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Poll: Worried about Micro-Transactions and the Future
loftly
Member Posts: 8
i was reading up on SoE's new title The Agency and its free play business model
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/setView/news/gameID/292/showArticle/8562
SoE considers the micro-transaction model to be the future of MMO gaming (that is, paying real money to gain access to areas, levels, and items... instead of a monthly fee)
what worries me is the thought that this could get pricey!
say you currently spend $15.00 a month for a subscription fee... if in this new business model weapons and armor etc are each $0.99 (think iTunes songs) that means your monthly budget would be 15 new items a month which i find really low considering how much i can usually achieve in a month of play normally... and what if the items are consumable like health potions? how much is winning a PvP fight worth?
the argument FOR this model is a good one: people only pay for what they want.
the argument i see AGAINST is encouragement of twitchy buying:
"hmm i already spent $20 this month... but if i buy 1000 gold i can afford this [Axe of Slaughteringness]!!!"
what do you think? am i being stingy? does everyone already buy from eBay...?
Comments
I want a certain "fairness" in my games. The idea of being below the top tier of players, and possibly far below, simply because they spend unreasonable amounts of money to be leet is just not acceptable to me.
Once upon a time....
Agreed.
One of the things that I love about MMO's is that (done right) they reward game skill and time spent in game rather than your outside lifestyle, so no matter if I live in a 1 bedroom apt and am on welfare I can have a fantasy character with the best equipment and rank in the game. Putting in these micro-transactions is putting up class barriars on the game.
I am sure if a big game does it correctly it means alot more money for them though and that is all that matters in the end right?
One of the things I HATE in life is being nickel and dimed. That applies to gaming as well; tell me what it costs up front and how much the extras are.
I will NOT participate EVER in any sort of microtransaction game on principle, no matter how good it is.
If they and others think this is the future then take me out of it.
Definantly would perfer a monthly fee over Micro-Transactions. And I highly doubt most larger games in the future will do this.
I'm not worried about it. I won't play games that use this model, so thus I won't be concerned with having to deal with it.
I'm open I just dont like the negative side effects from micros
It really depends on how they do it. As long as the items people buy won't make them stronger, or give them any advantage, then I wont care.
Welcome to the future. Micro-transactions will be the norm. It already happens, just look at all the gold buyers and account buyers in most MMO games. I'm not saying I like it, but it's inevitable.
The future as already stated is here. We already have games that are free, then have micro transactions to generate income.
even pay to play games have some form of microtransactions. wow for instance has character transfers, that must generate alot of income, especially considering most of their players cant seem to stick to one server.
Mirco transactions arent a bad thing, unless you can buy items gold etc that give you an advantage over someone else.
If Microtransactions are more profitable, then your voting with your dollars will be insignificant. Voicing your unhappiness is a sound way of promoting the development and release of subscription based games.
All microtransaction games must die.
A micro-transaction model generally functions almost exactly the same to a paying customer as a nonpaying customer. Go check out 2-moons' shop, or any other and you'll see what I mean. Things in the shops are intended to give paying customers a slight edge over the people milking the game for free.
Now with 57.3% more flames!
A micro-transaction model generally functions almost exactly the same to a paying customer as a nonpaying customer. Go check out 2-moons' shop, or any other and you'll see what I mean. Things in the shops are intended to give paying customers a slight edge over the people milking the game for free.
I suspect in some cases the effect of micro-transactions is more pronounced than you are stating here. In fact, I'll bet in some games it completely throws the game balance in favor of the buyer.I'd prefer a monthly fee, however if all games flip to a micro model then i'll either adapt or stop playing them.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Well according to this poll Smedley is wrong, no that can't be right we know Smed never gets it wrong and has his finger firmly on the pulse of the gaming community ........... usually the jugular with his hands around the neck in a force choke strangling every last penny out of the player base until it withers away and dies on him ........ then he pretends it never happened ........... then he blames them for their own deaths ............ then he tries to change it back slowly saying he made a mistake ......... then he offers everyone vet trials and gives them a free 3 months of play per year ......... then he buys Vanguard and recruits all that games players to EQ2 ....... then he starts his micro transaction rant again because everyone does it in Asia ..... because few can afford a monthly fee and have a valid international credit/debit card and a computer with an internet connection at home in Asia compared to Europe and North America ....... but that's besides the point because Smedley is never wrong, right?
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
Micro transactions are huge with the Barbie Doll dress-up types of "games", or 3D social online environments. And they have millions of clients. Put together, they have more monthly unique visitors and moake more money that all the MMORPGs put together, includive with WoW.
So it's a huge and viable buisiness strategy, and it works great for those "games". But it just won't work too well in any competative style of gaming, and our kinds of MMO's are competative at least in a loosely defined way.
Enough so, that it won't work here....meaning they'll probably stop making what we want. Well, they already have, I guess.
Once upon a time....
Actually, if people vote with their dollars, and most people don't want microtransactions, microtransactions won't be more profitable. Voting with your dollars is always significant. If the companies are making more money with microtransactions, they won't care at all if a few gamers are ranting against their profit models. But, hopefully the poll says it all. As long as there's a signifcant segment of gamers who will only spend money on flat fee games, there will be developers making those games.
I have a feeling, despite my hate for it, that items malls and paying for access is the wave of the future. Too many people want it all and will do whatever they will to get it. Money is just to easy to spend and this concept give players a choice of content they play.
Maybe Smedley want's a free to pay model, where you buy specifics... So when they screw over a game with an NGE 'fix' the thousands and thousands of customer that cancel will not affect their cash flow....
Seriously If Blizzard starts talking F2P / Item shop, we need to start getting worried, but $OE??
Like they can ever implement something smoothly.. Ohh I can't wait for those that swallow this pile of crap model, and the posts we're gonna see about how $OE screwed their credit card. The double charge, wrong item, broken item, miss-information.. The 'OMG dis iz cr4p. I paid $5.99 for a uber submachine gun of i win, and $9.99 for the bullet-proof armor of stopz-every bulletz, and still got killed.. NERF!! Dis suxorzezI quit!! Boo Hoo!!
Yes Item shops work in some situations, yes it's popular in other markets, but is it the future? Is this the direction of all MMO's? or is this just 'spin' to justify their forray into a grab for this 'potential customer' After all we have heard in the past $OE justify their spin for doing something. From the Matrix change, to Planetside fixes, EQ1/2 adjustments, to the famous "We expect to loose about 3% of the playerbase, that will be affected by the removal of CH-BE, but within 6 month time the server populations will have risen beyond thie initial levels" for Star Wars NGE spin.
I expect this to flop, It'll draw a few as it is 'different' ( the MMO idea, not the payment model ) but subscription retention will be very low.... actually that may be why it's going this direction...
They know this game will do poorly, and not retain players for any length of time, so why loose money when they cancel, just charge the players that are on, for what they want, and when they leave, no lost income...
SWTOR. Face it, in the Scooby Doo Mystery Solving Van of coolness, this game is Velma. In this current MMO climate it has about as much chance for survival as a group of inquisitive teenagers in a 1980s slasher flick. -Tardcore May, 2011
If SoE thinks that micro-transactions will be the future of gaming, then it's likely that it won't be. Simply put, it seems that SoE hasn't a clue as to how to successfully cater to the larger player-bases and to what gamers want. But even if SoE never said that micro-transactions will be the future of MMO gaming, I would still say that it isn't likely to happen. The micro-transaction business model works well with the Asian grind-fest type of games, such as Rappelz. The reason that it works with such games is because these games focus on fast-paced grinding/combat and the liberal use of consumables. Rappelz has force chips and soul chips that give an extremely short duration damage boost for physical damage and magic-based damage respectively. There are many different potions to be used in the game. Many items can be freely traded/bought/sold between players; i.e. non-soulbound. The mounts in the game have a specific duration and expire when the duration is finished.
Simply put, the grind in these types of games has more of a quantitative nature, meaning that it has more to do with number of consumables used than time spent. As a matter of fact, the more consumables that one uses, the less time he/she will spend grinding. More force chips and potions used per battle = quicker battles, which in turn = faster gain of currency(rupees), experience, and job points. And with more consumables comes the greater need/desire to purchase the items using real money. (Note: I'm not sure if you can actually buy force chips in the item shop, but similar consumables are available.) These games usually also lack a large raiding component, or a large, organized PVP component. Sure they may have some raid dungeons, but it's often not a big focus. And sure they have PVP servers, but it's often a purposeless free-for-all gank-fest.
With games like Warcraft being the biggest ones in the genre, the focus has more to do with duration than quantity. Gear is obtained through long hours of raiding or PVP'ing, or long and drawn-out faction grinds. People who focus on solo and small group content, the types of people who typically don't raid or PVP or engage in extensive faction grinds, don't typically need uber gear/items. So with this type of game model, micro-transactions would make little to no sense.
Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Rappelz or similar games. As a matter of fact, I just started playing Rappelz recently and I'm having a lot of fun in it. But at the same time, it's pretty easy to see the way in which the game was designed, and the way that the design encourages the purchase of in-game items using real-life money. I, however, would never bother to spend money on those kinds of things, simply because I don't feel the need to be the best-of-the-best in a game. I'm content with just playing for fun and having a good time.
The problem is that many people don't understand the Micro - transaction scheme. a lot of people think "Oh, if there is a micro transaction payment scheme, it must mean that I can only compete if I pay for items, and I can buy uber gear in the cash shops" which is completely incorrect.
I just want to say that I believe the community here at mmorpg.com is much more mature and quite different than all those other MMO sites out there. Most of the community here favor games with content rather than flashy graphics of all the free to play crap out there. They essentially have no content and bring nothing new to the table. Most of us here can afford and are willing to pay monthly fees for our quality games and I'm proud I'm apart of this community.
I go over to MMOSITE.com or ONRPG.com and they're just filled with 8-14 year olds screaming their heads off and insulting each other. The only topics you will ever see consist of FTP junk; aka Flyff, Pi story, Pkonline, etc.
Not quite sure why I said this but I just felt the need to express myself.... Isn't that what forums are for? Asking questions, finding others like ourselves, and free self expression?
Edited for spelling mistakes.
Hi! My name is paper. Nerf scissors, rock is fine.
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Shame.
Imagine no more grinding.
The guy who plays 5 hours a week is now everybit as powerful as the unemployed fellow who grinds for 20 hours a day. You know the one, the guild uberlord.
In terms of money vs freetime to play, both systems reward players for their out of game lifestyles. In the monthly subscription model it is the unemployed that prosper unreasonably, in the micro transaction model, the workers become the games favoured.
That's assuming that any micro-transaction system is exploited to earn players cash just a making grindy timesinks exploits monthly subscribers.
But seriously, no more grind.
You want that item? No more 40 hours in a field farming skeletons for the rep and mats. Just wash your dad's car, and it's yours.
You can spend the other 39 1/2 hours of your free time doing fun adventures and challenging things.
Micro transactions could work well.
£5 to access a new dungeon. £10 for the new character classes. £30 for the new continent. Guild Wars pretty much runs on this model already. I don't see all the rich people owning the poor.
The Asian market is accustom to F2P cash shop games, but look at the poll so far...
Forum Poll
Monthly Fee or Micro-Transactions?
Western minds and culture are not the same as the Asian.
SOE is a Japanese company, and they will try this, but if we Westerners don't react favorably to it, SOE won't skip a beat, to alter their business model.
"Don't corpse-camp that idea. Its never gonna rez"
Bladezz (The Guild)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/magazine/17lootfarmers-t.html?ei=5088&en=a6282d1ddf608fc1&ex=1339732800&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=all
It is estimated that there are thousands of businesses like it all over China, neither owned nor operated by the game companies from which they make their money. Collectively they employ an estimated 100,000 workers, who produce the bulk of all the goods in what has become a $1.8 billion worldwide trade in virtual items.
http://mmorpg.qj.net/Entropia-malls-sell-big/pg/49/aid/78373
Now I'm sure an Ubar Axe of Slaying is probably not going to sell for $100,000 but currently the sales of gold and items not allowed is estimated $2,000,000,000 (that's 2 BILLION0 and virtual malls make an obscene amount of money in F2P games ALREADY. And this at the very least 2 billion dollars is in games PEOPLE ARE ALREADY PAYING SUBSCRIPTIONS FOR.
Plus, SoE item exchange servers make TONS more money than all the other servers put together and they are the least populated servers. SoE has been doing it, Blizzard has been doing it (yes, your almighty WoW, your deity of perfection already sells in game items for real cash), and games coming up will be packed with "item malls" (some cleverly disguised). When item malls and gold selling ON TOP OF SUBSCRIPTIONS are making more money than you are, it's going to be hard to "talk with your pocketbook" and let them know that this is not the way.
Now, I know that only 20 people in this whole MMORPG community have EVER bought in game gold and items (scoff, laugh, laugh), but I'm sorry to break your "Utopia" dreams that a multi-billion dollar company's executive is wrong. I'm not saying he's always right, but at least look at the facts before making an ass of yourself.
BTW, I completely and 100% TOTALLY agree AGAINST item malls, and would prefer subscription only, but I'm not stupid. There's nothing we can do to stop a multi-billion dollar snowball. Although I admire anyone's effort.
"Granted thinking for yourself could be considered a timesink of shorter or longer duration depending on how smart..or how dumb you are."
perfectly stated