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Probably the best idea for ALL MMOs yet
brian72282
Member UncommonPosts: 783
You know, if more MMOs actually offered a free download and a free trial of their game (very. very few do) with no strings attached, they'd make a lot more money here in the US. I personally have a list of about 6 or 7 I wanna try out, but without a trial like that, there's no way I'm plunking down money for them. I know I'm not alone. Each game costs between $30-50 to buy the software, then their $12-15 a month! Seriously now. I love MMOs, but no one out there goes and plunks down $200 for a year of gaming for one game, or hell, even $65 for 1 month of gaming, without knowing how good the game is. Yes, yes, I know, you get 30 free days when you buy the game. But what if it turns out that you HATE it? CD-keys are non-refundable, and if you don't like the game, chances are you don't have a decent account to sell on ebay to recoup your wasted money. Koreans enjoy this buisness model, why not American and European gamers too? One word. Money.
I just hope someone at one of the major MMO companies reads this (SOE, Blizzard, Mythic, Turbine, etc) reads this and dares to buck the trend in most MMOs today.
(I'm aware of the trials you can get on FP, but 9 out of 10 of them require a CC to verify your age which is plain silly. I'm 22, don't have a CC because you can get into too much trouble with them. And we all know that a LARGE chunk of MMO players are under 18 nowadays anyways)
Comments
Its not gonna happen so get used to it. And I for one have no problem with it. If I get even one month of entertainment for my $50 then Im satisfied.
Also its never $65 to start as the game's first month is always free.
Take a look at games such as Half-life 2 and doom 3. Nobody Im sure played them for more than 2-3 weeks and they arent complaining. mmorpgs are just going down the same road.
Problem here is expectations from the evercrack crowd. No game is or will be designed to last years and years anymore. In fact evercrack wasnt designed that way either. It just turned out that way as they were the new kids on the 3D block.
As Ive posted before, mmorpgs are now following the same marketing strategy that all busineses practice. Its like a 6-12 month window, I wont go into details on that model but its standard model followed by 99% of american companies. The main reason is competition, companies know how much profit to expect and how/when those profits will fall due to a new game, etc. Nobody is going to attempt to invest in something long-term when 30 games are in development.
In conclusion, since mmorpgs now follow standard business models they are aware how much time they have for maximum profits (followed by discountiing, etc). They are going to gear that game for maximimum profit therefore which means $50 out the gate (more for collector's edition) plus monthly fees. They do this because they know the odds of their product becoming the next evercrack game are 0-1%
Think of it this way, would you be happy to spend 20 million dollars making a game and then give it away for free in hopes that the player would like it and then hope he stays around long enough to pay your bills. Or would you play it smart and charge them enough to guarantee you make that 20 million back in the first month ? Not really a tough choice there...
MMOs DON'T follow standard buisness models. They are designed for longer enjoyment than a standard console or PC game. If they follow the suggestion I've made, as well as some companies out there, it would being more people into the genre, as well as raise profits more. The $65 figure comes from the "oh *(^% i forgot to cancel my account on day 30" line of thinking, which happens to the best of us. $50 for 1 month of a game that you cannot play again without paying is a pretty steep price, if you ask me, with companies like Blizzard cracking down on emulators (not code stealers who should be shot and killed).
But the trend is getting more this way throughout the industry, isn't it? I mean look at what Valve did with HL2 ... they made everyone download half of this offline game through their own proprietary website to control content distribution, prevent modding and so forth. I think that there is a trend away from mod-friendly, emulator-friendly games towards more tightly controlled models.
For online gaming, I don't think anyone in the industry wants their games to become the next UO in terms of having a huge non-proprietary emulator universe out there playing the game they developed for free. In terms of business model, I would guess that their market research says that a large proportion of people who purchase the game play either for the first free month or cancel during the first paying month, and that by month 3 you have your more dedicated gamers. I would guess that for most games the research is that there are not that many subscribers month 3 and beyond (that is, people retained for 3+ months after purchase), and the $15 per month is not enough to cover the up front development costs so in order to recoup these they need to charge folks the amount up-front for the software, knowing full well that many of these folks will not be sticking around more than a month or two. If the software was distributed for free, the companies would not, for the most part (other than the rare bird game like EQ1 which had a huge player base for a long time), be able to recoup the development costs based on subscription fees, so that model just isn't going to work.
I do not like paying for the game until I have had a chance to try it out either, but the reality of it is, how many offline games do you get to try out the complete version of before buying it? You may get a demo of a few levels but almost never the complete product.
Companies spend millions to develop and market games and the box cost is the initial return on investment, but does not cover their ongoing monthly costs. You have continuing development and trouble shooting, Administration of the game and servers. hardware costs, utilities, internet bandwidth, the list goes on and on. So who would do this for free?
Bottom line we may not like it, but it will not change. Remember it is still a business, and businesses are here to make money.
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If you never strive for more and are afraid to take a chance, then you have all you deserve.
scientology
Several smaller companies have already proven that this buisness model WORKS. Look at Eve Online flourish when they put their trial back up! The way I look at it is this. $50 for the box and 30 days for free is fine, but when you're in a niche market, you need to grab customers, and the best way to do that is to go ahead and let people try it. Look at the smaller games, and even 2 larger ones. SWG (crappy game imho) has over 100k players, yet they give a (restricted) 14-day trial! Saga of Ryzom too, is giving 14 days free, no CC needed. Again, there's restrictions placed on you, but in 14 days, you can get a pretty solid feel for how it is. My idea is simple. Offer digital downloads at a cheaper rate (no manuals, maps, etc), and charge your standard monthly fee, which is around $15/mo., with good sized discounts for paying a year at a time (like AO. 45% off paying by the year). I guarentee the profits will rise, and they'll bring more players into the market, while at the same time lining their pockets with more money.
The fundamental, core law of capitalism again asserts itself in this argument:
Whatever the market will bear.
With the massive retail sales of WoW and EQ2 as proof-positive that the market can definitely still bear the burden of a $50 retail up-front charge with an annuity at the back end. You will never convince these companies to change their ways as long as they can obtain immediate retail gratification like that.
The smaller-market games equally prove the point that the market was not ready to bear the retail price of their offerings. EVE Online tried an on-the-shelf strategy at first...and it was not nearly as successful as their free trial programs were...I maintain an account because of the free trial, whereas I would never have bought it retail.
The point of my musings here is that you will continue to see a mixture of these approaches, wherever it is appropriate and to varying degrees of success. There is no uniform strategy that works for all distributions.
A free trial is a last arrow.
It is not bad in itself, but it should be used like someone use a last arrow, when you think you have no others choices.
Many customers try games and dont bother much for a game price, depending on their revenu or appreciation of the games.
Beside, a game that have a very small grind and evolve fast kill itself with free trials. WoW for exemple would lose millions if they make a free trial, because many peoples will not buy or play past the trial and would have otherwise buy the game.
I understand however, that you would love a trial for many games. Games that dont appeal to me have no chances without a trial, but those that appeal to me are better without a trial.
I would not have buy EQ2(play 1 week) or WoW(play 15 hours) if they would have put a trial. Unless I want to encourage them afterward, so maybe I would have buy EQ2 anyway, but not WoW for sure after I test it hehe.
I dont plan trying seriously SoR, SB, Horizons, ACs & AC2(trial didnt work for some reason), yet, sometimes, I wonder if I could not try a free trial about those titles...
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
--Ha, Pwned--
Pvp = godliness
Playing: WoW
Waiting on: Gods and Heroes
EXACTLY why they SHOULD follow a unique approach. Pretty much 90% of the "big name" MMORPGs if you will follow a similar if not the same path to release, that is, you have to buy the game in a store (or order it online) for some fee close to $50, then you get a free month (but it's not really a trial, seeing as how you already paid money to see this trial), then you pay. Yes, the big name companies end up getting a plethora of subscribers anyway, but the way I see it, why not get those extra subscribers? You got 500,000, why not 550,000? Offer say a downloadable client with maybe a 15 day trial or something along those lines, I think with a big subscriber base you really can afford the extra bandwith (at least in my opinion). In a market where uniqueness is a primary factor in succeeding, why not take a unique step in the trial business? This especially pertains to oldern games like DAoC. Obviously Anarchy Online realized this, and they went with a unique idea, and from what I've heard, they have gotten a few new subscribers off of this. Oldern games need to do something along those lines, a free trial RISK free, because in my opinion, every subscriber counts.
As for the free trial, does it bother anyone if entering credit card info is required??
EXACTLY why they SHOULD follow a unique approach. Pretty much 90% of the "big name" MMORPGs if you will follow a similar if not the same path to release, that is, you have to buy the game in a store (or order it online) for some fee close to $50, then you get a free month (but it's not really a trial, seeing as how you already paid money to see this trial), then you pay. Yes, the big name companies end up getting a plethora of subscribers anyway, but the way I see it, why not get those extra subscribers? You got 500,000, why not 550,000? Offer say a downloadable client with maybe a 15 day trial or something along those lines, I think with a big subscriber base you really can afford the extra bandwith (at least in my opinion). In a market where uniqueness is a primary factor in succeeding, why not take a unique step in the trial business? This especially pertains to oldern games like DAoC. Obviously Anarchy Online realized this, and they went with a unique idea, and from what I've heard, they have gotten a few new subscribers off of this. Oldern games need to do something along those lines, a free trial RISK free, because in my opinion, every subscriber counts.
I agree, and what Anarchy did was brilliant. However a 35 yr old mid lvl marketing/pr excec who work part time as pr professors like myself
wont change the business approach of the baby boomers.
And the difference certainly can be seen from small companies where its apparent the devs have a say in game marketing/presentation/design to large companies like SOE (see swg, jtl - combat revamp fiasco) make every decision upstairs by someone who's probably never even played a video game before.
ps. dear mmorpg gods, please let fallen earth be different
*shrug* This is why I keep an eye on everything I want to play and look to get into betas. At any given time, I have active apps in for 6 different betas. I may not get in to all of them, but I get into a good number of the ones I'm interested in. And if I don't get in, I always have community forums to check out and friends to talk to before I spend my money.
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Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
If it would be for a big company I know I can trust, it dont bother me at all...for those that usually need those trials period, it is more edgy.
I know Sony or NCsoft wont be charging me with a ninja measure I didnt understand, it would be poor marketing, they will repeat, almost with a glowing signal, when and what they are going to charge.
SoR for exemple, I would not feel as easy going with them. Having a big sign of who is your sponsor could help I suppose(like Microsoft or whatever).
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Better idea: give me the number of months EQUAL to what I paid for the box. If I pay $60 and the game is $15 per month, then I should get 4 months of game time. Simple.
Another solution is $70 a year subscriptions. This idea isn't unlike the Norton Anti-virus subscription. This may cost just a little under the standard long term subscription, but you'll probably make up the difference in volume.
Lastly, this problem is why I see MMORPGs becoming more like the MUD scene in a few years. To much greed on the part of the game companies and an explosion of small server graphical MUDs based on open source code. Either game companies learn how to develope and market these games correctly, or the whole genre gets swallowed up by amateurs. Kinda like the pornography biz.