enough" and then start questing with my brother. When dungeons have a gear level requirement -- to do Ulduar most people want Tier 7 at least gear as an example -- well if I don't have time to run Naxx enough to get geared up for Ulduar -- I can pay a few bucks and start questing with my bro.
In WoW (and most MMOs), getting gear from Dungeons is luck based. I ran Strat 80 times before I got my lightforge pants. I would have bought them off the store instead of running the dungeon. In theory since it is luck based -- you might not ever get the drop you want -- it might not drop or someone might out roll you.
As long as people are not forced into Microtransactions -- I don't see the problem. The only issue is if you measure your e-peen because you have Tier 8 before everyone else and think that actually means something... until Tier 9 comes out...
To make poeple happy they could always change the name of items. Like if you get an item drop it could be named "Gloves of the Eagle" where as if you bought it off the Games store they could be "Gloves of the Eagle B" or something, same stats and whatnot, just letting people know "hey Wolfd00d bought these". I wouldn't care, but this way e-peens can still feel good about themselves.
Well, I understand your point, but the alternative is that it's designed by Jack Emmert (Statesman) like COH :p
Now the game had a lot of good ideas (for my taste) and I still love the superhero setting. So Statesman gets my recognition for that.
But seriously, the game had _massive_ balance problems that could have been avoided by just doing some arithmetic on the back of a napkin. Jack Emmert was also genuinely surprised as to what happened to his game's balance when you just use level 22 equipment. Seriously, stuff like that a power that was supposed to be situational actually became _more_ than permanent (it actually stacked with itself!) if you use more than two standard equipment pieces available in bog-normal stores at level 22 was a surprise to him.
And attempts to rebalance it are best described as turning the knobs from 10 to 0 and then back to 10 and seeing what happens. Fixing the "city of blasters" screw up created the "city of fire tankers" screw up. Your hero could go from zero to god-mode and back to nobody in 3 consecutive patches. The last rebalancing attempt that Mr Emmert oversaw was the ED; and although as a principle something like that needed to be done, the way it was done actually broke whole "sets" of powers, like making Defense (and any tanker or scrapper who was based on that) useless.
I know someone will probably go "yeah, well, WoW nerfs players occasionally too" but trust me, WoW never did anything even close to the _scale_ of COH's balance swings. When you got boosted in a patch, suddenly you could do dungeons instanced for 8 people by yourself. Better yet, you could herd every single soul in the dungeon with impunity. At equal level. Then some patch would come and move you from that to non-viable overnight. _That_ kind of wild balance swings.
And all balance calculations for attack chains were made by players on the boards for him in the end, because two years after launch Cryptic was still using the wrong variable and not understanding what the limiting factor in an attack chain is.
Other elementary ideas also apparently weren't obvious either in design or in the beta. Like that in a game based on fighting large groups instead of one big boss, the tank _needs_ an AOE taunt. Seriously, you were apparently supposed to fight platoon sized groups with a single-target taunt.
COH only began to recover and become something stable and balanced after Statesman stepped down and Positron took the lead.
So if they can get someone responsible for Hellgate to do more of the CO design instead of Emmert... please, please, please, let them. Bring in John Romero too while we're at it :P
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
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.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
How small are you thinking of? According to the Wikipedia article they're defining it as anything "to mean payments too small to be affordably processed by credit card or other electronic transaction processing mechanism". Furthermore, below they refine it to often transactions below a dollar. THAT should include an iTunes purchase, no? That said, a character transfer in WoW is CLEARLY NOT a microtransaction (why they rape you like that for a transfer, I'll never know), so I agree with you there. :)
"Gratuitous complexity is akin to chaos" - True Vox
I've never seen anyone give a reasonable response to this question, so I'll ask you:
Why do you care about how other people in the game came about obtaining the powers they have?
If I play for 30 minutes and get myself a +1 sword of backscratching (which sounds about like what the Champions guy was talking about - nothing major, just minor bennies) or I pay $.50 to get the same thing, what possible difference will it make to you that I've done so?
Please don't say that players who buy things vs. players who "earn" them in game are different - I've met *plenty* of people with months /played in various games who are among the worst when it comes to teaming, and I've met people who bought high-level characters off of eBay who are among the best. And do remember, they're talking about stuff that is mostly cosmetic and extremely low-powered/convenience stuff, not "buy a max level character" or "buy the power cosmic for your character" kind of stuff. So what's your reasoning for why it matters?
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
That's fine for you, but a lot of people find it stupid that you could progress in a game by buying your way through it. The whole point of end game in most MMOs is to work with other people to get better gear. There is no need to run Ulduar with your brother if you could just buy the Ulduar gear. There is nothing to work towards so people would quit the game after they beat all the dungeons which would be trivial since everyone would have bought the best gear. Gear is the game.
And gear progression isn't really all that hard in WoW. Give a few months and people are so well equipped they can just run you through the dungeon that was so hard before and let you take the gear.
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I will not play a game that rewards, or give extra benefits to, those who give cash to the company. Charge everyone a small fee, but keep everyone equal.
Well that isn't the case even now. What is the difference between a lawyer who works 60 hours a week who buys a WoW character than his wealthy retired client that sit at home all day and grinds characters?
I doubt many wealthy retirees or busy lawyers play WoW, but my point is the same. Wealthy in the real world can get you a better character passively or actively.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
He will always be the voice of the Warcraft footmen to me. Microtransactions blah blah blah AT ONCE SIRE
No, the term Microtransaction has become a standard definition for MMO's that have items for purchase, ranging anywhere from $1 to $10 or so. The credit card/financial definition is certainly the source of the term, but its definition is now pretty irrelevant when talking about MMOs.
If you say a MMO with microtransactions, that means they will have a store of items that will cost a few bucks or so. The reason this is a big deal is that with a subscription-based MMO, this is faily uncommon, and is seen as being greedy. Microtransactions are usually only seen in Free to Play or Freemium (Free but with a premium subscription option) MMOs, as that would be their primary form of revenue generation. In subscritpion-based MMOs, it's just seen as a lame attempt to milk more cash out of already paying customers.
I think this is a bad idea and is nothing but a cash grab. I know I will definately be avoiding Champions now. The thing that worries me is there are rumors they will do this with ST:O as well. I don't like being a part of games where RL income can affect how you do in the game. I quite frankly see it as a form of cheating.
There's also the fact where the 'standard' content suffers because they reserve things for the pay item store. In freebie MMOs this is expected, but when you're already paying a subscription and for boxes of the game, that's just bullshit.
And there's also the fact I know I don't have the self-control and would probably spend exhorbitant amounts of money if I ever tried to play one....
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1) Some people don't like repeating a dungeon 30 times to get all the drops. They like beating it a few times and moving on to PvP or whatever they enjoy more.
2) If you bought WoW now -- you would have to level to 80, clear Heroics, do Naxx, then Ulduar and then get ready for the next stuff -- if you want to be elite. It is just easier and more fun if they sold maybe Tier 8 but made you earn Tier 9, then once Tier 10 is out, start selling Tier 8.
3) I agree it is fine line between buying gear and people just quitting because their is no carrot.
4) Gear progression isn't hard. As others have stated -- MMOs are pretty easy, what is hard is how time consuming they are. No matter how you slice it, WoW takes a fair amount of time.
This is a site with microtransactions:
http://pacer.psc.uscourts.gov/pacerdesc.html
Yes, the US government runs the site. PACER is intended to give access to court documents, however, to protect the business models of Westlaw and Lexis-Nexis there is an $0.08 charge per page, for both legal filings and for varying definitions of a page for many HTML rendered pages.
In the last quarterly billing cycle I managed to generate $38 in fees, so yes microtransactions do suck and are an extremely bad idea.
Impersonating Tycho from Penny Arcade since before there was a PA.
Whereas I would because I don't really give a crap that other people can buy extra stuff. I'll enjoy the cheaper game without that stuff. Of course I'm probably exactly the player they don't want, which is lucky since I last all of 1 week on MMOs before they bore me silly and I never touch that one again.
Isn't this from the guy that ran Hellgate: London into the ground in the most ridiculous way possible?
I can't find the link, but I remember reading a postmortem of Hellgate from the community and a few developers that discussed how ever since he's gone solo, the man has managed to bring all sorts of fail to the party.
Sometimes I wonder if I think too much.
The problem here is that they are delivering fluff content for pay that used to be delivered for free, in game, just for purchasing the game and buying a subscription. Now a subscription doesn't get you everything. It's just a door opener to spend more money. The player is basically paying for content twice.
The other problem is the "slippery slope" dilemma. I hate the whole slippery slope argument in general, but I think it can apply here. If they see fluff as a viable model for MTs where does that stop? What other content will they try and sell as an MT that they used to provide as part of the purchase and sub? When will they decide that some "fluff" items are 'special edition' and only available in the store as a micro-transaction?
I'll just say no thanks and pass.
Don't think of it as a flame, more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage.
Why YES, we are seeking to milk our players for every dime we can, and YES this will cause balance issues but we've found thru studies that 1 player who will PAY $$$ for side objects is worth 3 players who won't ?? Of course they are going to downplay any balance or game mechanics issues, they ARE trying to make a profit here. That said I hope they can strike a nice balance, and that it beneifts the game and ALL the players as a whole, but I'm most certainly not going to hold my breath on the belief that this is anything but a grab for some more czash but hugely greedy publishers and venal corps.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Silly me. Here I thought the point of playing a game was to have fun. I run a dungeon because it's fun, not to get some gear out of it. Then I buy my way out of the ones that I don't find fun.
If you prefer to just buy your way out of all of the dungeons, why are you even playing?
Remember, open source is free as in speech, not free as in bear.
Yeah, I know some people don't like running dungeons a lot, but that is what PvE endgame is about. If you want to do PvP, gear is earned by doing more PvP so that really isn't an issue.
If you bought WoW now, you would probably enjoy your first play though, I know I did.
If you take time out of the MMO, you don't really have an MMO anymore. There are plenty of skill based multiplayer games out there. But subscription based MMOs are designed to make you spend a lot of time on them. You remove that, and people spend less time playing. As much as people hate the grind, they also love it.
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I don't see if it matters if it only gives a heads up on pre-existing content. However, if it gives the people things that the regular customers don't get, then I'll be pissed. If the thing was free with microtransactions, the people paying for the extra gear or whatnot could go hog wild for all I care. But if I'm being charged monthly or whatever, I don't think it's fair for me to be shown up by somebody with more disposable income who buys all the fancy bits. That happens enough in real life, I don't think it has a place in the game world. Of course, the company will be doing whatever makes them the most money so there's nothing I can do about it. Heh. I probably will still buy the game if it looks good. I'm a sucker for superheroes.
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I can see your point, I guess I just don't agree with it.
I guess my feeling is that there's no equality in this situation in the first place, and as long as it isn't having a huge effect on my experience, I don't really care what people have access to that I don't.
For example, I have a really nice gaming rig - I can play games at the highest settings and my FPS won't dip much at all when I'm in a huge battle. This is HUGE in player vs. player combat because I'll be able to react to events in real time; someone with a crap system might get slowed down to 1fps and thus be much less reactive. It's real-life money giving me an advantage in game - and definitely having more of an effect on other players than "You paid $5 for this widget, now you can have 8 new costume pieces with 100% more SPARKLES!" Should there be a *maximum* system allowance for multi-player games, so that outside factors don't play into the game much?
And, honestly, if a $.50 microtransaction to be able to have a special codpiece on your hero is going to be difficult to swing, paying $15 a month for a video game subscription is probably not the soundest choice. I don't know that "amount of disposable income" really enters into it once you're talking about paying for a luxury subscription service - if you're playing MMOs, it's really more about "how much money do you want to spend on playing video games" instead of haves vs. have-nots.
I will say that I did come up with one reason for why people shouldn't be allowed to spend RL money on things that will make their characters better (as opposed to cosmetic frippery) - advancement in the game (becoming more powerful) should reasonably only be achieved through playing the game. People who are unemployed and play the game for 12 hours a day are spending that time *in* the game, playing it, so it's fair that they are more powerful, whereas someone who works and can only play for 2 hours a day should not be able to just spend money to have as powerful a character - they aren't actually playing the game to get better.
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
Heh. I see your point to I suppose. It's just that when I think of micro-transactions in terms of gaming, I think of $5.00 here and there for the codpiece of awesome. To me that, while not a lot of money, isn't something I'd want to spend. I just think that if it breaks the balance of the game, then it's something that shouldn't be there. I'm just starting in PvP myself, and I don't take it seriously, but it would bother me if somebody who was the same level as I was had the codpiece of assrapery just because they spent the money for it. I do realize that my dislike of the whole microtransaction thing is possibly illogical, but that's just how I feel. As many others have said in this thread, to me it feels like, well, cheating. If somebody put in the time to get the awesome gear, more power to them. Even though I should be fine with people spending money for awesome gear, as it's basically the same principal, I don't. I also want to mention my previous statement: I'm fine with people paying for stuff that they could have gotten through playing the game. I don't think that brings in any balance issues. Or if they want to pay for cosmetic things, like those companion pets that don't do anything in WOW, that's fine too. But if they buy something that changes how the game plays, and it's something that your average player (or even your hardcore player) couldn't get through just playing, then I have a problem with it. As I said, if the game is good it won't stop me from playing, it's just that I'll sneer and maybe say some sarastic remark every time I see somebody with the codpiece of awesome that they paid real world money for. Something like "NEERRRD". And yes, I'm fully aware of the hypocrisy in that. I'm sure someone will point it out later on though.
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OK, fine. That's reasonable enough... but why not just limit server transfers to one cheap one every 6 months (or a year - what ever) and every one after that is expensive to discourage ninjaing? It would have the same effect, without raping me for what is effectively a "Copy - Paste" operation.
"Gratuitous complexity is akin to chaos" - True Vox
Sadly, that's the only reasonable answer. Doesn't mean I need think they're not dicks though. :)
"Gratuitous complexity is akin to chaos" - True Vox