Slashdot Mirror
LotR Online's Free-To-Play Switch Tripled Revenue
Last June, Turbine made the decision to switch Lord of the Rings Online from a subscription-based business model to a free-to-play model supported by microtransactions. In a podcast interview with Ten Ton Hammer, Turbine executives revealed that the switch has gone well for the company, with game revenues roughly tripling. The active player base has also grown significantly in that time. Executive Producer Kate Paiz said, "This really echoes a lot of what we've seen throughout the entertainment industry in general. It's really about letting players make their choices about how they play."
Yes, allowing people to actually pay (and play) when they want to, and not be forced to feel like they HAVE to get their money's worth with a subscription system, is proven to be better for both the gamer AND the company.
I quit a long time ago when it was a subscription plan, and the switch drew me back fairly quickly. I think I'll be subbing again as well. I fully appreciate Turbines move in this - the flexibility is very nice.
Humans are terrible replicators of Godly things.
I'd say it shows that people like to be 'winners' even if they have to pay real money for it.
If I can obtain an item by reaching level X - or by paying $5 and showing off the item, then certain people will just cough up.
Out of curiosity, did that make the game "profitable?" I mean, three times zero is still zero. Does the game now bring in enough revenue to justify its continued existence?
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
When this show started 10 years ago the amount of servers for a 1000 person "shard" was measured in racks, by the end of this decade I would not be surprised to see 1000 person servers on a single blade.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
Gross doesn't equal net. Operating costs went up substantially as well and most of the money they made was from an influx of players that came in and bought things in game, like quest packs and such... Most of which is permanent so they will not continue to purchase more unless they make more. They basically resold a game that had already been made to players that had already purchased it but no longer wanted to pay a monthly fee. Once those players have bought up all that content (again) they are done spending money unless Turbine generates a lot more content. I'll give them credit, their free to play model is the best one out yet... but they certainly didn't triple their profits.
The free to play with MicroTransactions seems to work pretty well. ArenaNet has done it with Guild Wars for years. Other non-mmo games but still require good servers like League of Legends has been successful using it.
Without some dollars to measure, the words "tripiling" sounds fantastic. 3x a small number can still be a small number.
That's pretty much what Valve did with Team Fortress 2 - the product has been on sale so many times (via Steam) that they sold it just about everyone that owns a Steam account, then created the in-game store for players to buy items. Valve makes money, players get more options,and indie developers see a percentage of their custom creations. Play as you want, pay as you wish.
Thoughts:
3-4 times the number of players and most of them new == how much higher customer support cost?
How many people made one-time purchases during that time that allows them to do everything they want without paying for a monthly subscription ever again?
Which month compared to what? Turbine spent the year before f2p mostly on implementing f2p and very little was offered to make people resubscribe. It makes a big difference whether the 1/3rd is right before f2p (in the void so to speak) or whether it is during times where new content was provided on a regular basis.
Also, is this really month by month since September? And how much of it was caused by the huge 20% sale at the end of December that potentially allowed people to load up on "points" (the currency you later spend on game content and items) and live on them all year.
Last but not least if any of the above is true and revenue later drops, will we ever learn of it? It seems like dangerous one-sided information to rely on when deciding whether it is a good business model.
Turbine is pleased with their results from doing this exact same thing with Dungeons and Dragons online. The concensus from players is that moving to Free to Play and microtransactions saved the game from becoming extinct and also helped fund more rapid game improvements. Paying players receive value from Free players as well.
This really echoes a lot of what we've seen throughout the entertainment industry in general. It's really about letting players make their choices about how they play.
When I read this my BS alarm nearly knocked me off my chair. I get that when you are extracting money from people for data base entries, a very glib way of looking at it I know but bare with me here, you have to come up with some line of bs to mask that fact.
And I'm not trying to say that the guy has to be totally forthright. Further I know that people are indeed getting value for their dollar in terms of entertainment. But could he have said something that sounds a little less full of crap?
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
Unfortunately they still want a month fee to play MonsterPlay which is the only truly unique thing about LoTRO! Rest of the game is just a restricted Tolkien setting. Sadly I stopped playing because Turbine never did any support, expansions or did any effort for Monsterplay. Once a year on April fools day you got to chase chicken players and splat them which was vastly amusing the first time. What other game can you play as a real monster (4 legged warg, 6 legged spider, etc) against other people?
- Gronk!
I have to agree on the summary, and point out it's one of the reasons we (me and my girlfriend) stopped playing LOTRO. We're not hardcore players, never reached the max level with any characters (though our mains came close) and there were months when we played little or nothing. It just didn't feel right paying for. In fact, had our accounts not been so old as to have been deleted, we'd have taken it up again after it became F2P.
I think this also reveals a major problem of MMORPGs - the whole grinding means that you don't get out so easily (don't want to lose everything), but once you did, you're not likely to come back because you're not going to do it all over again. I know I won't.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I'm actually pretty disappointed by LoTRO going F2P.
DDO (another Turbine game) was dying and had no choice but to make the switch, but LoTRO was (as far as I know) doing fine.
I was considering going back to LoTRO after a long break, but now that they've switched to the "kids with mommy's credit card rule supreme" method that's not going to happen.
I have no problem with games supported by microtransactions existing, but it's pretty tiresome to hear people go on and on about how it's the best MMO payment option since sliced bread.
I just want to throw my comment into the ring. I really hope they can get Asheron's Call on a free-to-play model. I think they've upped the price on it(from it's initial release at least) and it would be fun to explore Dereth at my will, rather than making the commitment to pay for it monthly.
GENERATION O98346: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig and remove a random number from the generation. T
"This really echoes a lot of what we've seen throughout the entertainment industry in general. It's really about letting players make their choices about how they play." PAY or PLAY?
I may be being a pessimist, but I believe systems like this will eventually bust. All of the failure MMOs are switching to free-to-play with heavy game based influences being based on how much money you spend in game. I'm not completely familiar with LotRs model, but eventually you'll reach a point where people get tired of having to put in a quarter for continued play. The influx and increased revenue right now, at least in my opinion, is based on the fact that everyone is all googly about so many free things and most MMOs do have a decent amount of content you explore before you get tired of them. I'm sure given another year or two this will climax and people will start to realize they're getting milked for something that they don't really find worth the money (or at least feel it).
Putting that aside, while I'm not familiar with LotRs model, I am with other crappy MMO models where you need to buy items in order to stay on top. A lot of 3rd rate Korean MMOs are like this and I recently played Global Agenda in which you almost immediately run into the pay wall. I almost justified buying this with friends, but after looking at the benefits for the 'purchased version' vs the 'free version', I started to realize that there is almost nothing to the game and they just try to hide it with smoke and mirrors. In other words 'if you buy this, the game will be so much better!' when really you already played the best parts of the game, sorta like a movie trailer.
Maybe I'm just putting too much faith in consumers to eventually figure things out or get a little inkling in their head that says 'danger will robinson'.
Obviously, this is the opposite of Warcraft, which is monthly subscriptions, but that also lets you buy a variety of microtransactions. The other game I play routinely is Valve's Team Fortress 2 via Steam, which has no monthly fee, but has a ridiculous array of little extras and add-ons and play-changing toys you can buy for extra cash when you feel like it--but you don't need even one.
How does LotR compare versus those?
Dude, where's my packet?
Or sweeties as us Brits call them.
Anyway, go free, get mass publicity, get 10x as many players, hook them in and when they're at their weakest offer them cheap ways to get whatever they want in game.
What I'd be curious about is the extent to which this has changed player demographics.
Back when I was playing LotRO, one of the primary attractions was that the average player was several years older than on WoW and similar subscription-based MMOs (something in the early 30's, according to Turbine folks at Austin GDC). This had a significant effect: a whole lot less of the trash-talking and harassment that tends to come with younger playerbases. Free-to-play games such as Runescape tend to attract younger people (primarily for economic reasons), but with that comes more behavioral problems.
Can folks who have been through the change tell me whether the free-to-play model has brought a change in the "character" of the playerbase? I might want to come back, but not if the primary attraction (a serious, literary playerbase who are there for the backstory and setting) is now a "u r teh g@y" pit.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
to get all your characters mounts instead of buying them with real money. You can also use this trick to get all your bags too.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Games that offer in-game rewards in exchange for real life currency may offer increased revenue streams, but they perpetuate (and arguably worsen) the digital divide that undermines those from financially underprivileged backgrounds.
I play Dungeons and Dragons Online, the first game from Turbine to go free to play under the same system. I think it's been successful because you get a tiny bit of the in game store currency just by playing the game. That means you get used to buying items out of the paid store instead of outright boycotting it and being dead set against giving them any money. Also, they provided massive benefits permanently to players who bought their store currency from them once. It's only $6.50 minimum and I believe LOTRO is the same and then tada, you get massive benefits for life. So once you've got your credit card on file or got someone else to lend you their paypal account, they assume you'd do it again. Then of course there's the people who buy like $100/month in store currency because they're horribly rich and I hear that's what drives any game like this.
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
Hey, I wonder... is god_shanji@hotmail.com your real e-mail address?
Whoops. Now spammers will find it. That would be ironic.