I guess that depends on how you define RMT...IMO, buying a costume piece in City of Heroes when there are thousands of free ones available doesnt make the game RMT. It is still a subscription game. And you cannot buy advancement with money.
That is like saying:
I dont buy stuff online, I just use Ebay.
RMT is the METHOD that is used to do business, not the results.
The only difference is that if you spend money looking red, instead of looking green, that does not really affect me. If you spend your money having twice as much HP, making you twice as hard to kill, that does affect me.
With that perspective in mind, Blizzard does not have RMT. Their in-game items that you can obtain by purchasing trade cards are eye-candy nothing more. It wont make you any more powerful or competitive then I am, unless you consider fashion in WoW to be a form of competition.
Actually it does affect all players. Those cosmetics items that are now in the item shop would have been in the game for everyone if the item shop did not exist. Anyway why play games if you want to buy the items. That isn't playing that is buying things with your credit card. Games are meant to be played for fun.
Good post, ArcAngel3. I agree that RMT is OK if it's for items that are only cosmetic, such as the costume options available for CoX. BUT I'd be really nervous if a new game comes out with these types of RMT options available out of the box. Maybe it's only costumes today, but what about in a year from now, especially if the game starts hurting a bit financially. Once an RMT mall is in place, it would take a very well disciplined developer to keep from eventually putting up some godly weapons and gear.
Something that stood out to me in the article was the risk of purchasing virtual items, currency or characters from third parties. The greatest risk was the possible failure to deliver, leaving the consumer with little recourse.
This doesn't seem all that different from some of the policies we see offered by MMO publishers themselves. Some will sell you an item and then claim the right to diminish it's value or even eliminate it outright anytime they see fit. Just like third parties, the user agreements in these games leave the consumer with little recourse.
This is a really good point that I hadn't thought of. I played WoW for a long time, and before there were any expansions, before WoW jumped the shark, I completed the challenging quest-line to obtain a Benediction staff for my priest. This was an awesome staff at the time, and I felt a great sense of accomplishment having obtained it. Of course, once the first expansion came out, Benediction was immediately obsolete. Even though my staff which used to be the best in the game was now basically worthless, I still remembered enjoying the questline to obtain it and the sense of accomplishment I had, and I kept the old staff in my bank as a memento. If instead I had simply paid $30 for the thing, I'd be left feeling sour that my $30 investment was reduced to complete worthlessness, and I'd have had no fond memories to go with it.
Yeah I agree. As I have said many times before i'm cool as long as they are just cosmetic but if items shops get to the point where I can log on and buy some "Godly Plate of the Whale" then I would probably be so pissed i would quit MMOs for good. I agree with some of what Qombi (sp?) has to say. Although in its current main stream glory RMT isnt really a bad thing but its not a good thing either. Like I said I dont mind it as long as its just cosmetic, as soon as it goes beyond that for the game i'm playing i'm going to start a crusade to kick some ass.
For me part of the problem is what exactly is 'RMT' ? People seems to associate different meanings to it.
I hate 'RMT' with a passion, but what exactly is it that I dislike. Well firstly it is only what I call 'ingame RMT', so I have no problem with people paying for a server transfer, character rename or anything else that I class as taking place outside the gameworld. However, the second it affects the gameworld itself then I hate it. This includeds things such as the recent addition of the station cash store in EQ2 for example. This is the perfect definition of RMT done badly because they are asking for customers to pay a monthly sub, and then putting items on a store that you have to pay for ontop of the sub.
The other thing is that as a Western MMO player there is one simple truth that has prevailed across all the MMO's I've tried, it is a simple equation which goes as follows:
F2P = RMT = MicroTransaction = Asian MMO = CRAP!
This is just my opinion, but I've been paying MMO's for years now, I've tried F2P, games with RMT, Asian Grinders etc and I have yet to find one single game that doesn't meet the criteria of the equation. Ok, so maybe it's just me and I'm turning into a grumpy old gamer. But I work in IT in the UK so I have exposure to a lot of other fellow 'geeks', most of whom play various MMO's, and when asked about it they almost all have the same response when asked about 'RMT', they hate it and they equate it with rubbish games usually of Asian origin.
So no, I don't think it is inevitable, at least I hope not, but if companies want to start introducting 'ingame RMT' to the Western audience then I think they have to understand that there are a large number of people who will just instantly walk away from their game, there is also another section that will be hugely suspicous of the game and maybe it is up to the games companies themselves to justify the RMT model to a suspicous customer base. A good start would be to stop trying to rip of customers as SOE seem to be doing currently where they seem to be trying to adopt the 'P2P+Cash Shop' RMT model which is just a joke. If you want ingame RMT then the game has to be F2P (of course I won't be playing it even for free )
Me, I'm too set in my ways, it's sub based with no 'ingame RMT' all the way for me, and mainly because nobody has ever yet managed to convince me of any benefit whatsoever to having a game with 'cash shops' etc. But I still believe that before anyone can witter on about whether RMT is enevitable or not, we need a definition first.
For me part of the problem is what exactly is 'RMT' ? People seems to associate different meanings to it. I hate 'RMT' with a passion, but what exactly is it that I dislike. Well firstly it is only what I call 'ingame RMT', so I have no problem with people paying for a server transfer, character rename or anything else that I class as taking place outside the gameworld. However, the second it affects the gameworld itself then I hate it. This includeds things such as the recent addition of the station cash store in EQ2 for example. This is the perfect definition of RMT done badly because they are asking for customers to pay a monthly sub, and then putting items on a store that you have to pay for ontop of the sub. The other thing is that as a Western MMO player there is one simple truth that has prevailed across all the MMO's I've tried, it is a simple equation which goes as follows: F2P = RMT = MicroTransaction = Asian MMO = CRAP! This is just my opinion, but I've been paying MMO's for years now, I've tried F2P, games with RMT, Asian Grinders etc and I have yet to find one single game that doesn't meet the criteria of the equation. Ok, so maybe it's just me and I'm turning into a grumpy old gamer. But I work in IT in the UK so I have exposure to a lot of other fellow 'geeks', most of whom play various MMO's, and when asked about it they almost all have the same response when asked about 'RMT', they hate it and they equate it with rubbish games usually of Asian origin. So no, I don't think it is inevitable, at least I hope not, but if companies want to start introducting 'ingame RMT' to the Western audience then I think they have to understand that there are a large number of people who will just instantly walk away from their game, there is also another section that will be hugely suspicous of the game and maybe it is up to the games companies themselves to justify the RMT model to a suspicous customer base. A good start would be to stop trying to rip of customers as SOE seem to be doing currently where they seem to be trying to adopt the 'P2P+Cash Shop' RMT model which is just a joke. If you want ingame RMT then the game has to be F2P (of course I won't be playing it even for free ) Me, I'm too set in my ways, it's sub based with no 'ingame RMT' all the way for me, and mainly because nobody has ever yet managed to convince me of any benefit whatsoever to having a game with 'cash shops' etc. But I still believe that before anyone can witter on about whether RMT is enevitable or not, we need a definition first.
what about the big poit my point that i di a few pages back, the one about Item shot non tradable vs tradable
For me part of the problem is what exactly is 'RMT' ? People seems to associate different meanings to it. I hate 'RMT' with a passion, but what exactly is it that I dislike. Well firstly it is only what I call 'ingame RMT', so I have no problem with people paying for a server transfer, character rename or anything else that I class as taking place outside the gameworld. However, the second it affects the gameworld itself then I hate it. This includeds things such as the recent addition of the station cash store in EQ2 for example. This is the perfect definition of RMT done badly because they are asking for customers to pay a monthly sub, and then putting items on a store that you have to pay for ontop of the sub. The other thing is that as a Western MMO player there is one simple truth that has prevailed across all the MMO's I've tried, it is a simple equation which goes as follows: F2P = RMT = MicroTransaction = Asian MMO = CRAP! This is just my opinion, but I've been paying MMO's for years now, I've tried F2P, games with RMT, Asian Grinders etc and I have yet to find one single game that doesn't meet the criteria of the equation. Ok, so maybe it's just me and I'm turning into a grumpy old gamer. But I work in IT in the UK so I have exposure to a lot of other fellow 'geeks', most of whom play various MMO's, and when asked about it they almost all have the same response when asked about 'RMT', they hate it and they equate it with rubbish games usually of Asian origin. So no, I don't think it is inevitable, at least I hope not, but if companies want to start introducting 'ingame RMT' to the Western audience then I think they have to understand that there are a large number of people who will just instantly walk away from their game, there is also another section that will be hugely suspicous of the game and maybe it is up to the games companies themselves to justify the RMT model to a suspicous customer base. A good start would be to stop trying to rip of customers as SOE seem to be doing currently where they seem to be trying to adopt the 'P2P+Cash Shop' RMT model which is just a joke. If you want ingame RMT then the game has to be F2P (of course I won't be playing it even for free ) Me, I'm too set in my ways, it's sub based with no 'ingame RMT' all the way for me, and mainly because nobody has ever yet managed to convince me of any benefit whatsoever to having a game with 'cash shops' etc. But I still believe that before anyone can witter on about whether RMT is enevitable or not, we need a definition first.
Great point about only in game RMT. I agree with you, great post. I too do not mind if out of game RMT happens such as character transfers etc.
For me part of the problem is what exactly is 'RMT' ? People seems to associate different meanings to it. I hate 'RMT' with a passion, but what exactly is it that I dislike. Well firstly it is only what I call 'ingame RMT', so I have no problem with people paying for a server transfer, character rename or anything else that I class as taking place outside the gameworld. However, the second it affects the gameworld itself then I hate it. This includeds things such as the recent addition of the station cash store in EQ2 for example. This is the perfect definition of RMT done badly because they are asking for customers to pay a monthly sub, and then putting items on a store that you have to pay for ontop of the sub. The other thing is that as a Western MMO player there is one simple truth that has prevailed across all the MMO's I've tried, it is a simple equation which goes as follows: F2P = RMT = MicroTransaction = Asian MMO = CRAP! This is just my opinion, but I've been paying MMO's for years now, I've tried F2P, games with RMT, Asian Grinders etc and I have yet to find one single game that doesn't meet the criteria of the equation. Ok, so maybe it's just me and I'm turning into a grumpy old gamer. But I work in IT in the UK so I have exposure to a lot of other fellow 'geeks', most of whom play various MMO's, and when asked about it they almost all have the same response when asked about 'RMT', they hate it and they equate it with rubbish games usually of Asian origin. So no, I don't think it is inevitable, at least I hope not, but if companies want to start introducting 'ingame RMT' to the Western audience then I think they have to understand that there are a large number of people who will just instantly walk away from their game, there is also another section that will be hugely suspicous of the game and maybe it is up to the games companies themselves to justify the RMT model to a suspicous customer base. A good start would be to stop trying to rip of customers as SOE seem to be doing currently where they seem to be trying to adopt the 'P2P+Cash Shop' RMT model which is just a joke. If you want ingame RMT then the game has to be F2P (of course I won't be playing it even for free ) Me, I'm too set in my ways, it's sub based with no 'ingame RMT' all the way for me, and mainly because nobody has ever yet managed to convince me of any benefit whatsoever to having a game with 'cash shops' etc. But I still believe that before anyone can witter on about whether RMT is enevitable or not, we need a definition first.
what about the big poit my point that i di a few pages back, the one about Item shot non tradable vs tradable
Items come from playing a game. If I find getting items in a game unfun to the point where I would rather buy them then the game is unfun and I will quit playing. Buying items of any kind is not game play, that is swiping your credit card. If that is what you are doing then it is time to take a step back and realize these are games that are meant to be played .. not credit card swiping for items.
I will never pay a subscription and pay for RMT in games, its one or the other I do not like mixed business models it just shows greed.
Same here.
Then would you both mind if they doubled the monthly sub? Or is that greed as well?
The only way it shows greed is if their expenses are so low and their profits are so high that they don't "need" to add different revenue streams but choose to anyways.
And then again, if they are a publiclly traded company then they have to maximize their profits for their stockholders. I'm sure both of you would be a bit miffed if your retirement funds or 401k's or whatever you have languished and didn't make any profit because the companies in your portfolio did just enough to stay afloat, keep people employed and invest a little in the prodcut and future developement.
Over the course of years you would then wonder why you don't have enough to retire and what were the companies doing with your money.
I have no problem with mixing them. But if it's the mixing of revenue types that you don't like then have them just raise the monthly fees (doesn't seem to have been raised by much in the last 5 years or so) until they can cover all costs and make the profit that they want/need.
That works for me.
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Name one great "F2P" MMO which have the same quality as any average subscription based MMO.
The quality of these RMT based games are terrible, you will notice tons and tons of timesinks and virtual roadblocks which all leads you to buy really expensive stuff from some item shop, most of these games also lacks support and content updates because the devs have already started on their next project.
Sadly this seems to be where things are heading, SOE have started with their mixed RMT and subscriptions which are even more bad and the level of diffculty have started to drop below easy - I have no idea what they are up too but somehow they think kids have alot of money or something.. dunno.
I have heard of people spending over 5,000 dollars on a free to play game and over $ 40,000 in Eve so ya they might just as well give in and add an item shop so they can fund more development on our favorite games. The economy in games are always messed up any way, you just can't see the gold farmers going it so you just figure this is the way it is suposed to be and most don't even care any how.
In EVE, you can loose your 40.000$ within a heartbeat, because it's a full-loot mmo. In free to play-crap, you can't. If you "buy" ingame currency for 40.000$ in EVE, thousands of players can buy gametime with their ingame currency. The price for ingame-time <> ingame currency will fall, because it is an open market.
If you fly epic ships worth thousands of dollars in EVE, of course you have an advantage. But you better have a plan and a clue, otherwise you are toast and make your opponents very happy, who loot your ship. Money balances itself.
If you buy scrolls, vials, or other "premium items" in games like Atlantica, you will dominate in PvP and PvE, but you risk nothing. It's crap. It's like taking part in a tournament, in which the player wins, who gave the referee the most money.
I will never pay a subscription and pay for RMT in games, its one or the other I do not like mixed business models it just shows greed.
Same here.
Then would you both mind if they doubled the monthly sub? Or is that greed as well?
The only way it shows greed is if their expenses are so low and their profits are so high that they don't "need" to add different revenue streams but choose to anyways.
And then again, if they are a publiclly traded company then they have to maximize their profits for their stockholders. I'm sure both of you would be a bit miffed if your retirement funds or 401k's or whatever you have languished and didn't make any profit because the companies in your portfolio did just enough to stay afloat, keep people employed and invest a little in the prodcut and future developement.
Over the course of years you would then wonder why you don't have enough to retire and what were the companies doing with your money.
I have no problem with mixing them. But if it's the mixing of revenue types that you don't like then have them just raise the monthly fees (doesn't seem to have been raised by much in the last 5 years or so) until they can cover all costs and make the profit that they want/need.
That works for me.
Well, if a company decides just to double the monthly fee after the release once they got a customer base, yeah, that's greed or just stupidity if they want to keep any subs. If a new MMO decides to have a high starting fee then it's up to us customers to decide if we want to pay for this of choose some other game.
I agree that the subs havent changed really for the last 5-10 years but let's not forget it's cheaper to reach out to millions of customers than when EQ1 started. Hardware and the tools to maintain a MMO have are far more refined these days than 10 years ago.
The problem nowadays is that many MMO's try too hard, they hire tons of developers and they make something really BIG and of course expensive for several years without any income whatsoever.
I'll just throw my own 2c into this. As others have stated, RMT's devalue the subsciption fee which I believe to be detremental to the economy and longevity of any MMO that is not designed from the ground up to incorporate such transactions.
Take WoW for example since it is probably one of the most familiar. The base monthly fee allows people to participate equally in any and all content available. Take a hardcore gamer and let that person strive toward and accomplish a goal of getting uber item A. Now allow an RMT to give that same item to someone else and suddenly the subscription fee that the hardcore player paid drastically becomes undervalued. The time and effort put into the achievement is completely taken away. Granted, this may just be the cost of a mount, but it still lowers the value of the monthly fee of any and all who have paid it and spent the time to farm the money or item itself.
I'll just throw my own 2c into this. As others have stated, RMT's devalue the subsciption fee which I believe to be detremental to the economy and longevity of any MMO that is not designed from the ground up to incorporate such transactions.
Take WoW for example since it is probably one of the most familiar. The base monthly fee allows people to participate equally in any and all content available. Take a hardcore gamer and let that person strive toward and accomplish a goal of getting uber item A. Now allow an RMT to give that same item to someone else and suddenly the subscription fee that the hardcore player paid drastically becomes undervalued. The time and effort put into the achievement is completely taken away. Granted, this may just be the cost of a mount, but it still lowers the value of the monthly fee of any and all who have paid it and spent the time to farm the money or item itself.
Your statement is true, but only in the area where items that can be acquired in game are purchasable through an RMT.
If, however, RMT items are only available through RMT, and are not comparable to items you can acquire in-game (in terms of weapons/armor/items that give benefits. Different colored/styled mounts and hair styles have little bearing on progression), the issue you describe is non-existant.
At this point in time, many "services" (hair color/style change, mounts, or name changes) are really just extras that get injected into the game without much effect.
Any game that offers Weapons/Armor/Items through RMT is just adding more headaches to the current problem that exists between crafted gear vs dungeon gear...
Why would anyone try to balance Crafted Gear vs Dungeon Gear vs Payed-For Gear?
I will never pay a subscription and pay for RMT in games, its one or the other I do not like mixed business models it just shows greed.
Same here.
Then would you both mind if they doubled the monthly sub? Or is that greed as well?
The only way it shows greed is if their expenses are so low and their profits are so high that they don't "need" to add different revenue streams but choose to anyways.
And then again, if they are a publiclly traded company then they have to maximize their profits for their stockholders. I'm sure both of you would be a bit miffed if your retirement funds or 401k's or whatever you have languished and didn't make any profit because the companies in your portfolio did just enough to stay afloat, keep people employed and invest a little in the prodcut and future developement.
Over the course of years you would then wonder why you don't have enough to retire and what were the companies doing with your money.
I have no problem with mixing them. But if it's the mixing of revenue types that you don't like then have them just raise the monthly fees (doesn't seem to have been raised by much in the last 5 years or so) until they can cover all costs and make the profit that they want/need.
That works for me.
Well, if a company decides just to double the monthly fee after the release once they got a customer base, yeah, that's greed or just stupidity if they want to keep any subs. If a new MMO decides to have a high starting fee then it's up to us customers to decide if we want to pay for this of choose some other game.
I agree that the subs havent changed really for the last 5-10 years but let's not forget it's cheaper to reach out to millions of customers than when EQ1 started. Hardware and the tools to maintain a MMO have are far more refined these days than 10 years ago.
The problem nowadays is that many MMO's try too hard, they hire tons of developers and they make something really BIG and of course expensive for several years without any income whatsoever.
Hardware might be cheaper ( I can't verify that but I'll take you word for it for the sake of the discussion) but what about development time, salaries and all the fringe that goes along with that, office space, insurance, retirement accounts/matching, the cost of running a business the costs of actual development?
It seems to me that the costs of developing these games have gone up.
As far as raising the price, well, raising it the month after launch or even doubling it would be suicide. But what about "cost of living" raises?
I mean, many of us, as a matter of course during our employment, get some sort of cost of living raise each year. Costs to develop and maintain the business/game (not to mention research and development for the company's future pipeline) surely go up each year yet short of hoping for new subscribers the cost to us does not go up. Movies have certainly gone up in 5 years.
I'm not a game developer so I can't speak to the "try too hard" statement. I imagine they do waste a lot of money. But then again, it seems that a good many people in the industry are growing older and want more adult lives in that they don't want to wake up one day, realize that they are retirement age and realize that they have been working for peanuts for "the love of the game".
So companies have to be more like companies and offer some sort of future if not at least a decent salary and benefits. They aren't John Carmack and John Romero in a basement anymore. And though it probably is very possible to be a john carmack/john romero and make a game, will enough people be interested in it due to a flooded market?
Every morning when I wake up I go to gamespy. Have been doing it for a long time. As a point of note I think the site has gone downhill considerably but that is another discussion. I check out what is new and what is coming out or in development. And I have come to the conclusion that there is just a lot of "stuff" being made and I'm not sure if people really care.
So it's going to be hard to wade through all of these games in order to find a gem in the rough. A small game company has a lot against it. Of course, in some ways the internet helps but how does one really find your game in a sea of other games.
And gamers have become a lot more fickle and in some cases spoiled. Not to say that they HAVE to subscribe to a game they hate but it's way to easy to just flit from one game to another. That doesn't really bode well for a game company making a new mmo. Quite frankly as an investor, unless I truly believed in the project, I would not invest in any mmo company as it's just too riskly. I'm surprised that game companies even try. However, the lure of the WoW money might seem to be very seductive.
Either the game industry is just filled with a lot of incompetant people or making/developing a game is really very hard.
In which case a company that wants to remain a company is going to try to maximize its revenue and minimize loss.
So sure, they are trying to make something big but given what I've seen on this site with small indy games, there doesn't seem to be a lot of excitment about games that look like diablo or UO even if it might have unique game play.
But sure, you might get a small group making an indy game that might not take a lot or look like a lot but might get enough players to run it for a while. But eventually all those employees are going to want to make a better living and have more job security and at the very least might want to grow the company. At most they might want to go to a larger company that doesn't take a lot of risks but that is going to be around for a while and offer a better employment opportunity.
So though big companies might be safe and unimaginative they do offer quite a bit for someone who wants to make a living in game development. Therefore it makes sense that they are going to look for ways to bring in more money. Since we know people are willing to spend their own money (and a lot of money) on the secondary market they are going to want to enter their own stuff.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
I will never pay a subscription and pay for RMT in games, its one or the other I do not like mixed business models it just shows greed.
Same here.
Then would you both mind if they doubled the monthly sub? Or is that greed as well?
The only way it shows greed is if their expenses are so low and their profits are so high that they don't "need" to add different revenue streams but choose to anyways.
And then again, if they are a publiclly traded company then they have to maximize their profits for their stockholders. I'm sure both of you would be a bit miffed if your retirement funds or 401k's or whatever you have languished and didn't make any profit because the companies in your portfolio did just enough to stay afloat, keep people employed and invest a little in the prodcut and future developement.
Over the course of years you would then wonder why you don't have enough to retire and what were the companies doing with your money.
I have no problem with mixing them. But if it's the mixing of revenue types that you don't like then have them just raise the monthly fees (doesn't seem to have been raised by much in the last 5 years or so) until they can cover all costs and make the profit that they want/need.
That works for me.
Well, if a company decides just to double the monthly fee after the release once they got a customer base, yeah, that's greed or just stupidity if they want to keep any subs. If a new MMO decides to have a high starting fee then it's up to us customers to decide if we want to pay for this of choose some other game.
I agree that the subs havent changed really for the last 5-10 years but let's not forget it's cheaper to reach out to millions of customers than when EQ1 started. Hardware and the tools to maintain a MMO have are far more refined these days than 10 years ago.
The problem nowadays is that many MMO's try too hard, they hire tons of developers and they make something really BIG and of course expensive for several years without any income whatsoever.
Increasing the sub fee might be greed, or it might just be necessary to keep a game running. I suppose it would depend on the size of the increase. If people are given plenty of warning in advance of an increase though, they could at least make an informed decision about continuing to subscribe. This assumes they haven't paid for a year in advance or something though.
What I dislike about some RMT models is their deceptive, manipulative nature. For example, telling kids that they can be a pet trainer in a free to play game, but then ensuring that they can't actually own a pet unless they buy one at the RMT shop. That's manipulative and deceptive imo. Can you really be a pet trainer for free without any pets? Of course not. The kids are getting manipulated to buy pets. It's more honest to say, "hey kids for 5 bucks a month you can play this game and one of the things you can do is train pets, which are of course included in the subscription fee."
Also, in RMT games, they can give you gameplay options for earning gear that take you literally years to make any meaningful progress. They will then of course give you the option to purchase the gear immediately from the RMT shop. Can you really play the game without using the item shop? On paper, yes; in reality, no. You'll be the only schmuk harvesting god knows what for god knows how long just to useful in any team situation or competitive in PvP. You're manipulated into using the item shop.
Then there's the example of offering performance enhancing buffs or items via some kind of RMT lottery. People are doing this right now unfortunately, shelling out real cash just for a random chance of getting a particular item, and they don't even really know what their chance of winning is.
RMT can be very deceptive, and very manipulative. People can get soaked for big money and get very little if any entertainment value in the process. If that's what MMO gaming is coming to, it's really just ugly.
That's why I prefer subscription based games like WoW, or if there is any RMT, it is for non-essential cosmetic options; like purchasing a pin-stripe package for a new car. Some RMT is like that. Others sell you a car, but then charge you extra for an engine, or maybe even just the random chance of getting an engine. It's rather sick I think. Ever see that Spiderman film where a little kid sells J. Jonah Jameson a camera, but then charges him extra for film? Greedy little kid, and some MMO publisher seem to display the same kind of behaviour. I avoid them, and I hope they don't become the driving force in the industry.
I'll just throw my own 2c into this. As others have stated, RMT's devalue the subsciption fee which I believe to be detremental to the economy and longevity of any MMO that is not designed from the ground up to incorporate such transactions.
Take WoW for example since it is probably one of the most familiar. The base monthly fee allows people to participate equally in any and all content available. Take a hardcore gamer and let that person strive toward and accomplish a goal of getting uber item A. Now allow an RMT to give that same item to someone else and suddenly the subscription fee that the hardcore player paid drastically becomes undervalued. The time and effort put into the achievement is completely taken away. Granted, this may just be the cost of a mount, but it still lowers the value of the monthly fee of any and all who have paid it and spent the time to farm the money or item itself.
Your statement is true, but only in the area where items that can be acquired in game are purchasable through an RMT.
If, however, RMT items are only available through RMT, and are not comparable to items you can acquire in-game (in terms of weapons/armor/items that give benefits. Different colored/styled mounts and hair styles have little bearing on progression), the issue you describe is non-existant.
At this point in time, many "services" (hair color/style change, mounts, or name changes) are really just extras that get injected into the game without much effect.
Any game that offers Weapons/Armor/Items through RMT is just adding more headaches to the current problem that exists between crafted gear vs dungeon gear...
Why would anyone try to balance Crafted Gear vs Dungeon Gear vs Payed-For Gear?
Still devalues the subscription fee that I pay. Let's use WoW for the example since that is what was started with. WoW right now is subcription based. WoW regularly adds free content such as seasonal events, dungeons, etc. If WoW adds an RMT, now we have resources being taken away from the original model of giving out content included with the sub price. Now they may still give some out but not as much as it would have been because some is being sold to you via real cash.
Not to mention I will not play a game that sells item for cash because that just ruins the game for me. I buy games to play them not swipe my credit card to obtain items. The item isn't what I am ultimately after. Obtaining the item is what the game is about and you will never get the same satisfaction having the item unless you did so.
Actually if you think about these companies are cheating you with RMT and you are letting them get away with it. Think about it for a moment. What makes a video game a video game? Content. You judge a video game on whether or not the content is fun. Now would you not feel cheated if you purchased this new game/expansion at the store and got home there wasn't any game to it, no content. What it was was just some digital items. With RMT that is exactly what you are allowing game companies to do. Sell you video game without the actually video game. You are not getting the game experience you are only getting the end result the item. Getting an item via a credit card does not make a game. The game is the content.
If they want me to purchase video game content, I best be getting some game. If they need extra money they need to sell little small booster packs of small chunks of content that RESULTS in getting the items be it cosmetic etc. I am not interested in swiping my card for some digital item, I want the experience of getting that item. They really should be ashamed to sell items without any game to it. That is some poor gameplay and isn't worth your time.
I'll just throw my own 2c into this. As others have stated, RMT's devalue the subsciption fee which I believe to be detremental to the economy and longevity of any MMO that is not designed from the ground up to incorporate such transactions.
Take WoW for example since it is probably one of the most familiar. The base monthly fee allows people to participate equally in any and all content available. Take a hardcore gamer and let that person strive toward and accomplish a goal of getting uber item A. Now allow an RMT to give that same item to someone else and suddenly the subscription fee that the hardcore player paid drastically becomes undervalued. The time and effort put into the achievement is completely taken away. Granted, this may just be the cost of a mount, but it still lowers the value of the monthly fee of any and all who have paid it and spent the time to farm the money or item itself.
Your statement is true, but only in the area where items that can be acquired in game are purchasable through an RMT.
If, however, RMT items are only available through RMT, and are not comparable to items you can acquire in-game (in terms of weapons/armor/items that give benefits. Different colored/styled mounts and hair styles have little bearing on progression), the issue you describe is non-existant.
At this point in time, many "services" (hair color/style change, mounts, or name changes) are really just extras that get injected into the game without much effect.
Any game that offers Weapons/Armor/Items through RMT is just adding more headaches to the current problem that exists between crafted gear vs dungeon gear...
Why would anyone try to balance Crafted Gear vs Dungeon Gear vs Payed-For Gear?
Yea but thats not true either mate, items that arent available in-game, only through shop can be twice as detrimental.. RF Online, monthly subscription, put in 18months to get to lvl 50, full stats, +5 armour, +225 dodge, and a +5 int hora spear.. ok cool, im a badass possibly spent 6 months farming damn callies to get 2.5 billion dalant so i can buy 50 int hora spears and armour and more upgrade gems and talics than i can fit in 5 bags just to get my gear up to the highest.. 1 month later RMT Shop.. i say to myself "F*ck there goes the neighbourhood, good call no.3 Codemasters!!" Not to be left behind, i goes browsing thru the shop and hey whats this talic upgrader thingy? bang any noob can pay like 2 quid for a +6 100% success upgrader.. so now for £2 you can get what i just spent 18 months and 2.5 billiion ingame currency on.. the game then went free to play cus everyone quit. F*CK YOU CM!. If Aion goes the same way im getting a outdoor hobby.
I'll just throw my own 2c into this. As others have stated, RMT's devalue the subsciption fee which I believe to be detremental to the economy and longevity of any MMO that is not designed from the ground up to incorporate such transactions.
Take WoW for example since it is probably one of the most familiar. The base monthly fee allows people to participate equally in any and all content available. Take a hardcore gamer and let that person strive toward and accomplish a goal of getting uber item A. Now allow an RMT to give that same item to someone else and suddenly the subscription fee that the hardcore player paid drastically becomes undervalued. The time and effort put into the achievement is completely taken away. Granted, this may just be the cost of a mount, but it still lowers the value of the monthly fee of any and all who have paid it and spent the time to farm the money or item itself.
Your statement is true, but only in the area where items that can be acquired in game are purchasable through an RMT.
If, however, RMT items are only available through RMT, and are not comparable to items you can acquire in-game (in terms of weapons/armor/items that give benefits. Different colored/styled mounts and hair styles have little bearing on progression), the issue you describe is non-existant.
At this point in time, many "services" (hair color/style change, mounts, or name changes) are really just extras that get injected into the game without much effect.
Any game that offers Weapons/Armor/Items through RMT is just adding more headaches to the current problem that exists between crafted gear vs dungeon gear...
Why would anyone try to balance Crafted Gear vs Dungeon Gear vs Payed-For Gear?
Yea but thats not true either mate, items that arent available in-game, only through shop can be twice as detrimental.. RF Online, monthly subscription, put in 18months to get to lvl 50, full stats, +5 armour, +225 dodge, and a +5 int hora spear.. ok cool, im a badass possibly spent 6 months farming damn callies to get 2.5 billion dalant so i can buy 50 int hora spears and armour and more upgrade gems and talics than i can fit in 5 bags just to get my gear up to the highest.. 1 month later RMT Shop.. i say to myself "F*ck there goes the neighbourhood, good call no.3 Codemasters!!" Not to be left behind, i goes browsing thru the shop and hey whats this talic upgrader thingy? bang any noob can pay like 2 quid for a +6 100% success upgrader.. so now for £2 you can get what i just spent 18 months and 2.5 billiion ingame currency on.. the game then went free to play cus everyone quit. F*CK YOU CM!. If Aion goes the same way im getting a outdoor hobby.
I think a lot of MMO gamers feel this way. I find myself playing NON-virtual trading card games with friends more now because I'm getting sick of MMO companies treating gamers like dumb sheep that exist for the sole purpose of being sheered via RMT.
I'm beta testing two games at the moment that don't treat players this way, so there's some hope for good gaming in the future, but right now, the RMT greed is a real pain in the ass.
It's like some companies have said, "well we can't develop anything as successful as WoW, so how can we bleed the few suckers we've got playing our games dry?" My thinking is, if you can't make a polished, entertaining game with a fair business model, get out of the MMO industry. Open up a used car lot, or a telemarketting company. You've missed your calling.
Hi, well, I think RMT is inevitable, the fact is that companies that want to succeed in the long run have to listen to their customers hence the players, and in a way is technically very easy to implement , in F2P games like PWI you can setup a shop to sell items to other players for gamemoney, so the deal is to make it more Ebay-ized, commisions on transactions (the way Online Poker works) gets money to the game companies, then in a PayPal-like system the buyer pays and the seller gets the money; the problems arrises from the policies to implement, since many core-players will not like being beaten by a casual gamer just because his/her wallet is bigger; other bigger problems might arise from the taxes point of view, since a commercial transaction that can be traced is expected to pay taxes, and many players reside outside the companys country the red tape will get in the way.
On the subject of game policies for example there could be bonuses for those who spend more time online based on REAL reputation thru social interaction not quests, etc.
The road ahead is still long enough to make a lot of experiments for what could or could not be successful in a MMO
It all depends on how it's implemented for an individual game. I doubt most people will pay more than $15/month in items if they can go play a sub game and not worry about being nickle-and-dimed. And I'm pretty certain a very small number of people will go for both subs and RMT as many others have mentioned. Especially in the current economy, people are shoring up against a-la-cart type business.
i totally agree with the author. wow is the best example .never real balance .once paladins were loosers .they were made heroes a year after. i dont actually see why people even play those games!!! f2p are great .perfect online is the best example .i only think they should add western union to their tally.and for the last i dont respond to inflame posts .wow enthuisiats will not be replied by me .as this post is for the topic .u can fight me somewhere else.
RMTs are ok for games without depth mainly for players who don't have enough time to play a week. Real world money usually destroys an economy though for more in depth MMORPGs. it's a big problem for UO pre-trammel fans such as myself. But then again every game out there currently is just another WoW clone so whatever. Darkfall and Mortal Online are the only 2 that came close to doing it right, but they are still fail, so after 10 years here I am still waiting for a true MMOWS, oh well.
If they don't offer PTP MMOs sometime in the near future, then I am pretty much done with this genre. I am no fan of RMT and neither are my family and friends.
I don't think it matters much really, if the majority wants the RMT platform then it's the way things have to go I guess.
We will just head back to the games that we initially played and just getout of the house more to socialize. :P
RMT will never go away while developers keep making the same shortsighted game play design IE time sinks and grind sinks, some people like to enjoy the content of a game without it becoming a second job. The situation has also got worse because the organisations that began farming and selling game items cashed in and made a lot of money and this obviously has not gone unnoticed and the developers now want their slice of the pie.
So instead of innovative game design the genre will be stuck with endless grinding because the devs wont want to change anything because they can cash in on the people who want to avoid as much of the moronic game play as possible.
Currently playing:
EVE online (Ruining low sec one hotdrop at a time)
Gravity Rush, Dishonoured: The Knife of Dunwall.
(Waiting for) Metro: Last Light, Company of Heroes II.
Comments
That is like saying:
I dont buy stuff online, I just use Ebay.
RMT is the METHOD that is used to do business, not the results.
The only difference is that if you spend money looking red, instead of looking green, that does not really affect me. If you spend your money having twice as much HP, making you twice as hard to kill, that does affect me.
With that perspective in mind, Blizzard does not have RMT. Their in-game items that you can obtain by purchasing trade cards are eye-candy nothing more. It wont make you any more powerful or competitive then I am, unless you consider fashion in WoW to be a form of competition.
Actually it does affect all players. Those cosmetics items that are now in the item shop would have been in the game for everyone if the item shop did not exist. Anyway why play games if you want to buy the items. That isn't playing that is buying things with your credit card. Games are meant to be played for fun.
This is a really good point that I hadn't thought of. I played WoW for a long time, and before there were any expansions, before WoW jumped the shark, I completed the challenging quest-line to obtain a Benediction staff for my priest. This was an awesome staff at the time, and I felt a great sense of accomplishment having obtained it. Of course, once the first expansion came out, Benediction was immediately obsolete. Even though my staff which used to be the best in the game was now basically worthless, I still remembered enjoying the questline to obtain it and the sense of accomplishment I had, and I kept the old staff in my bank as a memento. If instead I had simply paid $30 for the thing, I'd be left feeling sour that my $30 investment was reduced to complete worthlessness, and I'd have had no fond memories to go with it.
Yeah I agree. As I have said many times before i'm cool as long as they are just cosmetic but if items shops get to the point where I can log on and buy some "Godly Plate of the Whale" then I would probably be so pissed i would quit MMOs for good. I agree with some of what Qombi (sp?) has to say. Although in its current main stream glory RMT isnt really a bad thing but its not a good thing either. Like I said I dont mind it as long as its just cosmetic, as soon as it goes beyond that for the game i'm playing i'm going to start a crusade to kick some ass.
Same here.
I hate 'RMT' with a passion, but what exactly is it that I dislike. Well firstly it is only what I call 'ingame RMT', so I have no problem with people paying for a server transfer, character rename or anything else that I class as taking place outside the gameworld. However, the second it affects the gameworld itself then I hate it. This includeds things such as the recent addition of the station cash store in EQ2 for example. This is the perfect definition of RMT done badly because they are asking for customers to pay a monthly sub, and then putting items on a store that you have to pay for ontop of the sub.
The other thing is that as a Western MMO player there is one simple truth that has prevailed across all the MMO's I've tried, it is a simple equation which goes as follows:
F2P = RMT = MicroTransaction = Asian MMO = CRAP!
This is just my opinion, but I've been paying MMO's for years now, I've tried F2P, games with RMT, Asian Grinders etc and I have yet to find one single game that doesn't meet the criteria of the equation. Ok, so maybe it's just me and I'm turning into a grumpy old gamer. But I work in IT in the UK so I have exposure to a lot of other fellow 'geeks', most of whom play various MMO's, and when asked about it they almost all have the same response when asked about 'RMT', they hate it and they equate it with rubbish games usually of Asian origin.
So no, I don't think it is inevitable, at least I hope not, but if companies want to start introducting 'ingame RMT' to the Western audience then I think they have to understand that there are a large number of people who will just instantly walk away from their game, there is also another section that will be hugely suspicous of the game and maybe it is up to the games companies themselves to justify the RMT model to a suspicous customer base. A good start would be to stop trying to rip of customers as SOE seem to be doing currently where they seem to be trying to adopt the 'P2P+Cash Shop' RMT model which is just a joke. If you want ingame RMT then the game has to be F2P (of course I won't be playing it even for free
)
Me, I'm too set in my ways, it's sub based with no 'ingame RMT' all the way for me, and mainly because nobody has ever yet managed to convince me of any benefit whatsoever to having a game with 'cash shops' etc. But I still believe that before anyone can witter on about whether RMT is enevitable or not, we need a definition first.
what about the big poit my point that i di a few pages back, the one about Item shot non tradable vs tradable
Great point about only in game RMT. I agree with you, great post. I too do not mind if out of game RMT happens such as character transfers etc.
what about the big poit my point that i di a few pages back, the one about Item shot non tradable vs tradable
Items come from playing a game. If I find getting items in a game unfun to the point where I would rather buy them then the game is unfun and I will quit playing. Buying items of any kind is not game play, that is swiping your credit card. If that is what you are doing then it is time to take a step back and realize these are games that are meant to be played .. not credit card swiping for items.
Same here.
Then would you both mind if they doubled the monthly sub? Or is that greed as well?
The only way it shows greed is if their expenses are so low and their profits are so high that they don't "need" to add different revenue streams but choose to anyways.
And then again, if they are a publiclly traded company then they have to maximize their profits for their stockholders. I'm sure both of you would be a bit miffed if your retirement funds or 401k's or whatever you have languished and didn't make any profit because the companies in your portfolio did just enough to stay afloat, keep people employed and invest a little in the prodcut and future developement.
Over the course of years you would then wonder why you don't have enough to retire and what were the companies doing with your money.
I have no problem with mixing them. But if it's the mixing of revenue types that you don't like then have them just raise the monthly fees (doesn't seem to have been raised by much in the last 5 years or so) until they can cover all costs and make the profit that they want/need.
That works for me.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Name one great "F2P" MMO which have the same quality as any average subscription based MMO.
The quality of these RMT based games are terrible, you will notice tons and tons of timesinks and virtual roadblocks which all leads you to buy really expensive stuff from some item shop, most of these games also lacks support and content updates because the devs have already started on their next project.
Sadly this seems to be where things are heading, SOE have started with their mixed RMT and subscriptions which are even more bad and the level of diffculty have started to drop below easy - I have no idea what they are up too but somehow they think kids have alot of money or something.. dunno.
In EVE, you can loose your 40.000$ within a heartbeat, because it's a full-loot mmo. In free to play-crap, you can't. If you "buy" ingame currency for 40.000$ in EVE, thousands of players can buy gametime with their ingame currency. The price for ingame-time <> ingame currency will fall, because it is an open market.
If you fly epic ships worth thousands of dollars in EVE, of course you have an advantage. But you better have a plan and a clue, otherwise you are toast and make your opponents very happy, who loot your ship. Money balances itself.
If you buy scrolls, vials, or other "premium items" in games like Atlantica, you will dominate in PvP and PvE, but you risk nothing. It's crap. It's like taking part in a tournament, in which the player wins, who gave the referee the most money.
Same here.
Then would you both mind if they doubled the monthly sub? Or is that greed as well?
The only way it shows greed is if their expenses are so low and their profits are so high that they don't "need" to add different revenue streams but choose to anyways.
And then again, if they are a publiclly traded company then they have to maximize their profits for their stockholders. I'm sure both of you would be a bit miffed if your retirement funds or 401k's or whatever you have languished and didn't make any profit because the companies in your portfolio did just enough to stay afloat, keep people employed and invest a little in the prodcut and future developement.
Over the course of years you would then wonder why you don't have enough to retire and what were the companies doing with your money.
I have no problem with mixing them. But if it's the mixing of revenue types that you don't like then have them just raise the monthly fees (doesn't seem to have been raised by much in the last 5 years or so) until they can cover all costs and make the profit that they want/need.
That works for me.
Well, if a company decides just to double the monthly fee after the release once they got a customer base, yeah, that's greed or just stupidity if they want to keep any subs. If a new MMO decides to have a high starting fee then it's up to us customers to decide if we want to pay for this of choose some other game.
I agree that the subs havent changed really for the last 5-10 years but let's not forget it's cheaper to reach out to millions of customers than when EQ1 started. Hardware and the tools to maintain a MMO have are far more refined these days than 10 years ago.
The problem nowadays is that many MMO's try too hard, they hire tons of developers and they make something really BIG and of course expensive for several years without any income whatsoever.
I'll just throw my own 2c into this. As others have stated, RMT's devalue the subsciption fee which I believe to be detremental to the economy and longevity of any MMO that is not designed from the ground up to incorporate such transactions.
Take WoW for example since it is probably one of the most familiar. The base monthly fee allows people to participate equally in any and all content available. Take a hardcore gamer and let that person strive toward and accomplish a goal of getting uber item A. Now allow an RMT to give that same item to someone else and suddenly the subscription fee that the hardcore player paid drastically becomes undervalued. The time and effort put into the achievement is completely taken away. Granted, this may just be the cost of a mount, but it still lowers the value of the monthly fee of any and all who have paid it and spent the time to farm the money or item itself.
Your statement is true, but only in the area where items that can be acquired in game are purchasable through an RMT.
If, however, RMT items are only available through RMT, and are not comparable to items you can acquire in-game (in terms of weapons/armor/items that give benefits. Different colored/styled mounts and hair styles have little bearing on progression), the issue you describe is non-existant.
At this point in time, many "services" (hair color/style change, mounts, or name changes) are really just extras that get injected into the game without much effect.
Any game that offers Weapons/Armor/Items through RMT is just adding more headaches to the current problem that exists between crafted gear vs dungeon gear...
Why would anyone try to balance Crafted Gear vs Dungeon Gear vs Payed-For Gear?
Same here.
Then would you both mind if they doubled the monthly sub? Or is that greed as well?
The only way it shows greed is if their expenses are so low and their profits are so high that they don't "need" to add different revenue streams but choose to anyways.
And then again, if they are a publiclly traded company then they have to maximize their profits for their stockholders. I'm sure both of you would be a bit miffed if your retirement funds or 401k's or whatever you have languished and didn't make any profit because the companies in your portfolio did just enough to stay afloat, keep people employed and invest a little in the prodcut and future developement.
Over the course of years you would then wonder why you don't have enough to retire and what were the companies doing with your money.
I have no problem with mixing them. But if it's the mixing of revenue types that you don't like then have them just raise the monthly fees (doesn't seem to have been raised by much in the last 5 years or so) until they can cover all costs and make the profit that they want/need.
That works for me.
Well, if a company decides just to double the monthly fee after the release once they got a customer base, yeah, that's greed or just stupidity if they want to keep any subs. If a new MMO decides to have a high starting fee then it's up to us customers to decide if we want to pay for this of choose some other game.
I agree that the subs havent changed really for the last 5-10 years but let's not forget it's cheaper to reach out to millions of customers than when EQ1 started. Hardware and the tools to maintain a MMO have are far more refined these days than 10 years ago.
The problem nowadays is that many MMO's try too hard, they hire tons of developers and they make something really BIG and of course expensive for several years without any income whatsoever.
Hardware might be cheaper ( I can't verify that but I'll take you word for it for the sake of the discussion) but what about development time, salaries and all the fringe that goes along with that, office space, insurance, retirement accounts/matching, the cost of running a business the costs of actual development?
It seems to me that the costs of developing these games have gone up.
As far as raising the price, well, raising it the month after launch or even doubling it would be suicide. But what about "cost of living" raises?
I mean, many of us, as a matter of course during our employment, get some sort of cost of living raise each year. Costs to develop and maintain the business/game (not to mention research and development for the company's future pipeline) surely go up each year yet short of hoping for new subscribers the cost to us does not go up. Movies have certainly gone up in 5 years.
I'm not a game developer so I can't speak to the "try too hard" statement. I imagine they do waste a lot of money. But then again, it seems that a good many people in the industry are growing older and want more adult lives in that they don't want to wake up one day, realize that they are retirement age and realize that they have been working for peanuts for "the love of the game".
So companies have to be more like companies and offer some sort of future if not at least a decent salary and benefits. They aren't John Carmack and John Romero in a basement anymore. And though it probably is very possible to be a john carmack/john romero and make a game, will enough people be interested in it due to a flooded market?
Every morning when I wake up I go to gamespy. Have been doing it for a long time. As a point of note I think the site has gone downhill considerably but that is another discussion. I check out what is new and what is coming out or in development. And I have come to the conclusion that there is just a lot of "stuff" being made and I'm not sure if people really care.
So it's going to be hard to wade through all of these games in order to find a gem in the rough. A small game company has a lot against it. Of course, in some ways the internet helps but how does one really find your game in a sea of other games.
And gamers have become a lot more fickle and in some cases spoiled. Not to say that they HAVE to subscribe to a game they hate but it's way to easy to just flit from one game to another. That doesn't really bode well for a game company making a new mmo. Quite frankly as an investor, unless I truly believed in the project, I would not invest in any mmo company as it's just too riskly. I'm surprised that game companies even try. However, the lure of the WoW money might seem to be very seductive.
Either the game industry is just filled with a lot of incompetant people or making/developing a game is really very hard.
In which case a company that wants to remain a company is going to try to maximize its revenue and minimize loss.
So sure, they are trying to make something big but given what I've seen on this site with small indy games, there doesn't seem to be a lot of excitment about games that look like diablo or UO even if it might have unique game play.
But sure, you might get a small group making an indy game that might not take a lot or look like a lot but might get enough players to run it for a while. But eventually all those employees are going to want to make a better living and have more job security and at the very least might want to grow the company. At most they might want to go to a larger company that doesn't take a lot of risks but that is going to be around for a while and offer a better employment opportunity.
So though big companies might be safe and unimaginative they do offer quite a bit for someone who wants to make a living in game development. Therefore it makes sense that they are going to look for ways to bring in more money. Since we know people are willing to spend their own money (and a lot of money) on the secondary market they are going to want to enter their own stuff.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I will never play a RMT. So unfair for people who don't have disposable income or choose not to spend hundred of dollars in a game.
Same here.
Then would you both mind if they doubled the monthly sub? Or is that greed as well?
The only way it shows greed is if their expenses are so low and their profits are so high that they don't "need" to add different revenue streams but choose to anyways.
And then again, if they are a publiclly traded company then they have to maximize their profits for their stockholders. I'm sure both of you would be a bit miffed if your retirement funds or 401k's or whatever you have languished and didn't make any profit because the companies in your portfolio did just enough to stay afloat, keep people employed and invest a little in the prodcut and future developement.
Over the course of years you would then wonder why you don't have enough to retire and what were the companies doing with your money.
I have no problem with mixing them. But if it's the mixing of revenue types that you don't like then have them just raise the monthly fees (doesn't seem to have been raised by much in the last 5 years or so) until they can cover all costs and make the profit that they want/need.
That works for me.
Well, if a company decides just to double the monthly fee after the release once they got a customer base, yeah, that's greed or just stupidity if they want to keep any subs. If a new MMO decides to have a high starting fee then it's up to us customers to decide if we want to pay for this of choose some other game.
I agree that the subs havent changed really for the last 5-10 years but let's not forget it's cheaper to reach out to millions of customers than when EQ1 started. Hardware and the tools to maintain a MMO have are far more refined these days than 10 years ago.
The problem nowadays is that many MMO's try too hard, they hire tons of developers and they make something really BIG and of course expensive for several years without any income whatsoever.
Increasing the sub fee might be greed, or it might just be necessary to keep a game running. I suppose it would depend on the size of the increase. If people are given plenty of warning in advance of an increase though, they could at least make an informed decision about continuing to subscribe. This assumes they haven't paid for a year in advance or something though.
What I dislike about some RMT models is their deceptive, manipulative nature. For example, telling kids that they can be a pet trainer in a free to play game, but then ensuring that they can't actually own a pet unless they buy one at the RMT shop. That's manipulative and deceptive imo. Can you really be a pet trainer for free without any pets? Of course not. The kids are getting manipulated to buy pets. It's more honest to say, "hey kids for 5 bucks a month you can play this game and one of the things you can do is train pets, which are of course included in the subscription fee."
Also, in RMT games, they can give you gameplay options for earning gear that take you literally years to make any meaningful progress. They will then of course give you the option to purchase the gear immediately from the RMT shop. Can you really play the game without using the item shop? On paper, yes; in reality, no. You'll be the only schmuk harvesting god knows what for god knows how long just to useful in any team situation or competitive in PvP. You're manipulated into using the item shop.
Then there's the example of offering performance enhancing buffs or items via some kind of RMT lottery. People are doing this right now unfortunately, shelling out real cash just for a random chance of getting a particular item, and they don't even really know what their chance of winning is.
RMT can be very deceptive, and very manipulative. People can get soaked for big money and get very little if any entertainment value in the process. If that's what MMO gaming is coming to, it's really just ugly.
That's why I prefer subscription based games like WoW, or if there is any RMT, it is for non-essential cosmetic options; like purchasing a pin-stripe package for a new car. Some RMT is like that. Others sell you a car, but then charge you extra for an engine, or maybe even just the random chance of getting an engine. It's rather sick I think. Ever see that Spiderman film where a little kid sells J. Jonah Jameson a camera, but then charges him extra for film? Greedy little kid, and some MMO publisher seem to display the same kind of behaviour. I avoid them, and I hope they don't become the driving force in the industry.
Your statement is true, but only in the area where items that can be acquired in game are purchasable through an RMT.
If, however, RMT items are only available through RMT, and are not comparable to items you can acquire in-game (in terms of weapons/armor/items that give benefits. Different colored/styled mounts and hair styles have little bearing on progression), the issue you describe is non-existant.
At this point in time, many "services" (hair color/style change, mounts, or name changes) are really just extras that get injected into the game without much effect.
Any game that offers Weapons/Armor/Items through RMT is just adding more headaches to the current problem that exists between crafted gear vs dungeon gear...
Why would anyone try to balance Crafted Gear vs Dungeon Gear vs Payed-For Gear?
Still devalues the subscription fee that I pay. Let's use WoW for the example since that is what was started with. WoW right now is subcription based. WoW regularly adds free content such as seasonal events, dungeons, etc. If WoW adds an RMT, now we have resources being taken away from the original model of giving out content included with the sub price. Now they may still give some out but not as much as it would have been because some is being sold to you via real cash.
Not to mention I will not play a game that sells item for cash because that just ruins the game for me. I buy games to play them not swipe my credit card to obtain items. The item isn't what I am ultimately after. Obtaining the item is what the game is about and you will never get the same satisfaction having the item unless you did so.
Actually if you think about these companies are cheating you with RMT and you are letting them get away with it. Think about it for a moment. What makes a video game a video game? Content. You judge a video game on whether or not the content is fun. Now would you not feel cheated if you purchased this new game/expansion at the store and got home there wasn't any game to it, no content. What it was was just some digital items. With RMT that is exactly what you are allowing game companies to do. Sell you video game without the actually video game. You are not getting the game experience you are only getting the end result the item. Getting an item via a credit card does not make a game. The game is the content.
If they want me to purchase video game content, I best be getting some game. If they need extra money they need to sell little small booster packs of small chunks of content that RESULTS in getting the items be it cosmetic etc. I am not interested in swiping my card for some digital item, I want the experience of getting that item. They really should be ashamed to sell items without any game to it. That is some poor gameplay and isn't worth your time.
Your statement is true, but only in the area where items that can be acquired in game are purchasable through an RMT.
If, however, RMT items are only available through RMT, and are not comparable to items you can acquire in-game (in terms of weapons/armor/items that give benefits. Different colored/styled mounts and hair styles have little bearing on progression), the issue you describe is non-existant.
At this point in time, many "services" (hair color/style change, mounts, or name changes) are really just extras that get injected into the game without much effect.
Any game that offers Weapons/Armor/Items through RMT is just adding more headaches to the current problem that exists between crafted gear vs dungeon gear...
Why would anyone try to balance Crafted Gear vs Dungeon Gear vs Payed-For Gear?
Yea but thats not true either mate, items that arent available in-game, only through shop can be twice as detrimental.. RF Online, monthly subscription, put in 18months to get to lvl 50, full stats, +5 armour, +225 dodge, and a +5 int hora spear.. ok cool, im a badass possibly spent 6 months farming damn callies to get 2.5 billion dalant so i can buy 50 int hora spears and armour and more upgrade gems and talics than i can fit in 5 bags just to get my gear up to the highest.. 1 month later RMT Shop.. i say to myself "F*ck there goes the neighbourhood, good call no.3 Codemasters!!" Not to be left behind, i goes browsing thru the shop and hey whats this talic upgrader thingy? bang any noob can pay like 2 quid for a +6 100% success upgrader.. so now for £2 you can get what i just spent 18 months and 2.5 billiion ingame currency on.. the game then went free to play cus everyone quit. F*CK YOU CM!. If Aion goes the same way im getting a outdoor hobby.
Richter: your mom goes to college.
Your statement is true, but only in the area where items that can be acquired in game are purchasable through an RMT.
If, however, RMT items are only available through RMT, and are not comparable to items you can acquire in-game (in terms of weapons/armor/items that give benefits. Different colored/styled mounts and hair styles have little bearing on progression), the issue you describe is non-existant.
At this point in time, many "services" (hair color/style change, mounts, or name changes) are really just extras that get injected into the game without much effect.
Any game that offers Weapons/Armor/Items through RMT is just adding more headaches to the current problem that exists between crafted gear vs dungeon gear...
Why would anyone try to balance Crafted Gear vs Dungeon Gear vs Payed-For Gear?
Yea but thats not true either mate, items that arent available in-game, only through shop can be twice as detrimental.. RF Online, monthly subscription, put in 18months to get to lvl 50, full stats, +5 armour, +225 dodge, and a +5 int hora spear.. ok cool, im a badass possibly spent 6 months farming damn callies to get 2.5 billion dalant so i can buy 50 int hora spears and armour and more upgrade gems and talics than i can fit in 5 bags just to get my gear up to the highest.. 1 month later RMT Shop.. i say to myself "F*ck there goes the neighbourhood, good call no.3 Codemasters!!" Not to be left behind, i goes browsing thru the shop and hey whats this talic upgrader thingy? bang any noob can pay like 2 quid for a +6 100% success upgrader.. so now for £2 you can get what i just spent 18 months and 2.5 billiion ingame currency on.. the game then went free to play cus everyone quit. F*CK YOU CM!. If Aion goes the same way im getting a outdoor hobby.
I think a lot of MMO gamers feel this way. I find myself playing NON-virtual trading card games with friends more now because I'm getting sick of MMO companies treating gamers like dumb sheep that exist for the sole purpose of being sheered via RMT.
I'm beta testing two games at the moment that don't treat players this way, so there's some hope for good gaming in the future, but right now, the RMT greed is a real pain in the ass.
It's like some companies have said, "well we can't develop anything as successful as WoW, so how can we bleed the few suckers we've got playing our games dry?" My thinking is, if you can't make a polished, entertaining game with a fair business model, get out of the MMO industry. Open up a used car lot, or a telemarketting company. You've missed your calling.
Hi, well, I think RMT is inevitable, the fact is that companies that want to succeed in the long run have to listen to their customers hence the players, and in a way is technically very easy to implement , in F2P games like PWI you can setup a shop to sell items to other players for gamemoney, so the deal is to make it more Ebay-ized, commisions on transactions (the way Online Poker works) gets money to the game companies, then in a PayPal-like system the buyer pays and the seller gets the money; the problems arrises from the policies to implement, since many core-players will not like being beaten by a casual gamer just because his/her wallet is bigger; other bigger problems might arise from the taxes point of view, since a commercial transaction that can be traced is expected to pay taxes, and many players reside outside the companys country the red tape will get in the way.
On the subject of game policies for example there could be bonuses for those who spend more time online based on REAL reputation thru social interaction not quests, etc.
The road ahead is still long enough to make a lot of experiments for what could or could not be successful in a MMO
It all depends on how it's implemented for an individual game. I doubt most people will pay more than $15/month in items if they can go play a sub game and not worry about being nickle-and-dimed. And I'm pretty certain a very small number of people will go for both subs and RMT as many others have mentioned. Especially in the current economy, people are shoring up against a-la-cart type business.
i totally agree with the author. wow is the best example .never real balance .once paladins were loosers .they were made heroes a year after. i dont actually see why people even play those games!!! f2p are great .perfect online is the best example .i only think they should add western union to their tally.and for the last i dont respond to inflame posts .wow enthuisiats will not be replied by me .as this post is for the topic .u can fight me somewhere else.
RMTs are ok for games without depth mainly for players who don't have enough time to play a week. Real world money usually destroys an economy though for more in depth MMORPGs. it's a big problem for UO pre-trammel fans such as myself. But then again every game out there currently is just another WoW clone so whatever. Darkfall and Mortal Online are the only 2 that came close to doing it right, but they are still fail, so after 10 years here I am still waiting for a true MMOWS, oh well.
If they don't offer PTP MMOs sometime in the near future, then I am pretty much done with this genre. I am no fan of RMT and neither are my family and friends.
I don't think it matters much really, if the majority wants the RMT platform then it's the way things have to go I guess.
We will just head back to the games that we initially played and just getout of the house more to socialize. :P
RMT will never go away while developers keep making the same shortsighted game play design IE time sinks and grind sinks, some people like to enjoy the content of a game without it becoming a second job. The situation has also got worse because the organisations that began farming and selling game items cashed in and made a lot of money and this obviously has not gone unnoticed and the developers now want their slice of the pie.
So instead of innovative game design the genre will be stuck with endless grinding because the devs wont want to change anything because they can cash in on the people who want to avoid as much of the moronic game play as possible.
Currently playing:
EVE online (Ruining low sec one hotdrop at a time)
Gravity Rush,
Dishonoured: The Knife of Dunwall.
(Waiting for) Metro: Last Light,
Company of Heroes II.