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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.
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
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 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.
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!!!
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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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.