Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Micro-Transactions: The future of all mmorpgs?
abentwookie
Member UncommonPosts: 114
Okay, there are rumors about the possibility of Star Wars: Old Republic making money through micro-transactions instead of the traditional monthly-fee method. And some companies supposedly have plans for BOTH in their games (such as WoW) in the near future. I think this is setting a dangerous trend for gaming and could possibly lead to the end (at least temporarily ) of mmorpgs. The micro-transaction works well for free-to-play games (Last Chaos, Rohan, Perfect World, etc...) and some of the companies actually make a lot of money from them. In fact, i've known a large amount of gamers on games like Last Chaos that actually spend WAAAAAAY more money on a free game than they would if they paid a monthly fee. I'm talking about anywhere from $50 to hundreds in a single month. The reason this could quickly get out of hand is that games like the Old Republic could force players to pay for updates, opening up other planets/areas, weapons, armor, items, etc.. This would cost gamers far more than paying a monthly fee, especially if a game (like WoW) were to charge players a monthly-fee AND offer the micro-transactions as well. I think the greed of game companies is going to have a negative effect on the future of mmorpg gaming, especially when you consider our economic crisis. People just can't afford it anymore.
Comments
There's a market for subscription games, and there's a market for microtransactions. As long as there are a lot of players willing to pay a subscription fee who will refuse to play the typical "free to play"/item mall games, more subscription games will continue to be made.
Microtransactions aren't intrinsically a bad thing, though. See, for example, Guild Wars, which has microtransactions, but doesn't put stuff in there to unbalance the game.
I think we may well see more movement toward microtransactions being included in ways that don't upset the people who are so against the usual item mall approach. For example, a lot of games say, pay $50 to buy a box, and then a monthly fee after that. What if, as an alternative to buying the box and subsequent expansions, a game instead charged $5 for each character slot and $2 for each level beyond 20 that the account is capped at? That way, you end up paying more for the game if you play for a long time, and less if you decide it's stupid and quit pretty quickly.
Erm, WoW already does.
Name-changes, server transfer, gender changes .. all are chargeable MTs.
Add to that those transparent tigers you sometimes see people riding; the posh tabards, quirky pets and such .. all gained through out-of-game methods like the Warcraft trading card game.
WoW does it in an acceptable manner; none of the items affect game balance in any way so the majority of players either don't even realise (or don't care) that these items are even in-game.
MT for fluff items and services are fine, but the minute it crosses the line and starts affecting game balance; that's when it becomes decidedly unacceptable.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
Erm, WoW already does.
Name-changes, server transfer, gender changes .. all are chargeable MTs.
Add to that those transparent tigers you sometimes see people riding; the posh tabards, quirky pets and such .. all gained through out-of-game methods like the Warcraft trading card game.
WoW does it in an acceptable manner; none of the items affect game balance in any way so the majority of players either don't even realise (or don't care) that these items are even in-game.
MT for fluff items and services are fine, but the minute it crosses the line and starts affecting game balance; that's when it becomes decidedly unacceptable.
Correct, wow already does it. It makes me crazy that people always claim, only other devs are greedy.
Erm, WoW already does.
Name-changes, server transfer, gender changes .. all are chargeable MTs.
Add to that those transparent tigers you sometimes see people riding; the posh tabards, quirky pets and such .. all gained through out-of-game methods like the Warcraft trading card game.
WoW does it in an acceptable manner; none of the items affect game balance in any way so the majority of players either don't even realise (or don't care) that these items are even in-game.
MT for fluff items and services are fine, but the minute it crosses the line and starts affecting game balance; that's when it becomes decidedly unacceptable.
I haven't played WoW in months so I wasn't aware that they had already started it.
Yeah, it may start out as "fluff" items but how long do you think it will be before they start offering items that can create balance issues in the game? Don't underestimate people's greed. 
And when they do that, the problems will start. You'll need certain items to remain competitive in the game so it will create an unbalanced game and people will quit. Some of the free games are already going through this right now. They let the greed get out of control.
I don't mind a pay to play game having small things like how WoW does it but if being able to buy weapons and Armour that aren't in the game became the norm for a pay to play I would simply stop playing mmos. But there will always be people willing to buy those items.
I don't see microtransaction as being the future of all MMOs, just the large majority of F2P MMOs. P2P don't need it (and as such have more stabler economies), because they make the revenue off their subscriptions.
Incorporating both features into a game would be essentially just giving the keys to the game to anyone with exorbitant amounts of money. No challenge, because if they needed something, they could just buy it. The effect would be ten-fold if the cash shop items could be bartered in-game, making cash shop users instant billionaires simply because they can just buy (See: Cabal Online's Upgrade Cores, which could be bought through the item shop and then sold ingame for cash) and sell endlessly (or at least make a great deal of money before stopping).
And it goes without saying what the developer is getting on their revenue side.
TGWTETIPTNMAITC! -Gary Whitta
I have absolutely nothing against micro transaction systems as long as they don't provide a significant advantage. Stuff like extra bank space, shared bank , extra character slots, fluff items like pets that does nothing but follow you around etc.
I would think it would be a bigger problem if lets say WoW started selling their highest tier arena gear for rl money. That would be game breaking big time.
I think game Dev's are looking for alternate income streams and future games could quite possibly have a blending of the two payment models. P2P games might incorporate cash shops of "fluff"items while F2P will probably reward people who spend the most with gameplay influencing items.
"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
Everquest 2 allready does these 7 dollar instances and its not that bad. and so what if TOR is micro at least itll be free to play.
for mass market yes but for sandbox no.
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
before you go off on your little rant, the situation with SWtor isn't final at this point in time. It might be MT or not, or monthly sub/mt optional, or any number of other possibilites.
That being said, I doubt any company will look at your little post and change their business model. You are just a small fish in a big pond. Main stream acceptance is what will drive MT business decisions.
Agree 100%
I have been playing Atlantica Online, I was VERY leary of the item mall thing, but have found they are only selling the fluff stuff and you still have to craft or quest for the good gear. I have found this an EXCELLENT game and if mirco transactions are to be put forward like this, I have no problem with it. In fact, I rather like it, if I dont want to play the game and try something else, np...i just go. I can come back at anytime to a F2P game, check in on my toons, play a little. Its nice.
Also, these F2P games HAVE to be good. There is no cost to try it for as long as you like, so they really need to push to make the experience fun.
When I said i had "time", i meant virtual time, i got no RL "time" for you.
Sadly, you're going to see it more and more.
Even in P2P games, there are people willing to spend money for an edge. And as long as those people exist, developers will try to find ways to tap into that income.
I hate that idea, but inevitably it WILL happen. My only hope is that they keep some servers without micro-transactions. That way, all the people who don't want to get better by their own skill, and/or through gameplay can all play together, and leave the rest of us alone.
before you go off on your little rant, the situation with SWtor isn't final at this point in time. It might be MT or not, or monthly sub/mt optional, or any number of other possibilites.
That being said, I doubt any company will look at your little post and change their business model. You are just a small fish in a big pond. Main stream acceptance is what will drive MT business decisions.
The president of EA said there was going to be micro transactions in TOR in a quarterly earnings conference call. I know the devs "clarified" that but I would be completely surprised if it was shown that the EA president made a false statement in that report. MMO makers want their cake and eat it too. That means monthly subs plus RMT.
--------
Ten Golden Rules Of Videogame Fanboyism
"SOE has probably united more gamers in hatred than Blizzard has subs"...daelnor
before you go off on your little rant, the situation with SWtor isn't final at this point in time. It might be MT or not, or monthly sub/mt optional, or any number of other possibilites.
That being said, I doubt any company will look at your little post and change their business model. You are just a small fish in a big pond. Main stream acceptance is what will drive MT business decisions.
The president of EA said there was going to be micro transactions in TOR in a quarterly earnings conference call. I know the devs "clarified" that but I would be completely surprised if it was shown that the EA president made a false statement in that report. MMO makers want their cake and eat it too. That means monthly subs plus RMT.
I feel a disturbance in the force.
That's a good idea. I love it. Those who rush to level first will be those who pay first. Ha ha.
In other words, punish repeat customers? Yeah, that'll happen.
Evil will always win, because Good is dumb.
I would not say micro-transaction is the future of all mmorpgs. You will see more micro-transaction based MMO in the western market because it's new here. However, on the eastern front, you can already see a reverse trend.
For example, China, one of the biggest Free-to-play MMO market (even bigger than Korea), recently has a trend of going toward pay-to-play model. People are wanting pay-to-play model because they started to see the different in the two models. They want a more "fair" gaming environment. While there are still issues in pay-to-play game like gold farmer etc... the gaming environment generally more "fair". Plus, pay-to-play model is much cheaper for a lot of people. Oh yes, pay-to-play model is much cheaper at the end-game when you want to compete. In a pay-to-play game, all you need is time, it's not the same in a micro-transaction based game. The amount of money you have to spend to stay on top is massive. In many cases, you have to spend money, a lot of money, to even be able to compete.
While you usually think of micro-transaction items as cosmetic, generally don't affect game balance but if you look more carefully at what they sell, you will see many items affect game balance although small, but they do. That's the key to sell items, a small advantage over others. It's really depend on the developers on how far they are willing to go with these advantages (in many cases, they went pretty far).
I could say while there are a lot of people who only play for fun, a lot of others really want to compete. It was an eye openner for someone who used to the pay-to-play environment in some of those highly competitive micro-transaction based games. Unless, you can accept being walked all over, you have to dish out money, a lot of them.
Both micro-transaction based and subscription based will stay and will have their places in the future MMORPGs.
personally i am not positive what micro-trannsiston means but, i would like mmo to have this method: $/month or you can buy accutal time, ex. $=playtime that last for time before the time drips slowly away if not used within a certain time. You save money by buying accutal time if you are only on a little, or you save money if you are on alot if you pay for month.
Micro-Transaction are basically items you buy for the games. A game i'm involved with, called Last Chaos, has something called an Item Mall. You can buy costumes, items that boost exp, and various other things. My concern with MT becoming mainstream in mmo gaming is that it will cost players miuch more than a monthly-fee and that players with the most money could have a HUGE advantage over everyone else. Why bother grinding the hard way when you can just pretty much buy your levels?
In other words, punish repeat customers? Yeah, that'll happen.
You mean like with a monthly fee?
I know jack about programming or how anytinng is really done to make a game but would it be possible to have seperate servers for people who want to play with MT (in games where it actually effects gameplay) and the people who just want to pay a monthly fee? The way its done in WoW is fine so it would be ok to have the same servers but games like Cabal could possibly have seperate? Just a thought.
As mmorpg's are getting more frequent with more developers wanting to get a piece of the pie (pay to play) or subscription based mmo's are running into a problem called saturation. Basically this is when you as a player are paying 15 bucks a month for one game, then another game comes on the market that you want to play. It really comes down to how many subscriptions players are willing to pay for at the same time, which most will only pay for 1-2 at best. This is where f2p games bypass this and allow any player, paying or not to try out their game with money not being a factor upfront.
On the backend however with f2p games you have to "persuade" players to buy items through a item-mall type system or cash shop to stay viable as a company and pay your bills. Which essentially leads to developers having buyable items/weapons/armor that give those player a advantage when playing the game, thus you reward the players for spending money. This gives those players an advantage but leaves everybody else at a disadvantage that doesn't spend money. The only option you have if you are trying to be the best so to speak is to spend money and get the gear in the item mall, thus you are also rewarded for spending money.
Is this the future? The more and more mmo's that come out, the more and more f2p will start winning. The only reason p2p is still viable is because most of them are more "fair" in terms of gameplay where people can't buy their way to winning even though this is also degrading.
Is there another type of payment system that could work better?
Puzzle Pirates does that.
I hope not, buying rather then earning is a horrid way to go. I hope they just move to a model of buying perhaps content with lower subscription prices.