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The greed of SOE comes out
ninjajucer
Member Posts: 219
Its interesting to play Free Realms, since the game is technically free, but also has a subscription model for $5 a month. Now that is just a minor thing in the game, the $5 brings "membership", which allows some more quests and classes, but that's about it. The real money-maker (drainer?) of the game is the in-game store.
The SC store in Free Realms has tons to offer the average player and even the casual player. From weapons that are more powerful than any in game (and can be used from level 1), to the best armor, healing, even pets are in there as well (you can not get a permanent pet unless you buy one from the store). Its almost funny the way the game is marketed. Most of the things in the game are indeed fun, but its always been stressed to use the store to have an edge. Now, though, its coming out to be more of a stressed point.
With the introduction of Kart and Demolition Derby classes and quests, SOE has given a new meaning to the word spendthrift. With the best and most creative cars, engines, tires, hell even a garage available for cold hard cash through the shop, the game has devolved into a large money-grubbing scheme. Even in the normal quests its stressed that you should not take the bad in-game versions, but should instead use the store to get better items. One quest told me to go buy tires as the ones I was given were not up to par.
So is this model of game F2P or P2P, or a hybrid of both? Microtransaction models in the past have offered only items that gave some benefit of healing or virtual costume (Perfect World, Rohan), others went so far as to offer mounts or crafting bonuses (RoM), but Free Realms takes the cake with offering the little line of to really win at these races and demo derbies you have to either buy the expensive in-game items (compounded by the fact that all items were reduced in selling price to 10% of their original amount) or spend real money to get the virtual items which not only give an edge, but are most likely required to actually finish the the classes quests for the average/casual player.
Its a sad day when a corporation takes advantage of the kids of the world, its even sadder to see that greed is changing the microtransaction model into what was something optional, to something that is now mandatory. In these tough economic times, its obvious that SOE is thinking with dollar signs as opposed to creating a game for everyone.
Comments
Well, micro-transaction models are in their infancy, but of course companies like SOE do what is most profitable for them. They are a business and responsible not for the gamers, but to their shareholders.
There are pretty compelling studies to support viablity of these alternative models. Like the fact that over 1/4 of the players already buy gold from RMTers and more would, if it was not against EULA. These buyers spent something like ~$130 in average. That can be a lot more profitable than a subscription model in a long run.
Thankfully, we all have option not to play this type of games. We as consumers can vote with our money.
Btw, there is a good chance that even SW:TOR will employ non-conventional subscription model, if there will be subscription at all. You may have to purchase content instead - like instances, epic quest arcs etc.
There are numerous corporations in the world based on taking money from kids. Mostly selling them stuff nobody needs, but that has some emotional value. I do not really see a difference of buying Sword of Uber Dooom in Free Realms to buying a Plastic Lighsaber in the real world. Perhaps the former is even more useful and costs less.
"The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in."
And you are suprised that they are greedy? Greed (profit) is their only motiv, only reason to exist. They do cancer research or try to find new energy sources. They exist to make money and will be remembered only for that once they go down. They have given nothing new or revolutionary to the world to make you rant like this. The solution is simple, don't play their games.
No fate but what we make, so make me a ham sandwich please.
I swear,
You people act like SoE is a non-profit organization.
SoE is just one small part of a much larger corporation. Outside of making games people want to play, they're responcible for making sure those games make Sony money.
You're time would be more suited to raging about GM, Chrysler, and Ford closing manufacturing plants in the US and moving them to Mexico were they put thier cars and parts together for a fraction of they did here, and then charging more for thier cars. That's greed.
Give Wizards 101 a try. You have to have a subscription to experience almost all of the content in that game.
FreeRealms is an incredible value seeing as you can experience more without ever spending a dime.
lol they build games to make money they dont make free games and neither does anyone else who makes a decent game that people can actually play.
As for the kart racing /demo derby etc they have the level of difficulty dialed up too high and have acknowledge this and are intending to nerf it a bit.
As usual there is still no need to pay more only if you want to ...
I know what you mean man. The nerve of a company trying to make money! It's disgusting! Ok, anyway on a less sarcastic note... Your joking about the it being a sad day when a corporation is taking advantage of children right? I mean, you have noticed that all the toy advertisements are during cartoons and in every grocery store (at least everyone I have seen) that the candy is ALWAYS in the cereal asile....
-Currently looking forward to FFXIV
-Currently playing EvE and Global Agenda
Fallen Earth sucks.
And this is a game for kids.
Poor parents that will have to live with "mommy please give me $30 so I can buy some virtual things for my game" kids, and that will grow to a "50% budget - virtual items for games" or even more.
But yeah, this is an evolution compared to spending a considerable part of your budget on pain killers that you never really needed to end up dying of overdose...
I was with ya all the way up to this part. It was at this point when i said "huh?!" How exactly did kids overdosing on pain killers work its way into this conversation?
Anyways, i was looking at the game (on the website) and i too sort of got the "Free game (that you must buy things for" vibe from them. I agree with the others that a game is made to make money but I really dislike cash shops that basically become a requirement to play the game. It's along the lines of "Get a brand new Mercedes for free! Oh, the tires are 8,000 dollars each. Holy crap you want an engine too? Walk this way, lets talk addons". What good is a free game when you're paying more then you would a subscription game with no cashshop. That's basically how i come to the conclusion of if i want to play a free MMO. "Would i pay 15 bucks a month to play this". If so, that becomes my monthly budget for the game.
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They are not responsible to the gamers but are responsible to the shareholders? Really? I strongly hope business people have not fallen so far. Without a happy customer base there are no shareholders because you sell nothing and the stock is worthless because no one believes in the company. Always, customers first (quality product, fun stuff, blah, blah), the more successful game companies live by this motto. This is the same random nonsensical cliche being touted around as the new "we are your boss and you answer to us" by silly people whining about the government.
Forever looking for employment. Life is rather dull without it.
max blizzard make huge pile of money you dont see them act like most f2p game,im all for micro-transactiction,but when theres more in the store then in the game realm then i get out.
i bet im not the only one that think like this: past 20 $ a month the game is just plain too expensive,take eq2 cost 14$/month over 3 month period,wow its what 17 18$ a month. people dont mind spending less then 20$ each month on a game they do mind paying for a game that is empty of player and even more so when the game is bad.
one way to get player even on bad game that always worked is well advertised competition with good incentive
check at blizzcon there was what 200 000 $ in price for pvp competition.theres no way around it. and even then if you organise
a competition say in everquest 2 next season but its not published anywhere near the most viewed page on the web
its will still stay a crappy game.wow is lucky they almost dont need to advertise compared to anygame out there
but any other game as to work 1000 time harder then wow just to be seen .
Wait... you mean, they want to make money?! HOW DARE THEY!
I would expect a post like this from a 15 year old, but a 41 year old? *face-palm*
Hmm wow doesn't need to advertise? They spend a huge amount of money on advertising. I have seen plenty of prime time tv commercials advertising wow. Some fast food resturaunt had wow character cups. When the last wow expansion came out I went in to ebgames and right in front of the door they had a huge pyramid of wow game boxes stacked up for preorders and wow posters all over the store..
I've never seen any company with near the amount of advertising wow spends. At least not in the US market.
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Ethion
Umm... free realms was running plenty of prime time television commercials of its own. How do you think it got 5 million web registrations?
Toon town, wizard 101, etc.
You are right that Blizzard does a lot of advertising now, but that is something that happened years after release.
Umm... free realms was running plenty of prime time television commercials of its own. How do you think it got 5 million web registrations?
Toon town, wizard 101, etc.
You are right that Blizzard does a lot of advertising now, but that is something that happened years after release.
Maybe I'm not watching the right channels or something. There are only two games I've ever seen advertisements for. Wow starting like 2 years ago and StarGate Online about 6 months ago. In any event my response was to the comment that wow doesn't do advertising. Clearly they do and they are almost certainly spending more money then all the other companies together. Course they can aford to spend that kinda money.
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Ethion
This is quite possibly the most ridiculous premise for a posting I have ever seen.
Developers make game, game uses Micro transaction model. Players realize they have to spend money on entertainment, rants on forums.
This is just a sign that this model is working, because you really want that banana suit, you just dont want to pay the 2$ for it.
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"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
Even without a subscription fee you end up spending more then what a normal subscription fee would be per month if you buy things from the station marketplace. Hence there being no subscription fee.
I played Freerealms and became a member. I have numerous 20's (max lvl) and purchased all their items from the marketplace. Probably blew around 50 bucks on it in only a month.
My most favorite item is the cray sandcastle. It turns people into cray fish if they stand near it. People like to loiter around the area called sanctuary and either cyber or spam chat with stupidity. I go into the middle of them and drop the cray sandcastle.
Could you tell us which game companies exist for other reasons than to make a profit?
I agree with the OP.
The "buy or die" sign appears too soon in Free Realms. Other MT games like Atlantica, Runes of Magic, Wizard 101 etc let you dive far more into their worlds until they open their hands.
get a job,nothing is for free!
Well, a thief, a con artist and a beggar want to make money too. :::Roll eyes:::
It is not about $OE wanting to make a profit (of course any company does), it is about how they go about it. If consumers do not feel they are getting their money's worth, they go else where. Obviously $OE is more focused on making as much money with as little effort put into quality, customer service and sound business principles as possible. When a product/service is focused on with the intent of customer satisfaction first (not $OE satisfaction), the product will sell. $OE still needs to learn this lesson. Quality and value DO mean a lot.
I would expect any informed and savvy consumer to know this.
Reality check..... This is not a non-profit organization. Welcome to the real world. The only way you can have a "perfect' MMO is if you design it yourself. Still there are employees and bills that need to be paid and two or three executives that want to keep their exquisite lifestyle. But only someone that has a real job can understand this.
People don't care about the profit/loss of a company. They want a fun game and soe charging more and offering less in return has not turned out to be such a great business model.
It does without saying that companies are in business to make money, but when that greed overpowers the basic concepts of making successful products then there is a problem.
Free realms is nothing more than several revenue models with cheap mmo concepts and flash games tacked on top of it. That is why the game can't even muster enough players to fill one server.
Many don't like SOE for what they did to SWG, i did not expereince that at the time,
I just hate SOE for what they did/are doing to Vangaurd.
There too they showed their greed over the advancement of the genre, and of course they are allowed to what they like to make money, but if they show utter contempt for the genre then people who actual like this genre are going to hate on them, they know exactly what they are doing and so should get all the bad press that is coming to them.
Anyone else hate SoE?
If I owned a music store, I would want to make sure that when a customer enters the store, I have the stands, posters, kiosks, shelves and endcaps all set up in a way to get as much of a sale out of the customer that I possibly can. Why? Because when the customer leaves, there is no way of knowing when or even if the customer will ever return. It's also because I would have overhead of the store as well as employees and cost of stock and build out (shelves, endcaps, etc). Not to mention IT costs of a POS system (cash register), the fact that merchant accounts that process the credit cards charge a 2% fee on top of the $50 per month fee and if I want to take Discover/Novus it is high as 5%. Plus, accounting to make sure that the government gets its fair share and legal fees to make sure that I am filiing my annual corporate meeting minutes properly. The list goes on and on.
Now, picture the MMO market. With simular overhead (printing&distribution, marketing, advertising, billing, customer service is a big money drain, emplolyee payroll, benefits and employer contributions, etc) - the only source of income is typically 1 monthly fee per user. Most people do not have 2 accounts, but I do understand that some do. Also, keep in mind in this form of market model, it's a race for retention. You need to make sure that subs stay up. One way of doing this is offering reduced costs for long term subs. Which is even less money as a lot of people will tend to go with the 3-month sub instead of the 1-month after they decide they will continue to play the game.
As the game get's older, your retention will reduce and so will your monthly revenue. Layoffs will equal less frequent patching and development which will cause a vicious circle of loss of retention and so and and so forth until you are left with only a die hard player base and a handful of employees with little to no support.
Now, going back to the first example, wouldn't it make sense as a business to try to push as much product to a customer as possible to maximize your profit? Why loose a $15 a month sub when instead you can keep that same person for only $5 a month or possible every two months? Why limit your company to only taking $15 a month from one person if they are willing to pay $25, $35 or $50 a month for entertainment? A flat unlimited model with no possibility of additional revenue does not make financial sense unless you dominate a particular market. Yes, I feel that most of the items in a lot of games are not worth the cost. But, I did see buying a pet for $3 for my daughter was worth it. She still plays with it.
I think that people need to realize that virtual goods are considered tangible to some and repulsive to others. A great example is that many people of my age (mid 30s) and up do not understand why in the world someone would pay $4-5 to a read a book in the form of a PDF. I mean, it's not the same... it's just wrong. But, on the flip side a lot of younger people would wonder why in the world you wouldn't. The PDF download can be burned to a CD or redownloaded in case you "loose the book". Plus, you don't have to worry about damaging the spine. I think that a lot of people don't want change. Now, if someone was to release a microtransaction game to a fresh audience of tweens .. wouldn't that possibly change your market for games that you haven't even released yet?
Oh wait you read it wrong its one Banana Suit for $15 but it last for 7 days..haha
Some people rob you at gun point..Others will rob you at "Ball Point Pen"